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.

Swede Emotion: The Single-Minded Purity Of Roxette

Oh, to be Roxette.

What a blessing it must have been, what a gift from the gods, to have had one, and only one, ambition in life: to make the proverbial "perfect" pop song. What a psychological load off one's back. So many performers struggle with the weight of social import, or cultural legacy. Roxette just said "Screw all that shit!"

Here is a recording duo that harbored no delusions about their goals, suffered from no misplaced sense of artistic significance, aspired to no heights they could not reach. Roxette once released a compilation titled Don't Bore Us, Get To The Chorus! (a phrase apparently coined by Berry Gordy, a musician also not terribly concerned with the intellectual heft of his work). Has a more inspiring manifesto ever been adopted?

In my old paperback version of the All Music Guide, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, in his Roxette bio, "It's tempting to write Roxette off as nothing more than a shallow pop-rock band, but their shameless hooks are precisely what makes them so enjoyable. Roxette has a knack for writing extremely catchy and simple hooks and melodies that are sweet but not saccharine; it's radio-friendly pop, but the hooks don't wear thin with repeated plays." Well, I don't know about the rest of their catalog, but, speaking for myself, I can name you exactly three songs from the duo of Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson whose hooks, I've found, have yet to wear thin. You want to know how thick these hooks are? Let's just say I've licked these particular Tootsie Pops a thousand times, and still haven't reached the center.

In the history of rock, many great lyrics have been composed, but none, I fear, have surpassed the following:

Walking like a man, hitting like a hammer
She's a juvenile scam, never was a quitter
Tasty like a raindrop, she's got the look

Heavenly bound, cause heaven's got her number
When she's spinning me around, kissing is the color
Her loving is a wild dog, she's got the look

Fire in the ice, naked to the t-bone
Is a lover's disguise, banging on the head drum
Shakin' like a mad bull, she's got the look

Swaying to the band, movin' like a hammer
She's a miracle man, lovin' is the ocean
Kissin' is the wet sand, she's got the look

Well, Morrissey, you certainly had a good run, but clearly, by 1989, your time as rock's greatest wordsmith had finally passed. Seriously, what was the concept here? Just string a bunch of evocative phrases together, rap-sing them at a machine gun pace, and pray to Thor (or whatever god the Swedes believe in) that no one notices? Allow me, if I may, to write a few extra verses of Roxette's "The Look":

Itching like a bird, kicking like a cookie
She's a lovable razor, screamin' like a jerky
Fuzzy is a hot dog, she's got the look

Water in the ocean, drinking like a gator
If she moves in time, got to see her later
Heavy like a fire hose, she's got the look

Can I ask you something? How could there possibly be "fire in the ice"? How could "She" be a "miracle man"? Is kissing "the color" or "the wet sand"? Are they "hitting like a hammer" or "movin' like a hammer"? It just doesn't add up people. It just ... doesn't ... add ... up. By the end of the chorus, Roxette have quite obviously cast aside any pretense of effort, the lyrics literally consisting of the phrase, "And I go la la la la la." I want to be angry with them, but they were absolutely right to phone this in. It didn't matter!

The opening guitar lick reminds me of the riff that kicks off the Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday"; let's just say that if Roxette were aiming for Bubblegum glory, they couldn't have aimed any higher. The main chord progression is basically "Hey Jude"/"Sympathy for the Devil" but they throw so many rhythmic twists and turns in there that they give that tired progression a fresh new sheen, like a Taco Bell menu item that simply combines the same five familiar ingredients into an unexpectedly arresting shape.

In the liner notes to Don't Bore Us, Get To The Chorus!, Per Gessle describes "Listen to Your Heart" like so: "The Big Bad Ballad. This is us trying to recreate that overblown American FM-rock sound to the point where it almost becomes absurd. We really wanted to see how far we could take it." And just how far could Roxette take it?

Farther than the naked eye can see.

"Listen to Your Heart" is a power ballad so big, it probably ate twelve other power ballads on its way to school. "Listen to Your Heart" is so big, Jupiter and Saturn have to stand on a stool in order to see over it. You're momma's so fat ... But arguably not even the sight of a massive crowd swaying their arms (and sparklers) back and forth inside the ruins of Borgholm Castle on the Swedish Baltic Sea island of Öland is a sight epic enough to capture the grandeur of "Listen to Your Heart." You think the "hair metal meets ABBA" guitar solo is big enough? How about the ascending bridge doused with a wall of "ah!" backing vocals? That big enough for you? How about a TUKC where Marie Fredriksson tries to out-do her double-tracked self through two rounds of the chorus? No, sorry, none of those moments really max out the "epic" meter on a song as epic as "Listen to Your Heart." The moment that does that is the moment I would like to call The Pause. Marie appears to have finally pinched the last loaf from her bowel movement ("I don't know where you're goooooo-innnn"), then takes a breath, chills for a couple of bars ("before .... you tell him goodbye"), apparently gets splashed by a wave from the Baltic Sea, and presumably retires for the evening. A listener could reasonably assume that the track is making its way toward the fade-out, as the piano and conga drums rise in the mix. Great job guys, I'm gonna go check the sports scores. Then BLAM. The song blazes for another 90 seconds, Marie returning for a series of soaring encores, like a poop that just keeps spewing out fiery chunks of waste long past the point of logic.



Like Grease, Say Anything, and Dirty Dancing, Pretty Woman is another one of those movies with a target audience that probably does not include me. I have never seen it. It turns out that "It Must Have Been Love" was merely refurbished for Pretty Woman and not written explicitly for it, so I suppose I don't have to resent it on account of that association? Besides, isn't this a bitter ballad about love lost? Is there an unbearably sad scene in the movie where the spirit of this song serves a genuine purpose, or does it simply play on somebody's car radio for 30 seconds? In the end, it matters not. Quick anecdote about the video from Wikipedia: "According to Fredriksson, shooting this video was a surreal experience, as [director Doug] Freel 'wanted all movements in slow motion, so I had to lip-sync the vocals at double speed. My first lesson in how to sing an emotional ballad Mickey Mouse style.'" Where can I find that version?

So fine, they're not exactly Bjork, OK, but here's why, ironically, I don't find Roxette's brand of "disposable" pop all that disposable: Marie Fredriksson sings with too much genuine passion. I'm not sure how old she was during Roxette's heyday, but unlike so many 21st century pop singers, who sound like high schoolers, Marie sounds like she's been around the block a couple of times. She's slept under an overpass for an evening or two,  if you know what I mean. Listen (with your heart) to the outro of "It Must Have Been Love," starting around the 3:00 mark. I mean, that's some heavy shit right there. Fredriksson suggests rage, sweetness, sincerity, feistiness, and a touch a weariness all at the same time. I think if I walked up to her and called this song "schlock," she would probably spit in my face. She means it, man. And if she's invested in what she's doing, then I'm invested in what she's doing. Sometimes "art" is the last refuge of scoundrels who don't know what the hell they're in it for. Sleep easy, Roxette. After all these years, your juvenile scam still hits like a hammer.

"I Get Weak," But Frothy Belinda Power Ballads Give Me Strength AKA When Two Dianes Collide

In the Random House Unofficial Guide to '80s Pop Stardom (woe to the aspiring Yuppie Rocker who failed to carry a copy), there must have been a sentence along these lines, somewhere on - or at least near - the front page: "If you're going to dive into the shamelessly slick, radio-friendly, songwriter-for-hire waters of the music business ... you better go all in." This, my friends, is what late '80s Belinda Carlisle understood so well. And so it was that Belinda, like a sailor in a brothel on shore leave, tried out every L.A. tunesmith she could get her hands on - and which is how she became the next recipient of the golden touch of one Dianne Warren, who, by 1988, was riding high on the glories of "Rhythm of the Night" and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" (and had yet to bless us with such Macy's Fitting Room classics as "If I Could Turn Back Time," "Because You Loved Me," "Un-Break My Heart," and "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing"). From Lips Unsealed:

Then the great songwriter Dianne Warren came into the studio one day and played me "I Get Weak." Few people know the quality of Dianne's voice; it's gravelly and soulful and always moves me. "I Get Weak" was a perfect example. As she sang the final chorus, I literally felt weak myself.

Quick, someone fetch Belinda her smelling salts!

"I Get Weak" is one of those late '80s hits that has always just kinda sorta been "around," but, unlike its predecessor in the Belinda discography, has never, as far as I'm aware, become an object of kitsch or nostalgia or has in any way taken on further cultural significance. That said, it was arguably Belinda's second biggest solo hit, at least in the US, where it peaked at #2 (it hit #10 in the UK), kept out of the top spot by "Never Gonna Give You Up," which, as a few YouTube commentators have suggested, possibly makes Belinda the first person to ever be Rickrolled? Personally, I used to have a challenging time dissecting the lyrics of the chorus, originally hearing it as "I Can't Weep," or even the more nonsensical "I Can't Wheat." Perhaps it was an anthem for the gluten-intolerant? Maybe Belinda was an early pioneer for dietary justice. Talk about an unheralded trailblazer! Later I realized that ... those were not the lyrics.

