“Everybody Wants You” by Billy Squier

"Everybody Wants You" kicks off Billy Squier's 1982 album Emotions in Motion, the follow-up single to the title track, and it's a lesson in how to make hard rock swing. Squier wrote it alone and produced it with Mack, who recorded it, then mixed it himself with David Thoener, for Capitol. Three guitars and a bass lock into a riff that's as funky as it is heavy, and the production has a sleek new wave gloss to match, and MTV kept the video in heavy rotation for months.

Album rock radio couldn't let go of it: from late August into early October 1982 it held the top of Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart for six straight weeks. On the pop side it stopped at 32, Squier's third Top 40 single after "The Stroke" and "In the Dark", and it later turned up on his 1995 hits set 16 Strokes.

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