Song · Escape Club
“Wild Wild West” by Escape Club
Released 1988
“Wild Wild West” by Escape Club appears on 8 radio countdowns from 6 stations between 1988 and 2023. It was first released in 1988. Its best result is #16 on the WLIR Top 100 Songs of 1988. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #11 alternative song of 1988, #6,844 alternative song of all time and #105 of the '80s.
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The title track of the Escape Club's 1988 debut album was born by happy accident. As singer Trevor Steel tells it, a bandmate caught a Run-DMC track on TV one night and hurried to program a hip-hop beat into his drum machine, but it came out at double the speed; Steel turned up the next morning, started singing over it, and the song was finished in a couple of hours. The rap section was only meant for the extended 12-inch mix, but they liked the long version so much they released the whole thing.
It's cheeky, breathless pop rock, peppered with gunshots and sci-fi laser blasts, and it went all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1988, making the band the only British act to top the US chart without ever charting at home.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 31 | KROQ Los Angeles, CA | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1988 | 107 |
| 1988 | 19 | 91X San Diego, CA / Tijuana | 91X Top 91 Songs of 1988 | 91 |
| 1988 | 42 | Live 105 San Francisco, CA | Live 105 Top 105.3 Songs of 1988 | 106 |
| 1988 | 16 | WLIR / WDRE Long Island, NY | WLIR Top 100 Songs of 1988 | 100 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | 481 | KROQ | KROQ Flashback 500 (Memorial Day 1989) | 495 |
| 2002 | 1887 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (July 2002) | 2002 |
| 2003 | 1955 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003) | 2044 |
| 2023 | 786 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 800 Songs About Places | 800 |
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