I've heard people deride Huey Lewis and the News as a glorified bar band that blew up in the conservative rock and roll throwback trend of the 1980s. To believe that I think negates the consummate songwriting skill this band had going for a good run during their heyday.

Listen to the instrumental work in "The Heart of Rock and Roll." This is no bar band just slapping their instruments for the gals and guys on a Friday night. There is extreme detail work in the way the guitars, bass, and keyboard dovetail into each other to form its core groove. Huey Lewis's swaggery melody stands out front but fits within the overall composition too. It's so right to have this all set around that heartbeat effect, because the whole band really does work together like a pulmonary system, every hit and accent in its right place.

The song deals with an idea that maybe some music purists were dealing with at the time, during the rise of punk, new wave, hair metal, thrash metal, and all the other new derivations, all threatening to overtake "traditional" rock. Huey Lewis was ever the welcoming moderate, pointing out calmly, affably, that, despite what the new scenes were producing (sadly leaving out Minneapolis), he could easily see that it was all still based on that one truth of all rock and roll: That killer backbeat. The song has such conviction to this idea that they augment the backbeat with a literal heartbeat, associating the key rhythm of rock and roll with one of the most symbolic phenomena of human biology.

That heartbeat sound effect probably makes this more of a novelty song in some people's minds; it's at least a light bit of throwaway humor. But the longer I think about it, the more it leaves maybe a more profound impression than it intended.

Also, can we get some respect for the barry sax solo in this song? It's not an epic long one, but it blows it out, man.