Last night’s “The Family Guy” had a pretty funny reference to REO Speedwagon’s overwhelmed power ballad “Take It On The Run”. As Peter and crew track down the person who invented a very fynny dirty joke and land up with REO singing “Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend…”
The song dates from 1980 and got to # 5 in the pop charts back when that actually meant something. It is standard issue, maybe a little less bombastic, 80s power ballad with a weak vocal (REO only has weak vocals) but a clever little hook and you can hear why it was a big track at the time.
Today, 80’s power ballads are wrapped into popular music as yet another reference, in-joke, starting plce. In a world of limitless tracks a reference can come and go and just bury tself in your subconscious where google go in and steal the data for the files before they (hahahaha) destroy it in six months.
I mean, do you want the world to know you listen to REO Speedwagon?