Go-Go’s “We Got the Beat”

Go-Go’s “We Got the Beat” b/w “Can’t Stop the World” 1981 edition on IRS. The Go-Go’s first recorded and released “We Got the Beat” in 1980 on Stiff Records in the UK (the b-side was “How Much More”) and then in ‘81 in the US on IRS where it made it onto the dance club charts (#35). They released (and re-recorded) it again in 1982 as the second single from the Go-Go’s debut LP Beauty and the Beat and it hit #2 on the Hot 100 chart, remaining there for three weeks. I was absolutely crazy for “We Got the Beat” and remember those three weeks of girl-power rock-n-roll in April vividly. I huddled by the radio waiting to hit record on my little cassette player while Casey Kasem announced the top songs – this track and the stubbornly awesome #1 that the Go-Go’s  couldn’t quite ever surpass: Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” (which was the first album I ever bought with my own money). The success of “We Got the Beat” is significant because helped usher in new wave on a large scale to the US, accomplished by a group of women who wrote their own music and played their own instruments, all the while having a great dance party time of it.