The Story Behind "The Power of Love" by Jennifer Rush

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Video  No Responses »
Jun 142013
 

Jen­nifer Rush released “The Power of Love” on June 14, 1985, twenty-eight years ago today.  The charted at #7 in Ger­many and topped the U.K. Sin­gles Chart; how­ever, it peaked at only #57 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100.  (Singer Laura Brani­gan recorded and released a ver­sion of the song, “Power of Love,” in 1987, which man­aged to climb to #26 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100.)

Born Heidi Stern in New York City, Rush grew up in New York and Ger­many.  She changed her name to Jen­nifer Rush at the insis­tence of CBS (Frank­furt), as they felt Heidi Stern did not sound inter­na­tional enough.

Rush co-wrote “The Power of Love” with her Ger­man record pro­duc­ers, Gun­ther Mende and Candy DeR­ouge, along with Mary Susan Applegate.

After hear­ing Rush sing at a record con­ven­tion in Hawaii, CBS Records Lon­don Chief Paul Rus­sell, he decided to release the sin­gle in the U.K.  The record ini­tially stalled at #97.  The record com­pany deleted the disc in hopes of build­ing momen­tum for the sin­gle and re-released it in Sep­tem­ber.  “The Power of Love” charted at #36, so Rush was able to per­form the song on Top of the Pops.  The record con­tin­ued to climb the chart, even­tu­ally reach­ing #1 and stay­ing there for five weeks, and was the biggest sell­ing sin­gle in the U.K. for 1985.  Rush has sold over one mil­lion copies of “The Power of Love.”  A remixed ver­sion was released a year later.

Ver­sions
The Power of Love [Radio Edit] 4’54
The Power of Love [Remix] 4’20
The Power of Love [Album Ver­sion] 6’00
The Power of Love [Inter­na­tional Album Ver­sion] 5’45
The Power of Love [Extended Remix] 7’10
The Power of Love [Orches­tral Remix] 6’00

Music Video
The music video for “The Power of Love” fol­lows Jen­nifer Rush as she sings and walks around New York City. (She also rides a freight ele­va­tor and sings, as well as singing while wear­ing sun­glasses.) Mean­while, we see her man in a sub­plot of being the fam­ily man and in trou­ble with some thugs who try to rough him up. The music video was filmed with the inten­tion of break­ing the song in the U.S. market.

Mem­o­ries
I can remem­ber see­ing the record sleeve for “The Power of Love” by Jen­nifer Rush in the bins at Sound Ware­house, but I never heard her ver­sion of the song until years later. I recall being most sur­prised by her clas­si­cal pop style, which doesn’t seem unusual once you learn her father was an opera singer. I was never a fan of Celine Dion’s ver­sion from 1994, as it seemed over­pro­duced to me, but I like Rush’s version.

What are your mem­o­ries of “The Power of Love” by Jen­nifer Rush?

The Story Behind "The Glamorous Life" by Sheila E.

 80s, Dance, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Video  No Responses »
May 312013
 

Sheila E. released “The Glam­orous Life” on June 4, 1984. The sin­gle peaked at #7 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100, #9 on the U.S. Bill­board Black Sin­gles Chart, and #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot Dance Club Songs Chart. (The song only reached #76 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart.) “The Glam­orous Life” received a Grammy nom­i­na­tion for Best New Artist and Best Rhythm & Blues Song and won MTV’s Best Video Award.

Hav­ing orig­i­nally met Prince after play­ing a con­cert with her father, per­cus­sion­ist Pete Escovedo, Sheila E. worked with Prince dur­ing the record­ing of the Pur­ple Rain sound­track, pro­vid­ing vocals on “Erotic City,” the B-Side to “Let’s Go Crazy.”

