(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sat 7 March 2026 7:00, UK
Anyone even remotely interested in being a rock and roll frontman should practically study every move Mick Jagger has ever made.
The Rolling Stones may have been more than the sum of their parts every time they started playing, but when it came to the live show, there was no one on the planet more animated than Jagger whenever he started breaking out the rooster dance moves and running around every piece of the stage. He will forever be the benchmark of what showmanship was supposed to be, but no one gets to be that famous without running into a few pitfalls along the way.
Then again, Keith Richards was usually the one helping to keep Jagger in check half the time. It’s no secret that they weren’t always getting along whenever they were making their records, but they learned the number-one rule of being in a band better than anyone else: your band members are more important than you think. Jagger might have tried for a solo career many times, but it was always going to work out better when he had Keef’s riffs chugging away behind him.
But that’s not to say that the band couldn’t have a few special guests on their records every now and again. Anyone in their right mind would have loved to have John Lennon and Paul McCartney singing on one of their singles, and when they reached their classic period in the 1970s, you could hear them taking influences from outside of conventional rock and roll, whether that was bringing in Merry Clayton to deliver one of the best vocals in rock history on ‘Gimme Shelter’ or Gram Parsons introducing Richards to country music during Exile on Main St.
All that was well and good, but Jagger did have a fixation on what was popular at any given time. He wasn’t quite the trendchaser that you’d see in the modern age, but if there was any new fad in rock and roll, it didn’t take long for him to become obsessed with it. It wasn’t always to see him try out being a disco singer on ‘Miss You’, but you have to remember that things could always get worse. And in the 1980s, we found out exactly how worse it could get when David Bowie came into the picture.
While it sounds insane to think that any song would be tainted by ‘The Starman’s presence, you have to remember where he was in the 1980s. Let’s Dance had been one of his biggest smashes, and since he was now entering his “Phil Collins years”, Jagger was more than willing to have a little bit of fun when they started working on a cover of the Motown classic ‘Dancing in the Street’.
But even without the embarrassing video, Jagger felt that he should have worked with Bowie more than on this one duet, saying, “We had to record the song and film the video all in one day. We walked straight from the studio onto the set of the video. At the end of the day, we were saying, ‘See, it can be done! Why are you spending years in the studio?’ We enjoyed camping it up. The video is hilarious to watch. It was the only time we really collaborated on anything, which is really stupid when you think about it.”
If we’re judging the song solely on the video, though, to say that they are chewing the scenery at every opportunity would be an understatement. Compared to the visual marvels that Bowie was used to, the whole video feels like him and The Stones’ frontman trying to outdo each other at every single opportunity, which gets all the more funny with the dated 1980s fashions they were wearing.
Yes, it’s absolutely stupid, but it’s not like it tarnishes the legacy of Jagger or Bowie, either. If anything, this is one of the prime pieces of 1980s cheese that has only become better with age, and even if they are gyrating like a bunch of rock and roll dads, it’s impossible to really hate on something like this without getting a few laughs.