Nazareth - Holiday

"Holiday" is a catchy tongue-in-cheek rock song that cleverly folds in several different musical styles (in particular, the chorus has a Caribbean feel that contrasts nicely with the rock verses).  It was released in 1980, and was off Nazareth's wonderfully named Malice in Wonderland LP, which goes on my "coolest album names ever" list, along with Thomas Dolby's Aliens Ate My Buick and the Hoodoo Gurus' Mars Needs Guitars.

Nazareth is an interesting band who never quite made it big, but managed to have a moderately successful career, while making some seriously good music.  The band started in Scotland in 1968 (!) and between 1975 and 1981, they had 7 consecutive albums break the U.S. top 100, although only 1975's Hair of the Dog broke the top 20.  We believe that they are an official one hit wonder, as only "Love Hurts" broke the top 40.  How "Hair of the Dog" didn't chart is beyond us.

"Holiday" did in fact chart, but it peaked at #87 in 1980.  The video combines the band performing with a young man playing a video game in a seemingly random way, but maybe it made more sense in 1980.  At any rate, it is a decent effort for an early video -- remember that MTV didn't even launch until August 1981. [As an aside, "Holiday" was played on MTV on the first day the channel was running -- it was video #138.]

Nazareth would continue to release albums on a regular basis through the 1980s, but without much success.  They continue to record and tour to this day -- the very definition of a hard working band.

Cool trivia fact that may interest only us:  The video game being played in the "Holiday" video is Super Road Champions, made by Model Racing in 1978.