The first thing every new art form needs, obviously, is an awards show. Thankfully, Kanye West aside, one rarely hears heated debates about such-and-such a video being "robbed" at the MTV Video Music Awards, because come on, who takes the Video Music Awards seriously? Certainly not, as the following clips demonstrate, the presenters.
In September 1984, MTV aired the first Video Music Awards. Some enterprising young '80s fan, it looks like from Russia (?), has actually uploaded the entire show onto YouTube (edit: later removed). Maybe you've got two and-a-half hours to kill (as I did), but in case you don't, allow me to summarize the highlights. Here's your chance to see:
How much the voters really loved Herbie Hancock's "Rockit"
Huey Lewis & The News and ZZ Top give some killer lip-syncing performances
Madonna roll around on the stage in a wedding dress
A bunch of memorably dated commercials for products such as Mountain Dew, Levi's 501 jeans, some shoe brand called Thom McAn, and a car that was apparently called a "Plymouth"
But arguably the most amusing part of all is the entertaining parade of half-drunken presenters presenting categories they barely seem to understand, such as Roger Daltrey presenting "Best Overall Performance in a Video" (as opposed to "Best Partial Performance in a Video"?), and Ronnie Wood presenting "Best Stage Performance in a Video" (um, isn't a video performance obviously not a stage performance?). But at any rate, the organizers may have saved the best for second-last, as once Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes dispense with the presentation of "Best Female Video," out come Belinda Carlisle and Kathy Valentine to present "Best Male Video."
Co-host Dan Ackroyd introduces our dazed and confused pair with the portentous announcement, "In the beginning, there was the beat, and the beat was good." Belinda's voice sounds like she just drank a bottle of transmission fluid, but once again, she and Kathy demonstrate an impressive ability to read cue cards despite most likely being completely high out of their minds. Sure, Belinda has a little bit of trouble around the 0:38 mark, but who wouldn't?
Belinda: "Tell me Kathy, how do you like your male video stars? Do you like the heart on the sleeve, 'I'm not too tough to cry' new age male, or do you like the heavy metal motorcycle macho, macho, hit 'em and hug 'em types?"
Kathy: "Well one thing I do like in a guy is one with a lot of substance."
As one YouTube commentator put it, "Yeah, and I think we all know what substance that was." Belinda is so unconcerned with the gravity of the moment that she even stops reading from the teleprompter long enough to wink her eye and flirt with an undisclosed member of the audience.
All you need to know about the nominees for "Best Male Video" is that one of them is Michael Jackson's "Thriller." This one should be a no-brainer, right? But the award goes to ... David Bowie, "China Girl"? Whuuuuut. Sadly, that's not the most egregious sin of the night. That would have to be Video of the Year going, not to "Thriller," not to "Girls Just Want To Have Fun," not to "Every Breath You Take," not to "Jump," or "All Night Long (All Night)," or "Love Is A Battlefield," or "Borderline," or "Uptown Girl," or any one of the dozens of other amazing videos that must have come out that year, but to The Cars'"You Might Think." I'll tell you what I might think, all right. I might think the 1984 MTV VMA voters were smoking crack.
Ah, but there's one other extra bit of chaos here. Believe it or not, some of these world-famous recording artists actually had better things to do that night than to attend the Video Music Awards. Like what? But in the instance of an absent performer happening to win an award, an almost equally famous artist would walk up to the stage to accept it on the absent performer's behalf. In this manner, Diana Ross accepted on behalf of Michael Jackson, and Joey Ramone accepted on behalf of the Eurythmics. Well, David Bowie didn't happen to make it that night, so accepting the award in his place was the co-writer and original performer of "China Girl," Iggy Pop. Which isn't that amusing, until you recall that Iggy Pop is Belinda Carlisle's idol. Look into her eyes and you can see her quietly, secretly, freaking out. Well, well, thought you could just be a presenter at the VMAs and sleepwalk your way through it and everything would be fine, didn't you?
Joe Jackson released a third single from Night and Day, but it didn't do as well as the other two. Maybe it wasn't catchy? Maybe it wasn't elegant? Maybe it wasn't glistening with sophisticated charm? No, it was definitely all of those things. Maybe it flopped because it was a song about GAY PEOPLE.
And not just surreptitiously. Joe actually says "faggot" in the lyrics. No, "Real Men" flopped as a single because no radio station in the '80s probably wanted to touch, with a ten foot pole, a song that tackled homosexuality with quite so much zeal.
It wasn't the most danceable single either, with Joe trading in the latin congas and maracas for a dignified string quartet. Out with the Tito Puente, in with the "Eleanor Rigby"? Also, by pairing up the strings with an extremely prominent drum machine, he might have been trying to invent the new genre of "synth-chamber pop," but apart from The Cure's "Lullaby," I don't think it caught on. Nor does the song seem to fit in with the album's whole "New York" concept, until you realize that the City That Never Sleeps is also a city full of Men Who Sleep With Other Men.
But if "Real Men" is about homosexuality, it's not exactly an anthem for homosexual rights. And if it's not quite pro-gay, it's not quite anti-gay either. So what the hell is it then? Upon closer inspection, "Real Men" may be the ultimate slice of straight male panic:
Take your mind back
I don't know when
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them
Girls that wore pink
And boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Than me and you
What's a man now?
What's a man mean?
Is he rough or is he rugged?
Is he cultural and clean?
Now it's all changed
It's got to change more
'Cause we think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
As if Joe didn't already feel awkward enough dealing with heterosexual relationships, now he has to deal with homosexual relationships too? Can't an Angry Young Man catch a break? Things were already confusing enough as they were! Which is not to say that he harbors some misguided nostalgia for "the good old days" when girls wore pink and boys wore blue and everything was perfect, since he admits that "it's got to change more." Still, as he projects those "Woh-hoh"s over that "Be My Baby" drumbeat, there must be that reactionary little part of him that has his doubts:
See the nice boys
Dancing in pairs
Golden earring, golden tan
Blow-wave in the hair
Sure they're all straight
Straight as a line
All the gays are macho
Can't you see their leather shine
You don't want to sound dumb
Don't want to offend
So don't call me a faggot
Not unless you are a friend
Then if you're tall
And handsome and strong
You can wear the uniform
And I could play along
Like fellow Yuppie Rocker Mark Knopfler (see "Les Boys"), I think Joe's trying to show that although he's "cool" with gay people, the whole thing still makes him a little bit squeamish:
Time to get scared
Time to change plan
Don't know how to treat a lady
Don't know how to be a man
Time to admit
What you call defeat
'Cause there's women running past you now
And you just drag your feet
Poor, poor Joe Jackson. The rise of the gay subculture has messed up his whole sense of identity! God, it's hard being a straight white male sometimes. To be honest, there are probably any number of ways to read these lyrics, although I'm not sure if such open-endedness was Joe's intention. And if "Real Man" was already a bit ideologically confused as it was, in the last verse, Joe goes for broke and tries to make some big grand statement about the human race:
Man makes a gun
Man goes to war
Man can kill and man can drink
And man can take a whore
Kill all the blacks
Kill all the reds
And if there's war between the sexes
Then there'll be no people left
Wait, what? So, at first, he just names all the stereotypical qualities that, for centuries, have been associated with "Man," all of which are somewhat destructive and negative. But then he throws in these lines about blacks and reds and a war between the sexes and I don't know where he's hoping to go with this crap. Well, maybe Joe didn't know exactly what he was trying to say, but hey, you've got to give him points for being a mainstream '80s artist who was at least trying to say something - even if it just seemed like he was throwing a bunch of controversial ideas into a big socio-political pot.
Then there's the video, in which the seemingly All-American, small town football jock decides to drive off a cliff rather than watch his homecoming queen girlfriend hang out with gay biker dudes? I think? Your guess is as good as mine. I'll bet MTV loved this one.
The Eagles without the '70s would have been like a bagel without cream cheese. There just wouldn't have been any point. Besides, the band's whole "swaying palm tree" image wasn't all it was cracked up to be. They may have looked mellow and easy-going on the outside, but on the inside, they were as vicious as the most homicidal gangsta rappers:
On July 31, 1980, in Long Beach, California, tempers boiled over into what has been described as "Long Night at Wrong Beach." Frey and [lead guitarist Don] Felder spent the entire show telling each other about the beating each planned to administer backstage. "Only three more songs until I kick your ass, pal," Frey recalls Felder telling him near the end of the band's set. Felder recalls Frey making a similar threat to him during "Best of My Love." "We're out there singing ‘Best of My Love,’ but inside both of us are thinking, 'As soon as this is over, I'm gonna kill him'", recalled Frey.
Well damn. I used to always chuckle to myself whenever I'd hear Frey sing, "Somebody's gonna hurt someone/Before the night is through," but apparently, he wasn't fucking around.
It appeared to be the end of the Eagles, but the band still had a commitment with Elektra Records to make a live record from the tour. Eagles Live (released in November 1980) was mixed by Frey and Henley on opposite coasts; the two decided they could not bear to be in the same state, let alone the same studio. "The record's perfect three-part harmonies were fixed courtesy of Federal Express," said producer Bill Szymczyk. With credits that listed no fewer than five attorneys, the album's liner notes simply said, "Thank you and goodnight."
And that was different from any of the Eagles' other albums ... how? At any rate, the news must have been a terrible blow to suburban housewives everywhere. It was the day the '70s died. Forty-year-old ex-hippie real estate developers drove their Mazdas to the levee but the levee was dry. The Beatles breaking up in 1970? Yeah, that must have hurt. But the Eagles breaking up in 1980? Who was going to lead Baby Boomers into self-absorbed narcissism now?
Fortunately, all was not lost, for as the Beatles' break-up demonstrated (at least until about ... 1975?), a time of loss was also a time of gain. You see, instead of having just one artist to follow, Eagles fans now had two. It was like that scene in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" where Mickey tries to destroy the mop but instead the mop only multiplies. You couldn't kill the Eagles. Nevertheless, things were going to be different. Former allies were now preparing to be adversaries. It would be ugly. It would be brutal. It would be ... Henley vs. Frey.
The heat was on, as they say. This was the end of the innocence. Henley and Frey became engaged in an epic battle to see who could outdo the other in yuppiness. The first step was to smear their glistening, laid back Southern California bodies in gallons of yuppie oil, as both country-rock icons proceeded to erase any last remaining whiff of "country-rock" from their music. The '80s couldn't have come fast enough for these two. But if they both sucked up the '80s like a sponge, they absorbed their music from entirely different pans of dishwater. While Don Henley re-imagined himself as some sort of cross between John Mellencamp and Devo, Glenn Frey saw himself as a strange hybrid of Gerry Rafferty and Barry White. Henley wanted to lecture you on the state of the world; Frey just wanted to get laid.
In the end, although Frey may have won a couple of battles, I'd say Henley won the overall war - not that anyone cared. For in a sense, we all won.
Just an ordinary, quiet, proper, British post-war childhood: that's what Phil Collins seems to have had. Until now.
Wikipedia tells us that "Collins was born and raised in Hounslow, London, the son of Winifred M. 'June' (née Strange), a theatrical agent, and Greville Philip Austin Collins, an insurance agent" - but don't be fooled. In truth, the Collinses found young Philip abandoned on the doorstep of a cathedral roughly three kilometers from their home, and raised him as one of their own. Rumour has it that he was the biological son of Sir Geoffrey Kindlingsworth of Cambridge and notorious brothel madame Liza Beth Quainsley, but this has never been substantiated. Collins never suspected any unusual circumstances behind his birth until one misty evening shortly past his fifth birthday:
It was a damp, dreary dusk out in the marsh, just after supper. I was skipping pebbles out by the dock, when I heard a terrible, rattling noise from the thickets. Rabbits didn't usually venture out that far from the meadow, and besides, I'd left my shotgun back in my father's barn. Before I could even inspect the reeds, a hand reached out and covered my mouth.
"Now, now, shush boy! You wouldn't tell a soul about old Jack, would ya?"
His grimy face was covered with scars and warts, although I could see that, perhaps in his youth, he might have been handsome once.
"Oh no, sir, I ... I wouldn't tell nobody."
"Good! And you wouldn't tell nobody about these chains, then?"
"Oh, sir, I - I ain't even seen those chains. I was just supposin' you were a fella who liked chains - a chain collector."
"Quiet, boy, quiet! Now you see that little house over there? You know that house?"
"Yes sir. It's where I live."
"Ah, splendid! Now what you're goin' to do is to go into that house, and fetch me a file, and some wittles. You have wittles, dotcha boy?"
"Oh, yes sir."
"Because if you don't feed old Jack, I'll tell ya all about your father."
"But I know all about my father, sir. My father's Greville Philip Austin Collins, of Hounslow."
"Is that what they tell ya?"
"Why yes. He's one of the most distinguished insurance agents in all of London. Ain't he?"
Jack flashed a hideous, gap-toothed grin.
"Ain't he?"
"Nevermind, boy, just fetch me that file and wittles, and you won't have to worry about crazy old Jack any longer."
