The Romantics — “One In A Million”

Entered Top 40:  March 31, 1984  
 3 weeks   
Peaked at: 37  

Certainly The Romantics’ signature song now is the one that didn’t crack the Top 40 at all. They released “What I Like About You” at the end of 1979 and it peaked at #49, but it became much better known through lots of MTV airplay and licensing to a beer commercial in the late ’80s (the latter occurring without the band knowing; a resulting lawsuit kept them from recording for much of the ’90s).

It took four albums for The Romantics to catch on (naming the second record National Breakout must have stung when it…did not do that). The In Heat LP took advantage of MTV’s rise, with videos featuring lots of models and showing off the bands’ matching leather suits (apparently they did not have many of these suits, and being encouraged to wear them on tour, they soon stunk to high heaven). ”Talking in Your Sleep” became the band’s highest-charting song, entering the Top 40 at the end of 1983 and peaking at #3 the following February. It fell out of the Top 40 just a couple of weeks before the followup “One in a Million” arrived.

Drummer Jimmy Marinos, who’d sung on “What I Like About You,” left the band later in 1984. In 1987 The Romantics successfully sued their management over the aforementioned beer commercial and other issues, which kept them out of the spotlight for several years. During this period Blondie’s Clem Burke joined the group as drummer; this would normally be a bit of a coup, but they only mustered a UK-only EP in 1993 and a 2003 album during his tenures. The band is still at it now (three founding members and “new” drummer Brad Elvis), and is doing a big ’80s summer tour with, among others, three different Toms: Thomas Dolby, Tommy Tutone, and Tom Bailey from Thompson Twins.