Drawn in part from a previous post, this is not part of my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).
An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
In the early to mid '80s, there was a great Buffalo area radio station called WUWU-FM.WOO WOO! Wethersfield, East Aurora! The Rock Of Western New York! In my head, I still hear all of that in the unique radio voice of DJ Justin Case. I started listening to WUWU when I was still living in Brockport in 1982, and continued when I moved to the Queen City later that year. It was a wonderfully eclectic station, and I cherish memories of hearing everything from Heaven 17 to Haysi Fantayzee to Dire Straits to the Glenn Miller Orchestra on this weird signal outta Wethersfield. As the station (inevitably) collapsed, I shifted my allegiance to Buff State's WBNY-FM, which was even better. But WUWU was huge for me. (And it was all part of my challenged life in Buffalo in the '80s, chronicled in my memoir The Road To GOLDMINE.)
It was on WUWU that I first heard Men Without Hats' eventual smash "The Safety Dance." It wasn't exactly the (now-) familiar hit version, but a longer take with a different cumulative feel. I was puzzled when the version we all know achieved its uber ubiquity, because it sounded so different from "The Safety Dance" I'd heard on WUWU.
I do love the hit. I still prefer it the way I heard it first.
I know the metric equivalent of bupkis about Men Without Hats. I adored their 1987 MTV hit "Pop Goes The World," which doubled my awareness of the Men Without Hats canon. Doubled it! The group's central figure was and remains singer-songwriter Ivan Doroschuk, and I think I knew from somewhere--maybe something I read in Trouser Press?--that MWH were a Canadian combo.
Beyond that? I guess I wouldn't have been surprised to be informed that some version of Men Without Hats was touring the '80s nostalgia circuit. During a March 2026 guest appearance on The Spoon podcast, writer Will Harris played a lovely 1989 Men Without Hats track called "Eloise & I," a song which reminded me of a cross between circa-1966 Paul McCartney and a less-annoying version of Styx. Harris mentioned that Men Without Hats were still active, and in fact had released a new album called On The Moon in 2025.
Wikipedia informs us that Doroschuk wrote "The Safety Dance" after being bounced out of a nightclub for pogo dancing. The song's new-wave synth sound reveals little of its punk roots. In 1982 and '83, I was still listening to a lot of AM Top 40 radio--man and woman cannot live on indie FM alone--and the 7" single version of "The Safety Dance" was chirpy and fun, its accompanying Renaissance Faire video an agreeable fixture on MTV (or maybe on Friday Night Videos, since I couldn't afford cable).
But it all seems oddly earnest when divorced from the setting of its extended version. The dance version's first minute--with the implied brooding of its bass-and-drums intro, the echoed effect of spelling out S! A! F! E! T! Y! that suggests the Bay City Rollers without sounding the merest bit like the Bay City Rollers, the quirky synth that channels the perky goofiness of early, "Just Can't Get Enough"-era Depeche Mode before that band got too mopey for my taste--provide context, creating a (probably unintentional) illusion of release, as the singin' dancer/dancin' singer moves from his tentative spot on the sideline onto the transcendence of the dance floor. What seemed earnest without context now feels earned. We CAN dance if we want to!
This is how it's done. There's safety in numbers. Maybe we don't even have to leave our friends behind.
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I compiled a various-artists tribute album called Make Something Happen! A Tribute To The Flashcubes, and it's pretty damned good; you can read about it here and order it here. My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. You can read about our history here.
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