Reaching For The Stars, Vol. 123

Chart Week: February 4, 1984
Song: “Break My Stride” – Matthew Wilder
Chart Position: #5, 21st week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for three weeks.

Nearly five weeks into the new year without any RFTS entries. Trust me, it’s been keeping me awake at night. Fortunately, during the countdown I listened to last week, Matthew Wilder’s biggest (but not only!)[1] hit was spending its final week in the top five. It surprisingly offers plenty to talk about.

After years of singing backup for artists like Rickie Lee Jones and Bette Midler, and for TV commercials, Wilder signed with Arista Records in 1981. At the time the label was run by the legend Clive Davis, a man responsible for guiding some of the biggest acts in music history. There was some friction between the two. Over his first three years on the label, every track Wilder submitted was rejected by Davis.

Growing frustrated, Wilder wrote “Break My Stride.” Although presented as an ode to being resilient after a relationship ends, Wilder said it was directly about his interactions with Davis. He laid down a demo, sent it to Arista, and…crickets. Not even a rejection, just no response at all. Wilder made some calls and eventually someone found his cassette. On it was a note from Davis saying, “Interesting song, but not a hit.”

Fed up with years of neglect, Wilder asked for, and was granted, a release from his contract. Using his own money, he recorded a fully mastered version of the track that he shopped to other companies. Eventually Private I Records picked it up. And, soon, Wilder proved Davis wrong.

That’s a nice little story about an artist getting lost in the major label machine and fighting for his work to be noticed. The kind of story Casey might share on his show.[2] There’s also another, much better, story about “Break My Stride” that I’m pretty sure Casey would never have included on a broadcast.

For a full decade, Joe Isgro, owner of Private I, was under federal investigation for allegedly making Payola payments to get the label’s music inserted into radio playlists. While the investigation eventually ended in 1996, without any charges being filed, the Feds did determine that Isgro had bought airtime for “Break My Stride.”[3] Perhaps coincidentally, Private I did not invest in making a video for the song.[4]

So, a record came out-of-nowhere, from an artist who had never before hit the pop chart, without any MTV presence, and spent over a month in the top 10 in 1983/4? Shady, for sure.

Although Wilder deserves credit for writing a tune that caught on and spent over six months on the pop chart, you have to acknowledge that fraud helped it gain traction.

That said, I look at Payola in radio similar to how I look at steroids in baseball in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The era was rife with cheating; it wasn’t just Bonds and McGuire and Sosa. I am almost positive there were other tunes on the chart at the same time as “Break My Stride” whose airplay numbers were juiced[5] by bribes to program directors. So as with the most notorious stars of the Steroid Era, I think it’s fair to put an asterisk next to the record while still accepting that it made a dent in pop culture.[6]

“Break My Stride” is so relentlessly optimistic that it can wear you down. While the verses are built around that failed romance, the choruses are a much more universal refusal to let negativity overwhelm you. An ex shouldn’t make you give up on love. Spinning your wheels at work shouldn’t keep you from being ambitious. And a music label mogul who keeps telling you no sure as hell can’t stop you from achieving your dream. It is almost Pollyanna-ish, yet Wilder’s tone is so pure that you are defenseless as it slowly seeps through your armor of cynicism. There’s a part of me that truly hates this song, yet I will almost always start humming along when I hear it. Which makes me hate myself a little bit. Until I realize that I’m happier than I was three minutes earlier.

Dammit.

The true power of the song lies in that light, almost childlike, keyboard riff. That mutherfucker will get stuck in your head. There’s a hint of the islands, without it trying to be a reggae track. It sounds more like it was made in a bedroom on a laptop in 2004 than in a proper studio in 1983. Oh shit, did Matthew Wilder invent Bedroom Pop???

As I tend to do, I’m probably overthinking all of this. It’s just a dumb little pop song that never should have been a hit, but somehow stood toe-to-toe with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney, Hall and Oates, Duran Duran, and Billy Joel for a few weeks.

“Break My Stride” has been covered a couple times. It’s been ripped off by Puffy and Aaron Carter for their own “original” tracks. It has been used in countless films and advertising campaigns.[7] It was even one of the first old songs to turn into a Tik Tok trend. If you hate it, it is like the proverbial cockroach that just can’t be killed. If it has worn you down, though, Wilder’s words and music are a reminder that when in doubt, you’ve got to keep on movin’. 7/10

This “performance” is something else.