Member-only story
“You Can’t Stop The Beat” — From Hairspray
There’s no question of you sitting around on your sofa when “You Can’t Stop The Beat” comes on. From the moment those sparky horns fire up for the intro, you want to be on your feet.
“You Can’t Stop The Beat” sets the standard by which all other songs labelled “infectious” needs to be measured.
Mostly that description is used for songs that want you make to snap your fingers or tap your toes. “You Can’t Stop The Beat”, on the other hand, makes you want to slide down 5th Avenue on your knees, arms held high, before jumping on the roof of a taxi cab for an impromptu dance routine.
That’s what infectious looks like. And it’s exactly what this song delivers.
The big closing number to the musical “Hairspray” had a long gestation. “Hairspray” first saw the light of day in 1988 as a comedy movie. With themes around the dismantling of racial prejudice, people not judging others by their size and the dramatic device of casting drag queen Divine as one of the female lead characters, the original movie version was probably a little ahead of its time.
The idea was picked up much more successfully in the early 2000s when the original movie was used as the inspiration for an award-winning, and long-running, Broadway musical.
