1980s' Rocker "Billy Squier" Popularity Faded After "Rock Me Tonite" Video

 "Rock Me Tonite" was Squier's biggest Pop hit. It reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as #1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart in late 1984. However, the video for the track (directed by Kenny Ortega), which shows Squier dancing around a bedroom in a pink tank top, was named by Video GaGa as one of "The worst videos of all time".^[2] On the VH1 show Ultimate Albums (Def Leppard's "Pyromania" episode), Squier blamed the end of his career as a chart-topping rocker on the release of the "Rock Me Tonite" video. ^[3]
Squier's career took a major downturn afterward and he began playing smaller venues. His next two albums Enough is Enough (1986) and Hear & Now (1989) sold in the neighborhood of 300,000 copies each. Enough is Enough featured another collaboration with Freddie Mercury in the songs "Love Is The Hero" and "Lady With A Tenor Sax".

 

Squier continued to perform and record throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He released Hear & Now in 1989, which featured the singles "Don't Say You Love Me" (which peaked at #4 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart) and "Tied Up".
In 1991, Squier released Creatures of Habit, which yielded only one single, "She Goes Down," which also peaked at #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart. The title of the track refers to oral sex, and the music video is a very rare item, mainly because it features nude females and sexual metaphors throughout.
Squier released his final album with Capitol Records in 1993, Tell the Truth, which featured different sets of musicians performing the various tracks. Squier called it his finest album since Don't Say No, yet Capitol did little to promote it, and Squier walked away from the music business to pursue other endeavors.
On February 17, 1998, during the second run of the play Mercury: The Afterlife and Times of a Rock God - a monodrama about the life of Freddie Mercury - Squier debuted a song that he wrote in memory of his friend titled "I Have Watched You Fly". He introduced the song by saying, "I knew Freddie as a friend. I'm honored to share the stage with him in the afterlife."^[4]
In 1998, Squier released his last studio album to date on an independent label, a solo acoustic blues effort entitled Happy Blue. He embarked on a mini-tour to showcase songs from the album, which included a stripped-down acoustic version of his classic rock mega-hit, "The Stroke."
As time passed, his albums went out of print, save Don't Say No and some greatest hits compilations; however, many of these are now being reprinted.
Shout! Factory will release Don't Say No: 30th Anniversary Edition on July 27, 2010, marking the first time that this album has been remastered in over 20 years. It was released in collaboration with Squier, who provided two live bonus cuts from his personal collection.^[5]