Men Without Hats (2 albums) Pop Goes The World and Greatest Hats [FLAC] [h33t] - Kitlope

Men Without Hats is a pop group from Montreal, Quebec characterized by the deep, expressive vocals of their lead singer Ivan and 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.

At the core, Men Without Hats consisted of Ivan Doroschuk and his brother Stefan, with various other members, including a third brother, Colin, as well as Jeremie Arrobas, Tracy Howe, Roman Martyn, Mike Gabriel, Heidi Garcia, Jean-Marc Pisapia, Lenny Pinkas, and Allan McCarthy. They emerged with an EP called Folk of the 80's (1980). Tracy Howe was only with the band briefly, but long enough to be credited on a reprint of Folk of the 80s, despite not appearing on it; he later achieved some success with his new band, Rational Youth. Pisapia went on to form The Box, and later, Arrobas and Gabriel left to work with him for a while, eventually founding their own group, Isinglass.

A popular but unconfirmed tale is that the name originated from a misread announcement to one of their early gigs as "Men Without Pants" by a francophone MC in Montreal.

The band erupted onto the international scene a couple of years later with their worldwide hit single "The Safety Dance" from their debut album Rhythm of Youth. The song spent four weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and was also a major hit in the UK (#6), in Canada (#12), in what was West Germany (#2), in South Africa (#1), in Austria (#7), in Sweden (#3), in Norway (#3), and in Switzerland (#4). They charted once again with the title track from their 1987 album, Pop Goes the World, which reached #20 in the US, #3 in South Africa, and #1 in Austria. The song was also featured in the movie Date with an Angel (1987), starring Phoebe Cates, Emmanuelle Béart and Michael E. Knight. The 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, revealed a dramatically different sound for the band due to synthpop falling out of style. The album failed to attract an American label despite the groups efforts in convincing their record company that it would be the next big thing, but their label would have no part of it, and the band became disbanded.

Years after that, Allan McCarthy died of AIDS in 1995. Ivan released a solo album, The Spell, in 1997. Stefan and Mack MacKenzie (of 3 O'Clock Train) released Ride of Glory, a post-modern Western-themed CD.

Stefan and Ivan regrouped to release No Hats Beyond This Point in 2003.