Saturday, December 9, 2017

Just Missed My Top 200: Rational Youth - City Of Night


Rational Youth (Tracy Howe and Bill Vorn) came out of the sizzling Montreal new wave scene in 1981, along with fellow Canadian bands Men Without Hats, The Box, Trans-X, and many others. They had a string of hits from their first few albums, including "Saturdays In Silesia", which took the #198 spot on my Top 200. It was close between that song and "City Of Night", which ended up just missing the list. From Rational Youth's 1982 album Cold War Night Life, "City Of Night" did not crack the Canadian charts (which were full of rock and disco at the time), but the record itself went on to become the most successful Canadian synthpop album to that date. The band broke up after several more less-successful LPs, but reunited in 1997 and still tour in Canada and Europe, where they also have developed a following.

Here's a live performance from 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden:

See you next week with another song that just missed.

3 comments:

  1. Since Marc D introduced Cold War Night Life on the Top 200 I discovered not only some of my favorite songs of all time, but one of my favorite full albums of all time! Simply fantastic start to finish and this song is certainly on the the top gems on it... perfect example of everything great synthpop can be

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    1. Glad to hear it, Was! Looking back, I really should have had this song on the Top 200. Maybe I will do a revised edition some time in the future.

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    2. "Marc's Top 200 Songs ... on Earth-2"

      Earth-2 comments ... ENGAGE

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