Rolling Stone's Top 100 Singles of 1984 - # 97

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-singles-of-1984-pops-greatest-year-20140917/peter-wolf-lights-out-20140917

Here's the first act so far where my knowledge of the act/musician predates the year. Like many, I "discovered" the J. Geils Band when they hit big huge in 1981 with "Centerfold" and the Freeze Frame album. But I didn't stop there; I went back, becoming a fan of their earlier material, especially Love Stinks, Sanctuary and one of my all-time favorite albums, Monkey Island (God, I could do a whole long post just about "Wreckage" and now that I've teased you, I certainly will. You're welcome.) I would have gone forward, too, past Showtime!, a great live album that proves you don't need a double/triple/quadruple album to show what a great act you are onstage, if Wolf hadn't left. I actually knew so much about the band that when I heard that he was leaving, I correctly predicted that drummer Stephen Jo Bladd and keyboardist Seth Justman would take over vocal duty being that they sang vocals on the other albums. (Yes, kids, when you're a nerd with ton of useless knowledge in high school, you just grow up to be an older version. And then, someone invents the Internet. And here we are.)

Great song and a great album end to end.  

But that video - oof! Those kinds of moves may look good onstage with a mike stand in your hand when you're doing all that breathless rapping mumbo jumbo he was known for but alone in a video? Thank God Billy Squier got crucified a month earlier for what really wasn't much worse and no one dragged Wolf to the streets, leaving him alone for the sake of the goodwill he'd cultured for over 15 years. Cause, man, that's some bad dancing.