When Mondo Rock released Baby Wants To Rock in 1984, they were riding high on a string of Australian hits but still searching for a global breakthrough. The single became a staple on Australian radio, helped cement the group’s reputation as one of the most consistent hitmakers of the 80s, and decades later, found an unlikely new audience with its appearance in the 2025 film The Naked Gun.
Released as a single from the album The Modern Bop, Baby Wants To Rock captured everything about Mondo Rock’s sound at the time – muscular guitars, sharp keyboards, and Ross Wilson’s unmistakable vocal bite. Lyrically tongue-in-cheek but rhythmically urgent, it straddled the divide between pub rock grit and polished radio pop.
In Australia, the single charted respectably, reaching the Top 40 and receiving heavy rotation on Countdown and FM radio. It was not as big as Come Said the Boy (a number 2 smash the year before) or Cool World, but it underlined the band’s ability to churn out singles that felt tailor-made for the dance floor and the airwaves.
Internationally, however, Baby Wants To Rock was a tougher sell. Despite Mushroom Records pushing it in New Zealand, parts of Europe, and North America, the song didn’t achieve significant chart success outside Australia. In the US, where Mondo Rock’s earlier State of the Heart had shown promise thanks to cover versions by Rick Springfield, Baby Wants To Rock received only limited college radio play.
The parent album, The Modern Bop, was released in March 1984. It followed the enormous success of Nuovo Mondo(1982), which had spawned No Time, The Queen and Me and In Another Love, and the career-defining Come Said The Boy from the 1983 compilation The Modern Bop sessions.
The Modern Bop wasn’t as commercially successful as Chemistry (1981) or Nuovo Mondo, but it showed Mondo Rock at the height of their powers. Wilson’s band at this point included stalwarts such as James Black, Eric McCusker, and Paul Christie, delivering an album full of sharp songwriting and big production, with Baby Wants To Rock as one of its centrepieces.
Four decades after its release, Baby Wants To Rock suddenly found new life in Hollywood. In 2025, Paramount released The Naked Gun, a reboot of the slapstick cop comedy franchise that starred Leslie Nielsen in the late 80s and 90s. The new film stars Liam Neeson as Detective Frank Drebin, stepping into Nielsen’s legendary shoes, with Pamela Anderson and Kevin Hart in supporting roles.
The film, true to the original franchise, is a parody of police procedurals, stuffed with ridiculous sight gags, double entendres, and absurd set-pieces. In one memorable sequence, Neeson’s Drebin goes undercover in a seedy rock bar. The house band is blasting out Baby Wants To Rock while Drebin, trying to remain inconspicuous, accidentally starts a barroom brawl in perfect time with the song’s chorus.
The scene has been widely praised by fans as a knowing nod to 80s culture and the slapstick excess that made the original Naked Gun movies iconic. For Mondo Rock, it has meant an unexpected spike in streaming numbers, with Baby Wants To Rock introduced to a brand-new generation.
To understand where Baby Wants To Rock sits in Mondo Rock’s legacy, it’s worth revisiting the group’s chart history.
Between 1980 and 1985, Mondo Rock were among the most reliable hitmakers in Australia.
• State of the Heart (1980) – their breakthrough Top 10 single.
• Cool World (1981) – another Top 10, cementing their position in the charts.
• Chemistry (1981) – title track of their most successful album, peaking at #2.
• No Time (1982) – a staple of FM playlists.
• Come Said the Boy (1983) – a career-defining smash, peaking at #2 and still one of the most recognisable Australian hits of the 80s.
• Baby Wants To Rock (1984) – a more modest charting single but enduring in the band’s catalogue.
While their chart fortunes declined in the latter half of the 80s, Mondo Rock remained a popular live act, reforming frequently in later years and continuing to attract strong crowds.
Mondo Rock was, in many ways, the second act in Ross Wilson’s remarkable career. Wilson first made his name in the late 60s with the cult band Daddy Cool, whose Eagle Rock became one of the biggest Australian hits of the era. By the late 70s, Wilson had shifted gears, forming Mondo Rock to explore a more contemporary, polished rock sound.
As a songwriter and producer, Wilson’s fingerprints are all over Australian music. He produced the first two Skyhooks albums, including Living in the 70s, which rewrote the rulebook for Australian rock. His work with Mondo Rock kept him at the centre of Australian pop culture throughout the 80s.
Today, Wilson remains a respected elder statesman of Australian music. His songs have been covered by artists as diverse as John Farnham, Jimmy Barnes, and Rick Springfield, while Mondo Rock’s catalogue continues to be rediscovered by new audiences.
While not the biggest hit in Mondo Rock’s arsenal, Baby Wants To Rock has proved to be one of their most enduring. Its placement in The Naked Gun (2025) has ensured it a second life, much like Come Said The Boy continues to be rediscovered through film, television, and streaming playlists.
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