Novelty classic, or “Stripped” of it’s quality in the years since? It’s time for a new post!

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Good Morning to you, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and I’m writing up about your daily track on the blog – just like always – because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! I’ve been looking at a lot of very serious, big new releases for the last week or so, and so I thought it would prove to be a nice palette cleanser to kick off the new month, of July 2020, with a look back at a novelty club classic that became a big hit in the golden age of 1980’s dance and disco music. “Male Stripper”, by Man 2 Man Meet George Parish, was originally released in late 1986, prior to it reaching #4 in the UK Singles Chart after a re-release in 1997. The project originally started as a New York Punk-Dance band called The Fast, it was part of the HI-NRG movement of uptempo and risky club music around the time, but two brothers who were part of the band – Miki Zone and Paul Zone – continued the act as a duo, teaming up with cult electro-pop producer George Parish to record “Male Stripper”, a song which gained big steam on the European club circuit, under the aliases of Man 2 Man. Sadly, Miki Zone became a victim of the AIDS Epidemic and died in 1986, shortly after it’s release. Since then, Paul continued as a solo producer under the name of Man To Man, and released a few tracks that had moderate success, but didn’t trouble the Top 40 singles charts very much. However, Paul Zone did even get to perform “Male Stripper” on Top Of The Pops with George Parish, so it’s not entirely awful. Let’s have a listen back to “Male Stripper” with the original music video below.

Magic Mike will be pleased. You can have that for free, Channing Tatum. A single that sounds almost like the quintessential European disco club classic from the late-1980’s because it more or less was, “Male Stripper” aimed to draw a crowd to the dancefloor, and it succeeded. Beginning with the funny, recognizable Horn sounds, the Zone brothers take the lead with an upbeat synth groove which they interweave with a robotic backing vocal which repeats “I was a male stripper in a go-go bar”, before Paul Zone recites lines such as “Ripples on my chest/I never got an address” and “A modern day jock, A jock with an act” over looped, bouncy drum machine sequences and echoing Vibraphone melodies, with a neat Conga Drum solo added in the bridgefor the good measure. The chorus is absurd: “Strip for me, babe, Strip for you/Strip for you cause’ I want you to”, completed with dueling female backing vocals and the odd “OOh” or “Ahh” from Miki Zone. More gloriously moronic lines: “Built like a truck/I’d bump for a buck” and “Tips in my G-string/I made my living” add humor, layered over the consistently repeating drum machine hooks and synthesized instrumentation sounds. Whilst it’s clearly not designed to be an emotionally challenging display of fine art, it’s entertaining to listen to, and it stands out as a relic because nobody would really write a club track about a gay Male Stripper in this present era, because it’s seen as risky in the sense of modern cultural representation. Conclusively, it sounds like the quintessential 1980’s club track. It is, but it’s good fun.

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Thank you for reading this post! In regards to #BlackLivesMatter, we endorse the peaceful protests on One Track At A Time. Please go and check your local area for good charity causes that help those directly affected by racism and injustice. I’ll be back tomorrow, continuing to kick off the month in style, with an in-depth look at a track from a Grammy-winning American singer-songwriter and producer from California who is a huge fan of the Dragonball Japanese Manga/Anime series, and he uses it as a big part of his brand. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime