Musical Montage: Huey Lewis & The News “Hip to Be Square”
A hit from 1986, “Hip to Be Square” by Huey Lewis & The News reached a new level of infamy 25 years ago when it appeared in one of the most memorable scenes of 2000’s American Psycho. Inviting his co-worker Paul Allen (Jared Leto) to his apartment, psychopathic investment banker Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) extols the virtues of Huey Lewis and specifically “Hip to Be Square” before murdering Paul with an axe. The soundtrack of American Psycho was filled with 80s songs, but, surprisingly, despite its prominence in the film, “Hip to Be Square” was not on the soundtrack album. It was promoted on the album cover, but when the song was found not to be included, Koch Records had to recall 100,000 copies. Koch Records president Bob Frank explained that Lewis objected to the film’s violence and didn’t want the song to be included on the soundtrack. Lewis’ manager, Bob Brown, disputed that and said that Lewis had allowed a portion of the song to be in the film, but they had added the whole song to the soundtrack album without their permission. Brown believes it may have been a publicity stunt by the film’s producers to promote it further. Lewis fully embraced the song’s American Psycho legacy in 2013, appearing in a Funny or Die sketch with Weird Al, where he takes on the Patrick Bateman role, talking about American Psycho before killing Al so he can’t parody anymore Huey Lewis songs. With the song debuting 14 years before American Psycho, the music video obviously has no movie clips or cast appearances, but you can still check it out below.
