For those of us who sorta 'came of age' in the mid 80's, the Challenger disaster was the archetypal you-remember-exactly-where-you-were-when-you-heard-the-news event. Two years before and a few thousand miles away from where the Challenger would end up exploding, though, Anfrando Maiola and Stefano Cundari, the owners of a small Italian disco label called Memory Records, assembled a group of young school girls. They called them 'Baby's Gang'. They chose "Baby's" because the girls were all youthful (albeit not 'babies') and "Gang" because 'Gang' was a popular Italian Disco word for 'Group' (many "Gangs" occupied the Italo Disco scene--they generally were not at war with each other, though). Baby's Gang's first and biggest hit was 'Challenger' in 1984, but they also charted in Europe with 'America' and 'Happy Song'.
I'm sure there were many songs written about the Challenger after its fuel tank ruptured on its tenth flight on January 28, 1986, killing all seven crew members. Doubt any of them sounded like this though...
And here's the 'Challenger' video:
At least Italian radio had something to play after the shuttle blew up. The way I found out about the disaster was driving with my mom (it was a snow day in GA), and hearing the DJ come on and apologize profusely for having played a particular song just then, explaining that he had already queued it up before receiving the news bulletin. Apparently the station had been immediately stormed with complaints about his insensitivity. The song? "You Light Up My Life."
Posted by: andy | March 29, 2010 at 12:57 PM
...Los Angeles disc jockey Bob Hudson (of Hudson & Landry fame, as in "Ajax Liquor Store") was canned from his SECOND job at KRLA in 1986 for joking on-the-air that the Challenger blew up because the crew started freebasing Tang. (His first canning came back in 1966, when he refused to quit plugging his record "I'm Normal," a spoof of Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!")...
Posted by: King Daevid MacKenzie | March 29, 2010 at 08:32 PM
Are these the girls singing at the start of "Dance" from Justice? Sounds just like them, right? VIDEO
Posted by: Katya Oddio | March 31, 2010 at 05:37 PM