“Never Say Never” by Romeo Void

"Never Say Never" came out of Romeo Void in 1982 in two versions: first on an EP for the independent 415 Records, then re-cut for Benefactor, the band's second album and first for a major label, Columbia. The Benefactor take is the tidied-up one, trimmed to roughly half its original length and scrubbed of the swear words so radio could handle it.

What survives the cleanup is the groove: a thick, throbbing bass line with real funk in its hips, jagged guitar slashing across the top and saxophone honking through the gaps. It's post-punk nerve riding a dance-floor pulse, cool and a little menacing, the kind of record that dares you to look away.

Five names share the writing credit, Debora Iyall, Benjamin Bossi, Larry Carter, Peter Woods and Frank Zincavage, and Ian Taylor produced. Early MTV couldn't get enough of it, thanks to a black-and-white video that sends up Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, and in March 1982 it climbed to number 17 on Billboard's dance chart.

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