When the first rush of Belinda Fever hit me around ... oh, I guess it's about eight years ago now (Jesus, what's happened to my life?), I felt that "I Get Weak" was, for lack of a better word, probably a little "weaker" than her other big smashes, lacking, say, the gothic majesty of "Heaven is a Place on Earth" or the semi-autobiographical sweetness of "Mad About You." "I Get Weak" was just a chunky, catchy, glossy, upbeat pop song, without any of the hidden drama of "Circle in the Sand" or "Summer Rain." These days, I don't give a shit what I thought eight years ago. All four minutes and eighteen seconds of "I Get Weak" give me the special tinglies. You want to hear a chunky, catchy, glossy, upbeat pop song that hits all the sweet spots? Here you freakin' go.

To get down to brass tacks, "I Get Weak" is all about the "whoa-oh" bridge. Sure, the stuff before that is cute. The track opens with three massive drum thwacks, followed by an even more massive keyboard hook and a couple of guitars that chug away on opposite sides of the stereo spectrum. But at 0:47, things get weird. First some faint "ooohs" appear in the background, then a couple of forceful cymbal strokes ratchet up the tension underneath the words "completely" and "lose," which seems to unleash the background singers, a veritable Warren tsunami whose "ooohs" increase in such volume that they threaten to drown out Belinda's lead, and then suddenly the song wobbles back and forth precariously on a melodic see-saw, Belinda literally sounding like she's trying to "steady" herself from her weakness as she sings "Whoaaaaa, whoa-oh, whoa-oh, whoa." Great Gadzooks! Is Belinda about to tumble to her MOR doom? Hark, but what's this? The chorus arrives at 1:06, and not only does Belinda recover, she lets it rip into next Tuesday. Hey, who's the weak one here: her or me?

The thing is, I think Belinda's distinctive vibrato gives the song an ironic tension that, in the hands of more conventionally "powerful" future Warren interpreters such as Toni Braxton or Celine Dion, it might not otherwise have had. Not many singers can sound fragile and vulnerable one moment and tough as Jackie Chan's femur the next. Vocal highlights:

• 0:20: As she draws out "When I'm with youuuu," she sounds so ... lusty.
• 0:27: "My tongue is tie-ie-ie-ie-ied" - she literally sounds like her tongue is tied right there; fortunately, Rick Nowels must have jumped up and untied it before Belinda proceeded to choke to death.
• 0:37: "Can't eat, can't sleep" - Now that Belinda has gone into detail about her struggles with an eating disorder around the time of Heaven on Earth, I have to say, I feel like this line carries a bit more punch to it these days.
• 1:42: As the chorus winds down, her singing starts to become a little, well, "weak," and I'm kind of wondering if she's up to the task of keeping her energy level up throughout the rest of the song, you know, and then out of nowhere she growls out "Ah-I get weak!!" with the force of a thousand yuppie volcanoes and I instantly cower in the corner and pray to Almighty God that Belinda doesn't blast me off the face of the earth.
• 4:07: The third time through the chorus, she intentionally stutters on the word "eye," gradually allowing it to morph into the "I" at the start of "I get weak." Clever, clever!

As if one Belinda Carlisle video wasn't enough, Diane Keaton decided to direct two. I'll have to dock this one a couple of points for a discernible lack of wall-humping and globe-fondling, but other than that, it's not bad. The key visual concept appears to be that the video is more or less in black and white aside from a few random objects such as bed sheets, ribbons, flames, flowers, Belinda's red lips, etc. You know that scene in Schindler's List with the girl in the red coat? It's like that, only bleaker. I'm not sure what the thematic purpose of this effect is. Maybe, when you're weak, you can't see videos in full color? One perhaps unintended consequence of this trippy color effect is that it makes Belinda, at least in the section from 0:20 to 1:06, look disturbingly pale rather than disturbingly gorgeous (as one might describe her appearance in the remainder of the clip). I mean, I know she was doing drugs and everything, but come on, she didn't look that pallid. Give me the Belinda in the blue satin dress and long black gloves (starting at 1:52) instead! Now here, ladies and germs (former Germs?), was a woman capable of the kind of old-fashioned Hollywood glamour that the '80s, frankly, didn't deserve. You know that section in "Vogue" where Madonna lists all those mid-20th century fashion icons? She should have just recited Belinda Carlisle's name twenty times in a row and called it a day. Q: How can you look absolutely stunning while hardly revealing any actual skin? A: Be Belinda Carlisle in the "I Get Weak" video, that's how. For example, what the hell is she wearing at the start of this clip? It's like a ... long overcoat, a long skirt, a white t-shirt, black boots ... she's covered from head to toe and yet, she's still so hot, she's literally setting boxes of chocolates on fire. To be fair, she is showing a decent amount of cleavage in that blue dress, but somehow it's ... tasteful cleavage. I mean, petals fall from the sky when she dances. Petals!



I would also be remiss if I failed to mention the identity of the hunk on the video screen, a certain Tony Ward, better known as "One of Madonna's Boyfriends." Indeed, after serving as the catalyst for Belinda's weakness, Ward went on to appear in the videos for "Cherish," "Erotica," and most notoriously, "Justify My Love." I'm no expert on these matters, but some YouTube commentators feel he might actually be a bit "weak" in the heartthrob department:

Great song from the 80s..but imo, they could've gotten a better looking guy than who they picked for this video.

Weird video since the guy she is weak over isnt good looking at all. lol

Sorry but I find him too Sean Penn-ish. Doesn't work for me.

Sure, but has he interviewed any Mexican drug lords lately? Also, if what various YouTube commentators intimate is true (that Ward got his start in gay porn), the resulting controversy surrounding "Justify My Love" supposedly wouldn't have phased him one bit. I mean, abandoning the lucrative promise and glamour of gay porn for ... Madonna and Belinda Carlisle videos? That's pretty weak. Other YouTube comments that got a chuckle out of me:

if she said she was in love with me, i wouldnt question it

Teenage me thought that she was finer than frog hair.

Belinda was adorable when you can make those bizarre hairstyles look good you know you're a pretty girl.

Belinda if your seeing this I’m still a stud at 54. Let’s hook up

Late '80s-early '90s Belinda Carlisle was every guy's dream. Period. I remember when she was on Letterman during this period in her career -- and he was just a babbling idiot. And I'm not saying that to disparage Dave; he just could not believe his eyes that a woman could be that gorgeous. I got to see her on tour when she opened for Robert Palmer in the summer of '86. Eleventh row, floor. Oversized, lime-green top, chunky bracelets, and purple heels. Oh, yeah. She was awesome.

If I could have sex with a voice, it would be her's.

i remember the single of this came out in the dead of winter 1988,i bought the cassingle and drove all around syracuse getting drunk and mooning people cranking this tune.

I hate to break this to you, Belinda, but from the symptoms you’ve described here you’re not in love; you have MS.

At the end when he she covers his mouth and his head falls back and kind of smiles, it's like she's preventing him from screaming as the cloroform kicks in.

The Foolish Bleat Of Debbie Gibson's Art

I woke up this morning and thought to myself, "Am I really about to do a blog post on Debbie Gibson?"

Sometimes, a man needs to live on the edge.

Every now and then, I've heard talk about a so-called Debbie Gibson/Tiffany "rivalry." Such chatter, I feel, while well-intentioned, is uninformed and misguided. Debbie Gibson and Tiffany were rivals in about the same sense that, say, the Zombies and Herman's Hermits were rivals. The casual pop music dilettante might not have observed a noticeable demarcation point, but upon closer inspection, one spots a clear difference. The difference being: Debbie Gibson composed her own songs, and Tiffany did not. Granted, one might counter that the songs Debbie Gibson composed may not have been particularly noteworthy songs. But that's not the point. Debbie Gibson carried those little jewels of teen-pop schmaltz in her womb for nine months, suffered morning sickness, took the Lamaze classes, screamed through the agony of labor. What did Tiffany do? Tiffany just drove her pick-up truck to the adoption center. And Gibson was, by the way, about seventeen years old when she composed, produced, and performed said songs. She didn't merely know her target audience; she was her target audience.

You know what? I was sitting here staring at a bunch of Debbie Gibson song titles, and I just had the most shocking realization. I think Debbie Gibson might have been deliberately naming her song titles in a subtle stylistic homage ... to Roxy Music. Seriously. Let's play a little game here. I'm going to throw a few song titles out there, and your job is to try to tell me which songs are by Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry, and which songs are by Debbie Gibson. Ready? Set? Go! (Answers at the bottom of the post):

"Staying Together"
"Let's Stick Together"
"Angel Eyes"
"Lost In Your Eyes"
"Foolish Beat"
"While Me Heart Is Still Beating"
"Only In My Dreams"
"In Every Dream Home A Heartache"
"Don't Stop The Dance"
"Shake Your Love"
"Out Of The Blue"

Damn. Who pegged Debbie Gibson as such a '70s British art-rock aficionado?

