2021 GLOBAL ANTHEM
I'm gonna go out on a limb here (not googling) and say this was probably only a top 40 hit down here in The Antipodes. I'd say they sold more records in my home-town of Mildura in regional Victoria, Australia than anywhere else in the world at this point in time. I'm sure this was No.1 on local radio station 3MA for months! Was Underworld's aim to become an honorary Aussie dance-rock band? To be fair amongst the Real Life/Icehouse/INXS vibes they also owe a great debt to Waterfront era Simple Minds and maybe The The circa Infected. Their paranoia and even the robot man's nefarious one world order mantra "Think Global, Act Local" comes straight out of the Midnight Oil playbook. It is a weird song. People used to say dancing to Infected was so fucked up because it's a song about contracting HIV, dancing to Underneath The Radar is a bit like celebrating your powerlessness over the inevitability of authoritarianism finally taking over. While the sounds are quintessential mid/late 80s, the vibe is soo very 2020s. I'm diggin it A LOT! In fact I'm obsessed with this song now. Perhaps a 2021 re-mix/re-release would send it to the top of the global charts.
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