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'''s Top 5 and sold just under 3 million copies in the US alone. The lead single was the album's title track, but the album's biggest hit was "Everybody Wants You" which held the #1 spot on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks for 6 weeks and reached #32 on the Hot 100. Squier was also popular on MTV. That same year, he recorded a song, "Fast Times (The Best Years of Our Lives)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Two years passed between Emotions in Motion and Squier's next album Signs of Life. It was his third consecutive Platinum album. The album's first single release, "Rock Me Tonite" was Squier's biggest 'Pop' hit. It reached #15 on Billboard's Hot 100 - as well as #1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart - in late 1984. However, the video for the track (directed by Kenny Ortega - Xanadu, High School Musical) which shows Squier dancing around a bedroom in a pink tank top, frequently appears on "worst music video ever" lists.
Billy Squier's career took a major downturn afterward. His next two albums, released in 1986 and 1989, sold in the neighborhood of 300,000 copies each. He began playing smaller venues like music theatres. The 1990s would find Squier largely off the radar and recording and performing considerably less.
Squier is also known for his collaborations with Queen frontman Freddie Mercury on Squier's 1986 release Enough is Enough ("Love Is The Hero", "Lady With A Tenor Sax"). Mercury also sang background vocals on Squier's hit single "Emotions in Motion", along with Queen drummer Roger Taylor
. In 1983, Squier did his first headlining arena U.S. tour with Def Leppard as opening act. On the VH1 show Ultimate Albums (Def Leppard "Hysteria" episode), Squier revealed that his career as a chart-topping rocker came to a rapid and sudden end with the release of the "Rock Me Tonite" video, derided by his fans who saw him as a guitar hero.
Later years Nevertheless, Squier continued to record music throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He released Hear & Now in 1989, which featured the singles "Don't Say You Love Me" (which peaked at #4 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart) and "Tied Up".
In 1991, Billy Squier released Creatures of Habit, which yielded only one single, "She Goes Down," which also peaked at #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart. The title of the track refers to oral sex, and the music video is a very rare item, mainly because it features nude females and sexual metaphors throughout.
Squier released his final album with Capitol Records in 1993, Tell the Truth, which featured different sets of musicians performing the various tracks. Squier called it his finest album since ''Don't Say No, yet Capitol did little to promote the album, and Squier walked away from the music business to pursue other endeavors.
In 1998, Squier released his last studio album to date on an independent label, a solo acoustic blues effort entitled Happy Blue. He embarked on a mini-tour to showcase songs from the album, which included a stripped-down acoustic version of his classic rock mega-hit, "The Stroke."
As time passed, many of his albums became out of print, leaving the albums of "Don't Say No" and some greatest hits compilations; however, many of his albums are now being reprinted.
Recent activity Squier played a special acoustic show at BB King's in NYC on November 30, 2005. Highlights of the show were acoustic versions of "Everybody Wants You", "Nobody Knows", "Learn How to Live", "The Stroke", "Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You", and most of the 1998 Happy Blue CD. VH1 Classic and New York hard rock radio icon Eddie Trunk introduced Squier that night as "one of the great singer/songwriters in the history of rock."
Squier now lives in New York's Upper West Side. Sampling of "The Big Beat" continues. The late Jam Master Jay's reference to the song as a classic beat in the early days of hip hop has paid great dividends for Squier. The three piece hip hop group performed a track live at The Funhouse entitled "Here We Go", using the song's backbeat. Jay Z's "99 Problems," a massive hit in 2003, is based on that beat, as well as British grime/hip-hop MC Dizzee Rascal's "Fix Up, Look Sharp" and Kanye West's "Addiction".
Squier's hobbies include such various activities as mountain climbing and gardening. He also has written an award-winning screenplay.
In 2006, Squier joined Richard Marx, Edgar Winter, Rod Argent, and Sheila E touring with Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band. A documentary of the tour including a full length concert performance is now available on DVD.
In 2008, Squier joined Colin Hay, Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Hamish Stuart and Gregg Bissonette touring with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band.
In 2009, Squier launched a nation-wide summer/fall tour with a band that included drummer Nir Z, guitarist Marc Copely, long-time bassist Mark Clarke and keyboard player Alan St. Jon.
Influence and legacy "The Stroke" can be heard in the films Blades of Glory, Billy Madison, Crank 2 and is heard briefly in ''Let's Go to Prison.
RZA referenced Billy on Masta Killa's "Iron God Chamber." On the 2006 song, RZA said:
"I got a bigger beat than Billy Squier" at about 1:22. The song appeared on Masta Killa's Made in Brooklyn.
Hard rock band Buckcherry cover "The Stroke" frequently in live concerts, while Damone have recorded a version of "Everybody Wants You" for the CW Network.
The drum track from "The Stroke" can be heard throughout the song "Opticon" by Orgy.
Jay-Z's "99 Problems" samples the drum beat from Squier's "The Big Beat".
The entire instrumentation to Dizzee Rascal's first hit single "Fix Up, Look Sharp" consists of clips from "The Big Beat": the intro drum beat, the entire intro vocal, a drum roll from later in the song, and a short "Whoa" yell.
"Lonely Is the Night" is one of the tracks on the Activision game Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s and Guitar Hero 5. This song also appeared in the season four episode of Supernatural, entitled "Are you there God? It's me, Dean Winchester."
"Everybody Wants You" is featured on USA Network's advertising of the second season of their television series Burn Notice.
In 2008, the song “Christmas is the Time To Say I Love You” was featured in the game "Rock Band".
Personal life In 2002, he married Nicole, a professional German soccer player. They divide their time between a home on Long Island and an apartment in the famous San Remo on Central Park West in Manhattan. Billy Squier is an active volunteer for the Central Park Conservancy, doing the hands-on "dirty work" by maintaining 20 acres of the park, as well as promoting the Conservancy in articles and interviews. He also supports the Group for the East End and its native planting programs on eastern Long Island.
Discography - Tale of the Tape (1980) #169 US
- ''Don't Say No (1981) #5 US
- Emotions in Motion (1982) #5 US
- Signs of Life (1984) #11 US
- Enough Is Enough (1986) #61 US
- Hear & Now (1989) #64 US
- Creatures of Habit (1991) #117 US
- Tell the Truth (1993)
- A Rock and Roll Christmas (Various Artists Compilation) (1994)
- 16 Strokes: The Best of Billy Squier (1995)
- King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Billy Squier (1996)
- Reach For The Sky: The Anthology (1996)
- Happy Blue (1998)
- Absolute Hits (2005)
Singles
Copyright Citations
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