Prince had orig­i­nally writ­ten “The Glam­orous Life” for Apol­lo­nia 6, his replace­ment for all-girl trio Van­ity 6. How­ever, once he dis­cov­ered Apol­lo­nia 6, his co-star in the movie Pur­ple Rain, had no inter­est in remain­ing in the group beyond her oblig­a­tions to the film and pro­mo­tion, he sug­gested Sheila E. record it.

After the suc­cess of “The Glam­orous Life,” Sheila E. opened for Prince on his Pur­ple Rain tour. She became famous for her drum solo at the end of the song, either spin­ning around mul­ti­ple times with­out miss­ing a beat, plac­ing one leg on the snare while stand­ing on the other dur­ing the solo, or per­form­ing with glow-in-the-dark drumsticks.

Sheila E. scored two more Top 40 hits with “The Belle of St. Mark” and “A Love Bizarre.” She has col­lab­o­rated with other artists, such as Cyndi Lau­per, Glo­ria Este­fan, Phil Collins, and Ringo Starr, among others.

Ver­sions
The Glam­orous Life [Edit/Single Edit] 3’41
The Glam­orous Life [Part II] 3’12
The Glam­orous Life [Club Edit/Album Ver­sion Edit/Full Length Ver­sion] 6’33
The Glam­orous Life [Album Ver­sion] 8’58

Music Video
The music video for “The Glam­orous Life” shows Sheila E. per­form­ing with her band in the stu­dio, along with footage of her wear­ing a fur coat in a lim­ou­sine. At one point, she steps out of the car to buy flow­ers from a less glam­orous ver­sion of her­self. A man in a tuxedo attempts to seduce her, and even­tu­ally leads her into a build­ing with flames flick­er­ing through the win­dows in the door. Upon watch­ing it again, I was taken back by how prim­i­tive it now seems, espe­cially the flames. Still, it cap­tures the fla­vor of Sheila E.‘s per­cus­sion and live per­for­mance in the stu­dio shots.

Mem­o­ries
For some rea­son, the Sum­mer of 1984 is the golden age of pop music and music video. So many great songs and videos were released that sum­mer by The Cars, Cyndi Lau­per, Duran Duran, Eury­th­mics, Go-Go’s, Huey Lewis and the News, Madonna, Prince & the Rev­o­lu­tion, Van Halen, Wang Chung and so many more. “The Glam­orous Life” was all over radio and the syn­di­cated music video shows that sum­mer. (We didn’t have access to MTV where I lived in the coun­try.) Hear­ing this song always takes me back to that time and makes me think of my older sis­ter, Vicki, singing along to it as she put her makeup on to go out on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day nights.

What are your mem­o­ries of “The Glam­orous Life” by Sheila E.?

 Posted by at 7:00 am

The Story Behind "Rapture" by Blondie

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Pop Music, Rap, Retro, Video  No Responses »
May 242013
 

 

Blondie released “Rap­ture” on Jan­u­ary 12, 1981. It peaked at #5 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. It was Blondie’s last U.S. hit until they released “Maria” in 1999.

“Rap­ture” is a fusion of musi­cal styles (post­punk, new wave, and hip-hop. It was the first sin­gle with a rap to top the music charts, as well as the first rap music video broad­cast on MTV. The U.S. 7″ record con­tained the album ver­sion, while the U.K. 7″ offered an edit. The U.S. 12″ vinyl included an addi­tional verse and is not even an entire minute longer than the album ver­sion. Pro­ducer Mike Chap­man remixed “Rap­ture” to cre­ate a Spe­cial Disco Ver­sion. In 1988, D.J.‘s would remix some of the most pop­u­lar Blondie songs with a cur­rent sound. The remixes proved so pop­u­lar, a com­pi­la­tion of Blondie and Deb­bie Harry’s solo hits was issued, enti­tled Once More into the Bleach.

Lead singer Deb­bie Harry had an ear for new trends. She used to take Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic to New York clubs and expose them to new things. While club­bing, Deb­bie became friendly with Fab Five Freddy and name-checked him in “Rap­ture.” Fab Five Freddy actu­ally appears in the music video for “Rapture.”

Ver­sions
Rap­ture [U.K. 7″ Promo Ver­sion] 3’53
Rap­ture [Edited Ver­sion] 4’50
Rapture [U.K. 7″ Mix] 4’59
Rap­ture [Album Version/Long Ver­sion] 6’33
Rap­ture [U.S. 12″ Mix] 7’13
Rap­ture [Spe­cial Disco mix] 10’01
Rap­ture [The Teddy Riley Remix] 6’58

Music Video
The music video for “Rap­ture” is shot to appear as if it takes place in the East Vil­lage of Man­hat­tan. While Deb­bie Harry sings and raps to the cam­era, William Barnes, a dancer in a white suit and top hat, fol­lows her. Rap­per Fab Five Freddy and graf­fiti artists Lee Quinones and Jean-Michel Basquiat appear in the video. Sup­pos­edly, Basquiat, an Andy Warhol pro­to­gee was asked to be in the video when Grand­mas­ter Flash did not show up.

Mem­o­ries
I can remem­ber shortly after we moved from Waco to Burleson, watch­ing Solid Gold on TV in my bed­room. Deb­bie Harry hosted the show and sang “The Tide Is High.” I liked the song, but it was no “Heart of Glass” or “Call Me,” in my opin­ion. Later in the pro­gram, she played the music video for Blondie’s new sin­gle, “Rap­ture.” It totally blew my lit­tle 7th grade mind. I wanted to rush out and buy the song after I heard it once. After the hol­i­days, “Rap­ture” began to receive air­play and it always seemed to be on the radio when my sis­ter Vicki drove me to school or picked me up after­wards. I always loved the rap, prob­a­bly because I loved old sci­ence fic­tion movies from the ‘50s.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Rap­ture” by Blondie?

Top Ten Historical Figures Who Most Likely Would Have Been Beliebers

 Celebrities, History, Humor, Parody, Pop Culture, Pop Music, Top Ten Thursdays  1 Response »
May 232013
 

Belieber IDYou may have heard or read how Cana­dian pop singer Justin Bieber recently vis­ited the Anne Frank House and wrote in the guest book  that he hoped Anne would have been a Belieber.  It got me won­der­ing what other famous names through­out his­tory might have been Justin Bieber fans, so here are the top ten his­tor­i­cal fig­ures who most likely would have been Beliebers:

01. Obvi­ously, Christo­pher Colum­bus would have lined up to get Justin to auto­graph his copy of My World 2.0, thank­ful Bieber took his advice not to name it Amer­i­cus 2.0

02. Cleopa­tra, being just a teenager her­self when she took the throne of Egypt, would have most likely tried to gain an audi­ence with Justin after one of his con­certs, claim­ing to be his “per­sonal deity.”

03. Albert Ein­stein would have been a fan of Justin’s whim­si­cal hair­styles.  After all, Albert did say that imag­i­na­tion is more impor­tant than knowledge.

04. Lucre­cia Bor­gia would have had no prob­lem issu­ing death threats against other celebri­ties who stole an award–say a Grammy–from Justin.  How­ever, if Lucre­cia asks you, after a spir­ited debate over dif­fer­ing opin­ions about Mr. Bieber, to name your poi­son, I sug­gest you don’t.

05.Vlad the Impaler would really know how to take care of the haters, more than likely, impal­ing them on wooden stakes to rethink the the error of their ways.

06. Marie Antoinette would have been power Twit­ter user, and, no doubt, would have led the way to out­smart Twit­ter when they changed their algo­rithm to remove per­sis­tently trend­ing top­ics, like Justin Bieber, by pur­posely mis­spelling his name in their tweets, most famously with, “Can’t wait to kiss my Beaver.”

07. Inuk Nanook of the Arc­tic Cir­cle would have delighted in putting down his har­poon to fol­low Justin from city to city to watch him per­form, feel­ing a cer­tain con­nec­tion with him, because Justin believes he has an unde­ter­mined Cana­dian Abo­rig­i­nal ancestry.

08. Some his­tor­i­cal fig­ures are only happy when they get someone’s goat; Adolf Hitler would have got­ten sat­is­fac­tion in claim­ing Justin’s mon­key for Ger­many, when Bieber failed to pro­vide doc­u­ments, all while per­form­ing Ludacris’ verse-rap from “Baby.”

09. Writer, activist, and fem­i­nist would have enjoyed the sub­ver­sive nature of hid­ing behind the Twit­ter han­dle @HappyHomemaker4eva and antag­o­niz­ing Justin and other Beliebers with DMs, while mem­o­riz­ing the lyrics to all of his songs.

10. As a Belieber, Oscar Wilde could have indulged his infat­u­a­tion for younger men and observed plenty of source mate­r­ial for his witty say­ings, such as, “Youth is wasted on the young.”

The Story Behind "Dreaming" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
May 032013
 

Orches­tral Manoeu­vres in the Dark (OMD) released “Dream­ing” on June 6, 1988 to pro­mote their first com­pi­la­tion album, The Best of OMD. Although the song only reached #50 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart, “Dream­ing” peaked at #16 on the U.S. Hot Bill­board 100, mak­ing it OMD’s sec­ond most suc­cess­ful chart entry in the U.S.

After the suc­cess of “If You Leave” from the motion pic­ture Pretty in Pink two years prior, and the momen­tum behind “Dream­ing” on the U.S. charts, OMD sup­ported Depeche Mode on their 101 Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Cal­i­for­nia. Unhappy with the com­mer­cial direc­tion the band had taken, co-founder Paul Humphrey’s left in 1989 and formed The Lis­ten­ing Pool with for­mer OMD mem­bers Mar­tin Cooper and Mal­colm Holmes. Andy McClusky con­tin­ued to record under the OMD name for three more albums. McClusky and Humphreys reunited in 2006 and have since released two new OMD albums.

I chose this song for Flash­back Fri­day because it’s a good exam­ple of how a pop song can be ubiq­ui­tous at the time of its release and then fade into obscurity.

Ver­sions
Dream­ing [7″ Ver­sion] 3’56/4’15
Dream­ing [Radio USA Mix/Radio Edit] 3’50
Dream­ing [7″ Edit] 3’56
Dream­ing [Album Version/Seven Inch Version/Single Ver­sion] 4’00
Dream­ing [Club Mix Edit] 4’58
Dream­ing [Extended Mix] 6’19
Dream­ing [The William Orbit Remix] 7’15
Dream­ing [Club Mix] 7’13
Dream­ing [12″ USA Club Mix] 7’05
Dream­ing [Extended 12″ Club Mix] 8’22

Music Video
The music video for “Dream­ing” cuts between a young woman who seems to be stranded on a rural road and OMD per­form­ing the song inside a mission-style build­ing. Occa­sion­ally, a hand drawn box appears on the screen, which fre­quently changes designs. It’s not an ambi­tious video, but I always though the band were well-lit.

Mem­o­ries
In May of 1988, I bought my first stereo with a CD player. The Best of OMD was one of the first CDs I pur­chased to play on my stereo, and I can still remem­ber the sur­prise I felt at see­ing the CD adver­tised in the Tar­get cir­cu­lar that came in the Sun­day news­pa­per. Since OMD had not achieved main­stream suc­cess in the States until “If You Leave,” I was unfa­mil­iar with most of their pre­vi­ous sin­gles, although it began my love affair with this band.