I ran back to the house in a feverish daze, swiped the pastries from the cupboard, and swiftly brought them to Jack.
"Ah, beautiful, my boy, beautiful!" He ate with a desperation the likes of which I have never seen. "You don't know what you've done for old Jack. I'll make it worth your while, my boy. Have mercy on my soul, I will! It don't look so good for me now, but when I climb my way out of these chains, boy, you'll never know a better man in your life!"
"Please, sir, I'd rather we forgot all about this."
"Nonsense, my boy! Why, God help me if I know how I'm to do it, but I'll make you gentleman, I will. Not just a gentleman, but ... a drummer! And not just a drummer, but a drummer with ... gated reverb! But no time for that now, they're after me, son!"
And with that, he darted back across the marsh, and crawled away through the mist. From that moment on, I couldn't put the sentiment into words, but somehow, I knew then that whatever strange, troubling, circuitous path my life took, it would not be an ordinary one.
Poor Elizabeth Joel. Saddled with the tough years, without getting to stick around for too many of the glory years, she was forever overshadowed by her successor to the Billy Joel throne. If it's any consolation, however, she did inspire some great songs. Speaking of: it may not be a legitimate Abbey Road-style medley, but I've always felt like the first three songs on Side Two of The Nylon Curtain form sort of a divorce mini-suite. After closing Side One with Miss Saigon ("Goodnight Saigon," whatever), Billy Joel immediately switches things up with the wistful mid-tempo ballad "She's Right On Time."
The opening piano introduction almost has the feel of a Chopin nocturne, but then the imitation solo Lennon drums come in and fill up the stereo channels with a decidedly non-Chopin feel. There's also a somewhat jangly, Byrd-ish guitar meandering its way through the verses. Extra points for the bridge (at 2:44) where Billy plays the opening piano lick on a harpsichord instead, and adds some sweet, descending "hoh-wohs." All these delicate interludes contrast nicely with the slightly dissonant arena rock chorus, if I may say so.
Lyrically, "She's Right On Time" is almost like a scene from a couple on its last legs, even if they don't know it yet. At the very least, they've been together for some time and have had their ups and downs ("And it occurred to me/While I set up my Christmas tree/She never missed a cue or lost a beat/Every time I lost the meter/There she was where I would need her/Greeting me with footsteps in the street"). You rarely hear love songs about couples that have actually gone through some shit. Well, you do in country music, but not as much in pop music (and you rarely hear songs that rhyme "meter" with "need her," while we're at it). Also, despite the vague Christmas theme, funny how this one never gets played on the radio in December, sandwiched between "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Santa Baby."
In that 1982 interview Billy did with a British DJ that I keep quoting, the DJ gives Billy a pretty hard time over the song, stating, "After Side One, this one ... didn't fit ... somehow." But Billy is non-plussed and seems to have a pretty good understanding of what makes it effective:
I think, after "Goodnight Saigon, it's a bit of a "phew," you know, you gotta take a breath. And this song, "She's Right On Time" is actually about a reunion, kind of a love song but it's like a mature love song. And it's kind of "up," without being crazy "up" ... It's sort of a positive song but there's still an edge of anxiety in it.
Turn on all the Christmas lights Cause baby's coming home tonight I can hear her footsteps in the street Turn the choral music higher Pile more wood upon the fire That should make the atmosphere complete
I've had to wait forever But better late than never
She's just in time for me She's right on time She's right where she should be She's right on time
I'm a man with so much tension Far too many sins to mention She don't have to take it anymore But since she said she's coming home I've torn out all my telephones Soon she will be walking through that door
I may be going nowhere But I don't mind if she's there
Left to my own device I can always make believe That there's nothing wrong
Still I will choose to live In the complicated world That we share for so long Good or bad Right or wrong
And it occurred to me While I set up my Christmas tree She never missed a cue Or lost a beat Every time I lost the meter There she was when I would need her Greeting me with footsteps in the street
I guess I should have known it She'd find the perfect moment
Given that it wasn't a single, I was surprised to discover that not only is there a music video for "She's Right On Time," but it looks like it had a reasonably high budget. Let's just call this a date night that doesn't go exactly as planned. As entertaining as it is, I actually don't think the farcical nature of the video compliments the more contemplative mood of the song, but if judged on its own, it's pretty wacky, with Billy doing his best Inspector Clouseau impersonation, battling some pesky window blinds, an uncooperative Christmas tree, and a renegade cork.
Well, Billy must have felt a little silly having written a song about how great his wife was, right before they ultimately got divorced, but I guess he decided to throw the song onto the album anyway. If "A Room Of Our Own" is any indication, he wasn't terribly upset about the dissolution of his marriage. On an album that's overall rather claustrophobic and oppressive, "A Room Of Our Own" is sort of a jaunty, goofy breather, with Billy in jazzy imitation Ray Charles mode. Here the couple is splitting, but the man at least seems to feel pretty sanguine about the whole deal. In the spirit of Gershwin's "Let Call the Whole Thing Off," the song is a giant list of things that the woman likes vs. things that the man likes - with a cynical '80s twist?
You've got diamonds and I've got spades You've got pills And I've got razor blades
You've got yoga honey I've got beer You got overpriced And I got weird
But it's alright We're the same even though we're alone It's alright Yes we all need a room of our own
You've got love, darlin' I've got sex You've got cash, mama And I've got checks
You've got business, baby I've got the kids You got crowded just the way I did
But it's alright Cause we all need a place to call home It's alright Yes we all need a room of our own
Well, he may have been laughing on "A Room Of Our Own," but there's nothing funny about "Surprises," the creeping, crawling, bitter kiss-off, smothered in icy synths and featuring arguably Billy's most Lennon-esque vocal of the album, out-Lennoning even "Laura" (!). "Surprises" is the sound of promises gone sour and optimism gone rotten. Not that I would know, but it seems to capture that sense of betrayal that a couple must feel when they realize that something they put so much effort into, and something they once assumed would last forever, has actually proven itself to be mortal. I love the subtle accusation buried within the phrase "It shouldn't surprise you at all." It's the kind of thing you only say to someone you know intimately, along the lines of, "Come on baby, don't play dumb with me" or "If you're so smart, then you should have seen this coming":
Don't get excited Don't say a word Nobody noticed Nothing was heard It was committed discreetly It was handled so neatly And it shouldn't surprise you at all You know
Break all the records Burn the cassettes I'd be lying if I told you That I had no regrets There were so many mistakes And what a difference it makes But still it shouldn't surprise you at all You know
Don't look now but you have changed Your best friends wouldn't tell you
Now it's apparent Now it's a fact So marshal your forces For another attack You were so young and naive I know it's hard to believe But now it shouldn't surprise you at all You know
What has it cost you What have you won The sins of the fathers Are the sins of the sons It was always within you It will always continue But it shouldn't surprise you at all You know I said it shouldn't surprise you at all You know
It turns out, of course, that Billy wouldn't be sifting through the ashes of his first marriage for long. In a sudden twist of fate that most members of the human race probably considered a surprise - Billy included - a certain supermodel fiancee was about to inspire a very ... different batch of love songs.
