Friday, April 27, 2012

The Fools - "It's a Night For Beautiful Girls"

It's a Night for Beautiful Girls - Sold Out / Heavy Mental

(Debuted April 9, 1980, Peaked #67, 4 Weeks on the Chart)

The Fools were a band from Ipswitch, Massachusetts who were incredibly popular in their home base but weren't able to break out beyond the New England area. They first made their mark with a parody of The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" called "Psycho Chicken," which set the tone for their concert ambiance as a tongue-in-cheek band.

Their first national hit was "It's a Night For Beautiful Girls," which was written by band members Mike Girard and Doug Forman. While not as blatantly smart-ass as "Psycho Chicken" was, the humor is still there. The lyrics have the protagonist looking to find a one-night stand. However, the band's sly humor didn't help get more exposure nationally. Instead, their record company focused on their remakes; their only other Hot 100 hit was a version of "Running Scared," and a video for "Do Wah Diddy" received a lot of MTV exposure.

As a result, potential fans outside the New England area missed out on songs such as "I Won't Grow Up," "Spent the Rent" and "Life Sucks Then You Die." Since humor was largely missing from the radio during the 1980s ("Weird Al" Yankovic" notwithstanding), that was a serious loss.



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