But I digress. With her debut single "Only in My Dreams," Gibson attempted to answer the most pressing question of her age: Is generic teen pop more impressive if it's actually been written by the performer? "Probably not" is my answer, but the record-buying public apparently said "Yes," or, perhaps more likely, didn't even notice. Hanson, any thoughts? I would like to point out that when Janis Ian was 14, she wrote "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)." Just saying.

In the video Gibson finds herself trapped in a Fellini film, waking up in a bed that's been sitting in the middle of a beach (does anyone else really want to know the details of the night she's just had?), surrounded by little girls and a priest. I think I see Marcello Mastroianni in the background playing with a beach ball somewhere. These "dreamlike" black and white shots are interspersed with color footage of Debbie cavorting on a merry-go-round, wearing hoop earrings, a cropped jacket, and ... thigh-length jean shorts? Ah, the '80s. She also copiously moves her hands in front of her face. Maybe it's just me, but this might be the rare instance of a sax solo detracting from the overall power of an '80s song.



While Madonna couldn't abandon her early, fluffy "Minnie Mouse on helium" dance-pop image fast enough, instead quickly pivoting to material about abortion and loathing her father and all that "adult" stuff, Debbie Gibson stormed into the studio clutching her copy of Madonna with all her might and said to the engineer, "I wanna sound like this!" Of course, even in her first incarnation, while her lyrics were more or less dopey, Madonna still used her videos to push boundaries. Based on the contents of the "Shake Your Love" video, I think the only thing Debbie Gibson wanted to push was ... a shoe to her ear (1:24). Favorite YouTube comments:

What brought me here? I am a UPS driver and a lady on my route is named Debbie Gibson. Every time she gets a package I walk in the office and sing " Shake your love!" LOL

Because of Debbie I learned English so well, I'm from Chile. Regards

“shake your love” by debbie gibson was a song she wrote about giving handjobs

Now that would have been boundary-pushing. Well, it turns out Debbie did have a darker, more brooding side. She just needed to be provoked, and nothing provokes a teenage girl like a bad break-up. I mean, we're not talking your run-of-the-mill break-up here. We're talking an End Of The World, Cry of Existential Agony, Lose All Faith In Humanity kind of break-up. If Debbie Gibson has an epic, soul-crushing, legacy-cementing work, that work ... would be "Foolish Beat."



It begins gently, eerily - the feather-light keyboard, acoustic guitar, and lightly-struck bell conjuring the uncertain calm of an autumn sunset. The corresponding images in the video suggest a typical, quotidian evening in New York City. Look at all those people out there, driving home from work, crossing bridges, living in their plush Manhattan digs. You know what all those people have? They have someone. And who does Debbie Gibson have? No one. We catch a quick glimpse of our bereaved at 0:06, lit in silhouette, striking a foreboding pose. She's about to tell us a tale - a heartbreaking tale.

At 0:13, the sax enters. See, this is how you use a saxophone in an '80s song. We see a man walking along a grimy city street, as steam rises up from a manhole. Suddenly, we zoom into a cafe. The narrative commences: "There was a time when/Broken hearts and broken dreams/Were over." Uh ... the grammar needs some work, but I think I get the gist of her intentions: broken hearts and broken dreams were "things of the past." She goes on: "There was a place where/All you could do was/Wish on a four leaf clover." "All you could do"? That's a pretty limited set of options. What about wishing upon a star? Throwing a coin in the well? Did it have to be a clover? The camera pans over and the film stock shifts from color to black and white, clearly giving us a depiction of happier times, as Debbie sits with her paramour while an imposing stack of coffee cups teeters on the table. Seriously, how much coffee did these two drink? No wonder why their relationship didn't work out: they were probably caffeinated up to the gills! They probably couldn't even sit still for five seconds. Talk about "shaking your love."

But then wait, look out, here comes the imitation snare drum: "But now is a new time/There is a new place/Where dreams just can't come true/It started the day when I left you, oh/I could never love again the way that I loved you, oh." Never love again? Like, ever? I don't know, Debbie. Just give it a little more time, you know, watch a movie, get drunk with some friends. He was probably an asshole anyway. He was probably the kind of guy who left the toilet seat up. I can practically hear her shimmying her hips and thrusting her chest when she belts "And WHEN we SAID goodBYE!" as the guitar strums some menacing chords and the keyboard surges. The ache, the longing is so palpable. She's like the cagey little white suburban girl who, for the first time in her sheltered, spotless life, finally discovers her inner tortured R&B diva and decides to let it rip. I love how there's a medium shot of Debbie grieving in her dressing room, and then the camera cuts to a brief close-up at 1:23 just to catch her singing "oh," and then the camera cuts right back out again. That "oh" really needed its own close-up, did it not? At 1:48, she literally wipes a tear away from her eye. Take that, Sinead O'Connor.

"Foolish Beat," how else do I love thee? I love the forlorn stroll along the New York harbor during the second chorus, I love the heavily choreographed "live concert" dance routine during the bridge, I love the snippet of castanets after the lyrics "without your heart," the little blast of synthesized brass at 3:11 (right before "break my heart"), the shot of Debbie and her former beau attempting to buy roses during the sax solo, where everything is in black and white except the roses - like that scene in Schindler's List with the girl in the red coat, only bleaker - and just as they're about to purchase a bouquet, some brat on a skateboard snatches it from them! I tell ya, it just wasn't in the cards for these two.

OK, fine, I get it. I'm sure her break-up is a bummer of epic proportions and all, but why do I still get the sense that this whole episode is merely a result of Debbie's youthful inexperience? Let me put it this way: When Karen Carpenter sings "I'll say goodbye to love," I really believe that Karen is permanently, irrevocably saying adios to romantic fulfillment. Debbie Gibson just sounds like she's having a bad weekend. Indeed, although in the last shot, her ex tosses roses into a trashcan while waiting in vain outside a Debbie Gibson concert (he really puts some fear and loathing into that toss), the melody concludes on an unexpected major chord, suggesting a sense of ... optimism and renewal? Don't worry Debbie, everything gets better in college - at least that's what they tell me.

A: Debbie Gibson; Roxy Music; Roxy Music; Debbie Gibson; Debbie Gibson; Roxy Music; Debbie Gibson; Roxy Music; Roxy Music; Debbie Gibson; Debbie Gibson and Roxy Music

Belinda Takes Britain (AKA The Belinda Invasion)

While they may have been America's Sweethearts, the Go-Go's never exactly "made it" in the U.K. Despite the Terry Hall connection, their version of "Our Lips are Sealed" peaked at #47, a chart placing which was easily surpassed by that of the Fun Boy Three's own version two years later (#7). Vacation, the album, hit #75, aaaaand ... that was about it. Don't ask me to come up with an explanation. Maybe the nation that had produced the Slits, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the X-Ray Spex expected their female rockers to be a little more ... rockier? Maybe the Brits had gotten their fill of retro '60s girl group revivalism from Blondie? Maybe, as I partially suspect, I.R.S. Records lacked strong overseas distribution infrastructure? Poor international distribution is, after all, the reason why R.E.M. ultimately left I.R.S. in 1987 to sign with Warner Brothers, and how did that decision go? Hold on, let me take a quick glance at their international discography page on Wikipedia, and ... yup, I'd say that decision worked out fairly well for them.

Perhaps the most amusing aspect of Belinda Carlisle's solo career, then, is that, to Europeans, she seemingly arrived out of "nowhere" in early 1988 with "Heaven is a Place on Earth," and suddenly created an entirely new fan base that possessed virtually no familiarity with her former band, or her former image. Talk to anyone today in the U.S., and they would probably think of Belinda as the lead singer of the Go-Go's, who also happened to have had a few big solo hits in the late '80s, but whose main claim to fame was the band she fronted. Talk to anyone today in the U.K., and they would almost exclusively think of Belinda as a solo singer, and they might be dimly aware of Belinda having once been in some all-girl band, in the sense that most Americans might be dimly aware that Billy Idol had once been in some punk band. I'm serious!

And once Belinda took Britain by storm, she never looked back.

Allow me to demonstrate, if I may, the seismic force that Belinda brought to her invasion of the Commonwealth by showing you this clip of Belinda performing "Heaven is a Place on Earth" at the 1987 Prince's Trust concert. For several years, this clip was the single most-viewed Belinda Carlisle clip on YouTube (since surpassed by the proper, Vevo-endorsed "Heaven" music video itself). The Prince's Trust, according to my sources, is a charity founded by Prince Charles for the purpose of "helping young people." Kind of a vague mission, no? Well, who am I to judge? The Prince's Trust began holding a series of all-star concerts in the late '80s. Now, who better to "help young people" - young men in particular - than Belinda Carlisle in her smokin' hot prime, amirite? The YouTube user who posted the video adds the qualifier, "This is definitely not her best performance because she was sick, but I still think she did a great job :)". So what I want to know is: if this is what she sounded like on a sick day, then how unfathomably rip-roarin'-rockin' would she have sounded if she'd been healthy? Sure, there are a couple of bum notes - her voice cracks awkwardly at both 1:56 and 2:58 ("Baby ey-ah was afraid before") - but ... it's kind of hot! All that means is just that she's too fired up to let smooth technique get her way, you know? I also catch a mic feedback squeal here and there, but I feel this merely adds to the compelling chaos. Belinda wasn't some manufactured studio concoction, my friends. Belinda could walk the walk, and she could talk the talk.

