Song · Thomas Dolby
“Airhead” by Thomas Dolby
From the album Aliens Ate My Buick (1988)
“Airhead” by Thomas Dolby appears on 3 radio countdowns from 3 stations between 1988 and 2003. It was first released in 1988 on the album Aliens Ate My Buick. Its best result is #49 on the KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1988. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #132 alternative song of 1988 and #7,112 alternative song of all time.
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Video from YouTube (Thomas Dolby). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube
"Airhead" was the first single from Aliens Ate My Buick, Thomas Dolby's third album, in 1988: a sly character sketch he wrote with Grant Morris and produced with Bill Bottrell. The target was real. Dolby told the Associated Press that year that the song was about one particular woman he knew first-hand, and that her real offence was acting like an airhead when she had a perfectly good brain.
EMI Manhattan pressed it up in 7-inch and 12-inch formats, with remixes from Rusty Garner and from François Kevorkian and Goh Hotoda. It stalled at 53 in the UK but made it to 6 on Billboard's Hot Dance Music Club Play chart, and Drew Takahashi directed the video from a concept Dolby came up with himself.
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 | 49 | KROQ Los Angeles, CA | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1988 | 107 |
| 1988 | 82 | 91X San Diego, CA / Tijuana | 91X Top 91 Songs of 1988 | 91 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | 1847 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003) | 2044 |
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