I don’t recall being par­tic­u­larly fond of “Dream­ing” at the time; how­ever, I’ve noticed over the years I always find myself singing along to the track quite enthu­si­as­ti­cally when­ever I hear it, so maybe I liked it bet­ter than I pre­vi­ously imag­ined. Regard­less, it always takes me back to the spring of 1988 when I finally real­ized the depres­sion that had haunted me since the pre­vi­ous sum­mer had finally lifted.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Dream­ing” by Orches­tral Manoeu­vres in the Dark?

The Story Behind "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Rock, Video  No Responses »
Apr 192013
 

Fine Young Can­ni­bals released “She Dri­ves Me Crazy” on Jan­u­ary 1, 1989. It peaked at #5 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and went to #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. It was the first sin­gle released from their sec­ond album, The Raw and the Cooked.

After The Beat broke up, gui­tarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele formed Fine Young Can­ni­bals with vocal­ist Roland Gift, for­merly of British ska band Akry­lykz in 1984. They took the name from the 1960 Robert Wag­ner & Natalie Wood film, All the Fine Young Can­ni­bals.

The band had orig­i­nally wanted Prince to pro­duce some tracks to com­plete the album, but MCA Records sug­gested pro­ducer David Z, who had worked with Prince and is the older brother of Bobby Z of the Rev­o­lu­tion. Together, they recorded “She Dri­ves Me Crazy,” “I’m Not Sat­is­fied,” and “It’s OK (It’s Alright)” at Pais­ley Park Studios.

Sup­pos­edly, the song was orig­i­nally titled “She’s My Baby” and Gift sang the song in his reg­u­lar voice, before tweak­ing the lyrics and singing in falsetto.

Ver­sions
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Sin­gle Ver­sion] 3’35
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Sin­gle Remix] 3’48
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Radio Edit] 5’20
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Radio Rap Ver­sion] 5’44
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Remix/David Z Remix] 7’05
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [U.S. Mix/The Justin Strauss Remix] 7’39
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Extended Ver­sion] 8’25
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Louil Silas Jr. Remix] 4’53
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [The Monie Love Remix] 5’56

Music Video
The music video for “She Dri­ves Me Crazy” was directed by Philippe Decou­flé, a French chore­o­g­ra­pher, dancer, and the­ater direc­tor, who had pre­vi­ously directed the music video for “True Faith” by New Order. The video fea­tures Fine Young Can­ni­bals per­form­ing the song, inter­cut with footage of peo­ple danc­ing in col­or­ful and unusual cos­tumes. The music video was nom­i­nated for Best Video at the 1989 MTV Music Awards and

Mem­o­ries
The sin­gu­lar per­cus­sion cap­tured my atten­tion the first time I heard this song. I went to Sound Ware­house on S. Hulen Street in Forth Worth and bought the 7″ vinyl the next day. Shortly after, I caught the music video on MTV. At first, “She Dri­ves Me Crazy” was my lit­tle secret, and then it was all over Top 40 radio and the Fine Young Can­ni­bals were main­stream and I lost inter­est in them. Still, when­ever I hear this song, it takes me back to the Spring of 1989 and work­ing in the PBX at Tar­get. One night, we had a bad thun­der­storm with flash flood­ing, and our Store Man­ager, Mrs. Hahn sent me home early. I lived out in the coun­try and at one point I hit a patch of road where the water was run­ning across the road and it swept 1971 VW Super­bee­tle away a few feet. This song was play­ing on my mix tape at the time.

What are your mem­o­ries of “She Dri­ves Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals?

The Story Behind "Let the Music Play" by Shannon

 80s, Dance, Flashback Fridays, Freestyle, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Apr 122013
 

Shan­non released “Let the Music Play” in Sep­tem­ber of 1983. Her only Top 40 hit reached #14 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart, #8 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100, and #1 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Songs Chart. The record sold eight mil­lion copies.

