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Lyrics: Well you’re dirty and sweet, clad in black Get it on, bang the gong, get it on You’re built like a car, you’ve got a hubcap diamond star halo
Get it on, bang the gong, get it on You’re windy and wild, you’ve got the blues in your shoes and your Get it on, bang the gong, get it on You’re dirty and sweet, clad in black, don’t look back Get it on, bang the gong, get it on The Power Station’s version is found on its self-titled debut: T. Rex’s version is found on 1972’s Electric Warrior:
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Recently, a friend asked me to pick the one song that defined my senior year in high school. Without even a moment’s contemplation, I said The Power Station’s Get It On (Bang a Gong). This track embodies everything that is perfect about rock and roll: crunchy power chords, loud drums, and a driving bass line. Of course, if you are a rock and roll fan—or if you were even semi-conscious in the seventies—you know T. Rex’s original hit version of this song. T. Rex—fronted by former hippy musician and glam rock god, Marc Bolan—released Get It On (Bang a Gong) on its 1971 album, Electric Warrior. The record shot to the top of the UK charts and the top 10 in the U.S. More importantly, Bolan and this album are credited with creating a new genre of rock—glam rock—which led to such acts as The Sweet, Slade, Mott the Hoople, New York Dolls, Nick Gilder, The Tubes, and dozens more. (Some music historians say that David Bowie’s glam phase is derivative of T. Rex, but I call a foul on the play; David Bowie is derivative of no one but David Bowie.) In 1985, new wave superstars Duran Duran were taking a short hiatus from touring as Duran Duran¹, which left brothers Andy Taylor and John Taylor with time on their hands. The brothers ended up pairing with members of funk legend Chic, Tony Thompson and Bernard Edwards. Initially, the idea was to form a supergroup with a rotating set of musicians with each song featuring a different superstar. This led the quartet to approach Mick Jagger, Billy Idol, jazz god Mars Williams, The Psychedelic Furs vocalist Richard Butler, and Mick Ronson (of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars fame). They then approached Robert Palmer who was famous for his hit Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor) and who was about to release Riptide, which contained the megahit, Addicted to Love (and its iconic video that I might or might not have watched approximately 221,387 times when I was a teenager). Initially, the idea was to have Palmer sing the song Communication, but when they got into the studio, magic happened and The Power Station was born in a haze of loud guitars, pounding drums, and a veritable deluge of style.
In 2003, Palmer died suddenly of a heart attack while in Paris filming a career retrospective. He was just 56. They say you can’t catch lightning in a bottle, but for one magical summer, The Power Station came as close as any rock and roll outfit to ever step on a stage. Their debut album is pure magic, and their cover of Get It On (Bang a Gong) remains one of the most-played tracks in my enormous musical collection. I’ve often wondered what would’ve happened if the group had made more records instead of going back to their other projects. Of course, all four members enjoyed enormous success outside The Power Station with Duran Duran and as soloists, but I wish the rock gods had seen fit to let us revel just a little longer in the rock and roll perfection that was The Power Station. ¹ While Andy and John Taylor were plugging in their amps with The Power Station, the other members of Duran Duran—Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, and Roger Taylor—were exploring their new wave rock underpinnings with Arcadia, scoring a hit in 1985 with Election Day (which has already been featured here on Dances with Bass Radio). Video: I remember the first time I saw this video in 1985, and my love crunchy power chords was born. To this day, I love loud, crunchy rock and roll chords like the ones found here.
For comparison, here is T-Rex’s original version of Get It On (Bang a Gong). Both are mainstays in the playlists here in the Dances with Bass subterranean labyrinth. Marc Bolan’s green pants, red jacket, and impish dance moves represent everything that was beautiful about the 1970s. Sadly, Bolan died in a car crash in 1977 at age 29.
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The Power Station’s version of Get It On (Bang a Gong) was a rock radio smash, and the album reached number 6 on the Billboard charts. Two additional top 10 singles followed: Some Like It Hot and the aforementioned Communication. After the huge success of Power Station’s self-titled success, the brothers Taylor went back to Duran Duran (though Andy Taylor also produced some stellar solo material that most certainly will be featured soon on Dances with Bass Radio) and Palmer went on to a successful string of solo hits. The Power Station reformed in 1996, but John Taylor to left the band and then Bernard Edwards died of pneumonia while in Japan. The band released Living in Fear in 1996 and toured to support it, but the record was a commercial failure.