In some ways, one could say that Talk Show is better than Vacation, in that it has a more unified feel, isn't just a regurgitation of the album that came before, and it shows the band's sound evolving. On the other hand, it's also the sound of the Go-Go's becoming more conventional, more streamlined, and dare I say it, a little more ... boring? Just look at some of these song titles: "Forget That Day," "Turn To You," "Capture The Light," "You Thought," "Yes Or No." Did they just start picking random titles out of a hat? Where's my "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite"? Where's my "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict"? Granted, song titles aren't everything, but in retrospect, this particular batch is indicative of one element that is noticeably missing from Talk Show: an overt sense of humor. I think by this time, the members were feeling so hostile toward each other, and yet were experiencing so much external pressure to pretend that they were still super best buddies, that they started taking things a bit too seriously. On the plus side, all this tension meant that, like almost all of the Go-Go's' output, at least none of the songs on Talk Show came out particularly happy or optimistic. Even so, Talk Show is the one Go-Go's album that sounds most like it was recorded in the '80s. It's their Heartbeat City, with Martin Rushent doing his best Robert "Mutt" Lange impersonation.
The thing is, if you squint your eyes, Talk Showfeels like a great Go-Go's album. Or rather, if you asked me to name the "bad" songs on the album I'm not sure I could; I certainly wouldn't call any of them terrible, and if anyone suggests that any of them are, I will personally spit in their french fries. But, as with Vacation, I tend to listen to certain songs rather than listen to the album proper. Part of the reason is that, oddly, for years Talk Show wasn't available on CD, and I think the copy I downloaded was actually ripped from vinyl, so it sounds kind of crummy. I suppose I could try to download another version, but that would take, you know, effort. Still, I'm not sure a higher quality version would change my mind. In his AMG review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine does a nice job of summarizing the album's strengths and weaknesses:
For their third album, the Go-Go's abandoned all pretense of being punk, or even new wave, and went for an unabashed mainstream pop masterpiece. They nearly achieved their goal with Talk Show, an album filled with great pop songs but undermined by its own ambition. Talk Show has a sharper sound than its predecessors, with bigger guitars and drums, which helps drive home the accomplished pop hooks of "Turn to You," "I'm the Only One," and "Yes or No." However, the record is cluttered with half-realized songs and an overly detailed production which occasionally prevents the songs from reaching their full potential. But when the production and song are teamed well, the results are incredible, such as the surging "Head Over Heels," another classic single. Unfortunately, those moments don't arrive frequently enough to make Talk Show the new wave classic that it wants to be.
Although he sounds disappointed, I did notice that when AMG published their "All Music Guide Loves 1984" blog article a few years back, Erlewine listed Talk Show as one of his favorite albums from that year, which suggests that his three-star rating may no longer accurately reflect his true affection for the work. A-ha! Here's another writer who thinks the album might be underrated: Belinda Carlisle. From Lips Unsealed: "In many ways, it's remarkable we were able to make an album given the nonstop drama. Even more remarkable, I think it's the best Go-Go's album. There's no doubt that when we were in sync, the five of us had a special chemistry and spirit."
I don't know about "best" Go-Go's album, but I'm glad she likes it. In particular, she singles out "Head Over Heels" and "Beneath the Blue Sky," the latter which she calls "a beautiful song whose vocals were, unfortunately, too complicated for us to ever do live." Hey, that never stopped Queen.
Hey over there what's going on Where I am they say you're wrong When my sun is setting Yours is breaking dawn Say over there I want to talk I wonder if we think the same thoughts What do they teach you How much have you bought
These days I feel too wise I think we're sharing the same lies
Beneath the blue sky we're all alone together The calm hides stormy weather And if we stand apart we'll kiss goodbye Beneath the blue sky
Almost sounds like an epitath for the band, does it not? "The calm hides the stormy weather," AKA "It may look like everyone's having a great time, but actually, at the moment, we hate each other's guts." Or as Smokey Robinson once put it, "People say I'm the life of the party/'Cause I tell a joke or two/Although I might be laughing loud and hearty/Deep inside I'm blue." By the time I.R.S. released the last single from the album, "Yes Or No," I think the band had all but announced its break-up, and the label barely bothered to promote the song (it peaked at a whopping #84). As a result, the video is just a cheap montage of concert footage and home movies somebody took of the Go-Go's dicking around by a pool, obviously with all the coke-snorting scenes edited out.
Amusingly, the band quietly hoped that the album's stratospheric commercial success would alleviate their interpersonal conflicts and wash away all the tension like a magical '80s potion. They were in for a rude awakening when Talk Show peaked at #18 and failed to even go gold. What the hell happened? I mean, yeah OK, it wasn't Thriller, but it was at least good enough to sustain some of the momentum, right? Maybe the public had simply become bored with the Go-Go's in their endless quest for the Next Big Thing. "The Go-Go's? Oh my God, they're so ... 1982!" This was 1984, and female pop singers were becoming weirder, wilder, sexier, more controversial, more provocative. That old water-ski schtick just wasn't going to cut it anymore. Even to this day, Belinda still wonders why the album didn't do better, but, in her own special way, manages to blame herself:
A Los Angeles Times review a few days after the album's release called it "awkward," noted the absence of catchy pop hooks, and said "the songs demand more work from the listener, and the elaborate melodies certainly demand more of singer Belinda Carlisle." Unfortunately, I agreed. Deep down I knew that I had bitten off more than I could chew on that album. Unlike the other girls, I hadn't worked on my craft as hard as I should have ... I would develop into a decent singer later, but at the time I didn't improve as much as I would expect myself to if I was able to go back and do it over again.