Indeed, one aspect of Belinda as a performing artist that may have gone unnoticed by the casual observer is that she ... hated lip-syncing. Hated it. Couldn't stand it. Tried to avoid doing it whenever possible. It's funny that Belinda pursued a musical style that couldn't have gotten further away from punk if it had hopped on a rocket ship to Mars, and yet, somehow, some way, some stray, leftover bits of punk attitude must have remained behind that Revlon-smothered facade. In other words, no matter how tame the material, she always tried to show up on that stage and give the crowd a performance that was real.

Here in this clip we see a Belinda that's raw, that's sloppy, that's going on feel, rather than meticulous tonal perfection. Not every note's flawless? She doesn't give a damn. That's rock and roll, baby. I have seen more live Belinda Carlisle clips than a reasonable person would care to admit, but I am amazed at how rarely she has phoned it in - no matter how drunk, no matter how high, no matter how disoriented. She would just grab that audience by the throat and say, "Fuck you! I'm a star!" Even if she felt like shit that night, she got up onto that stage and she gave it all she had. Some performers know no other way.



Fashion-wise, the clip finds Belinda in her Geena Davis phase, wearing some type of tight black dress/bodysuit (?), with a light green skirt that she had apparently borrowed from ... Wilma Flintstone? Why would she be wearing the green skirt if she was already wearing the black thing? Because. I wonder if the bass player behind her in polka dot shirt and tight leather pants might be in the wrong band. Astute viewers might also recognize Charlotte Caffey singing backup, alongside the infamous Donna DeLory (the brunette of the three), who would spend a much lengthier stint (20 years?) singing backup in Madonna's touring band. They're barely audible, but Belinda doesn't sound like she needs 'em anyway. I think they were mostly there to keep Belinda entertained; check out the conspiratorial glance she gives them at 3:37. Indeed, "Heaven" seems to rock harder overall in this stripped-down live context, with the keyboard carrying almost the entire melody, and the substitution of actual drums for what I believe was a drum machine on the original adding particular oomph. The muted backing certainly creates a different vibe from the massive wall of ethereal vocal overdubs and assorted Rick Nowels tchotchkes featured on the studio recording. Favorite YouTube comments:

Belinda is off key here a bit and her skirt is ridiculous but I'd still do her.

i like that she is wearing clothes unlike today's popstars! cough miley cough

I love it that by todays (pop star) standards Belinda is FAT here. 

Belinda's career ended way too soon. There were so many more faps to've been had. 

The prince is fapping up in the balcony omg did I just say that ( : o

Watch Belinda Carlisle as she delivers her hit song, while dressed in a black leotard and a kitchen apron.

Belinda - dump the 80s and come to me...

dangity dang belinda

The bass player's using a Steinberger! You don't see that anymore...

Wow... if this is the type of performance that needs a "She was sick" disclaimer that that says a whole lot about the quality of live performers we have these days. Even when she's not at her best, Belinda is lightyears better than most of the live shit I have heard for quite some time now. Rock the fuck on, girl.

I would give my left nut just to jam with Belinda for half an hour.

man känner bara för att sjunga med hela tiden =)

How much did Belinda hate lip-syncing? Belinda hated lip-syncing so much that when she went on Top of the Pops to bask in her British triumph ("Heaven is a Place on Earth" peaked at #1 in the U.K. for two weeks in January 1988), she actually performed the vocals ... live. Live? On Top of the Pops? Talk about a rebel. The thing is, she sounds so effortlessly on top of this particular piece of pop, I'll bet most viewers hardly even noticed - also, they possibly didn't notice because the rest of the instrumentation is not live. Her back-up band certainly seems to be having fun with the prerequisite TOTP miming, particularly the two guitarists at 2:31, right before the key change, who bang their heads as if they were miming to Def Leppard - and perhaps, in a way, they might as well have been. Remarkably (disturbingly?), Belinda somehow looks a bit thinner here than she did at the Prince's Trust concert, even though this clip had ostensibly been filmed only a short while afterward. Here she's rocking some sort of female power suit, complete with blazer, skirt, and bow on the lapel. It's her "Sexy CEO" look. Hey, I'd buy stock in that company, you know what I'm saying? Let us stop, for a moment, if we may, to admire the absolute perfection of her hair. Seriously, that might be the most perfect hair I've ever seen. It's so perfect, it's almost a pity she had to perform in it. Millions of impressionable young Britons must have sat in front of the telly and said to themselves, "Blimey, who's the American bird with the catchy tune? And when does the next clip of her come on, please?" As one viewer put it in the YouTube comments section years ago (I think the comment is long gone by now), "This is back when Belinda was an 11." Yes indeed. To paraphrase Spinal Tap, this Belinda does go up to 11.

"Heaven Is A Place On Earth" (Video): Diane Keaton + Creepy Globe Children + Wall Fondling ... What More Could You Want?

Music videos can be many things, but one thing that even the best of them cannot be is "catchy." It was therefore inevitable that the music video for "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" - which I have deemed, after rigorous analysis, to be the "Catchiest Song of All Time" - would fall short of the title "Catchiest Music Video of All Time." Nevertheless, while the song may have been (as I have so irrefutably established) written by God himself, the video was quite obviously created by decidedly more ... mortal forces. From Lips Unsealed:

Through Morgan's best friend, John Burnham, I was fortunate enough to get Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton to direct the videos for "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" and "I Get Weak." I was almost intimidated to meet her, but she was utterly charming and thoroughly inspirational in her approach to work. I only had to look at her body of work or the way she dressed (beautifully and with style) to know she had great taste, so I said, "Just do what you want."

And, by the looks of it, that is exactly what Keaton did. At first blush, the phrase, "Directed by Academy Award winner Diane Keaton" would suggest a video of supreme quality, and then one steps back and realizes, "Wait a minute. Diane Keaton is an Academy Award-winning actress, not a Academy Award-winning director." I'm guessing most of the participants involved were not sober enough to know the difference. Well, as music videos go, this one's more First Wives Club than The Godfather, but everyone had a great time making it, so who cares? I'm also not sure that Belinda was aware of the low relevancy level between Keaton's fashion gifts and her video-making prowess, but, hey ... she got Diane Keaton to direct her video! It's the '80s! Here's some coke! Let's do it!

I've never been to Six Flags Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita (I feel like I've driven past it a couple of times), and I've certainly never been on the Spin Out ride, but I may have to make a pilgrimage one day to see the prime location featured in this riveting video. Quite what the Spin Out ride, or an army of children wearing identical black Zorro masks and cloaks, has to do with the lyrics of "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" is unclear, and I'm reckoning it was unclear to Keaton too, but the song has the word "Earth" in it, and the children are all clutching glowing plastic globes, so that's relevant I guess? We don't even catch a glimpse of Belinda for the first twenty seconds; it's just marching bat kids hoisting their spheres in a fashion slightly reminiscent of a Nazi rally. I feel like this could be footage from a pilot episode of a rejected Nickelodeon game show called "Globe Reload!" or something of that nature. Up to this point, the video is pretty meh; I'm basically thinking to myself, in the words of the director herself, "Well la-di-da. La-di-da."

Finally, at 0:20, She appears, and Holy Blindfolded Pre-teen Choir Batman, this video just got a whole lot better. It turns out that heaven is a place on Earth after all, and that place ... is Belinda Carlisle's smokin' hot bod. I think this is where Diane Keaton's directorial genius truly reached its apex. She understood that the key to making a great music video ... was to have Belinda Carlisle in it. A masterstroke! A touch of divine inspiration! With one simple casting decision, Keaton entered the realm of a Scorsese or a Bergman. By liberally sprinkling her work with the aesthetic perfection of prime 1987 Belinda, she instantly elevated her video into the upper echelons of modern telegraphic achievement.

But what's this? Is it just me or ... has the former Dottie Danger done something ... new with her hair? Where's the beach blonde babe of "Mad About You" fame? Well, she probably figured, new record label, new producer, time for a new look. And so we have the debut of yet another hair color from the Big C. This one is sort of a brownish-red, but not quite red and not quite brown. I've read some describe it as "auburn." This finally raises a question that has been on my mind for longer than I'd care to admit: just what is Belinda Carlisle's "natural" hair color? I'm serious. I have seen it colored: brown, red, blonde, dirty blonde, green ... even purple. These days her hair is generally black, but I assume she dyes it. I've seen photos of her from high school where her hair appears to be blonde, but she could have been dyeing it even then. I honestly have no idea. Ultimately ... [throws hands in the air despondently] does it even matter? Like the fate of the Roanoke Colony, or the location of Amelia Earhart's plane, it is one of those questions that is destined to remain an eternal mystery.

