Rock On (David Essex song)
Encyclopedia
"Rock On" is a song that was composed and sung by English
singer/songwriter David Essex
in 1973. In March 1974, it reached #1 in Canada
on the RPM
national Top Singles chart and was a Top 5 song (reaching the 5 position) on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100
pop-music
chart. It was Essex's only Billboard Top 40 hit. The song also reached the #3 spot on the UK Singles Chart
. "Rock On" was the title track to Essex's 1973 debut album and was also featured on the soundtrack album to the 1973 film That'll Be the Day
, in which Essex had a starring role. The song can still frequently be heard on classic rock
and oldies
radio stations.
Essex later re-recorded the song in 1988 with an updated lyric. The version, which was remixed by Shep Pettibone
, appeared on Essex's 1989 album Touching the Ghost. A single release of the updated version reached No. 93 on the U.K. charts.
The Essex recording is featured in the movies Dick
, The Devil's Rejects
and Sunset Strip, as well as in episodes of The Sopranos
and Cold Case.
star and singer Michael Damian
in 1989
and featured in the teen film
, Dream a Little Dream
, starring Corey Haim
and Corey Feldman
, among others.
Damian's version, which he also released from his independent album Where Do We Go From Here on the Cypress Records label, which A&M Records distributed, was a harder-edged interpretation that employed none of the vocal or instrumental distortion Essex's version had used. It reached the #1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, thus outperforming Essex's original Billboard ranking. However, the song did get to #1 for Essex in '74 on the US Cashbox charts, the same week it was at #11 on the Billboard Charts.
This version was ranked #99 on VH1's 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s (despite the fact that Damian actually had four Billboard charting singles during the '80s).
band Def Leppard
covered the song on their 2006 album, Yeah!, which features cover version
s of 1970s rock hits. It was released as the second single from the album.
The American alternative-rock
group The Smashing Pumpkins
included a live cover version of "Rock On", performed during their Sacred and Profane tour, on their 2001-release album Judas O, a bonus disc
(containing B-sides
and rarities) which accompanied the group's greatest hits
album Rotten Apples.
The Canadian Artist Betty Moon
covered the song on her debut album under the name "Bambi" in 1987. The song became a regional hit in Southern Ontario
.
The American parody group The Traveling Pillsburys recorded a version with different lyrics, titled Spock On, in 1989, which was aired on the Dr. Demento
radio show.
The song was covered by Austin, TX indie rock band Love Inks on its album E.S.P. in 2011.
The song was covered by Toni Basil
on her album Word of Mouth
.
The song was also covered by Adam Freeland, on the album "Cope
".
*Library and Archives Canada shows this single to attain the #1 position on the date and hold it for one week. There is no chart for March 23 available. The March 30 chart shows the previous week's position to be #2.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
singer/songwriter David Essex
David Essex
David Essex OBE is an English musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Since the 1970s, Essex has attained nineteen Top 40 singles in the UK , and sixteen Top 40 albums...
in 1973. In March 1974, it reached #1 in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
on the RPM
RPM (magazine)
RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...
national Top Singles chart and was a Top 5 song (reaching the 5 position) on the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
pop-music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
chart. It was Essex's only Billboard Top 40 hit. The song also reached the #3 spot on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. "Rock On" was the title track to Essex's 1973 debut album and was also featured on the soundtrack album to the 1973 film That'll Be the Day
That'll Be The Day (film)
That'll Be the Day is a 1973 British film starring David Essex and Ringo Starr, written by Ray Connolly and directed by Claude Whatham. It is set in the late '50s/early '60s and was partially filmed on the Isle of Wight. A sequel, Stardust, was released in 1974.-Plot summary:Jim MacLaine's mother...
, in which Essex had a starring role. The song can still frequently be heard on classic rock
Classic rock
Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...
and oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....
radio stations.
Essex later re-recorded the song in 1988 with an updated lyric. The version, which was remixed by Shep Pettibone
Shep Pettibone
Robert E. Pettibone, Jr. is a record producer, remixer, songwriter and club DJ, one of the most prolific of the 1980s. His earliest work known to the public was for one of New York City's top disco/dance radio stations, WRKS 98.7 "Kiss" FM, and later as remixer/producer for the disco label Salsoul...
, appeared on Essex's 1989 album Touching the Ghost. A single release of the updated version reached No. 93 on the U.K. charts.
Arrangement and Interpretation
The song features a slow-tempo vocal performance in a minor key, along with a minimalist, heavily-bass-driven instrumental accompaniment to Essex's vocals. The lyric pays homage to early rock and roll and its surrounding youth subculture, and notably to 1950s iconic rebel James Dean. The musical arrangement is quite distinctive. While Essex's voice is overlaid with reverb, which itself echoes early rock-n-roll production, Herbie Flowers' bass guitar is inflected with a very obtrusive delay-echo effect. Delay echoes, when run at very high frequencies, transform into reverb. The halting delay effect thus essentialises, but at the same time undercuts, the smooth reverb-laden vocal and its "right" location in a more straightforward 1950s homage. Meanwhile, the delay is radically opposed to clean-cut rock-n-roll rhythms. The song begins with a heartbeat representation, which then is heard to disrupt settled rhythm: the dialectic of life becomes subversive, rather than the youthful and joyous "heart" of rock's typical bass drum/snare drum alternation. The bass guitar is the "wrong" instrument to be echo-delayed. Such musico-conceptual tensions give rise to the recording's unsettled, dislocated feel, which is further intensified by haunting proto-disco strings and a soulful Motown-esque male voice in occasional harmony. Essex's first hit pop single is like nothing he recorded subsequently as a UK teenybop idol. "Rock On" can be linked to Don McLean's 1971 song, "American Pie", as a mysterious valediction for the recent past. "Rock On" might otherwise be located within the 1950s nostalgia strand in popular music of the 1970s; though in this context, Essex's allusive, ambiguous song is quite unlike typical expressions of the nostalgia boom, for example the hits of the UK band Showaddywaddy.The Essex recording is featured in the movies Dick
Dick (film)
Dick is a 1999 American comedy film directed by Andrew Fleming from a script he wrote with Sheryl Longin. It is a parody retelling the events of the Watergate scandal which ended the presidency of Richard Nixon and features several cast members from Saturday Night Live.Kirsten Dunst and Michelle...
