The Number Fortys: Matthew Wilder - "The Kid's American"

In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).

Wilder, who looks like a distant relative to Gene, is best known for 1983's "Break My Stride," a hellacious piece of optimistic pseudo-reggae that reached #5. This was his only other Top 40 hit, making it all the way to #33. Let's take a minute to enjoy the video, because it's uh, quite something there, yes it is.

Man, I'm really glad the at-the-time-of-this-video 31 year old Wilder gets to take that girl to the prom. Ah, he was probably just trying to appeal to the youth market. Not his fault. The sudden ascendance of MTV as a career-maker (ca. 1982-3) forced all kinds of, shall we say, photogenically-challenged musicians into appearing in front of a camera. It's not Wilder's fault he looked goony as hell. Let's talk about the music.

"The Kid's American" is catchy competent pop/rock. I'm always a fan of chorus where a bunch of instruments drop out (see Mamma Mia, Abba), but even this had nothing to offer anyone in a year like 1984. The week of March 24, 1984, the week we're dealing with here, saw the following songs in the Top 40: "Thriller," Rockwell's Sombobdy's Watching Me," "Girl Just Want to Have Fun," "Here Comes the Rain Again" by Eurythmics, "99 Luftbaloons," those Huey Lewis and Pointer Sisters songs we've covered, "Hold Me Now," by Thompson Twins, Duran Duran's "New Moon On Monday," Weird Al's "Eat It," John Lennon's "Nobody Told Me," The Police's "Wrapped Around Your Finger," "Radio Ga Ga," Howard Jones' "New Song," Paul Young's "Come Back and Stay," Tina Turner's "Let's Stay Together, Tracy Ulmann's "They Don't Know," Shannon's "Let the Music Play." The competition was fucking fierce. And Matthew Wilder's hand-clapping, patriotic-pandering, waiter-looking ass wasn't going any where near the top of the charts with this shit. It made it to #33, the last time Wilder would reach the Top 40. He did, however, go on to have a long production career, including No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom; which is, in my highly subjective world, a 3. 

Fun fact, the guitarist on the record (and possibly in the video) is none other than Dennis Herring. Herring produced two of this blogs favorite albums, Camper Van Beethoven's Key Lime Pie and Throwing Muses The Real Ramona (the first one's a 10; the second one's an 8), though he's probably best known for his work with Modest Mouse during the "Float On," era, or as I call it The Period When Modest Mouse Began Their Quick Descent Into Being A Boring Band That Sucked.

Score: 3/10.

THE NUMBER ONE

Five weeks for Van Halen. Still not sure I've been able to find the words to adequately express everything I love about this. But my favorite thing today is the way the band's outfits would be picked up and mainstreamed by The Golden Girls.