It turns out the Village People recorded a punk song in 1981

I came across this punk rock masterpiece on one of my very favorite blogs, Dangerous Minds.

Now, look, I’m going to warn you: it’s the longest 2:27 of your life, and the video is sort of the ancient progenitor to a looping .gif, likely due to budget constraints, and the possibility that the band involved wasn’t particularly into recording a punk song because the band was THE VILLAGE PEOPLE.

Yes, those Village People.

BEHOLD:

Dangerous Minds says:

“Food Fight” is an anomaly in the Village People’s oeuvre: a first and last attempt to cash in on the punk audience from a band clearly grasping at straws, willing to try absolutely anything to stay relevant.

Musically, one can hear the best elements of DEVO, as well as The Dickies, and Hodo’s nerdcore vocals sound remarkably like Weird Al.

“Food fight” plays out like the music you’d hear in an early 80’s teenage T & A movie where there’d be some marginally “punk” band playing on the beach in wrap-around sunglasses and clam-diggers, while a bunch of girls in string bikinis did robot dances in the sand. Yes, it’s that good. The subject matter would seem to indicate the Village People’s new target demographic was middle school children.

I’m super conflicted about it, because on the one hand, it’s pretty epic … but it’s also pretty horrible, and it feels like ten minutes of repetition to me.

But, still, the fucking VILLAGE PEOPLE recorded a song that would have been perfectly at home in Valley Girl, or Night of the Comet, or Midnight Madness, or even on an episode of CHiPs, if they did something about the way old white people thought punk rock and new wave kids acted in 1981.

What do you think?

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36 thoughts on “It turns out the Village People recorded a punk song in 1981”

  3. I only got to the 50 second mark, just had enough of the mime-clown guy. Now, I’m going back to something truly awesome: brewing some w00tstout, I’m 75 minutes into the boil.

  4. Heavens. It’s like someone forced the Archies, Insane Clown Posse, and Devo into the transporter from The Fly, and these guys came out on the other side.

  9. British prog group Gentle Giant (whom I love, for the record), attempted something along these lines in 1977.

    And I never thought I’d hear something that made me say, “There’s a song that Gentle Giant’s take on punk is actually better than,” but then today I heard (45 seconds of) this.

    Dee Dee Ramone’s rap career notwithstanding, of course.

    I don’t know if anything is worse to listen to than that.

  10. After watching it all I can only beseech The Doomed Prince of the Blue Room to make the memory a secret in my own mind. Barring divine intervention I’d have to make use of the same generous amounts of Rum and Coke I used after accidentally stumbled across the ‘ Electric Universe’.

  11. Village People were so close with that song (1981). They could have reinvented themselves as a better Buckner and Garcia (1982). Should have sold that song to Atari (1983)…

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc7TuL928Ss

    Or better yet… teamed up with Atari to make video games out of all their older hits (like Journey). But, it’s not too late. I would love to play an “In the Navy” or “YMCA” game on iOS. Call me, Village Peeps!

      1. HEY NOW. 🙂 Oingo Boingo had incredible talent: they had like, 15 band members including horns, they had a songwriter who became a premiere composer (Danny Elfman). They didn’t last 17 years for no reason.

  16. which album was this? 1981 is soooo late. i think the video is better than 99% of the animated GIFs i see, because at least the timing is done right and it isn’t jerking too quickly. what a great find this is!

  17. Late to the party, and not incredibly sincere about their message. While the sound is superficially reminiscent of the Dickies, whom I adore, the Village People are clearly not giving this all that much effort. Also, they seem to be completely missing the witty turn of phrase, cultural commentary, and occasional sarcasm which were hallmarks of early punk lyrics. Each of punk’s few, minimalistic elements needs to be carefully crafted for a song to work, and I don’t see any skilled craftsmanship being demonstrated here.

  18. From that same album: “Action Man” (providing soundtrack for this homage to James McAvoy…which was the only vid of the tune I could find). I recall seeing them sync this on “American Bandstand”, all dressed like Adam Ant, proclaiming they’d just gotten back from London and could guarantee that “blitz” couture would be the next big thing:

  19. DM pegged it: sounds just like a back-up song in cheap 80s movie. All it needs is a drunk kid in a bright blue, hair-sprayed “mo-hawk” puking his guts out behind a 7-11.

  20. That’s Surreal. The Village Meeples playing New Wave as a comeback? That’s like watching Bob Dylan do bass drops. Well, no – that’s not quite accurate. It’s probably more like watching Weezer do bass drops… or The Chili Peppers or whatever.

    Still…

    it’s surreal.

  21. I really kinda like it. (I also agree with the above comment that I near more New Wave than punk, even punk-lite.) The video seems … I dunno, almost postmodern, now. I see echoes of, like, Adam Ant or something (there’s that New Wave again). Very silly from our vantage point, but I think that’s its charm, at least for those of us of A Certain Age.

  22. I loved Night of the Comet! And Clowns From Outer Space or what the title was, but I got to admit I am so glad I do not have any music or videos of the Village, because sometimes read bad is just real bad and is not a classic no matter how hard you try to view it as such. I am so sad. I loved the Village People: strange choice of costumes and all. It added to the fun of their fun songs. I didn’t get into rock until my later years but The Village People were one I did like along with certain songs. Then Disco and I became the disco queen, But this music in the video I just watched and listened to didn’t even sound good with the People to help. Haven’t heard of them in years. (If any of you are reading this I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I don’t listen to music from this era anymore, because all the music is the same old crap just in a different tune in all the genres and I hate rap, which in my opine isn’t music at all. I hope you guys use your talents better.)

  23. It’s kind of catchy in a DEVO sort of way — ‘kind of’ being the key phrase. If the VillPeeps were in the video, that might make a big improvement.

    Definitely 80s movie soundtrack worthy … like a “Breakfast Club” sequel, the kind of sequel that’s bad, in the way “Grease 2” was bad….

  25. Night of The Comet was an amazing horror flick. i loved that movie when i was a kid!

  27. I shit you not, I just tried to play the album “Renaissance” in Spotify… and it immediately crashed.

  29. Wasn’t Food Fight in “Can’t Stop The Music”? Where’s that Cinema Snob vid…

  32. Well, I watched it…all of it, and it gave me the chills. It felt like I was 12, watching something I wasn’t allowed to, like “I’m busted if Mom catches me” type thing…

  33. Definitely could have been on an episode of “Square Pegs” remember that Valley show! 80’s Blast from the Past! ;)

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