Rip It Up

Collins recorded it at Berwick Street Studios in London during the 1982 album sessions, with Ross on guitar, McClymont on bass and Manyika on drums. He borrowed the title from Eddie Cochran, whom he admired. He had read about the Roland TB-303 in Sound On Sound and bought one on Denmark Street for about £150, then sang the bassline to Martin Hayles, who programmed it. For the rhythm guitar, played on a Burns Nu-Sonic, he said he copied Chic's Nile Rodgers. The song quotes two lines and a snatch of the riff from Buzzcocks' Boredom, followed at once by Dick Morrissey's saxophone solo, and Paul Quinn of Bourgie Bourgie sings backing vocals. Collins said the much-quoted line about not being as dumb as you make out was written about a girl.

Ross said it began as a throwaway meant for a B-side. Released as a single on 7 February 1983, it reached No. 8 in 1983 and spent eleven weeks on the chart. Wikipedia, Stylus and the Guardian all describe it as the first chart hit built on the 303, and the Guardian calls it an accidental ancestor of acid house. Daly, by then out of the band, complained that Collins had traded the group's standing for a novelty hit. NME ranked it 216th in its 500 greatest songs, and Pitchfork 157th among the best songs of the 1980s. Simon Reynolds named his history of post-punk, Rip It Up and Start Again, after it.

Live

The first logged performance was on The Old Grey Whistle Test on 8 October 1982. Collins refused to play it from 1984 until about 1989, holding back the hit until he had another. He sang it with the Maccabees at Brixton Academy in 2010 and in his farewell Glasgow set in 2025. Poi Dog Pondering and Brooks Nielsen have covered it on stage. The upload in the hypersongs web is the official promotional video, in which the band sit in a cheaply built futuristic control room and walk down a rainy high street in summer clothes.