Thanks to ‘Wednesday,’ All the Teenage Goo Goo Mucks Are Listening to ‘The Cramps’
Much like various and sundry characters from The Addams Family, the Cramps rose from the grave this week and onto the charts. After an episode of Netflix’s Wednesday featured the band’s 1981 version of the 1962 Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads single “Goo Goo Muck,” Billboard reports that by this past Monday, the song was up to 134,000 daily streams.
The Tim Burton show — which has been a smash hit since premiering on Nov. 23 — follows the titular Addams daughter (played by Jenna Ortega) as she leaves home to attend the Hogwarts-esque Nevermore Academy, where she runs into any number of foes. Although the school is populated by what the townies called “outcasts,” Wednesday is somehow the biggest outlier of all, which she displays to great effect during a school dance when she dominates the dance floor to the Cramps. “Thanks to Siouxsie Sioux, Bob Fosse’s Rich Man’s Frug, Lisa Loring, Lene Lovich, Denis Lavant, and archival footage of goths dancing in clubs in the ’80s. Helped me out on this one,” Ortega recently tweeted of the now-iconic scene.
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Thanks to Siouxsie Sioux, Bob Fosse’s Rich Man’s Frug, Lisa Loring, Lene Lovich, Denis Lavant, and archival footage of goths dancing in clubs in the 80’s. Helped me out on this one. https://t.co/zlxlv1JUW4
— Jenna Ortega (@jennaortega) November 25, 2022
The song — and dance — are also taking off on TikTok, where users are attempting to replicate Ortega’s moves.
The Cramps appeared — by proxy — on the cover of Rolling Stone in 2014 when cover star Lorde wore a band T-shirt. Formed in New York in 1976, the Cramps showcased the theatrical punkabilly styling of late frontman Lux Interior and his wife, guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach. They only ever hit the charts with the 1990 single “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns” but carved out a cult following with their throwback rock riddled with horror imagery and funky darkness. Now, it seems, they’ve found a whole new generation of goth kids to drag out onto the dancefloor. Stranger Things gave Kate Bush a delayed top ten hit when the show featured “Running Up That Hill” — perhaps the Cramps aren’t far behind.
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