2000 Great Songs #1354: The Safety Dance

On the one hand, Men Without Hats' hit single (from 1982's Rhythm of Youth) is a dorky new wave-era novelty song, loudly flaunting the vibe of a guilty-pleasure one-hit-wonder (ok, two if you count 1987's actually-pretty-great "Pop Goes The World"). And the song, frankly, gets pretty damn annoying after a minute or so.

On the other hand, it's part of that handful of songs that instantly captures that moment in high school when we'd come home from school every day and watch an hour or two of MTV. So if it pops up every year or two on the radio or on shuffle play, it can't help but make me a little happier. 

As for that delightfully goofy MTV video: for inexplicable reasons it uses the shorter, inferior version that skips the spelled-out S-A-F-E-T-Y Dance and the Casio keyboard riff into, which are the best parts of the song; why even bother? Gotta go with the extended version they'd play on the radio.

The video:

The (far better) extended version:

Here's the long version mashed up with the video, for your definitive take!

Family Guy:

The Donnas:

Angel Olsen:

Status Quo(?!):

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