Blogocentric Formulations

The Touch

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Song: "The Touch"
Artist: Stan Bush
Album: Transformers: The Movie Soundtrack


Just in case "Kiss From A Rose" wasn't retro enough, I've gone back another decade and into the 1980s to find my second Soundtrack week offering. Philistines might ask, "Isn't that the song Mark Wahlberg sings in Boogie Nights?" Well, yes... it is... but everybody knows it was done first - and better! - in the last decent Transformers movie, 1984's animated feature starring the voices of Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Orson Welles, Casey Kasem, Scatman Crothers, and Peter Cullen among others. The song was actually originally written for Sylvester Stallone's movie Cobra, but ended up being slotted into this animated classic instead (along with Bush's other classic, "Dare").

I was originally going to include this in my One Hit Wonders week lineup, but its status as a "hit" (at least by recording industry album sales or airplay standard) made it a questionable choice. Thankfully, lizco252 gave me a second chance to feature this masterpiece of 80s rock in this week's list!

If you want to know how to milk a one-hit wonder, look no further than our friend Stan Bush. Not only did he release the song on his own album after it gained traction on the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack, but he re-recorded the song in 1997 for a convention soundtrack, included it on another of his albums, submitted it for consideration in the 2007 live-action Transformers "movie," re-recorded it again in 2009 and submitted it for the second of Michael Bay's Transformers fiascoes, recorded a new version of the song for inclusion in one of the Guitar Hero games, and then remixed it yet again in 2012 to release exclusively on iTunes. Well, at least he doesn't have any illusions about which songs of his are paying the bills...

I used to listen to this song nonstop. At first I just rewound the VCR tape of the movie over and over again, re-watching the scenes where this song played... then I bought the CD and pretty much listened to that nonstop... then I ripped it into my iTunes and still listen to it pretty frequently. This is one of the few songs that I can legitimately say I've listened to for 25+ years, and my lifetime play count is probably - without exaggerating - probably in the high thousands, maybe even low five digits. So happy to finally be able to share it with all of you!