Men Without Hats

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Men Without Hats
Origin Montreal, QC, Canada
Genre(s) Pop
Synthpop
Years active 1980 - 1992, 2003
Label(s) MCA Records
Mercury Records
Website [1]
Former members
Ivan Doroschuk
Stefan Doroschuk
Allan McCarthy (deceased)
Colin Doroschuk
Tracy Howe
Mike Gabriel
Jean-Marc Pisapia
Lenny Pinkas
Roman Martyn
Jeremy Arrobas

Men Without Hats are a pop group from Montreal, Quebec that achieved their greatest popularity in the early to mid 1980s. They were characterized by the deep, expressive vocals of their lead singer Ivan and their elaborate use of synthesizers and electronic processing. Their most-remembered single was titled "The Safety Dance."

Contents

[edit] History

At the core, Men Without Hats consisted of Ivan Doroschuk and his brother Stefan, with various other members, including a third brother, Colin Doroschuk, as well as Jeremy Arrobas, Tracy Howe, Roman Martyn, Mike Gabriel, Jean-Marc Pisapia, Lenny Pinkas, and Allan McCarthy. They emerged with an EP called Folk of the 80's (1980). Tracy Howe was only with the band briefly, but long enough to be credited on a reprint of Folk of the 80s, despite not appearing on it; he later achieved some success with his new band, Rational Youth. Pisapia went on to form The Box, and later, Arrobas and Gabriel left to work with him for a while, eventually founding their own group, Isinglass.

A popular but unconfirmed tale is that the name originated from a misread announcement to one of their early gigs as "Men Without Pants" by a francophone MC in Montréal. Though that tale may be unconfirmed the fact is that Men Without Hats first started off in bars as Men With Hats, but they decided to change the name to Men Without Hats as they always threw their hats off at the end of a performance.

The band erupted onto the international scene a couple of years later with their worldwide hit single "The Safety Dance" from their debut album Rhythm of Youth. The song spent four weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and was also a major hit in the UK (#6), in Canada (#12), in what was West Germany (#2), in South Africa (#1), in Austria (#7), in Sweden (#3), in Norway (#3), and in Switzerland (#4). They charted once again with the title track from their 1987 album, Pop Goes the World, which reached #20 in the US, #3 in South Africa, and #1 in Austria and Sweden. The song was also featured in the movie Date with an Angel (1987), starring Phoebe Cates, Emmanuelle Béart and Michael E. Knight. The next album The Adventures of Women & Men Without Hate in the 21st Century, released in 1989 featured a cover of ABBA's song "SOS".

Their 1991 album Sideways, dominated by processed electric guitars instead of keyboards, revealed a dramatically different sound for the band. The album failed to attract an American label, and the band broke up.

Following the break-up, Ivan released a solo album, The Spell, in 1997. Stefan and Mack MacKenzie (of 3 O'Clock Train) released Ride of Glory, a post-modern Western-themed CD.

Stefan and Ivan regrouped to release No Hats Beyond This Point in 2003.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Studio albums

[edit] Compilations

[edit] Ivan solo albums

[edit] Music videos

  • "Security"
  • "Antarctica"
  • "Nationale 7"
  • "The Safety Dance"
  • "I Like"
  • "Where Do the Boys Go?"
  • "Pop Goes the World"
  • "Moonbeam"
  • "Hey Men"
  • "..In the 21st Century"
  • "Sideways"
  • "Open Your Eyes" (Ivan)
  • "SuperBadGirls" (Ivan)

[edit] DVDs

  • Live Hats (Le Spectrum show, from Freeways tour) released in June 2006

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson played flute on the song "On Tuesday" on Pop Goes the World.
  • The dwarf in the music video "The Safety Dance" is actor Mike Edmonds (Return of the Jedi, Time Bandits, Flash Gordon).
  • In an episode of US comedy Scrubs, Turk sings 5 lines from "The Safety Dance" while discussing the problems of parenthood with his fiancee, Carla. In this case they are referring to their son wanting to dance instead of playing football with his friends.
  • In an episode of US Comedy South Park, Butters dances to part of the song.
  • In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer makes fun of the song Safety Dance by singing "Everybody look at your pants!" In another episode, Safety Dance is played on the radio, and they are referred to by the KBBL broadcasters as "Men without Jobs."
  • In an episode of Family Guy, Brian makes fun of the band by referring to them as "Men Without Jobs."
  • In Futurestock , an episode of Futurama Fry meets another guy from his own time, and they discuss Safety Dance. Fry doesn't think that the dance is safe at all, while the other guy keeps imitating the keyboard part throughout the episode.
  • In Bio-Dome, the Safety Dance video is in part recreated by the cast of the movie, complete with the dancing midget.

[edit] Covers

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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[edit] External links