"Centerfold" was a single released by The J. Geils Band from their album Freeze Frame. The song is about a man who is shocked to discover that his high school crush appeared in a centerfold spread for a male-oriented magazine. The song could be a reference to actress Angel Tompkins' relationship with Peter Wolf.

It was released in autumn 1981, and eventually went to number one on the US Hot 100 in February 1982, and stayed there for six weeks. It was the first single released from the album Freeze Frameand was an early staple on MTV. The band's lead singer Peter Wolf revealed on In the Studio with Redbeardthat "Angel in Blue" was going to be the album's first single. Then during the "Angel in Blue" video shoot, Peter got a call from the president of EMI America Records suggesting that the band change the single's title to "Centerfold".

In February 1983, a year after the song hit #1 in the US, "Centerfold" peaked at #3 in the UK Top 40, earning The J. Geils Band their only major hit single in the UK, although follow-up "Freeze-Frame" was also a minor UK hit.

The song lists at #52 on Billboard's All Time Top Songs.[1]

The music video was directed by organist Seth Justman's brother. The "school" where the video was shot had a girls' dance school on the floor above; the girls from the school were the ones appearing in the video.

The music video starts out with Peter Wolf going to the classroom and looking through a magazine which he mentions his girlfriend is in. Some girls then start dancing in a line wearing slips. Afterwards, more girls appear in the whole classroom in negligees dancing, smiling, and playing patty cake. Wolf then hands a couple of uniforms to two of the girls. Later on, the girls appear in cheerleading sweatshirts resembling a 1980s style dress. After Wolf is knocked out by the girls with books, a party begins with the cheerleaders. The video ends with Wolf running out of the school in the company of four girls doing cartwheels.

For a long time it was believed that MTV VJ Martha Quinn appeared in the video, but this turned out to be a case of mistaken identity: one of the dancers merely bore a striking resemblance to Quinn.

Estonian short-lived new wave project Totu Kuul (featuring future film director Hardi Volmer) covered this song in 1983 under the title "Kelleks saada?" ("To Become Who?"). Estonian text talked about pains of young people choosing occupation and ironized about powerful bureaucracy ("This is power when the heart is full of papers").

The song was covered by German speed/thrash metal band Tankard on 1993's Stone Cold Sober.

Logorrheic indie rock band Nothing Painted Blue covered Centerfold on the bonus 7" that shipped with vinyl versions of their 1998 album The Monte Carlo Method.

The ska-punk band Against All Authority covered the song which featured on a split 7" record with Less Than Jake as did Hayseed Dixie on their 2004 album Let There Be Rockgrass.

English Ska-punk Spunge also covered this song on their album, That Should Cover It!, also released in 2004.

German Europop group Captain Jack has also covered this song; "Centerfold (130BPM move it remix)" can be found on the game Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA.

A cover version by Adam Austin was a minor UK hit single in February 1999.

The English rock group Status Quo covered this song on their 2003 cover album Riffs.

Shwayze and Cisco Adler recorded a cover entitled "Angel Is a Centerfold".

Music parodist Robert Lund released a Larry Craig-themed parody of this song, entitled "(My Men's Room Date's a) Senator", which was included on his CD Politicked Off.

Also the German Fun-Metal Band J.B.O. made a cover of this song, but their version is translated to German. The Song is called "Mei Alde is im Playboy drin", which means "My wife is in Playboy".

"Centerfold" was played in The Officeepisode "Customer Survey." Dwight Schrute, focused on the fact that there is a conspiracy as to how badly he and Jim Halpert did on their reports, plays it blatantly loud on his car stereo. Pam Beesly, who is secretly tucked away in Jim's ear via Bluetooth begins humming it afterward. "Centerfold" is also one of the songs featured in the musical Back to the 80's.

"Centerfold" was briefly used in an episode of My Name is Earl, Jump for joy

"Centerfold" also appeared in a "King of Queens" episode.

Danced by Jonathan Roberts, Macy Gray, Melissa Joan Hart, Mark Ballas, Louis Van Amstel, Kelly Osbourne, and Mya and Dmitry Chaplin on Dancing with the Stars season 9 for a Cha Cha Relay.

"Centerfold" was sung by Mr. Steven Crocker about Miss Sheena Brannigan in the musical Back to the 80s.