Why Scandal’s Goodbye To You Was A Perfect Rock and Roll Moment

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Back in 1982, music fans were turned on immensely by a video that MTV began playing in heavy rotation on their still very young music channel. That video starred a brand new band led by a beautiful female vocalist named Patty Smyth. Fans fell hard for this video for multiple reasons. First and foremost, the song being performed in the video entitled “Goodbye To You,” was a staggering catchy and fun rock and roll tune that was incredibly addicting. The song’s instrumentation and production were highly representative of the new wave sound of the early,  1980s, yet rocked hard with a magnificent pop sensibility that defined a perfect rock and roll moment in time.

There have been thousands of great rock and roll songs recorded and released in classic rock history that have gone nowhere. Scandal’s “Goodbye To You,” could have easily been one of them. It was not, and the reason why was simple; Patty Smyth. This great new singer delivered the goods on every level. Patty Smyth had a killer voice. It was pitch perfect, had a wonderful resonance and it was full of emotion. Patty Smyth’s voice was also very original sounding. It definitely had a New York attitude. There was really no other female singers that she could have been compared to at the time. She kind of fell somewhere in between Rod Stewart and Steve Perry. Her performance in the video was also striking. Smyth made you believe every word she sang. She was dumping your butt and you knew it, you believed it and you wished you had only not been such a goofball. Yup, that’s how you felt watching that video. That’s the make of a great singer knowing how to sell a song.

Obviously, the band and their management had no idea of how well the video was going to do. It was pretty low budget. Most early MTV videos were low budget. Nonetheless, the song, the band and Patty Smyth made it come to life with their incredible performance of their song “Goodbye To You.”

Scandal was first formed in the city of New York in 1981. The band was founded by Zack Smith who played guitar. Other original members included Ivan Elias on bass, Benjy King on keyboards (we cant forget that great synth solo in the middle of “Goodbye To You,”) Frankie LaRocka on drums and of course the great Patty Smyth on lead vocals.

The song “Goodbye to You,” was released on a vinyl record EP titled Scandal. The EP was released on Columbia Records in 1982. The EP contained only five songs. Three out the five songs were released as singles. The first of course being “Goodbye To You,” which was followed by the release of the songs “Love’s Got a Line on You” and “Win Some, Lose Some. The latter was written by Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance, Eric Kagna and Paul Dean. “Goodbye To You,”  was written by Zack Smith.

After the band’s EP did so well, they went back in the recording studio to record their follow up album. In 1984, Columbia Records released the first and last full length Scandal album entitled Warrior. Based on the big time star personalty of Patty Smyth, the album was billed as Scandal featuring Patty Smyth instead of it just being labeled a Scandal album. The album did very well reaching the Billboard Top 20 on the album charts. The single “The Warrior,” reached the top 10. The band, or what was left of the band broke up completely after the tour that followed the Warrior album. Patty Smyth would move forward with a solo career releasing three solo albums Never Enough in 1987 Patty Smyth in 1992 and Come On December in 2015.

Three out of the five original members of Scandal have since passed away. Keyboardist Benjy King died in 2012, drummer Frankie LaRocka died in 2005 and bassist Ivan Elias passed away in 1995. Patty Smyth still performs under the Scandal name with all new members with the exception of original guitarist Keith Mack.