At the end of 1984, I moved to NYC and all I had to listen to was a cheapy Sony Walkman and a few cassettes—Nick Cave’s From Her to Eternity, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s greatest hits, Nina Hagen’s Nunsexmonkrock and the first Madonna album were my soundtracks to walking around and discovering New York City when I first got there. But there was one album in particular, that to me at least, was THE SOUND of the city and that record was the first solo effort from B-52s singer Fred Schneider, called Fred Schneider and the Shake Society. I listened to this album constantly then. One early morning just a few weeks after I got there, I saw a totally trashed-looking Fred walking down 6th Avenue—he’d obviously just come from a party gone out of bounds—and I’m not ashamed to admit that I was thrilled, totally starstruck and satisfied that I’d made a good move. Seeing a hungover Fred Schneider was akin to the universe smiling at me and New York was the best place in the world to be in 1984.
 

 
But back to the music: “Monster,” the single from the album, was one of those songs that was only really famous in nightclubs, but that was about it. HOW is it possible that a song with a hook this unstoppable, not to mention the over-the-top double entendre of the lyrics, wasn’t a massive, massive hit single, something that today would be justly celebrated as an iconic 80s novelty song??? It was even released twice and barely scraped the top 100 either time!
 

 
Actually, maybe it was the boldly double entendre lyrics. Come to think of it, that’s probably, uh, exactly what the problem was. Thirty years later, who would give a shit about something so innocuous?

Below, the original mix of the song as it was released in 1984 (The 1991 remix is a travesty and I was pissed off when I bought the CD and got the new version). Featured in the video are Talking Head Tina Weymouth, Kate Pierson, Keith Haring and the late, great drag performer Ethyl Eichelberger as the maid.