Songfacts®:

• As MTV was picking up steam in America, movie producers started putting extra effort into their soundtracks, as a properly placed original song could become a huge hit from a blockbuster film, creating nice bit of synergy. A great example is Beverly Hills Cop, which gave us "Neutron Dance," "New Attitude" and "Axel F."
  
  "The Heat Is On" was written for the film by Harold Faltermeyer and Keith Forsey, and they needed a popular artist to sing it. The Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack album was on MCA Records, which Glenn Frey recently signed with. MCA asked several of their male rock singers to audition for the lead vocal for the song. At first Frey thought this wasn't something "rock stars" did, but he decided to go along, just for fun, never thinking they'd pick him. Harold Faltermeyer was impressed by Frey's vocal (the instrumental tracks were already recorded) and shocked Frey by using his version. It was Frey's biggest solo hit, reaching #2 in the US, where it was stymied by REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Ken - Louisville, KY
• Beverly Hills Cop starred Eddie Murphy as a cop from Detroit who shakes things up in California. Glenn Frey was born and raised in Detroit where he played in bands with names like The Mushrooms and Subterraneans before heading to Los Angeles and joining the Eagles. Another Detroit connection from the movie: Allee Willis, who wrote "Neutron Dance," is from Detroit and went to Mumford High School - notice that in the movie, Eddie Murphy wears a Mumford jacket.
• The music video for this song was one of the first to use clips from a movie interspersed with performance footage. It did very well on MTV, as it never hurt to put Eddie Murphy on TV in the '80s.
• In an interview with Tavis Smiley, Frey talked about how he ended up recording this song: "The Eagles are broke up and it's in the middle '80s, and Irving Azoff, my manager, calls me up and said, 'Glenn, you got to come to a screening. We're going to show this movie, this Eddie Murphy movie. It's going to be huge. You've got to get a song in it. Come on.' So I went to the screening and I'm sitting there, and Don was there and Irving was there, and we're waiting for the movie to start, and I look over my shoulder – Quincy Jones. Okay. I look over my shoulder – Stevie Wonder. Look back over here, it's the Pointer Sisters. I'm sitting there going, 'I'm dead. There's no way I'm getting a song in Beverly Hills Cop.'
  
  So we watched the movie with temp music and it was fabulous and we laughed, and everybody said, 'This movie is going to be huge.' But I never thought I'd get a song in it. So a month or two goes by and then all of a sudden somebody says, 'Hey, we're going to send you a song. See if you maybe want to sing it. It's written by these guys, Keith Forsey and Harold Faltermeyer, the guys in Munich that do the Donna Summer records are going to send you something. See if you want to sing it. So they sent me a demo of 'The Heat is On.' It sounded kind of like a Huey Lewis thing, the saxophone in it. Kind of sounded like something I might do. So I said, 'Okay, I'll do it.' So I met the guys, I came in, I sang it one day, I played guitar and did background vocals the next day and I got a small check, I think 15 grand. I had a little Christmas money, and I was happy."
• This is a popular song at sporting events, as it lets the visiting team know they are coming under pressure. The St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets have frequently played the song during home games, as have the Ottawa Senators of the NHL.
• This was one of the biggest '80s hits with a prominent saxophone part, which was played by David Woodford, who is best known for his work with Aerosmith but has also played on songs by Chris Isaak, Rod Stewart and Aaron Neville. Woodford did not appear in the video, however. That part was played by Bev Dalke-Smith, who is an accomplished sax, flute and clarinet player.
• This song shows the musical distinction between Glenn Frey and Don Henley, who both landed hits as solo artists after the Eagles split in 1980. Henley's songs like "Dirty Laundry" and "New York Minute" were often infused with poetry or social commentary. Frey, though, preferred to more straightforward songs like this one.