Frankly, her hair could be beige for all I care and she'd still probably make it work. Belinda can wave her six flags over my magic mountain any day, you know what I'm sayin'? The accompanying garments are equally mesmerizing. At first she opts for a black sleeveless dress that's sporting some kind of white dangling ball design on the front, and she pairs it with a fluffy, unbuttoned pink sweater (perhaps a nod to her prior cheerleader days?). And then in the second verse she rocks some sort of black off-the-shoulder dress and belt, with flowers in her lapel. Flowers! The woman exudes sheer fecundity and potency, I tell you.

But, hold on a second. What's she doing to that wall? Honey, put the kids to bed, Belinda's ... humping a wall. Yes, for several seconds in this video, we are treated to the sight of Belinda Carlisle rubbing herself sensually against an unusually narrow corner of a nondescript wall. I mean, she's having a really good time with that wall. I hope that wall's wearing protection. What were the directions here? "Just shake it Belinda, fondle the wall, let it all out!" You rub that wall, Belinda. You rub that wall nice and good.

Other observations:

1. At 0:30, Belinda tilts her head back teasingly, and then Keaton simply hits the "repeat" button and plays the same exact shot over again. I'm thinking maybe Keaton had a preliminary cut and thought she'd covered the full length of the audio, but realized she was half a second short, so then she just decided to ... fill in the gap with a pointlessly repeated shot?
2. Why is there suddenly a narrow slit of light shining across Belinda's face? Is she in a prison cell? Is it time to feed Belinda?

3. Personally, Belinda is at her hottest in this video at about 1:13, and then later at 1:21, where she's leaning behind a fence, now wearing some kind of coat. She's got that sexy, captured, helpless, "Stockholm Syndrome" look. Ooh yeah.
4. I love the shot that starts at the second verse (1:32), where Belinda, in Outfit #2, sort of twirls away from the camera merrily, then arrives at the end of the room, realizes "Hey, crap, another wall is there!" and calmly turns around and retraces her steps. Couldn't they have just found a ... larger room? Or at least planned out the shot better? Were they under a deadline? Something fishy goin' on here. And then there's this horribly awkward edit at 1:42, where (I assume) Keaton spliced together two slightly different takes of Belinda twirling back from whence she came, perhaps hoping no one would notice? Why not just do another take?? Or maybe it's all for "effect"? Diane Keaton was fucking with us!
5. At 1:47, Belinda is back in her corner, and ... allow me to pause for a moment and state: What an exceptional corner. It's like the walls are at a 20 degree angle. They could have called this video "Heaven Is a Place in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." This shot also, I should add, gives us an impressive view of Belinda's cleavage.
6. And why are the bat children jogging in place all the time? Is that how they're powering the globes? What sickening underworld dystopia was Belinda living in here?
7. Perhaps running out of ideas, Keaton looked behind her and said, "Hey Morgan, just get in there and stand in that pool of water and start ... making out with Belinda or something. This'll be great!" Sometimes, to quote Annie Hall, a music video is like a shark. It has to keep moving, or it dies. And what Keaton had on her hands here ... was a dead shark. Then she covered the happy couple in a ... satin sheet? My guess as to the thought process here: "I dunno, I saw it in a Maybelline commercial one time." By the end, they migrate over to Belinda's favorite wall, as the children keep spinning, and spinning, and SPINNING ... I mean, if heaven is really a place on earth, that place would be pretty nauseous by now.

YouTube comments for the "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" video generally fall into four categories:

Category #1: Belinda's Affection for the Wall:

Haha. She really likes that wall. ;)

I think she'd addicted to dancing with walls.

is she having sex with the wall?

i want to be reincarnated as a wall

Dedicated to all the guys who so wanted to be the wall...

Something tells me that wall thoroughly enjoyed itself.

That wall... I just want to roll around against it.

Thats one lucky corner.

Nobody puts Belinda in a corner....

What is she doing to the poor wall lol

this has a lot more wall humping than i remember.

Category #2: Belinda's Hotness:

Thats an "A" Class redhead meat !!!

the day this video was shot....Belinda Carlisle was THE most beautiful woman on the planet...................

Oh Heaven is a place in her pants

Thats a lucky guy who got to maul her in this video. Damn, i would've stepped up and did his job.

I love her vibrato. And her jugs.

I certainly would not miss a day of school if she were my teacher . HOT HOT !

Without sounding shallow, B. Carlisle is STILL damn HOTT!

boy would I have drank her bathwater back in 87-90. now a days I think I would let that bathwater stagnate in the hopes that the algae and mold along with the flakes of dead skin and fecal matter (from her playfully farting in the water) would mutate in to a new and soon to be young Belinda Carlisle.

Damn, Belinda Carlisle just gave me a serious Woodrow

Belinda, if you're ever down south, I'd love to take you to lunch, St Augustine area. I'll treat your bodyguard too. open invitation.

Category #3: What Does It Mean?

This vid is WHACK! I mean, is Heaven really supposed to look like a torture chamber from the Saw saga?

apparently in heaven everyone wears black eye masks.

So is this video about gnosticism?

Great song, but DAMN they had some of the worst music videos back then. What's with the jogging in place with the globe and the Green Hornet Kato masks??? And who's idea was it to stick Belinda in the corner where she almost whips her head into the wall...it's not even a right angle, it's, like, a wedge or something. Great song, though. :D

Belinda is Gaia, the earth mother, and she's fallen in love with the male mask of the apocalypse, one of many it wears. It's unclear if she knows his true nature, destroyer of worlds, or if like so many other naive women, she's under his spell and won't realize it until his violent love overcomes her and throws her body into the ditch of unbeing. In any case, at the end of the video she's obviously dead, added to his collection of little worlds, but did she want it this way, and why? Why?!

The message of this video is that accepting a one world government would bring about heavon on earth. It is Illuminati programming. Very little analysis is required to come to this conclusion.

Category #4: Miscellaneous:

"Ooo" is not a word.

Damn this whole time I thought it was "blueberry heaven was a place on earth"

Belinda and the Globe Trotters.

Best. Pop song. Ever. And I'm a thrash metal freak...

I'd have like to done lines with Belinda!!!!!!!!!!!!

Watching this video makes me realize there's a lot of us that graduated from the Belinda Carlisle school of dance.

heaven would be a place on earth if people would stop making comments about justin bieber on every music video i go on. 

Belinda Carlisle, the William Blake of the 1980s
'Until we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land'

I remember when I was young, this was my favorite song the year it came out. My brother knew this, so he changed the channel when it came on. :- ( He's now married to a horrible woman who looks like the Penguin. Karma.

Love does NOT come first. First comes introducing yourself, then comes "Nice meeting you", then comes getting to know, then comes like, then comes talking about your likes and dislikes, then comes love, then comes "Will you marry me?", then comes marriage, and then comes a family of your own.

I listened to this song on repeat before my colonoscopy because I thought I might die. Spoiler alert, I did not die.

Heaven is A Place On Earth. Hell is A Place In My Marriage.

"Heaven Is A Place On Earth"; Hell Is A Place For Anyone Who Badmouths Belinda Carlisle's Biggest Hit

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without catchy '80s pop songs, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the listening public. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of '80s radio. And God said, Let there be an extremely catchy '80s pop song: and there was Belinda Carlisle.

And God saw the Belinda, that she was good: and God divided the Belinda from the Go-Go's.

And God called the extremely catchy '80s pop song "Heaven is a Place on Earth."

Pretty sure that's how the Bible begins. I dunno, it's been a while. Maybe my translation's a little funky. But no other explanation for the creation of "Heaven is a Place on Earth" is remotely plausible. Despite published evidence stating that Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley composed the piece, I am partially convinced that it was written by God himself. The song is simply too catchy to have been created by mere man. One would expect a flaw somewhere, a weakness, a defect ... but there is none. It was not written, but merely transcribed from the heavens.

"Heaven is a Place on Earth" might very well be ... The Catchiest Song of All Time (TM).

"Heaven is a Place on Earth" is the only Belinda Carlisle song, either with the Go-Go's or solo, that has truly become ... what's the word? Ubiquitous. It is one of those '80s pop songs that will just always ... be. To use Jungian terminology, it has entered our collective unconscious. Let me put it this way: if you accost a random person on the street, and ask them if they know who Belinda Carlisle is, that person might say they do not. You could sing them every song Belinda ever sang in her 36 year recording career, and they might not know any of them.

But they will know this one.

It is a soundtrack staple, having been featured in everything from Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion and American Wedding to Love and Other Drugs and Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, not to mention (as every other recent comment on the song's YouTube page will remind you) the finale of the "San Junipero" episode of Black Mirror.

It is the song that Belinda Carlisle's fame rests on. It is, and is perhaps forever destined to remain, her ultimate, lasting legacy. It is also catchier than the themes from Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch, The Andy Griffith Show, and I Dream of Jeannie put together. They say men have died from being unable to escape the eternal pull of the song's ingratiating chorus. If what they say is true, then I can't possibly imagine a sweeter way to die.

