Martika's Desperate Cry In The Dark AKA Drugs Are Bad Mmmkay?

Madonna. Bono. Prince. Cher. Singers for whom only one name is necessary. The surname is a vestigial remnant, a useless footnote from a childhood history no longer relevant to the adoring masses. For these singers, only one name is needed because there could be only one.

And so I give you:

Martika.

In retrospect, Martika's ambitious attempt at singular nomenclature would put her more in the category of a Limahl than, say, a Sting, but sometimes, hey, you've just got to aim for the stars.

Remember that show Kids Incorporated? Neither do I, but apparently it served as a launching pad for the careers of such cultural behemoths as Jennifer Love Hewitt, Stacy Ferguson (AKA Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas), and one Marta Merrero (AKA Martika from ... Martika). By the time she turned 19, Martika set her sights on a recording career, and she had also apparently seen her fair share of the ugly side of '80s children's television programming. Per Wikipedia:

Martika wrote the song about a friend who was battling a cocaine addiction. "I was a little hesitant because I had only written two songs before and they were light songs. I came up to [producer] Michael [Jay] and said I wanted to write about drugs. It was the first time I got the nerve to write about something that was scary for me to talk about, so I did."

You let it all out there, girl! See, it was bold trailblazers like Martika who paved the way for the Liz Phairs and Alanis Morissettes and Courtney Loves of '90s rock. Although none of her lyrical intentions ever registered with me, and I doubt I'm the only one. Laugh if you will at her D.A.R.E.-level naivete, but it's that naked vulnerability that gives "Toy Soldiers" its power. I listen to "Toy Soldiers" and I don't hear a singer who is trying to be "cool," trying to "pose," or trying to sell me some horseshit about life being a bed of roses. No, I hear a singer who's a little bit terrified of the big bad world around her, but isn't going to let her fear prevent her from trying to be a kind, thoughtful, empathetic human being. I also hear an enormously cheesy power ballad, but Martika goes for the gold and doesn't blink.

Actually, you know what "Toy Soldiers" sounds like? "Toy Soldiers" sounds like the best Belinda Carlisle solo hit that Belinda never made. So this is Belinda's ultimate artistic legacy: the recorded works of Martika. Seriously, Martika pulls off the same tricky mixture of sweetness and angst, although her voice doesn't quite flap in the wind like Belinda's does. No, Martika's voice is more like a plastic soccer goal post: sturdy, and yet somewhat replaceable. Now that I think about it, she sounds a bit like Suzanne Vega (Anyone else expect her to break out with "I am sitting in the morning/At the diner on the corner"?). Except for the parts where Martika throws a little growl into the proceedings, like in her delivery of "How could I be so fine with this addiction?" at 1:43 - she's been secretly hiding Bonnie Tyler inside her chest and can barely keep her down! And could Suzanne Vega hit those eerie high notes in the outro? "All fall down! All fall down!" It's like Daryl Hall at chipmunk speed.

Then there's the backing track, which I might describe as a main course of "Time After Time" with a side dish of "Theme from Chariots of Fire," and perhaps a dessert of ... "Take My Breath Away"? Martika comes floating in on a neon wave of processed guitars and churning metronomes, and flutters away on a cloud of PG-13 hair metal solos. Just think: even in two short years (1991), there is no way in hell a ballad that sounded like this could have hit #1, but in 1989, the production here probably didn't even merit a double-take.



The video features everything from an ersatz "rippling water" effect and black-and-white footage straight out of a Guess ad, to shots of Martika's leather jacket-clad "boyfriend" handing over cash (for drugs?) near a payphone (at 3:48) and Martika and said boyfriend arguing violently in a stairwell (at 3:52). "If you don't get off that stuff for good, then it's over for us!" I'm also pleased to note that Martika has taken lessons from the Belinda Carlisle School of Music Video Choreography, which consists of crossing and uncrossing your arms, jerking your head backwards, clenching your fists, and spinning around copiously. In the second-to-last shot, our heroine, dressed in black, places a flower on a grave. Did her boyfriend ... OD? Is she paying respects to her treasured aunt Esmerelda? Is Martika standing at the grave ... of her own hit-making career? You see, for toy soldiers like Martika, victory is elusive, but the battle over ill-defined music video symbolism ... wages on.