You Sexy Thing - Overview

Overview

The song was originally a 1975 B-side. Not convinced that the song was a hit, producer Most put it on the flip-side of the Hot Chocolate single "Blue Night". The song was remixed at a later date by Most, who re-released it as an A-side some months later on his RAK label. The song was a hit and ultimately became the group's most well-known song. In the UK the song was poised for the no. 1 spot, but was beaten to it by "Bohemian Rhapsody", when on 29 November 1975 the Queen single leaped above it from no. 9.

A 1987 remix by Ben Liebrand hit number 10. When it was featured in the film, The Full Monty in 1997, it went to number six in the chart. In one of the most memorable scenes in the film, the male lead, Gaz (played by Robert Carlyle) performs a "striptease" to the music of "You Sexy Thing". The song is later heard over the closing credits. "You Sexy Thing" has also been heard in other films including Boogie Nights, Reservoir Dogs, Bicentennial Man, Rat Race, Dude, Where's My Car, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, and in 2010 the movie Grown Ups. Another U.S. resurgence in 1999 can be credited to a Burger King television commercial in which the song played while the camera examined a Double Whopper. The song has recently been featured in television advertisements for a new series, Hot in Cleveland, on TV Land. and on the Swiffer Dusters cleaning product. It is the only song to enter the UK Top Ten in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.