"Heaven is a Place on Earth" was Belinda's only #1 US hit, either solo or with the Go-Go's. Sometimes you only get one. But you know what? Belinda can always say that she's had just as many Billboard #1 hits as Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry, and Neil Young have had (and more than Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Bob Dylan ever had!). It reached the summit for precisely one week in December 1987, preceded by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes's "I've Had the Time of My Life" and swiftly followed by George Michael's "Faith." But it was not merely a domestic triumph. Like "Don't You Want Me," "Every Breath You Take," "Careless Whisper," or "West End Girls," it was one of those '80s singles that refused to recognize pesky international boundaries. It became a massive hit on a global scale. It was one of those songs that just seemed to scream out "Number One With a Bullet." It may have even been, in the words of Jane Wiedlin's buddies Sparks, the "Number One Song in Heaven."

You'd think I'd be able to recall when I first heard "Heaven is a Place on Earth," but I cannot. The moments that define one's life, lost in the dustbins of memory. I don't remember particularly hearing it around the time of its release, and yet, when I heard the song in the early '90s, I feel like I was hearing a song I'd definitely heard already. In 1998, I borrowed one of those "80s Classic Ballads CDs" from a fellow camp counselor, thinking I would throw the keepers onto a tape I had lying around solely for the purpose of recording random songs that didn't fit on any other cassette (ah, the days before the mp3). Well, most of the '80s Classic Ballads I deemed non-Classic enough for my tape, but I saved some room for "Heaven is a Place on Earth." That was one I definitely needed in my collection somewhere. I found it hard to believe that I didn't have it on a tape already. Talk about a no-brainer.

A year or so before my Paul-like conversion into the Church of Carlisle, I was on my lunch break, enjoying some passable Indian food and perusing the local paper, when I noticed an article in the entertainment section. It was an interview with someone I'd never heard of: songwriter Rick Nowels. But when the article mentioned that he was the co-author of Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth," I immediately put down the paper, looked up toward the dingy ceiling of the food court, and thought, "Say no more." I mean, give the man a medal. Dude didn't need to write another decent song for the remainder of his pathetic career. Belinda knows what I'm talkin' about. From Lips Unsealed: "I heard the song the day after it was written. Rick sat at a piano, and Ellen sang. It was like they were showing me a newborn baby." Yes, and like Jesus, "Heaven is a Place on Earth" came into the world so that mankind could be saved. "I've had few reactions like the one I had after hearing them. I knew the song, even better than a hit, was a classic." Yeah, sure Belinda. Easy to say in retrospect.

Not everyone was quite so impressed. Certain listeners have suggested that the song is a ripoff of either Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name," "Livin' on a Prayer," or both - a resemblance that, frankly, had never occurred to me prior to hearing someone mention it, but then again, despite their pending induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I've probably spent about five brain cells in my entire existence thinking about Bon Jovi. Of course, anyone who refers to Belinda Carlisle's definitive masterpiece as a mere "Bon Jovi ripoff" should die in a flaming inferno, but ... you know, I just listened to all three songs in a row and ... hmmm. I've heard less plausible accusations, let's just say that. Both "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Heaven is a Place on Earth" begin with an a cappella rendition of the chorus, followed by a solely instrumental rendition. And the big chord change in "Heaven" between "worth" and "ooh heaven" does, if one squints, seem a bit similar to the change in "Livin' on a Prayer" between "there" and "oh whoa, livin'." Maybe. And all three songs kind of share the same tempo. And all three songs feature a shameless T.U.K.C. (Totally Unnecessary Key Change) at the end. You know what? If Belinda ripped off Bon Jovi even a teenie tiny bit, she took whatever was good about those Bon Jovi songs and made it about a thousand times better. You know why Belinda's song is better? Because it's being sung by Belinda Carlisle, and those other songs are being sung by Bon Jovi. You mean to tell me that Mr. Watered Down Housewife Rock Working Class Malaise can even compete for one second with Ms. Yuppie Superbabe Extraodinaire? Ha! Bon Jovi fans are just jealous. That said, the electronica band Orbital has been known to mash up "Heaven" with "You Give Love a Bad Name" in concert performances of "Halcyon + On + On," which, I have to say, works well enough to hinder my argument. Amusingly, Nowels himself claims he was mainly inspired by Prince (!).

In what may have been a Wikipedia prank, several years ago a sentence on the song's Wikipedia page claimed that the melody was an interpolation of an aria from Bach's Christmas Oratorio, which seemed to explain why the song feels so supernaturally seamless. I knew that wily Rick Nowels couldn't have just pulled a chorus like that out of thin air! And if you're going to rip somebody off, it might as well be Bach, right? (Ask Procol Harum). But alas, I downloaded Bach's Christmas Oratorio, listened to the aria in question, and heard no blatant resemblance to any aspect of "Heaven is a Place on Earth." The sentence is no longer on the Wikipedia article. I think we might have to give this one to ol' Ricky Boy (and Shipley) after all.

Because you want a hook? This song's got a hook.



Some songs take a little time to get going. Other songs just grab you by the balls right from the first note and say "Come here big fella." "Heaven" doesn't "begin" so much as descend from the sky on a magic puffy cloud of '80s production goo. A single solitary pound of the bass drum acts as the clarion call to a new age, as Belinda and her back-up seraphs (including, apparently, Michelle Phillips) enter the arena, smothered with more echo than a Ricola commercial, while Thomas Dolby (!) doubles the melody on some sort of imitation glockenspiel doodad. You thought your '80s hit had an intro? This is an '80s hit with an intro. You're stuck, you're in, you can't turn back. If this intro could talk, it would say, "For the next four minutes, you're mine, baby, all mine." As the chorus enters its third bar at 0:08, I hear a really dated-sounding bass de-tuning, but otherwise the quasi-Gregorian glory of the opening has aged about as poorly as God has.

I've been pondering for years - no exaggeration - what exactly it is about the chorus of "Heaven is a Place on Earth" that makes it so ... "heavenly"? You will say that it's catchy. Yes, it's catchy, but a lot of choruses are catchy. This one is catchy, and also ... more. I think it has something to do with the rhythm of the words, the sustained pauses, not just the notes but the silence between the notes, that give it a kind of ... confidence. The first few words "Ooh, baby do you" all exist on the same repeated note, like an incantation, a mantra. The melody only begins to rise on "know what that's worth." The initial repetition brings a semblance of comfort, as if we're safe in the arms of the world's greatest Belinda Carlisle song, and once we know we're safe, we can now follow her on this journey to another realm.

And ooh, baby, do you know how enigmatic these lyrics are? I love songs that begin with a question. "Blowing in the Wind." "With a Little Help From My Friends." "Layla." "Free Bird." "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." "Bohemian Rhapsody." "Comfortably Numb." It pulls the listener in, adds an air of mystique. "Ooh baby do you know what that's worth?" What is what worth? Who is she talking to? What the hell's going on? It's a mystery. Come to think of it, upon closer inspection, the lyrics of "Heaven" don't actually ... make a lick of sense. "They say in heaven love comes first"? Who says this? Have you ever heard anyone say this? "We'll make heaven a place on earth"? I don't think that sentence is phrased correctly. I think what's intended is something more like "We'll make earth a place that's more like heaven." I mean, you could make heaven a place on earth, but how many square miles would that "place" be? And just where, precisely, would you put it? Everything's already been placed here. You'd have to dislodge something. "And the world's alive/With the sound of kids on the street outside"? Is that supposed to be a welcome sound? I know whenever I hear kids on the street outside, I feel like clenching my fist in the air and telling those kids to take that racket elsewhere, but maybe Rick Nowels thinks it's romantic.

Whatever. Belinda's fiery, magnetic delivery renders the details moot. She lays into this sucker like it's "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" When she throws that little growl into "Baby" at the start of "Baby I was afraid before" ... yowsers! Call the lion tamer! Unfortunately, by the time she gets to "But I'm not afraid anymore," the claws are out and nothing's going to tame this beast. I'm not sure how afraid she was "before," but when she exclaims that her fear has vanished entirely, well I, for one, believe her. It's like she's ripping her shirt open, declaring to anyone within earshot, "Come on, world, gimme your worst!" Maybe someone in the studio realized this song was pop fluff, but apparently nobody told Belinda.

At around 2:22, the backing vocalists fade mystically into the murk while the band vamps on some new chords. At 2:33, 2:41, and 2:48, the dense fog of back-up singers lets out an eerie "Heaaaaa-vuuuuuuhn" that sounds like it flew in from either the coda of Fleetwood Mac's "Sara" or an all-female Def Leppard cover band. After some tinny-sounding cymbal noises (arguably the only wart on this perfect beast), all of the instruments simmer down apart from the bass, while Belinda repeats her entreaties about the miracle of living and not being afraid anymore and such (retaining every ounce of passion from the prior delivery of those lyrics). Well, it's a good thing she's not afraid, because suddenly heaven turns to hell as the apocalypse begins raining down from the sky and instrumental chaos ensues - there's weird buzzing droning thingies and backwards cymbals and all sorts of demonic goings-on. Is Belinda going to be swallowed up and eaten by the hideous '80s Production Beast? No! What's this? She's saved by a lightning-quick drum roll and what may arguably be the finest example of a T.U.K.C. in all of '80s pop. Talk about a deus ex machina swooping down from the heavens at the last minute.