An asso­ciate of pro­duc­ers Mark Liggett and Chris Bar­bosa noticed col­lege stu­dent Brenda Shan­non Greene singing with a band in her cousin’s record­ing stu­dio and invited her to audi­tion for them. They asked her to record a track Bar­bosa had writ­ten, enti­tled “Fire and Ice,” which evolved into “Let the Music Play.” The sin­gle was issued on New York-based dance label Emer­gency Records and became a mas­sive club hit before cross­ing over to radio.

Some regard “Let the Music Play” as a sem­i­nal dance record, as it was one of the first dance-pop songs to chart on main­stream U.S. radio after the disco back­lash a few years ear­lier. The song is con­sid­ered one of the first freestyle records, which fused Latin Amer­i­can rhythms with syn­co­pated drum pat­terns and synthesizers.

Shan­non released sev­eral more dance hits–“Give Me Tonight,” “My Heart Divided,” “Do You Wanna Get Away,” “Stronger Together,” “Urgent,” “Prove Me Right,” and “Dancin’”–before ask­ing to be released from her record con­tract in 1987.

Ver­sions
Let the Music Play [7″ Version/Vocal Long Version/Vocal/Radio Edit] 4’38
Let the Music Play [Album Version/Vocal Short Ver­sion] 3’34
Let the Music Play [12″ Version/Vocal] 5’49
Let the Music Play [Re-Mix] 6’03

Music Video
The music video for “Let the Music Play” was directed by Nigel Dick. Shan­non per­forms the song in an empty the­ater while dancers in tuxedo shirts and bowties dance behind her.

Mem­o­ries
“Let the Music Play” is one of those songs that instantly takes me back to late 1983/early 1984. Although it wasn’t a favorite of mine at the time, I appre­ci­ate it more now. “Let the Music Play,” along with Madonna’s “Hol­i­day,” was all over Top 40 radio in Dallas/Fort Worth; how­ever, I don’t ever remem­ber see­ing the music video on any of the local music video shows.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Let the Music Play” by Shannon?

The Story Behind "Swing the Mood" by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Video  No Responses »
Mar 292013
 

Jive Bunny and the Mix­mas­ters released “Swing the Mood” in June 1989. This mash-up of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” with a med­ley of hits from the early rock and roll era topped the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and peaked at #11 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. It was the sec­ond best-selling sin­gle of 1989 in the U.K.

In addi­tion to instru­men­tal of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood,” the med­ley also includes “Let’s Twist Again” by Chubby Checker, “Rock Around the Clock” and “Rock-a-Beatin’ Boo­gie” by Bill Haley and His Comets, “Tutti Fruitti” by Lit­tle Richard, “Wake Up, Lit­tle Susie” by the Everly Broth­ers, “C’mon Every­body” by Eddie Cochran, “Hound Dog” by Elvis Pres­ley, “Shake, Rat­tle and Roll” by Bill Haley and His Comets, “All Shook Up” and “Jail­house Rock” by Elvis Pres­ley, and “At the Hop” by Danny and the Juniors. The orig­i­nal U.K. and Euro­pean release included the orig­i­nal record­ings; how­ever, “Swing the Mood” had to be re-recorded with sounda­like singers for the U.S. release due to copy­right infringement.

DJ and pro­ducer Lee Hem­stock came up with the con­cept for the mix of “Swing the Mood” on issue 22 of the DJ-only monthly sub­scrip­tion series from Mas­ter­mix, which was owned by John Pick­les. Andy Pick­les, John Pickle’s son, worked as part of the band, and later on when to found Tidy Trax, a hard house label.

The band is one of only three acts to score three con­sec­u­tive U.K. num­ber ones with their first three releases: “Swing the Mood,” “That’s What I Like,” and “Let’s Party”. (The other two acts were Gerry and the Pace­mak­ers and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.)

Ver­sions
Swing the Mood [Radio Mix] 4’05
Swing the Mood [12″ Mix/Dance Hall Ver­sion] 6’00
Swing the Mood [Album Version/Extended Ver­sion] 6’12

Music Video
The music video for “Swing the Mood” by Jive Bunny and the Mas­ter­mix­ers incor­po­rates stock footage from the ‘50s and ‘60s with the ani­mated Jive Bunny char­ac­ter. It includes scenes of teenagers, air­planes, new inven­tions, and Hol­ly­wood celebrities.

