Tell - me something: why do I always find it hard just to get along?
When this hit the club - and normalocharts back in 1984 it was the first time the world started to notice Level 42. OK, before that were minor hits like Heavy Weather and Microkid, but Hot Water hit eighties Europe like - well, like a big, biiiiig, subwoofer's bass hits you right in the solar plexus.
Never before was the broad public exposed to such a brute dose of Jazz-Funk: Ok, there were soft options like Shakatak, Mezzoforte or even The Style Council, but nobody started a track with a massive unisono 16th's riff of bass, guitar, synths and brass, rested for a bar and then launched in the most pulsating, vibrant bass track ever.
Especially interesting live (when the bass track is transplanted to a sequenced DX7 slap bass on acid with ca 30 percent speed increase), this went into countless now mid thirty-ish's bottoms and caused mass panic on dance floors.
Composed by their producer Wally Badarou together with Mike Lindup, Phil Gould and Mark King, even the lyrics were rousing and a classic battle between adolescent sons and their dads.
Although a reviled band in a reviled genre, Level 42 made one lasting impact with this song: bass lines were never ever the same....
Indeed, an impeccable groove.