"The Safety Dance": Cover Comparison

For this cover comparison, I’m going to look at perhaps one of the best-known one-hit wonders out there, “The Safety Dance'' by Men Without Hats and see how it compares to the cover by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour.

I’ve seen people give different interpretations for the lyrics of this song, but Ivan Doroschuk, who wrote and sang “The Safety Dance,” explained that it was a protest song against bouncers who would stop people from doing “new wave dances” in clubs due to the danger they posed to others, specifically disco dancers. I guess “new wave dancing” was rigid and violent, involving a lot of flailing around, so bouncers would step in to prevent this. One of these incidents involved Doroschuk himself getting kicked out of a club for his dancing. He was clearly unhappy about this, to the point that he wrote a whole song about it.

“The Safety Dance” is notable for being an early staple on MTV and for moving towards a more cheerful, pop-y type of new wave than many of its predecessors. It charted highly pretty much everywhere.

The cover by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour (titled “Safety Dance,” without the “The”) seems to have been released on an EP of theirs, but it was never included on a studio album. I can’t find any information on how it was received besides comments on YouTube videos, which are overall very positive.

As for the song itself:

“The Safety Dance” is one of the few songs that I used to hear over and over on the radio that I still haven’t gotten tired of. I feel like I use these words to describe a lot of the music I write about, but “catchy” and “uplifting” fit perfectly here. I’ll gladly argue that this song’s synth line is one of the best ever and if nothing else, it’s probably my favorite.

However, I think what makes this song different from others and why I haven’t gotten tired of it yet is how pleasing it is to the ear. I don’t mean in the sense of it just “sounding good,” because obviously, that’s not a unique trait in music at all. What I mean is that the octave and key that the song is played in along with Doroschuk's baritone voice hits this kind of perfect frequency. It just clicks. This makes the song really easy to listen to and I think it’s the strongest trait of “The Safety Dance,” even more so than that synth line and the general melody, which are both also amazing.

I think the whole “frequency” thing plays a big role in why I was never particularly impressed by any covers I heard of “The Safety Dance.” I usually enjoy covers that don’t stick too closely to the original song and which feature the covering band/artist’s personality and individual sound. However, when listening to covers that differed a decent amount from the original version of “The Safety Dance,” I found myself feeling like they were missing something. The melody and that synth line are enough to carry the song far so it’s not like I disliked the covers, but I did feel like they all fell short of the original.

“The Safety Dance” is a song that operates within a very rigid framework, in my opinion. Once that framework is abandoned, even slightly, it takes away a crucial element of the song.

I think that’s my issue with the cover by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour. I like them as a group and songs like “The Sun Ain’t Shining No More,” “Heart Attack,” and “Around The Bend” are highlights of a really solid discography. They do make “Safety Dance” their own, thanks to lead singer Mette Lindbergh’s distinct voice, the blaring horns, and the groovy bassline. However, as I mentioned before, I really think “The Safety Dance” has little wiggle room when it comes to deviating from the formula. Men Without Hats got pretty much everything right with it and it feels like a song that isn’t improved by any changes.

This is not to say the cover is bad, because it’s not. It might not be for everyone, but I honestly like it. Again, the melody is great and I like the musical style of The Asteroids Galaxy Tour. I just think this song in particular does not lend itself well to covers, which is a testament to the original.

That being said, this could be something that no one else agrees with. Maybe all of this “frequency,” “formula,” and “framework” stuff is something that is only relevant to me and what I personally like or don’t like in the song. However, I do definitely think there was more to “The Safety Dance” than just the catchiness, the MTV exposure, and the pop-ification of new wave that made it such a big hit. I did my best to explain what I think it was.