This Week's Forgotten Gem of the '80s - Single Bullet Theory's "Keep It Tight"

Following my discovery a couple years back of the wonderful Canadian new wave band the Kings, I've become exponentially convinced that all the greatest bands of the genre must have been cursed by Kajagoogoo or somebody like that and banished forever into a den of unjust musical obscurity. Here's another example of the cruelty and abject stupidity of the music industry, which somehow managed to irritate this Richmond, Va. band with the can't-miss name into exiting the business before its career could even launch. I know I've effected righteous indignation in this slot plenty of times before, but every time I get all soapboxy it feels once again like the first time.

This is a great single by a great band, full of the quirkiness, musical ingenuity and off-kilter charm that was almost always absent from the circa 1983 bands that found an unearned home on MTV by clamping onto the coattails of a musical style that at least initially injected genuine freshness into mainstream rock music. With all due respect to the group, one look at the retro music video for this track makes it absolutely clear that Single Bullet Theory got its record contract because of its live and recorded sound rather than some primped, carefully engineered image. After all, one of the band's guitarists, as seen in that video, looks more like an insurance salesman than Cheap Trick's Bun Carlos, which is really saying something. But so freakin' what? SBT was a worthy band ruthlessly sequestered from droves of music fans who would have loved to have had a chance to hear them.