"Decent"? "Decent"?! The sweetest voice my ears have ever heard, and she calls herself "decent"? Oh, the modesty. She does sound a little lost on "I'm With You," but other than that, she should give herself a freakin' break. Although she does a nice job on the anguished closing track, "Mercenary," I actually prefer some of the stripped-down live versions the band performed during their first reunion tour in 1990 (one of which is included on Return to the Valley of the Go-Go's), which do slightly make Belinda's case for her claims of vocal development. Or maybe Gina's eccentric martial drumming wasn't quite the touch the surprisingly bitter song needed:
He's crying inside Can't tear the hurt out Life's rushing by Like and old movie backdrop The radio's blasting Song after song About the big romance That went all wrong
She says, I just wanted to make you I never meant to break you He says, have some mercy on me Do you have to be Such a mercenary
She's scheming inside Can't stop the wheels turning Been through it before There's no profit or learning She's not really bad Just a gold-plated heart So scared to be alone It rips her apart
Bottom line: as imploding break-up albums go, Talk Show is pretty respectable.
Phil Collins. We all think we know him. He is that bald, diminutive little drummer in the sweater who sings about easy lovers and invisible touches and wishing it would rain down and all those other primal, existential issues. In fact, one of his songs is playing at your local supermarket right this very minute.
But there's another side to Phil Collins. A secret side, a troubling side, a disturbing side - a side that not even his closest friends and family members have been allowed to glimpse. To most of the general public, Phil Collins was the most tame, harmless, inoffensive pop star the '80s ever produced. Little did we know that underneath that vapid, non-threatening exterior, lay the tortured and twisted mind of a maniac.
I know what you're thinking. "Little Earl, quit yanking my chain." If only I were. I could certainly sleep much better at night, or hear "Take Me Home" in the lobby of my neighborhood bank and not break out into a cold sweat. But the terror of Phil Collins' music is real - all too real.
He's 59 and looks pretty much the way he's always looked: kind of small, kind of bald. He's wearing a green polo shirt, the collar popped. As a solo artist, he has sold 150 million records, which puts him right up there with the all-time greats ... Medically, he's got a few serious and life-altering problems: The hearing in his left ear is shot, and a dislocated vertebra in his neck has rendered him all but unable to pound on the drums that first made him famous ... Due to that neck injury, his hands can no longer hold the sticks. Worse, to him, he can't help his youngest kids build toys. He can't write his name with a pen. He has trouble wiping himself.
Yes, even God hates Phil Collins. But the most surprising twist of all might be that even Phil Collins hates Phil Collins:
He has been called "the Antichrist," the sellout who took Peter Gabriel's Genesis, that paragon of prog-rock, and turned it into a lame-o pop act and went on to make all those supercheesy hits that really did define the 1980s. So, he wants to move on. He could make another original album, but he knows that will bring a rehashing of all the old criticism. It's inescapable. Forget it. He'd rather spend his time in his basement, building up his collection of Alamo memorabilia, which, oddly enough, is his great consuming passion these days. "I sometimes think, 'I'm going to write this Phil Collins character out of the story,'" he says. "Phil Collins will just disappear or be murdered in some hotel bedroom, and people will say, 'What happened to Phil?' And the answer will be, 'He got murdered, but, yeah, anyway, let's carry on.' That kind of thing."
Alamo memorabilia? Yes, Alamo memorabilia:
Aligned in glass cases, mounted on the walls, secreted away in drawers and stacked in corners are muskets and rifles, Sam Houston's Bowie knife ("Just look at that!"), a signed copy of Davy Crockett's autobiography, a Davy Crockett military-service receipt, a howitzer, pistols, gunpowder pouches, a whole mess of horseshoes, Jim Bowie's visa allowing him to reside in Mexico, swords, musket balls, animal teeth, human teeth, maps, cannonballs, brass powder flasks, a painting of Fess Parker as Davy Crockett, a poster of John Wayne as Davy Crockett, a receipt for a saddle bought by John W. Smith, a courier who happened to be out on a run on the day of the fall of the Alamo and went on to become the first mayor of San Antonio.
Collins' delight in all this seems total. "Just look at that overcoat pocket pistol! Just feel that! This is the Bowie knife I was talking about! And this was supposed to be Bowie's boot knife! Look at that! Want a horseshoe? Here, take a horseshoe!"
Phil Collins is one sick dude. It gets sicker:
"At one point, the Mexicans were killing each other. It was dark, and you killed anything that moved. And then when they attacked the last line of defense, it was hand-to-hand fighting and they went around decapitating all the bodies and making sure they were dead. 'What must that have been like?' I think. And you have things like that coming over your head all the time." He bites his nails. "I'm fascinated by what people will do to each other," he goes on. "Actually, I'm sort of interested in the gory details of life."
Well, me too, Phil, but at least I know where to draw the line:
"I have had suicidal thoughts. I wouldn't blow my head off. I'd overdose or do something that didn't hurt. But I wouldn't do that to the children. A comedian who committed suicide in the Sixties left a note saying, 'Too many things went wrong too often.' I often think about that."
At this point in my original blog post, I vehemently admonished Phil not to do anything rash:
My God Phil! Don't do it! We love you! Really! It's just not worth it, man. Those haters, man, they're just jealous. Did they ever play on Brian Eno's Another Green World? Did they ever perform on both stages of Live Aid? Didn't think so. You are Phil Fucking Collins. And don't let anybody tell you differently.
Well, not only does he seem to have heeded the call, but it turns out this Rolling Stone interview was just the beginning. For I have discovered a text that will change the way you see Phil Collins - and the way you see the world. Ladies and gentlemen, Phil's soul-bearing search for self-examination has finally borne fruit. He has done what many brave rock stars have done before him, and yet none have been braver in doing it than Phil. He has wrestled with the cavernous beast inside him, and pinned that beast to paper. I have in my hands a rare copy of Phil Collins' 2013 memoir, In The Air Tonight: The Secret Life And Twisted Psyche Of Philip D. Collins.
How I got my hands on a copy is a story unto itself (let's just say it involved Condoleeza Rice and a 6-pack of Mountain Dew). Turns out the book is available only through a small Bulgarian publisher, in an extremely limited edition. Nevertheless, I cannot allow it to languish in obscurity. This man's story must be told, and it must be told now. For only by telling the real story of Phil Collins, can we truly understand his art, and wipe away the years and years of critical injustice. If you doubt the stunning power of this book, allow me to quote a harrowing passage from the introduction:
Coughing, drooling, cursing, I groped my way through the shelves of that Halifax hotel bathroom, looking for just one more dose of horse tranquilizer. I'd barely made it through the show alive, but thankfully the audience didn't even notice when I'd fouled up the keyboard part to "That's All," and I think I'd forgotten the lyrics to "Don't Lose My Number," but they didn't care. Everyone in that stadium was having a good time ... everyone, except the singer. The sick, pathetic singer. Anyway, that concert seemed like it belonged to another world by then. The bottle of tranquilizer that Emilio had given me back in Montreal wasn't nearly strong enough, and besides, it wasn't even the right kind. He'd given me Azaperone, but what really got me off was Haloperidol and Immobilon. This other stuff just wasn't doing it. It was 3:00 in the morning, but I couldn't wait. I put on a coat, stuffed with $100 bills, and stumbled my way into the Nova Scotian night.