Discussion of the song's heavenly (and/or charmingly ridiculous) video to follow.

Nothing's Gonna Stop Me From Making Fun Of Starship Now AKA The Belinda Soundtrack Throwaway That Finally Came To Life

Let's just say that after "Rhythm of the Night," DeBarge's and Diane Warren's careers went in ... opposite directions? While Debarge quickly became the '80s pop living embodiment of the Book of Job, Warren teamed up with songwriter Albert Hammond, he of "It Never Rains in Southern California" and "Free Electric Band" fame (and esteemed co-writer of such easy listening gems as the Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe" and Leo Sayer's "When I Need You") on her way to uncontested '90s power ballad domination. OK, not exactly Goffin/King or Bacharach/David here, but then again, their target recording artists weren't picky. Exhibit A: Starship.

Of Starship's three #1 hits, there is one I am not ashamed to like (and/or love?). I essentially agree with the consensus on "We Built This City," and "Sara" is a good 1986 pop song in the sense that John Paul II was a good pope, but like every great (crappy?) '80s band, what Starship really needed, to bring out its best side, was a movie soundtrack.

I wish I could say I've seen Mannequin so that I could make a snarky comment about it, but I just remember that when it came out, I thought the TV ads were funny. I was also seven years old. However, if you don't think that the soundtrack gave us one of the greatest power ballads of the '80s, hands down, no question, end of story ... then you'll need to get out of my face. AMG's Joe Viglione knows what I'm talking about:

For those purist fans of the early Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, a song like "We Built This City" took the path the Marty Balin-less group embarked on with "Jane" (a title Balin actually rehearsed with the group prior to his leaving for a solo career) farther into the arena rock wasteland. The four minutes and 29 seconds of "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" were a huge treat on an entirely different level. It's really more a collaboration between producer/arranger Narada Michael Walden and singers Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas than it is a Starship track. Lead guitarist Craig Chaquico is merely a guest star here, for this is a high-tech quagmire of bells, whistles, strings, and Walden's vision, building the melody into a rock-solid stomp, but for Starship, it is its zenith ... With this tune the band evolved into the counterculture Archies, but Slick remains the Queen of Cool, and she adds a dimension of integrity, even bringing the very best performance out of Thomas, who was all things a singer for Jefferson Starship should not have been. Slick and Thomas work in unison here, not the tapestry that was her marriage with Balin's voice on "Miracles" but an effortless combination like the guitars of Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, a doubling effect which intensifies the sentiment. The song by Albert Hammond and Diane Warren could not be constructed more perfectly or with such refined precision. Walden has to be commended for merging dance-rock with industrial, and for all the contrived elements, anathema to fans of the institution which once crafted "It's No Secret" and "Plastic Fantastic Lover," this platter is itself a fantastic plastic march of triumph and overcoming all obstacles.

"Merging dance-rock with industrial?" Well, it certainly merged something with something. I also didn't realize Thomas and Slick were the Richards and Wood of '80s power ballads, but who am I to argue? The opening percussive barrage sounds like an android version of John Bonham on NyQuil. It may be tame, but it's huuuuuuge. And once it settles into the main rhythm, the beat truly feels like a massive generator that's suddenly up and running and could not be stopped even if someone wanted to stop it. It's like the inevitable chug of time immemorial. Nothing's gonna stop that throbbing thump in the background. And the moment it kicks into gear, it unleashes all these little sparkly sounds that flutter around the stereo spectrum. It's like they dipped the song in glitter.

Mickey enters, singing in an unusually low and sadly unmockable register, but then Grace steps up to the plate, and it sounds like she's been spending some serious time in the batting cage: "Let 'um say we're cray-zayyyy/I don't care 'bout thaaaaaa-uh-aaat/Put your hand in my hand baby/Don't evuh look baaa-uh-aaack/Let the world uh-round-ussss/Just fall uh-paaaaart/Baby we can make it if we're heart to heaaaaaart." I remember listening to this song in the car with my father, and after Slick sang her lines, he starting getting a bit Simon Cowell on us: "Listen to that power! Now that's a powerful voice right there folks." I got the impression that this was a singer who was supposedly more well-known than the usual singer of songs from the Mannequin soundtrack, but I didn't learn about Grace Slick until years later, and I didn't realize she'd sung this song until even later. At the time, sitting there in the car, I just had this image of an extremely large woman with a gigantic pair of lungs. Amazingly, Slick was still quite thin in 1987 (but whoa, if you Google pictures of her now, be prepared).

Her verse is the perfect set-up for what may very well be the most glorious chorus in the annals of '80s power ballad choruses - and unlike popes, that might actually be some seriously stiff competition. Go ahead, sing it right now. I know you want to. Every note feels like it's a stone pillar in the vast temple of love that the song is building in your ears. Mickey suddenly jumps an octave, and the thing is, he can sing in that range without straining at all. It's at this point where you truly realize that nothing is going to stop Starship here: not the Army, not the Navy, not the Air Force, and certainly not the fucking Marines.

There's a nice section that sounds like the start of the fade-out but actually turns out to be merely the bridge, where Mickey proclaims, "Oooooh, all that I need is you," Grace concurs that "All that I ever neee-eee-eee-eeed," and Mickey clarifies by stating "And aaaahll ... that-I-want ... to dooooooooo" and basically they just want to hold each other forever, ever and ever. Mickey reaches back for a nasty "Hey!" and a solo comes in which, while totally expected, sounds exactly the way you hoped it would and does everything it needs to do.

Then it's time for the real fade-out, and Mickey unleashes his usual high-pitched might, with two choice interjections by Grace ("I knowwww" at 4:00 and "Whoo-hoo! Nuh-thin'" at 4:09), and it's at this point, with a faceless sea of background singers chanting the chorus, that the song becomes ... dare I say it? Moving? Touching? Here's the deal: with her three Starship #1's, Grace Slick became the oldest woman to have a #1 hit on the Billboard charts (a record eventually broken by - you better "believe" it - Cher). Now, think of how many female singers tried to stay on top for years and years, putting themselves through all kinds of humiliating industry contortions and makeovers. And yet here was Grace, actually doing it. Not only that, but think of how many times Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship should have died an ugly, Betty Ford Clinic death. People might have even been glad if they'd died an ugly, Betty Ford Clinic death. But here they were, soaring across the airwaves with a hit Diane Warren power ballad from Mannequin, and they overcame every obstacle to become even bigger than they'd been in their prime. In a cheesy, slap-to-the-forehead kind of way, it's ... inspiring.

And then, like Alec Guinness at the end of Bridge on the River Kwai, Grace suddenly realized, with horrifying clarity, what she'd done, and promptly quit the band. Yeah, nothing's gonna stop Starship now, all right ... except Grace Slick leaving.



I only have a few questions about the video:

1. How much do you think it cost them to make mannequin versions of Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick?
2. Why does that dog have an ice pack on its head?
3. What's the deal with the campy black guy with the Jetsons sunglasses, and why would Mickey turn his fire hose off??

While easily the biggest hit from the Mannequin soundtrack, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" was, contrary to the recollection of everyone ever, not the only song on the Mannequin soundtrack. In fact, there was a song that played during the title sequence that was not even available for commercial purchase. And now we come to what has been referred to as the "holy grail" of '80s Belinda Carlisle tracks: "In My Wildest Dreams."

I assume at this point Belinda was up for anything, and as we all know, you weren't a true '80s pop singer until you recorded a soundtrack song, so she obviously had to check this off the list. A clean version of the credit sequence used to be on YouTube, but it looks like it's been taken down, so here's a version I just found that's cropped beyond comprehension, sped up, and dubbed in Italian. Naturally, the movie studio, I.R.S. Records, and I'm guessing even Belinda herself figured nobody would give two shits about a throwaway track playing over the credits of a not exactly Oscar-winning film, so "In My Wildest Dreams" was never released as an album cut or even as a B-side. But oh, how they underestimated the obsessiveness of Carlisle-ophiles.

Personally, the song kind of sounds like an old, wrinkled version of "Walk Like An Egyptian" that was left out in the sun too long, but rarity has a way of improving a work's quality. For years, the only copy of the song you could hear was one directly ripped from the movie soundtrack, which naturally was not stripped of the cartoonish sound effects that played on top of it during the credits (Yes, I had a copy). Recently Belinda, or rather, an independent British record label with Belinda's permission, began reissuing her entire catalog. In an interview clip I swear I saw only last year, but just spent more time than I'd care to admit searching for, she said something along the lines of: "We tried to reissue everything. I kept hearing from fans on the internet saying, 'What about the song from Mannequin? You have to release the song for Mannequin!' The song from Mannequin? I didn't even know what they were talking about. Oh yeah ... I sorta remember doing that song. I guess I remember that song." So let's hear it for those hardcore fans out there who kept Belinda on her toes. Either it was just re-released on her CD singles box set, or someone finally found the master tape and leaked it onto YouTube, but as of 2014, after almost 30 years, courtesy of divine intervention perhaps, fans can now hear the full, proper studio version of "In My Wildest Dreams." The debate rages on in the YouTube comments:

Holy feyuk! Been looking for this since like 1986! OMG, I have done everything to get a copy of the full length lol I even contacted her on twitter! Wow, thank you for uploading. So it's also on her CD singles? Got to look for it now. Never thought I'd get this!

