Day After Day #169: Fix Up, Look Sharp

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Fix Up, Look Sharp (2003)

Kids, gather round and hear the tale of how Billy Squier became a hip hop icon. By 1980, Squier had already been around for a few years fronting the band Piper, which released two albums and opened for KISS in 1977 (they shared the same management company). 

Squier released his solo debut The Tale of the Tape in the spring of 1980 and although it barely made a dent in the Billboard 200 (hitting #169), it has become legendary thanks to the song "The Big Beat." It's a straightahead rocker that didn't chart, but it features one of the most famous drum sounds in music history. Recorded in Levon Helm's (yes, that Levon Helm) barn in Woodstock, the drums were played by Bobby Chouinard with overdubs from Squier hitting a snare case with his hands. 

Rap producers liked the sound and sampled or recreated it in many songs, most notably U.T.F.O.'s "Roxanne, Roxanne," which came out in 1984. When the group blew off a promotional appearance on a radio show, 14-year-old Lolita Shante Gooden was enlisted to make an answer song called "Roxanne's Revenge," which also featured the Squier beat. U.T.F.O. and their producers Full Force then released another answer song by The Real Roxanne, which led to a cottage industry of Roxanne answer songs over the next year.

Meanwhile, Squier was enjoying the early '80s himself, having blown up with his 1981 hard rock album Don't Say No and the big hit "The Stroke." The newly launched MTV played his performance-based videos constantly and Squier became an arena rock staple, opening for Queen and later headlining shows with Def Leppard opening for him. But even as his fourth album Signs of Life was becoming a hit in 1984, Squier's success was derailed by the Kenny Ortega-directed video for "Rock Me Tonite," which featured Squier dancing around a bedroom in a pink tank top. Almost immediately, Squier's shows stopped selling out and his popularity took a nosedive. He released four more albums with some modest radio hits, but by 1993, Squier walked away from music. He released one more album, 1998's acoustic blues release Happy Blue.

Fast forward five years and U.K. rapper Dizzee Rascal is preparing his debut album when his producer played him "The Big Beat." The booming drum beat and Squier's vocals were sampled into "Fix Up, Look Sharp" and a hit was born. Well, in the U.K., anyway, where it went to #17 on the singles chart. It didn't chart in the U.S. but it caught a lot of buzz thanks to the nascent indie rock MP3 blog scene, where bloggers became tastemakers for folks like me. I'm pretty sure I've never heard "Fix Up, Look Sharp" on the radio, but I downloaded Dizzee Rascal's album Boy in Da Corner off eMusic and played the hell out of it on my iPod.

"Fix up, look sharp/Don't make me pick up with sign get park/Hear the bang, see the spark/Duck down, lay down just/Fix up, look sharp."

Squier is prominently featured in the song with the chorus from "The Big Beat": "I got the big beat/I hear the sound/I got the big beat/I get on down."

Surrounded by Chouinard's thundering drums, a brash Dizzee really rips it up.

"I've heard the gossip from the street to the slammer/They're tryin' to see if Dizzee stays true to his grammar/Being a celebrity don't mean shit to me/Fuck the glitz and the glamour, hey I'm with the blicks and gamma/Because they're talkin' 'bout rushin'/Talk behind my back but to my face they say nothin'/Stand up in the parks, keep a firm, steady stance/Keep the beanies touchin', keep the beanies hot flushin'."

The album ended up winning the Mercury Prize for best album from the U.K. and Ireland, peaked at #23 on the album chart and sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide by 2004. Dizzee Rascal singlehandedly brought grime music to the forefront and became the U.K.'s first internationally recognized rap star.

"Fix Up, Look Sharp" led to another hip hop rejuvenation for Squier, with "The Big Beat" sample showing up in Jay-Z's "99 Problems," Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire" and Kanye and Pusha T's "Looking for Trouble." In truth, the sample had already been showing up in varied songs including Beck's "Soul Suckin' Jerk," Britney Spears' "Oops! I Did It Again," A Tribe Called Quest's "We Can Get Down" and Alessia Cara's "Scars to Your Beautiful." The song has been sampled around 300 times, reportedly earning Squier millions in royalties. "The Stroke" has also been sampled in many songs, including Eminem's "Berserk" and Mickey Avalon's "Stroke Me." Sadly, Chouinard died in 1997 at age 44 of a massive heart attack.

Meanwhile, Dizzee Rascal has released seven more albums, including Don't Take It Personal earlier this year. He remains a U.K. phenomenon, but he's done well for himself. Not as well as Squier, who spends most of his time volunteering for the Central Park Conservancy in New York while the royalty checks keep rolling in.