Toto, I have a feeling we're not talking about Alamo memorabilia anymore. Still, although at times the material in the book can be shocking and depraved, for the committed '80s music fan, these stories are crucial - necessary even. However, I must warn you: once you read In The Air Tonight, you will never hear Phil Collins' music the same way again - although you may wish you could.
Michael Jackson? Pfft. Duran Duran? Pshaw. What MTV really needed ... was the Alan Parsons Project.
Think about it. If there's a band that might have been tailor-made for MTV, in some ways that band was the Alan Parsons Project. They didn't tour, they didn't care to lip-sync on Solid Gold, and they demonstrated a pronounced fondness for pseudo-literary storytelling. What better playground to give life to their geeky comic book and sci-fi fixations than the music video format? And yet, for whatever reason, the Project didn't bother to make any videos until the release of 1984's Ammonia Avenue. But when they did ... boy, they brought the heat.
By this time, of course, everyone and their mother thought the Alan Parsons Project had found its natural lead singer ... everyone, that is, except for Alan Parsons. Arista tried to persuade Parsons to use Woolfson as often as possible, presumably as a way to give the band an identifiable, marketable "sound," but Parsons still retained some private notion of using "real" singers, whatever that may have meant. I can just see the record company meeting now: "At the very least, can't he sing lead on the singles? Come on Alan, we're trying to sell some fucking records here."
The first and biggest single off Ammonia Avenue was "Don't Answer Me," which peaked at #15 and sounds to me like the Alan Parsons Project covering ELO covering the Ronettes, with a bit of "Making Love (Out Of Nothing At All)" thrown in for good measure, but at least it sported an inventive, deliberately cheap, Saturday morning cartoon-style animated video.
No, the real gem off Ammonia Avenue was its opening track, "Prime Time." Don't be fooled by its peak position of #34 on the Billboard Hot 100, as it climbed to #10 on the Adult Contemporary chart and rocketed all the way to #3 on the Mainstream Rock chart! Well, to be honest, I might have never known the song myself if it hadn't closed out Side 1 of my cherished '80s Tape.
Less than generous listeners might accuse "Prime Time" of being a re-write of "Eye in the Sky," with the similar "chugging" guitars and a somewhat identical verse melody. But those people aren't even fit to clean Alan Parsons' jock strap, because by the time you come around to the chorus, it's clear that "Prime Time" is a whole different animal. If the chorus of "Eye in the Sky" suggested hidden rage buried beneath the surface, on "Prime Time," that rage comes exploding to the forefront. "It's gonna be my turn tonight," Woolfson croons. Turn to what? Fuck you up?
Well even the longest night won't last forever
But too many hopes and dreams won't see the light
And all of the plans I make won't come together
Something in the air
Maybe for the only time in my life
Something in the air
Turning me around and guiding me right
And it's a prime time, maybe the stars were right
I had a premonition, it's gonna be my turn tonight
Gonna be my turn tonight
Usually Alan Parsons Project albums began with the requisite placid instrumental (for instance, "Eye in the Sky" was preceded by "Sirius"), but on Ammonia Avenue, Parsons just decided to slip the opening instrumental into the song proper, although the single edit (and thus the edit that I'd become familiar with on my tape) simply cut to the chase right around 0:35. Anyway, this is some pretty calm shit until the pre-chorus, which begins with the ominous lines, "There's something in the air," followed by even more ominous back-up singers repeating the already ominous line, plus some ominous chord changes to boot (the key word here is "ominous"). Finally, at 1:45, she arrives: The Ultimate Alan Parsons Project Chorus. It's prime time all right - prime time for Eric Woolfson to rock you in the balls. They layer on just the right amount of vocal overdubs to milk those raunchy, growling guitar chords for all they're worth. Because that random session guitarist, whoever he happens to be, is merely hiding in the wings, waiting for his moment to shine.
At 3:10, that moment arrives. He becomes the nice beneficiary of what sounds like Automatic Double Tracking, as his solo dances with itself across the separate stereo channels. When the pre-chorus arrives, he ascends with majestic upward leaps, until he descends and descends and his solo bites the bluesy dust at 3:48, just in time for Woolfson to re-appear. It's like the sound of something simultaneously sublime and terrible slowly, slowly sucking you under. I'll tell you whose turn it is tonight: it's the Alan Parsons Project's secret guitarists' turn. And after that final chorus, he continues to make the most of the fade-out.
If you'd think it wouldn't be easy to capture the vibe of something simultaneously sublime and terrible slowly, slowly sucking you under in a video, then you haven't seen the clip for "Prime Time." Here Parsons and Woolfson take the opportunity to get off on their sick little Twilight Zone fetish and tell what is sort of a short, dialogue-free horror film, rather than concern themselves with the literal lyrics of the song. In fact, when I first searched for "Prime Time" on YouTube and I found this video, I assumed it was something like a fan-made clip. When I realized it was actually the official video, I thought, "Fuck yeah Alan Parsons." It's amazing when you listen to a song for thirty years, and then one day you see the video, and it perfectly complements, if not exactly matches, any previous mental images you'd already associated with the song in your mind.
According to Wikipedia, the video is based on John Collier's short story "Evening Primrose," and not on either the movie Mannequin or the '80s children's show Today's Special, as I had assumed. In this strange nocturnal netherworld, two young lovers have apparently been trapped as mannequins, and can only come back to life when tacky, flashing lights appear. But rather than pull me out of the video world, I think the low-budget effects, when coupled with the extremely high-budget production values of the song itself, somehow combine make the clip even more disturbing. Creepiest/most awesome parts:
When the woman finds herself trapped in an alleyway and all the lifeless mannequins slowly begin to take her "back" (3:24)
When the man walks by the department store window, realizes his lover has once again become one of "them," and he pounds his fists on the glass in campy agony (3:50)
She comes back alive (although when she "crashes" through the window it looks like they just shot a Barbie doll flying through Saran Wrap), but the man turns back and sees a mannequin's head slowly, slowly turning (4:31). You're not out of the clear yet, you two!
Not every genre needs to have a crowning achievement, but if Yuppie Rock had one, it would be Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out."
