Hans Worst Hits of the 80’s- The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. A number of years ago I asked a friend of mine who is a big music listener [but tends to like somewhat bad music- in my music snob opinion}- what his favorite song ever was- and he answered immediately “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats. What!?? I laughed out loud on that and then he felt he had to defend his choice. How do you really defend that though? This is an awful song- by a crappy group. This song was written by Men Without Talent- I mean Hats- front man Ivan Doroschuk after he got kicked out of a club for pogo dancing. The song was written as a protest song against bouncers throwing out pogo dancers from new wave clubs. Some people thought the song was a call for ‘safe sex.” Some thought it was an anti-nuclear song. I thought it was a call to change the radio dial. The song was a slow climber- it took a couple of months in 1983 for the song to reach the charts- but it did- and eventually went to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Men Without Hats- a Canadian import- had one other American hit Pop Goes The World- #20 in 1987- which is better than The Safety Dance- but hardly a classic.
slicethelife 
Don’t think I ever saw the likes of that video. That was wild.
This one would be right behind/beside Every Rose has its… I can’t even type it…and nudging it for worst of the 80s… not to mention the video
I like this song.
What the?! No way! More like, best hits of the 80s! As for the video, I went to an 80s night recently that played the videos along with the songs and I’d say about 95% of the videos were just as bad as this. Haha. I don’t know what we were thinking.
Showing my bad taste again. 😉 I liked this song (not the video). It’s a treat when I hear it now.
It’s got a certain catchiness to it, but I cannot see this being someone’s favorite song ever…
i agree when he replied with that answer i couldn’t believe it- of all the possible choices. a lot of them i could accept easily i never thought The Safety Dance?
Worst hits of the 80s? Shooting fish in a barrel! This is a good candidate though
I need to pull more from the 80s- a lot of candidates you are correct!
It’s a treasure trove of worst hits!!
The video was fascinating in a trainwreck sort of way and the song is catchy. But, as a one-hit wonder, they played it to death…much like “Come On Eileen”.
“The song was written as a protest song against bouncers throwing out pogo dancers from new wave clubs.”
Pogo dancers unite! Lol !!!