Billy Squier

Billy Squier, born in 1950 and out of Boston, is what the early '80s sounded like with the windows rolled down. Don't Say No, his 1981 album on Capitol and the biggest seller he ever had, split the difference between hard rock muscle and power pop polish and set down a blueprint for arena rock: fat, strutting riffs, a stomping backbeat and hooks sharp enough to cut glass. "The Stroke" swaggers like it owns the whole block, "Lonely Is the Night" broods and burns, and "My Kinda Lover" struts right along with them.

Emotions in Motion followed in 1982 with "Everybody Wants You", and from 1981 to 1984 he could do little wrong: 5 Top 10 Mainstream Rock hits, 2 of them number ones, 3 platinum albums in a row and his videos spinning on MTV. Then the tide turned, a slide some blame on his 1984 video for "Rock Me Tonite", and after the 1993 album Tell the Truth flopped he mostly stopped making records, sticking to smaller tours and one-off shows.

His grooves outlived the hits. The drum break on his 1980 song "The Big Beat" has become one of the most sampled drum breaks around, borrowed by Run-DMC, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys among others, and Eminem built his 2013 hit "Berzerk" around a piece of "The Stroke".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.