Imagine if you took the best elements of Yuppie Rock - the glitz, the glamour, the style, the sensitivity, the drum machine - and combined them all together into one song. That song would be "Steppin' Out."
But just as Dorothy lived in ignorance of the true power of her ruby slippers until the very end of The Wizard of Oz, so it was that I'd experienced the power of Joe Jackson's biggest US hit my entire life, but not until one random spring day in 2001 did I truly realize it.
I suppose I'd been hovering around the edges of such a discovery for several years. Of course, I knew "You Can't Get What You Want (Til You Know What You Want)" from its inclusion on The '80s Tape, and sometimes KFOG would play "Breaking Us In Two," another Joe Jackson song which I liked as well, even though it vaguely reminded me of another '80s song I'd heard before and couldn't name. But just from those two songs, I somehow sensed that I had a deeper connection to the Joe Jackson.
Let's go a little deeper. In high school, I used to have an old Microsoft CD-ROM called Music Central, and I used to stay up late at night reading some of the brief but informative artist biographies included on the disc. This was back in the days before the All Music Guide, or the internet - or the All Music Guide on the internet (if any civilization could ever be so lucky).
So one night I clicked on Joe Jackson's bio. There was no mention of either "You Can't Get What You Want (Til You Know What You Want)" or "Breaking Us In Two," which I thought was odd, given that those were the only two fucking Joe Jackson songs I'd ever heard of, but there was a full sentence about a song called 'Steppin' Out": "The hauntingly hummable 'Steppin' Out' with its mantric bass line and crisp piano is a superbly crafted pop song that won him many new admirers." "Hauntingly hummable"? "Crisp piano"? Sounded like a pretty good song to me. Maybe I needed to try and hear it somewhere. Ah, but this was still in the days before downloading, or YouTube. One couldn't just "hear" a song at the click of a button. Oh how did we live?
Nevertheless, every now and then, I would see a CD copy of Night and Day in the library music rack, and I would wonder about checking it out. After all, it had "Breaking Us In Two" on it, and I was curious if Music Central's observations about "Steppin' Out" were accurate. I even liked the album cover. But damn it, I had other fish to fry. I wasn't about to check out a CD from the library just based on mild curiosity. Library checkouts were important.
Fast-forward three or four years. I'm sitting in a car in Redwood City, feeling rather bored, listening to the radio, flipping between stations. Suddenly I catch a song right in the middle. It's a song from the early '80s that I'd heard a million times as a kid, though I quite possibly haven't heard it since then. I'm instinctively familiar with its mantric bass line and crisp piano. Funny, but I can swear I recognize the singer's garbled wail. Then it hits me: Joe Jackson. I listen to the chorus. My God. Could it be? This radio staple from my youth that never really stood out from all the other department store hits? This ... was "Steppin' Out"?
And so I've prepared you for the terrifying twist. It turns out I didn't need to go hear "Steppin' Out" ... because I had already heard it.
It was a revelation. I saw a bright, blinding light and a flaming bush. "Ohhhh," I thought with wonder. "So that's 'Steppin' Out.' " Turns out my CD-ROM was right. I also realized why "Breaking Us In Two" had reminded me of another '80s song; it had reminded me of "Steppin' Out"! Now I needed to get my hands on it. I didn't yet have access to a music downloading program, so this was going to be tricky. When I got back to college, I asked a housemate to download it for me and then I had him put it on a shared network.
I probably listened to "Steppin' Out" for a week straight. Well, maybe not a week, but that's not as far off as you'd like to hope. I was transfixed. I was demented. I was infatuated. Eventually I got a little sick of it and found that I was able to listen to other songs beside that ... one. But it was difficult. Let me tell you why.
Most '80s songs that I remember from my childhood seem to strike me in about the same way as a grown-up as they did when I was little. But when I re-discovered "Steppin' Out," well ... this was different. I tried to think back to any memories of hearing it as a kid. I had just assumed it was another piece of MOR aural wallpaper, like "Maneater" or "Arthur's Theme." But now, hearing the song as a mature adult, I could suddenly grasp the very abstract and thoughtful sentiments in the lyrics that had completely escaped me as a toddler. It was like finding out that a cheesy '80s song had actually been written by Bob Dylan. My experience of listening to the song had changed, because I had changed. And that mixture of nostalgia combined with newfound perspective was a mixture I had rarely experienced in my music-listening habits. No new song could ever tap into that personal reservoir of feeling that "Steppin' Out" was tapping into, unless I could go back in time and play it for my past self (quick, get Zemeckis on the phone). Re-discovering "Steppin' Out" was like hearing a song that was simultaneously extremely familiar and yet brand new. Or maybe it was just really fucking catchy.
Like much of my favorite pop music, "Steppin' Out" is about the desire to escape. But if it suggests escape, it also suggests desperation and doubt, as if the escape you're about to embark upon won't last forever, and soon enough you'll have to come back to the normal world and deal with your everyday problems. Ah, but for that one moment - riding in that cab, cruising around Manhattan, basking in the glow of the neon lights, staring into that beautiful woman's eyes - God damn it, you're free. Tell 'em, Joe:
Now
The mist across the window hides the lines
But nothing hides the colour of the lights that shine
Electricity so fine
Look and dry your eyes
We
So tired of all the darkness in our lives
With no more angry words to say
Can come alive
Get into a car and drive
To the other side
Me babe - steppin' out
Into the night
Into the light
You babe - steppin' out
Into the night
Into the light
We
Are young but getting old before our time
We'll leave the T.V. and the radio behind
Don't you wonder what we'll find
Steppin' out tonight
You
Can dress in pink and blue just like a child
And in a yellow taxi turn to me and smile
We'll be there in just a while
If you follow me
But all of that's just a sterile Madison Ave. fantasy without the music. Oh man, the music. Let me give this a shot:
The synthesized bass line and drum machine fade up slowly, establishing a mood that is hypnotic but also a little sinister, as if the song is creeping up on you like steam out of a manhole. That "manic" bass line sort of fades into the background, and you start to forget that it's there, but it plays throughout the entire song on an endless loop, like a cab that drives around Manhattan all night long and never stops (you like these similes?). The piano comes in, playing a chord sequence that seems as though it is about to resolve itself and yet never quiet does. By the time the song reaches full volume, Joe plays the chord sequence an octave higher, but there's something else too, something that makes the chords shimmer and glisten in your ears. It's ... bells! There's motherfuckin' bells! Another nice touch is the organ, which is buried far back in the mix, but it's ever-present and contributes to the sense of constant forward motion. This song is unstoppable.
