“Centerfold” (J. Geils Band)

Today’s classic early MTV song of the day is “Centerfold” by the J. Geils Band. The single was released a month after the launch of MTV, in September of 1981. Propelled by its video filled with sexy schoolgirls, “Centerfold” went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February of the following year.

“Centerfold” is another perfect piece of power pop that helped define the early MTV era. It’s a catchy little ditty and that sing-song “nah nah nah” chorus is the ultimate earworm.

The song’s video helped, too; who can resist a bevy of fresh-faced teenaged schoolgirls in a series of sexy outfits? (The girls in the video were students at a dance school above where they were shooting the video, not professional actresses.) The video was directed by Paul Justman, the brother of the band’s keyboard player Seth Justman, who also wrote the song.

“Centerfold” is about a guy who discovers that the girl he used to have a crush on in high school became the centerfold for an unnamed men’s magazine. That happened to me, sort of; I went to high school with a girl named Pam Bryant, who later (as Pamela Jean Bryant) appeared in a Girls of the Big 10 pictorial in the September 1977 of Playboy magazine and was later the centerfold for the magazine’s April 1978 issue. I didn’t date or have a crush on Ms. Bryant, although she was friends with some friends of mine and I admired her from afar. She was a cheerleader back then, so I wouldn’t have stood a chance, anyway. (Sadly, Pam passed away in 2010 at just 51 years of age.)

“Centerfold” was the lead single from the band’s tenth album, Freeze Frame, and the one that put the group on the map. Its synth-heavy pop backing was a big departure from the band’s usual blues-based sound, but a successful one. The group went on to have further success with the album’s title song, which hit #4 on the Hot 100.

The J. Geils Band consisted of namesake John “J” Geils on guitar, Peter Wolf on vocals, Seth Justman on keyboards, Richard “Magic Dick” Schwartz on sax and harmonica, Danny Klein on bass, and Stephen Bladd on drums. They formed the band back in 1967 in Worcester, Massachusetts, playing R&B-influenced blues rock in local clubs. Wolf left the group in 1983 and the band broke up in 1986. J. Geils passed away in 2017, aged 71.