Mem­o­ries
I worked part-time in the Human Resources Office at Tar­get on Hulen Street in Forth Worth when this song was pop­u­lar. I had just moved into my first apart­ment near the Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Arling­ton cam­pus and I first heard it the night of the earth­quake in San Fran­cisco. If mem­ory serves me cor­rectly, I went down­stairs to the music depart­ment on my break and bought the cas­sette sin­gle of “Swing the Mood.” I had dis­cov­ered my grandmother’s Glen Miller records as a teenager, and had become fond of swing music while work­ing as a stage man­ager for a pro­duc­tion of Biloxi Blues two years before. Sam­pling was in vogue, at the time, and I thought it was cool the way the record made swing music acces­si­ble to younger gen­er­a­tions who might not have given it a chance oth­er­wise. Although Jive Bunny and the Mix­mas­ters went on to score many more hits in the U.K., after “Swing the Mood” peaked, they dis­ap­peared from U.S. radio. “Swing the Mood” was a bit dodgy, but fun.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Swing the Mood” by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers?

The Story Behind "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Movies, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Feb 152013
 

Berlin released “Take My Breath Away” on June 15, 1986 and the song began a slow rise to the top of both the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100 and the U.K. Sin­gles Chart.

The song was writ­ten and pro­duced by Gior­gio Moroder, famous for his work with Donna Sum­mer dur­ing the ‘70s. In the ‘80s, Moroder had pro­duced many hit sin­gles from movie sound­tracks: “Call Me” by Blondie from Amer­i­can Gigolo, “Putting Out Fire with Gaso­line” by David Bowie from Cat Peo­ple, “Rush Rush” by Deb­bie Harry from Scar­face, “Together in Elec­tric Dreams” by Phil Oakey of the Human League from Elec­tric Dreams, and “The Nev­erEnd­ing Story” by Limahl from the movie of the same name. He approached the band about record­ing the song for the movie Top Gun. Terri Nunn, the lead singer of the band, was game, but John Craw­ford, the band’s key­boardist and song­writer dis­liked the song and com­plained that it didn’t have the band’s sig­na­ture sound. Sup­pos­edly, this, along with the lack of suc­cess of their Count Three and Pray album, led to a rift in the band and con­tributed to their breakup the fol­low­ing year. The band’s man­ager didn’t have faith in the song, either, and promised to shave his head if the song charted in the top ten.

Released as the sec­ond sin­gle from the suc­cess­ful Top Gun sound­track, “Take My Breath Away” was actu­ally a replace­ment for the love theme from the motion pic­ture. Toto had orig­i­nally wrote and planned to record a song enti­tled “Only You,” which was intended to be used as the love theme from the movie; how­ever, legal con­flicts between the movie’s pro­duc­ers and the band’s lawyers pre­vented this from happening.

“Take My Breath Away” won Best Orig­i­nal Song at the 44th Annual Golden Globe Awards on Jan­u­ary 31, 1987 and Best Orig­i­nal Song at the 59th Acad­emy Awards. Rumor has it that the pro­duc­ers of the Acad­emy Awards insisted all the artists nom­i­nated for Best Orig­i­nal Song per­form only a por­tion of their song for a med­ley of nom­i­nated songs. Berlin refused and boy­cotted the cer­e­mony and won the Oscar!

In 1991, DGC released a remix of “Take My Breath Away” by DJ Paul Dakeyne, cred­ited to Berlin feat. Terri Nunn, to pro­mote her soon to be released solo album. Moment of Truth.

