Chris Isaak
Chris Isaak wrote "Wicked Game" while waiting for a woman who called to say she wanted to come over and talk. He wrote the whole song before she arrived. Warner Bros. declared the ship had sailed when the 1989 album received zero radio support. Then director David Lynch used the instrumental version in Wild at Heart, and radio programmers started getting requests. A label executive spent $100,000 in independent promoter fees to push it to national rotation. The song that nobody wanted eventually topped the pop charts in 1991.
In our deep dive into Wicked Game, we trace the song from a late-night phone call to a two-year chart delay to one of the most distinctive videos in MTV history, and what made it impossible for radio to ignore once they finally heard it.
