Men Without Hats

Men Without Hats is a Canadian New Wave group whose music is characterized by the distinctive baritone voice of their lead singer Ivan Doroschuk as well as their elaborate use of synthesizers and electronic processing. They achieved their greatest popularity in the early to mid 1980s with their most successful single, "The Safety Dance", a Top 10 hit in both the US and the UK. Their other big success was the 1987 hit, "Pop Goes the World".

Men Without Hats initially consisted of Ivan Doroschuk and Jeremie Arrobas, as well as Ivan's brother Stefan, with various other members joining and leaving the group. The band was founded in 1977 in Montreal and would undergo numerous personnel changes through the rest of the decade with Stefan, Colin, and Arrobas as the only relative constants joining Ivan.

Their first release was the EP Folk of the 80's, released in 1980. Their 1982 debut album Rhythm of Youth featured a hit in Canada with "The Safety Dance", which peaked at #11 in May of 1983. The song spent four weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and was also a major hit in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at #6, and reached the top ten in various European countries. The song also peaked at #2 in New Zealand, and was rated the eleventh biggest selling single of the year in South Africa in 1983.

Men Without Hats released the album Folk of the 80's (Part III) in 1984, and the lead single "Where Do The Boys Go?" was a top 40 hit in Canada. In 1985, the band released the EP Freeways, consisting of multiple, and multi-lingual, remixes of one of their earliest efforts, "Freeways". To support the EP, the group undertook a related tour, footage from which would be released on DVD as Live Hats in 2006.

The band released the album Pop Goes the World in 1987 with the album's title track reached #20 on the Billboard Hot 100, #2 on the Canadian Singles Chart, and was #1 in Austria. The song was also featured in the 1987 film Date with an Angel.

Their next album, The Adventures of Women & Men Without Hate in the 21st Century, released in 1989, featured a cover of ABBA's song "SOS". Their 1991 album Sideways, dominated by processed electric guitars instead of keyboards. After this, the band officially disbanded, although Ivan Doroschuk and keyboardist Bruce Murphy would record several demos in 1993.

Stefan and Ivan Doroschuk later regrouped in 2003 to release the album No Hats Beyond This Point. In September 2010, Ivan reformed Men Without Hats, with three hired backup musicians, and appeared at the Rifflandia Music Festival in Victoria, British Columbia, performing ten songs from the Men Without Hats back catalogue. In March 2012, the band announced via Facebook that their next album would be called Love in the Age of War and be released in May of that year.