Turn Up The Radio

This was the only hit for Autograph, which was a Rock band from Los Angeles. The band members were music veterans, but had been together only a few months when they got a huge gig opening for Van Halen on their 1984 tour. David Lee Roth would jog with Autograph drummer Keni Richards, and invited them on the tour after hearing their demo tape. "Turn Up The Radio," with it's anthemic chorus and quotable lyric "Things go better with rock," was their only hit; the band released two more albums and broke up in 1989.

MTV was 3 years old when this song was released, and it was attracting a huge audience. In one of the earliest examples of product placement in a music video, Paper Mate funded the video in exchange for the band using their pen in the clip, which shows the band "Signing in" at the beginning. It was a great bit of marketing, as the video went into regular rotation on MTV, and Paper Mate got to demonstrate the benefits of their amazing erasable pen. Yes, hair metal and erasable pens - we were definitely in the '80s.

This song was used on an episode of Miami Vice, and also appeared in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.