Ive been looking for this since i was a child, i gave up looking a few years ago and by luck stumbled upon this. You have made my day! Honestly; you have no idea how happy i am hearing the whole thing. Thank you for the upload

YESSSS!!!! been looking for this for ages now how did you find this?

Finally! Been searching for the full version of this song for over 25 years. Thank you thank you thank you 😊

I think this was ripped from the singles boxset? if so the quality is terrible, and disappointing considering how long the fans waited for it...they should remaster it and make it really pump!

Belinda's youthful vocal charms are on full display in this giddy & gooey slice of late 80's pop. Plus the song is full of melodic, rhythmic and lyrical hooks. Dreamy!

Mannequin got a lot of playtime in our VCR. This song is as much a part of my childhood as the National Anthem.

Finally it's surfaced in some way! What a travesty that this track never saw a proper release. For me, it's my favourite Belinda track of all time.

If this had appeared 6 months earlier I would have had this as a song at my wedding haha.

They said Napster was evil, but this song never being released by record companies is the real crime against humanity.

Well ... judge not lest ye be judged. Also, "Favourite Belinda track of all time"? I don't know if I'd go quite that far buddy. At any rate. Who knew that Mannequin would have been the source of so much building up and breaking down? For while it caused Grace Slick to finally, finally say adios to the band that wouldn't die, it may have inspired Diane Warren and Belinda Carlisle to quietly, slyly look at each other ... and get a few ideas.

Late '80s Heart: Just Couldn't Leave Those Power Ballads "Alone"

Here's the deal: If you're gonna do a power ballad, you might as well go big. I want to ask a question, in all sincerity: Has anyone ever criticized a power ballad for being ... too powerful? No. No one has ever made such a preposterous statement. It would be like criticizing a swan for being too graceful, a sword for being too sharp, a Bond villain for being too dastardly. It would be absurd.

Well, what if your song's about being alone? Isn't that kind of a ... quiet emotion? Maybe to the outside observer, perhaps, but on the inside, and if you're, I dunno, 16 years old, it's big. It's an emotion so big, it took not one, but two Wilson sisters to fully capture the scope of that pain. Indeed, very few pieces of music have been able to express the sheer magnitude of despair that confronts those in the throes of solitude. Heart's 1987 power ballad, in this regard, may stand (wait for it ...)

Alone.

Once again, Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly (AKA the "Like A Virgin" guys) secretly scored a ubiquitous '80s #1 hit without anyone noticing who in the hell they were. From Songfacts:

Tom Kelly and I were signed to Epic Records and we made one album under the name i-Ten. It was sort of made out to look like a group, but it was really just the two of us.

We made this album and it was co-produced by Keith Olsen and Steve Lukather. I wasn't really happy with the way it turned out, but it did have some good songs on it. One of the songs on it was 'Alone.' The album was titled Taking A Cold Look. It didn't do much although it has sort of a cult following in Europe.

The most prominent song on it was 'Alone.' Tom and I recorded it for that record and just sort of set it aside when that record didn't succeed ... I just put those songs in a drawer and forgot about them, but then Tom and I were having a good deal of success with 'Like a Virgin' and 'True Colors' and then we heard that Heart was looking for a power ballad and Tom said, 'What about 'Alone'?' I winced and said, 'Oh, I don't really want to look at that song.' He said, 'What do you mean? That's perfect.'

We took the song out and sure enough it was relatively easy to do because we liked everything about the song except the first line of the chorus. The version on i-Ten, the lyric said, 'I always fared well on my own.' Both lyrically and melodically it felt very stiff and unappealing. So I did a minor change on the lyric and it said, 'Til now, I always got by on my own,' and Tom changed the melody and gave it much more movement and almost a slightly R&B feel on the first line of the chorus. That really lifted the chorus, and then all of the sudden I liked the song again.

"I always fared well?" No, no, no. Sometimes it really is the little touches. Could you image, say, "I've been suffering recently from a lack of satisfaction"? Or "There's a lady who I believe is fairly certain that all that glitters is gold"? It's gotta scan right.

The song begins with a piano that initially seems to be alone, although on closer inspection it is paired with what may have been intended to sound like a ticking clock, but perhaps more closely resembles a squeaking shoe. Enter Ann Wilson, seemingly not bothered by the rodent in the studio:

I hear the ticking of the clock
I'm lying here, the room's pitch dark
I wonder where you are tonight
No answer on the telephone

And the night goes by so very slow
Oh I hope that it won't end though
Alone

OK, you're thinking, so it's another soft rock ballad a la "These Dreams." That's cool, but where's the rocking Heart of yore? And then BAM.

What I think separates "Alone" from its power ballad peers is that the power totally comes out of nowhere and it's like holy shit where did all that power come from? In the blink of an eye, the song goes from Howard's End to The Crow. At first it seems like Ann is merely taking a pleasant little stroll in the moonlight, but then it turns out she's accompanied by a vast and insatiable army of warlocks and sea serpents and stuff:

Till now I always got by on my own
I never really cared until I met you
And now it chills me to the bone
How do I get you alone?
How do I get you alone?

The best touch is the sudden harmonies added by (I imagine) Nancy and Ann that accompany the line "I never really cared until I met you." It's the way they split across the stereo channel with such precision, like a laser beam refracting. I just want to tell the ungrateful guy she's trying to woo, "Hey, she may look quiet and shy, but underneath, she'll come at you like a coven of feral witches - just give her a chance buddy."

Then the song slips back into sensitive ballad mode. The thing is, if you think too hard about the lyrics of "Alone," you realize that it basically describes an embarrassingly well-worn unrequited love song scenario that's not original or insightful in any way whatsoever. But if you forget about that for a second and just listen to it, you can't help but be touched in your ... you know ... that thing in your chest region?

Then there is the second chorus. Oh man, the second chorus. What's amazing about the second chorus is that the song has already revealed its "I'm going to suddenly go from serene and peaceful to explosive and fiery" gimmick and you figure there's no way it could be as effective the second time around. But it's better. At 1:56, the drummer performs this agonizingly slow, monstrously heavy drum fill that sounds like it's coming from Ringo's evil fairy stepmother. In the first chorus, Ann started singing right off the bat, but this time, there are a couple of extra bars that are merely instrumental, and it creates this unprecedented sense of anticipation. "Where's Ann? Why isn't she singing? Is she hurt? Is she ... dead?" Oh she's alive all right. Here is my best rendering of her soul-piercing battle cry:

"Ohhhhhhhhh-hauuu-huh-whoa-hauuu!"

And then she sings the chorus. Sit the fuck down.

The rest of the song just sort of rides the inertia from that second chorus all the way to the denouement, although Ann finds one last chance to shine around 3:09 with two jet engine-level cries of "Uh-lowwwwwwwwww-wn-uh!" You can practically smell the burnt fuel residue emanating from her lungs.



So, the video. It begins with some creative staging, as Nancy sits in the foreground playing a grand piano, her hair apparently having been dyed in apricot juice, while Ann, dressed in funereal black, leans on a balcony in the distance. At 0:30 we get a nice close-up of her mascara-smothered visage, but then ten seconds later we get another close-up, and suddenly she's wearing a veil. She's a widow! Dude! She's literally grieving over the death of her fleeting love for some random superficial crush.

But what about the chorus? Something crazy's gotta happen at the chorus, right? Well how about the piano exploding? Oh, and now the rest of the band is on stage and there's an audience with flashing lights and blah blah blah, but honestly: how hard do you have to be playing your '80s power ballad to make your piano explode? Do you think the insurance covered that?

Then at 1:38, the Wilson sisters find themselves in the world's most purple-saturated room. Seriously, what was the conversation like on that set? "Not enough purple! Bob, I wanna see purple bleeding out of my eyeballs!" Where's Barney and Grimace when you need them? And then, then, at 1:54, we have what might very well be the best use of a horse in an '80s music video, full stop. Nancy Wilson, for no apparent reason, is suddenly riding a fucking horse. Hi-Ho Silver, girl, that's what I say. Hi-Ho Silver.

Two final observations: 1) By the end of the video, in half the close-ups of Ann, she's wearing the veil, and in the other half, she's not. Was this a gaffe? Intentional? What does it mean? 2) I love the close-up of Nancy at 3:22 - it's like her post-power ballad sexy satisfaction face. You did it, Heart. You shagged that power ballad harder and longer than anyone had ever shagged a power ballad before. Take a well-deserved nap.