Unlike most of the songs that we will feature here, this song was a hit. In fact, it was a rather sizable one. It also doesn’t feature any content that could be considered morally or ethically objectionable. Yet, still it’s terribleness is not only undeniable but so clear-cut that it acts as the undeniable nadir for two of the most important musicians of the 20th century. This is the story of Mick Jagger and David Bowie’s cover of “Dancing In The Street.”
The thing is that in theory, it should have worked. Jagger was the lead singer of what was, for sizable stretches, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World. The chameleon-like Bowie spent a good stretch of his career as pretty much the coolest of the cool. “Dancing In The Street” is one of the greatest songs in pop history, the Martha & The Vandellas original, co-written by Marvin Gaye of all people, might have been the highest point in the history of perennially hip Motown. The original hasn’t aged in the slightest. It’s even survived a number of cover songs, the Grateful Dead even made a longform disco jam out of it that’s surprisingly fantastic. The Rolling Stones themselves reworked it for one of their all-time greatest numbers, “Street Fighting Man.”
And, yet, they ruin it here. Bowie and Jagger got every single part of this wrong. From the opening line where they shoutout all the countries to the heavily dated 80’s production to the hammy vocals. And then there’s the video. Oh my stars the video… just so many fashion mistakes and such powerful “dad embarrassing his kids while singing along to the radio” vibes. (Oh and one of the guitarists is none other than the notorious G.E. Smith, the mugging jackass famous for leading the Saturday Night Live band.)
It’s two musicians who were famous for being effortlessly cool just trying way too damn hard, to the point of exhaustion. It doesn’t help that they’re trying to capitalize on a boom in boomer nostalgia, this was right around the time of “The Big Chill” mind you, but doing so in a way that grafts on the most instantly-dated production tricks of the mid-80’s.
It’s that blatant appeal to the then-current pop charts that ultimately doomed it to be remembered so poorly. It act to recall a specific moment of time, but not a fondly remembered one, it’s an ongoing monument to that period when a sizable percentage of those who lived through the 60’s counter-culture found themselves yuppies dealing with mid-life crises. It’s the “Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” in music video form. Bowie managed to survive this era thanks to a late-career artistic revival, buoyed by the support of the 90’s alt-rock generation who rightfully worshipped him (an early embrace of the internet didn’t hurt either). Oh yeah, it helped that he started making good albums again.
Jagger, of course, was fine with soldiering on as a figure of mockery for his utter inability to age gracefully (especially when compared to Keith Richards, who managed to maintain his dignity even while making cameos in pirate movies). Not that Jagger ended up caring, not with the Rolling Stones developing into a money-making touring behemoth, subsisting vampire-like on the nostalgia of his ever-aging audience.
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