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Credit: Far Out \/ Alan Light \/ Lars Richter<\/p>\n
October 20th, 2026 \u00b7 10:30pm BST <\/p>\n
In the\u00a01990s<\/a>, Chris Isaak\u2019s biggest hit, \u2018Wicked Game\u2019, was playing almost everywhere. So much so that you could easily have passed it off as another industry tale of instant success, a song so destined for greatness it practically wrote itself. But really, it was anything but.\u00a0<\/p>\n It serves as a metaphor for Isaak\u2019s career<\/a>, one that has rather bizarrely straddled success and obscurity. <\/p>\n Until its release, Isaak was enduring a somewhat middling career, where his songs would be released to a small number of dedicated fans while the rest of the world failed to connect with them on any deeper level. So sure, he was enjoying the life of a full-time musician, but not at the level he had hoped for.\u00a0<\/p>\n The now-iconic track from his 1989 album Heart Shaped World was supposed to be the track that changed that trajectory. To Isaak, it fitted the entire profile of something that was destined to be a hit, not just sonically with its infectious vocal hook, but because of how simply it came to him, in a matter of minutes. If there\u2019s one thing musicians passionately believe, it\u2019s that hits present themselves effortlessly.<\/p>\n But its initial release brought none of that expected success. Sure, it went down well with Isaak\u2019s fans, but the mould was yet to be broken. Then Isaak received a phone call, letting him know that the surrealist director David Lynch was going to use an acoustic version of the track in his upcoming film, Wild at Heart<\/a>. <\/p>\n Flattering, of course, but hardly a route to commercial success: Lynch and commercialism have never gone hand in hand. \u201cI enjoy talking about David Lynch because he\u2019s such a great guy,\u201d Isaak said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe question I get about him is, \u2018How is David Lynch? Is he scary or spooky or something?\u2019 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s ever guys who make films like David makes or who have that kind of weird bent in their artwork \u2013 those guys are probably the nicest guys in real life because they\u2019ve expressed all of their weird angles,\u201d said Isaak. <\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n Adding, \u201cThe guys you have to watch are the guys who go, \u2018I\u2019m a scout master, the proud father of two children, and I\u2019m also a deacon in the church\u2019. Then you go, \u2018Be careful. If he\u2019s out in the back yard at night with a shovel, be careful because he\u2019s burying something\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if it never became a global hit, Isaak was happy for the song to have a place in the world of such a groundbreaking director. But then, upon the release of the film, something changed. Suddenly, \u2018Wicked Game\u2019 was tapping into the zeitgeist in a way that only Lynch could genuinely achieve, and everyone was playing it everywhere. At first, it was inseparable from Lynch\u2019s dreamlike world<\/a>, but by the end of the decade, the song had made an identity for itself. <\/p>\n It eventually rose to the sixth spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 before continuing to achieve cult status among music and film fans, both old and new. Today, it\u2019s been streamed over a billion times, and it\u2019s hard to believe it ever failed to land.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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