One news editor’s view: “... [O]ne of the most irritating and ridiculous singles of its era and truly a low point in the otherwise storied careers of Jagger and Bowie. Everything about this recording feels phony, phoned in, or coked up, from the sterile ‘80s production to Jagger’s incessant yelps ...” – Jonathan Cohen @ Spin
The public’s view: 2.33 / 5.00
If you were deliberately trying to create a Bad Top Ten Hit, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more thorough scheme than the one perpetrated by Mick Jagger and David Bowie. Their version of “Dancing in the Street” checks most of the boxes that we associate with awfulness. It’s a superstar duet. It’s an unnecessary remake of a classic. It’s white people doing a half-assed imitation of black music. It’s a charity single that the two men were making for free, so they were unwilling to devote more than a few hours to rehearsing and recording the song and filming the accompanying video. And wow, Pope Pius on a pretzel, what a video it was. The next time you forget to change clothes for a Zoom meeting while working from home, you can put your embarrassing faux pas in perspective by remembering when two celebrities willingly made fools of themselves in front of the entire world. Your Spider-Man pajamas are now famous throughout the company, but at least no one has footage of you maniacally thrusting your face toward Mick Jagger’s gaping mouth.
Like most viewers, I considered Bowie and Jagger’s vaguely amorous tango session to be cringeworthy and repulsive. Billy Squier’s notorious “Rock Me Tonite” video was almost elegant by comparison. Whenever “Dancing in the Street” aired on MTV in 1985, I would find any excuse to leave the room until it was over. However, the intervening four decades of cultural decline have helped soften my opinion of it. The nausea that this clip once provoked is now replaced by grudging respect for the duo’s improvisation skills. I even managed to watch it four times while researching this write-up. I know this sounds like a painful sacrifice for the sake of amateur music criticism, but it doesn’t make me a hero. Watching the insufferable Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin “Separate Lives” video once while researching my Bad #1 Hits blog is what makes me a hero.
As for the audio portion of this endeavor, “Dancing in the Street” is a fun song and it’s hard to ruin it. With the same nonexistent budget that the Live Aid organization gave Mick and David’s team, almost any random combination of performers could have made a passable version of the tune. Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias, for example. Dionne Warwick and Iron Maiden. Johnny Rotten, Howdy Doody, and the 90-year-old waitress who always led the happy birthday song at the Chi-Chi’s in Sheboygan. A rendition by two rock legends like Jagger and Bowie should have been more than just passable, but here we are.
Ultimately, however, it’s a mistake to try to separate the “Dancing in the Street” single from the visual image of two flamboyant egomaniacs strutting around in a derelict London flour mill. Bowie and Jagger’s vocal stylings on this track are not good, in any sense of that word, but the pair exudes an effortless charisma that few other entertainers can match. With these two on the roster, this wasn’t merely an annoying, unwanted duet like so many others. It was an annoying, unwanted event. Maybe that counts for something.
My rating: 4 / 10
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