A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers. Have you heard the news? It’s been a fabulous 2024 for Huey Lewis — viewers finally got to witness his princely demeanor in the Netflix documentary Greatest Night in Pop , and his songs fueled the soul behind one of the most enjoyable Broadway musicals this season (a musical that deserved Tony recognition and shouldn’t have closed early ). Sure, one project is from four decades ago, while the other played in the Theater District.
But the timing was fitting. Lewis always used his pop instincts to metamorphose music of the past with his band, the News, and give it a modern edge, which resulted in a prolific streak of hits throughout the ’80s. Some say his tunes are so catchy, so hip, that they can ax businessmen to death to them.
“I don’t think there’s such a thing as a song that makes a personal statement about the band,” Lewis says of the infamous American Psycho monologue. “That’s all make-believe stuff for me.” Lewis’s jukebox musical, The Heart of Rock and Roll, was steeped in the tradition of his sly and meticulously arranged compositions.
It told the story of a young man torn between a corporate future at a cardboard-box company and band life on the road, a narrative that has helped Lewis — who lost his hearing several years ago and is unable to perform due to Ménière’s disease — recontextualize many of his songs. When I told him it was disappointing for the.