Bad Boys, the 1987 arena rocker by Inner Circle, went #1 on Apple Music’s reggae chart last week.

Theme song for the hit movie franchise of the same name, it topped classic songs by Bob Marley And The Wailers, as well as contemporary hits by Collie Buddz and Shaggy.

Guitarist Roger Lewis, who founded Inner Circle in 1968 with his brother Ian on bass, told the Jamaica Observer that
Bad Boys has kept them current for over 30 years.

“It’s always been a popular song, people know Bad Boys just like a Taylor Swift song. For us, it’s a blessing,” he said.

At #2 on the Apple Music reggae chart at the time Bad Boys went #1 was Three Little Birds by Marley and the Wailers, with
Good Life by Collie Buddz at #3, and Angel by Shaggy (featuring Rayvon) at #4. Marley anthem, One Love/People Get Ready completes the top five.

Apple’s charts are based on on-demand audio streaming from Apple Music which tracks how often songs and albums are streamed by users on its platform. These charts are compiled daily.

Bad Boys gained traction in the United States during the early 1990s as the theme song for Cops, a popular reality show on the fledgling Fox network.

Sony Pictures picked up the uptempo track for its first Bad Boys movie in 1995, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It has also driven follow-up movies in the series — Bad Boys II, released in 2003, Bad Boys For Life, which came out in 2020, and last year’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die.

Those films have grossed US$65,807,024, $138,608,444, $206,305,244 and $404.2 million, respectively.

— Howard Campbell