Here’s another record that I picked up a million years ago as a promo.  From the cover the guys looked a little punky and they had funny names, so what the hell.  It didn’t really grab me — seemed a little too poppy — so I stuck it in my stacks and forgot about it.  Just another eighties band that vanished without a trace.

Now, here’s the funny thing: Lady Pank has been big for the last thirty years, I just didn’t know it.

Thanks to the intergooglewebtubes I’ve learned that the band is still kicking around their native Poland, and have released twenty studio albums and another dozen live records and compilations.   Look them up on YouTube — you’ll see that some of their clips have gotten two million hits.

Drop Everything was their attempt to break into the US/UK market.  It’s a very competent mid-eighties kind of affair with a strong Police influence.  Given some unknown set of circumstances Lady Pank may have been huge.  Maybe they needed to look more like those A-Ha guys.

My guess is that being on MCA probably didn’t help matters much.  By the mid-eighties the MCA label was associated with safe dance music – the Pointer Sisters, for example.  They probably saw Lady Pank’s European success, thought they were finally going to get a foothold with the punk/new wave kids, and fell flat on their faces.  I don’t know — purely a guess.

Anyway, if you want a copy you shouldn’t have to spend too much — under ten dollars easy.  It’s an interesting novelty, and will give you something to talk about with your Polish friends.