Wang Chung — “Don’t Let Go”

Entered Top 40:  March 10, 1984 
 3 weeks   
Peaked at: 38  

The single that got Wang Chung (then spelling it Huang Chung) a major-label deal was a cheeky, 1980 XTC-ish track called “Isn’t It About Time We Were On TV?” Huang Chung’s eponymous debut album didn’t do much to fulfill that mission statement. Neither did their 1982 original, single-only version of a song called “Dance Hall Days,” but file that away for now. In early 1984, with the help of a name change and at least one memorable video, their second LP Points on the Curve caught on. In the lead single, “Don’t Let Go,” Jack Hues turns trying to stave off a breakup into something from an action-movie soundtrack. Hmmm…

“Don’t Let Go” would share a Dance #1 chart position with Wang Chung’s other big single from Points on the Curve, a re-recorded version of “Dance Hall Days.” The new version’s warmer sound and big-deal music video, in which a disco-ball hatches a mirror-covered dancer, helped it to #19 overall.

Wang Chung would eventually get that action-movie soundtrack song—in fact they’d do the entire soundtrack—as they composed and performed music for William Friedkin’s 1985 film To Live and Die in L.A. The title track would just miss the Top 40 that year (#41). In 1986 Wang Chung would have two huge singles from their Mosaic album: the gleefully inane “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” (#2), which Blender once called the third-worst song ever; and “Let’s Go!” (#9). But the third single would do what they often do, and we’ll see Wang Chung later on the other side.