Rocktober '80s Song #4: "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide" by The Kings (1980)

Today is Tuesday, and as The Kings so poignantly note in their 1980 power pop masterpiece "Switchin' to Glide," "nothing matters but the weekend from a Tuesday point of view."  And that, my friends, is why today's Rocktober selection is "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide" by Canadian rockers The Kings.  Even though it's only Tuesday, that weekend is close enough.

The band released their debut album, The Kings Are Here, in 1980.  It was produced by the venerable Bob Ezrin, who by then had produced or co-produced albums for Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, KISS, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Dr. John, and The Babys, among others.

The double A-side single "This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide" spent 23 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1980 and 1981, peaking at #43.  In the band's native Canada, the song went platinum.  For whatever reason, the song is particularly popular -- and always has been -- in Chicago, so it seems like I have been hearing it as long as I can remember listening to the radio after moving to the Chicagoland area in 1985.  It reached #9 on Chicago's WLS's chart in January 1981, but then it made a resurgence on Chicago radio in the late '80s, being played often on WLS's AM Top 40 station, the two FM classic rock stations -- WCKG and WLUP -- and WXRT, which is more of a freeform rock station that plays various genres.  Essentially, you could hear it on all of the major stations you would turn on to listen to rock and roll in Chicago.  It was such a big hit in Chicago in the late '80s that WLUP DJ Bob Stroud released his own cover version of the song because The Kings had broken up by that point, and their catalog was not available at stores (or being reissued by the record label).  I think there was even a time, stretching well into the '90s, that WXRT would play this every Friday around 5 p.m. as an unofficial kickoff to the weekend, but I could be making that up.

The song (or songs) itself is obviously split into two.  "This Beat Goes On" is a J. Geils Band-esque rock song, and then around the 2:40 mark, the band repeats "this beat goes on," until about the 3:10 mark, when there's a final "this beat goes!," and then the band kicks into "Switchin' to Glide," which is a catchy, fun rock song that just puts you in a good mood.  If it doesn't, listen to it again.