MC Hammer -- U Can't Touch This

 

Getting into the 1990s, this is actually more of a Reminiscings of Young Adulthood article rather than a Reminiscings of Youth since I recall that entering 1990, I was some months into my 2-year stint as an English teacher on the JET Programme. But I'm as fine with a ROYA article as I am with a ROY one.

Growing up (and out), I came to realize that there are some songs which took over the pop culture zeitgeist for several months to a year. I think it was in 1976 that disco anthem "A Fifth of Beethoven" by Walter Murphy was pretty much everywhere whether I wanted to hear it or not. Then several years later, it was the big tracks from Michael Jackson's 1982 "Thriller" album such as "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" that got everyone's attention for a long time.

In 1990, if memory serves, I think it was MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" that stormed the castle of pop music. Looking at the Wikipedia article for the single, I was surprised that it came out so early in January since I had always thought of it was a mid-summer sort of tune. But no matter the time of the year, it was a huge hit.

As I said off the top, I was already living in Japan at the time so perhaps it took a while longer for the fame of "U Can't Touch This" to alight onto those Pacific shores, but when it did, the song got popular in the country, too. In fact, I remember watching the popular Thursday-night variety show starring zany comedy duo The Tunnels who did a parody of the music video (and just to warn you in advance, the guys did use makeup). MC Hammer himself even showed up to ham it up with Taka and Nori.

I have even seen "U Can't Touch This" make its way into anime.

I did end up buying the CD single of the song at some music store...perhaps it was Tokyo, Maebashi or even the city of Numata which was next to my residence in Tsukiyono-machi. It's hidden somewhere in the stacks of singles that I still have. However, I didn't end up buying those baggy pants or suddenly getting into a dance craze because of MC Hammer. Things were pretty conservative in my old town.

The thing is, when I first heard the song, I thought it sounded quite familiar. And I'm pretty sure that veteran funkster Rick James thought it sounded quite familiar, too, since "U Can't Touch This" took a riff from James' 1981 "Super Freak" (which is also on a 1980s compilation album that I own). Apparently, he wasn't too thrilled and it took some litigation to get both parties happy again.

One sign that an entertainer has truly made it big? He makes a commercial in Japan, and that was the case for MC Hammer.

Now, when "U Can't Touch This" was first released in freezing January 1990, there were of course a number of J-Pop songs that made it into the Top 10 that month. I will give you No. 1, No. 4 and No. 6.

No. 1 Tatsuro Yamashita -- Christmas Eve

No. 4 Saburo Tokito -- Yuuki no Shirushi （勇気のしるし）

No. 6 Go-Bangs -- Ai ni Kite I Need You （あいにきて I Need You)