In Australia, you could say that this song was Ratt’s breakthrough and peak.
It was also the start of the new bands taking over from the Seventies acts. You had Judas Priest, Def Leppard and Iron Maiden leading the British invasion. Quiet Riot and Motley Crue started the LA invasion, and a new breed like RATT cemented it. Suddenly all of the NWOBHM acts, needed to get glammier to stay in touch and they needed to have band members do backing vocals.
Ratt was a music video band for me at the start. “Round and Round” was played on the TV music shows all the time and I always had a blank VHS tape ready, with my finger on the record button.
What a riff to get things going?
It’s big, hooky and melodic. It’s also a riff which is good enough to please the metal and rock audiences.
And those verse lyrics about meeting on the streets resonated instantly, because it summed up how life and society operated in those days.
Now we are or will be in lockdown because of COVID-19. There will be no meeting on the streets.
Those hand shakes and hand greets we always did, will be no more, once we are through the pandemic.
I re-watched the Contagion movie last night and it’s pretty eerie how similar it is to what we are experiencing. One of the CDC scientists Cheevers (played by Laurence Fishbourne) talks about handshakes. He goes that handshakes came about by people offering their right hand out to show that they weren’t carrying a weapon.
It was a symbol of peace and today it’s laced with transmission.
Anyway I digress.
Out on the streets that’s where we meet was the catch-cry and we did meet. We abused ourselves and crossed lines and did it again the next day and the next week.
And somewhere along the way we found a partner who wanted the same things. And round and round we went.
Finally, how good is that harmony lead break?
destroyerofharmony 
Ratt hit pure gold with this track. Such a monster track.
Some serious guitar playing on this ome
LA invasion… what about one little band from Pasadena California? The Mighty Van Halen!
Blond lead singer [X]
Lightning fast lead guitarist [X]
Oversized drum kit [X]
Colorful stage persona and image [X]
Tons of catchy songs [X]
I agree.
Lol they already invaded Australia and were known in Aus as an American band. These guys were known as LA bands.
Ratt were kings for a short period. I thought they had solid albums up through Detonator and then went stale until around 2010 with Infestation. Brought them back to their 80’s sound. But Round And Round started it all for me.
I agree. I have their albums after Detonator but I really don’t remember much of them.
Can’t remember which one it was but I saw a metal doc that used this song to illustrate how ridiculous glam metal was… Big mistake! Cause this song was better than everything else in the documentary!
Damn right
Wrong song.