Ver­sions
Take My Breath Away (Love Theme from Top Gun) 4’13

Music Video
The music video for “Take My Breath Away” is your stan­dard promo clip for a sound­track sin­gle, fea­tur­ing Terri Nunn singing at night at the Mojave Air & Space Port while fel­low band mem­bers John Craw­ford and Rob Brill lounge about with­out their instru­ment and try to look cool. Mean­while, scenes from Top Gun are inter­cut with the footage of the band. I’d almost for­got­ten bout Nunn’s two-tone hair.

Mem­o­ries
I have a con­fes­sion: I’ve never seen Top Gun. I don’t know why, but I just never got around to it. I do remem­ber hear­ing “Take My Breath Away” on the radio and lik­ing the song. I had been a fan of Berlin from the first time I heard “The Metro” while lis­ten­ing to my knock-off Walk­man the Sun­day night before we went back to school after the Christ­mas of 1982. Plus, I’d always admired Gior­gio Moroder’s work with Donna Sum­mer and his sound­track work with Blondie and David Bowie. I will say, how­ever, that by the time the song had reached #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100, I was burned out on it.

While research­ing and writ­ing this post, I real­ized that I’d nei­ther seen the music video before nor did I know the words to the song, except for the chorus.

The most dis­tinct mem­ory I have of “Take My Breath Away,” isn’t even my own. I recall my friend Terri telling me how she and her boyfriend Mike went to see Berlin in con­cert shortly after the song had topped the U.S. charts, and she described how touched she had been by how emo­tional Terri Nunn got as she intro­duced the song before the band per­formed it and thanked the fans for mak­ing it num­ber one.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin?

The Story Behind "Obsession" by Animotion

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Feb 082013
 

Ani­mo­tion released “Obses­sion” on Novem­ber 23, 1984. It peaked at #5 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and #6 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. The track is fea­tured on their self-titled debut album.

“Obses­sion” is some­times mis­tak­enly cred­ited to synth-pop band the Human League, who was an influ­ence on Animotion.

The song was writ­ten by Holly Knight, famous for writ­ing many suc­cess­ful sin­gles, such as “Love Is a Bat­tle­field” by Pat Benatar“Better Be Good to Me” by Tina Turner. Knight recorded the song with Michael Des Bar­res, an actor and lead singer in the bands Sil­ver­head and Detec­tive, in 1983, which was used in the movie A Night in Heaven, where Christo­pher Atkins, play­ing a male strip­per, dances in front of his col­lege pro­fes­sor, Les­ley Ann Warren.

Knight has said “Obses­sion” is about a stalker, who becomes more fix­ated on the object of his affec­tion as the song goes on, trans­form­ing from a crush to to some­thing more dangerous.

Ver­sions
Obses­sion [7″ Ver­sion] 3’58
Obses­sion [Album Ver­sion] 5’30
Obses­sion [Spe­cial AOR Mix] 5’00
Obses­sion [Dance Mix] 6’00
Obses­sion [Spe­cial Club Mix] 5’30
Obses­sion [12 Inch Remix Ver­sion] 7’32

Music Video
The music video for “Obses­sion” is set in expen­sive house in the hills sur­round­ing Los Ange­les. The band are fea­tured in var­i­ous costumes–Mark Antony, Cleopa­tra, astro­naut, etc.–singing and danc­ing around an out­door pool and inside the rooms of the house.

Mem­o­ries
Even though “Obses­sion” was released in late 1984, I have more mem­o­ries of hear­ing it in 1985. The music video was in heavy rota­tion on those after­noon music video shows that were pop­u­lar on TV when I got home from school. When­ever it came on the radio, I cranked it up, and I swear it’s included on every 80s com­pi­la­tion in the free world. Upon watch­ing the video again for this post, I was struck by how much singer Bill Wad­hams resem­bles these fash­ion sketches of male mod­els that were used in adver­tis­ing at the time, with the high cheek­bones and puffy hair.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Obses­sion” by Animotion?

Page 1 of 41234