, The Devil's Rejects
The Devil's Rejects
The Devil's Rejects is a 2005 American horror film written and directed by Rob Zombie, and the sequel to his 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses. The film is about the family of psychopathic killers from the previous film now on the run...
and Sunset Strip, as well as in episodes of The Sopranos
The Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
and Cold Case.
Michael Damian version
"Rock On" was covered by soap operaSoap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
star and singer Michael Damian
Michael Damian
Michael Damian Weir is a long-time American actor, Billboard #1 recording artist and producer, known mainly for his role as singer Danny Romalotti on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, which he played from 1980 to 1998.-Career:Damian made his feature film debut as an actor in the Garry...
in 1989
1989 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1989.-Events:*January 14 – Paul McCartney releases Снова в СССР exclusively in the USSR...
and featured in the teen film
Teen film
Teen films is a film genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the special interests of teenagers, such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, conflict with parents, teen angst, and alienation...
, Dream a Little Dream
Dream a Little Dream
Dream a Little Dream is a 1989 teen film directed by Marc Rocco and stars Jason Robards, Corey Feldman, Piper Laurie, Meredith Salenger, Harry Dean Stanton and Corey Haim. It was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina. Released in 1,019 theaters, it accumulated $5,552,441. This was the third film...
, starring Corey Haim
Corey Haim
Corey Ian Haim was a Canadian actor, known for a 1980s Hollywood career as a teen idol. He starred in a number of films such as Lucas, Silver Bullet, Murphy's Romance, License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream...
and Corey Feldman
Corey Feldman
Corey Scott Feldman is an American film and television actor. He became known during the 1980s, with roles in the Hollywood films Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, The Goonies, Stand by Me, The Lost Boys, License to Drive, Dream a Little Dream, Gremlins and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...
, among others.
Damian's version, which he also released from his independent album Where Do We Go From Here on the Cypress Records label, which A&M Records distributed, was a harder-edged interpretation that employed none of the vocal or instrumental distortion Essex's version had used. It reached the #1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, thus outperforming Essex's original Billboard ranking. However, the song did get to #1 for Essex in '74 on the US Cashbox charts, the same week it was at #11 on the Billboard Charts.
This version was ranked #99 on VH1's 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s (despite the fact that Damian actually had four Billboard charting singles during the '80s).
Other versions
The English hard-rockHard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
band Def Leppard
Def Leppard
Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Since 1992, the band have consisted of Joe Elliott , Rick Savage , Rick Allen , Phil Collen , and Vivian Campbell...
covered the song on their 2006 album, Yeah!, which features cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
s of 1970s rock hits. It was released as the second single from the album.
The American alternative-rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
group The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. Formed by Billy Corgan frontman and James Iha , the band has included Jimmy Chamberlin , D'arcy Wretzky , and currently includes Jeff Schroeder Mike Byrne , and Nicole Fiorentino The Smashing...
included a live cover version of "Rock On", performed during their Sacred and Profane tour, on their 2001-release album Judas O, a bonus disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
(containing B-sides
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
and rarities) which accompanied the group's greatest hits
Greatest hits
A greatest hits album is a music compilation album of successful, previously released songs by a particular artist or band...
album Rotten Apples.
The Canadian Artist Betty Moon
Betty Moon
Betty Moon is a Toronto-born Canadian singer/songwriter, producer, and filmmaker currently living in Los Angeles. Having completed her fifth album entitled “Rollin’ Revolution” she has worked with notable musicians including Kenny Aronoff, Yogi Lonich, Wes Scantlin, Glenn Milchem, Gavin Brown and...
covered the song on her debut album under the name "Bambi" in 1987. The song became a regional hit in Southern Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
.
The American parody group The Traveling Pillsburys recorded a version with different lyrics, titled Spock On, in 1989, which was aired on the Dr. Demento
Dr. Demento
Barret Eugene Hansen , better known as Dr. Demento, is a radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograph records to the present....
radio show.
The song was covered by Austin, TX indie rock band Love Inks on its album E.S.P. in 2011.
The song was covered by Toni Basil
Toni Basil
Antonia Christina Basilotta , better known by her stage name Toni Basil, is an American singer-songwriter, actress, filmmaker, film director, choreographer, and dancer, best known for her multi-million-selling worldwide #1 hit "Mickey" from 1982.-Early life:Basil was born Antonia Christina...
on her album Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth (Toni Basil album)
Word of Mouth is Toni Basil's debut album. It was released in 1982. It was certified Gold by RIAA. It featured the #1 worldwide hit "Mickey". The album also contains 3 covers of songs by the band Devo who also performed on the songs...
.
The song was also covered by Adam Freeland, on the album "Cope
Cope (album)
Cope is the second studio album by British DJ Adam Freeland, released under the name Freeland.- Track list :# "Do You"# "Under Control"# "Strange Things"# "Bring It"# "Mancry"# "Borderline"# "Rock On"# "Silent Speaking"...
".
*Library and Archives Canada shows this single to attain the #1 position on the date and hold it for one week. There is no chart for March 23 available. The March 30 chart shows the previous week's position to be #2.