COLLAPSE BOARD

American cities with thriving music scenes in 1984 overlooked by Huey Lewis & The News in their #1 US Pop Hit ‘The Heart Of Rock And Roll’

By Scott Creney

American cities with thriving music scenes in 1984 overlooked by Huey Lewis & The News in their #1 US Pop Hit ‘The Heart Of Rock And Roll’:

Athens, GA.
Minneapolis
Olympia
Chicago
Nashville
Providence

And cities where the Heart was ‘still beating’:

San Antonio
Philadelphia (pre-Dead Milkmen) — referred to, bizarrely, as ‘The Liberty Town’
Baton Rouge
Tulsa
Oklahoma City (pre-Flaming Lips)

Cleveland also gets mentioned, owing to the band’s prominent Pere Ubu influence (you didn’t think those saxophones just showed up did you?). And so does Washington D.C. (sure HL&TN’s music sounded like a beer commercial, but those guys were fucking straight edge all the way).  Also, Huey mentions Seattle a full two years before the formation of Sub Pop. To continue the ‘heart’ metaphor, he certainly had his finger on the pulse of something.

But forgetting Minneapolis? The year of Purple Rain, Let It Be, and Zen Arcade? Inexcusable.

Note to commenters: Special versions were recorded for different markets. So people in Arizona would get a ‘Phoenix’, or a ‘Tucson’ at the end of the song when they heard on the radio. These versions don’t count.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 at 9:30 pm. It is filed under Scott Creney and tagged with Athens, Dead Milkmen, Flaming Lips, Georgia, Huey Lewis and the News, Let It Be, Pere Ubu, Scott Creney, Straight Edge. Purple Rain, Sub Pop, Zen Arcade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.