And then Joe begins to sing. As I mentioned before, Joe Jackson's voice can be an acquired taste, but here, it's like magic on a Coney Island cotton candy stick. Every strangled syllable, every tangled consonant, captures that sad, urgent yearning for escape. And if anyone else were to sing, "We/So tired of all the darkness in our lives/With no more angry words to say/Can come alive," it wouldn't necessarily mean all that much, but coming from Joe Jackson, the world's most curmudgeonly bastard, the lines take on an added dimension. I mean, here is a man who has certainly said his fair share of angry words, now finding himself, if only momentarily, turning the corner.
Some other favorite bits:
2:06 - right after "getting old before our time," a sparkling little piano twinkle
2:31 - an even stranger twinkle, right before the start of the final verse, which sounds more like a synthesizer than a piano
3:17 to 3:40 - the manic bass line drops out completely, while the piano, bells, organ, and drum machine riff off each other, like a car hovering in the air after hitting a jump, waiting to land
3:46 - Joe does this little piano flourish that is simply divine, dahling
That about covers it. Well, I should also mention that the song instantly transports me to the beautiful New York City of my dreams, which should probably not be confused with the slimy, muggy, rank, dank, overcrowded, rat-infested, flesh-and-blood New York City in which people actually live and breathe, but let's forget about that for a moment. Oh, there's also an official video for "Steppin' Out," in which a hotel maid imagines what it would be like to live for one just night in the shoes of her wealthy guests (and it turns out Joe's doing a little imagining himself), but this time I really have to say that, as nice as it is, here is one music video that really does not do justice to the images the song conjures up in my head. Because the images that "Steppin' Out" conjures up in my head ... are some serious images! At least it was filmed in New York, which is a start. But "Steppin' Out" may be that rare '80s song in which the music is so evocative, I'm afraid it may render even the best video superfluous.
"Turn To You," the second single off Talk Show, is sort of the Forgotten Go-Go's Hit. To be fair, it wasn't exactly the biggest hit, peaking at #32, just barely becoming the band's fifth and last US Top 40 entry. Well, on paper "Our Lips Our Sealed" didn't peak too high either, but that one had legs, as they say.
The song was co-written by Charlotte and Jane, and according to Wikipedia, it was written about Charlotte's relationship with previously discussed then-Dodgers pitcher/future A's pitcher/perennially alcoholic boyfriend Bob Welch. One look at the lyrics and I guess we shouldn't be too surprised that the union did not last:
You act so tough
But I know what you're doing
You think falling in love
Means falling to ruin
You build your walls so high
You act your life out all alone
You don't want to let me see
That your heart's not made out of stone
There may be some explanation
Why you feel the way you do
The world makes its rotations
But I just want to turn to you
Come on let me turn to you
Please let me turn to you
Why not let me turn to you
Just want to turn to you
It has a lot to do
With the first time that we met
The wild dance in your eyes
Made up for what was never said
Gotta get my message
Stop spending all our precious time
Because before you know it
We'll be down to our last dime
Although the lyrics have a pleading, desperate quality, the Go-Go's tear through the song with a hard-charging abandon that simultaneously keeps the words from sounding whiny while perhaps not giving them their full emotional due. But who cares, it rocks.
Of course, there's also the notorious music video directed by Mary Lambert. Before Lambert teamed up with Madonna to film five of the Ciccone's most iconic videos ("Borderline," "Like A Virgin," "Material Girl," "La Isla Bonita," and "Like A Prayer"), before she filmed Janet Jackson's "Control" and "Nasty" videos, before she filmed other clips for the Eurythmics, Sting, and Whitney Houston (to name a few), before she directed Pet Sematary, Pet Sematary II, Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge, and the infamous Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (starring Debbie Gibson and Tiffany), she directed the video for the Go-Go's' "Turn To You."
The setting appears to be a high school prom during the early '60s, but here's the catch: the Go-Go's play men, and they play women. In the same video. At the same time.
Four of the five Go-Go's appear in drag as the house band, rocking "Turn To You" of course, while Gina, amusingly, plays the drums in a towering bouffant wig. The other Go-Go's are disturbingly effective as men. As many YouTube commentators have noted, Belinda shares an eerie resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio here. My default stance of gazing at my '80s Dream Woman, in this particular instance, takes me to some uncomfortable places. Another observer commented that Jane in drag is the spitting image of the Animals' bassist Chas Chandler. But out on the dance floor, Belinda, Jane, Charlotte, and Kathy are back to being women, albeit women with absurdly campy wigs, while this time Gina is the one in drag (looking, actually, pretty much like she always does). Oh, and Rob Lowe is in it too.
Apparently Lambert had this whole idea of playing around with androgyny, and at times you sort of lose track of who is pretending to be whom. The three weirdest/funniest moments: 1) When the "male" Gina cuts in between the "female" Charlotte and Rob Lowe, while seconds later, Rob Lowe and his buddies point to the "female" Gina on-stage, collectively admiring her beauty; 2) the "female" Charlotte gives flowers to the "male" Belinda on-stage; 3) the "male" Belinda hops into the passenger seat next to the "female" Jane and leans in for a ... kiss? Isn't that Go-Go's incest right there?
But now we come to the real reason why "Turn To You" is the Forgotten Go-Go's Hit: Belinda hated it. She hated it then and she hates it now. For some mysterious reason, she's just never liked the damn thing. And you can't make the lead singer sing a song she doesn't like. Despite the fact that, technically, it is one of the Go-Go's' actual hits, she has managed to convince the rest of the band to permanently retire it from the touring set list. From Lips Unsealed:
And then there were those I didn't get. "Turn to You," for instance, was one of my least favorite songs (the video was even more hideous, I thought), and yet the Rolling Stone album review that would appear a few months later called that particular tune the "best in the bunch." Go figure.
Yes, go figure. I have one observation: if she thought the video was so "hideous," she certainly went along with it, didn't she? In spite of Belinda's attempts to suppress the song and write it out of the band's history, "Turn To You" lives on in the hearts of A.V. Club commentators, as these responses to the posing of the question "Best Go-Go's song" attest:
'Turn to You'. if only because its one of the few later Go-Go's tunes where Belinda really lets go vocally. and the guitars are louder than they needed to be, which is a good thing. it rocked.
"Turn To You" just flucking rocks. LeadingExpert is right: both the over-cranked guitars and the note-bending Belinda make the song so effective. The song builds -- subtly, gradually -- throughout the solo. And, just before the final verse, when the rhythm guitar kicks in after the one beat rest...
Yep, my vote is also for Turn To You. I love it when Belinda really belts out 'Now GET MY MESSSSSAGGEEE.' Best part of the song.
Sorry, Belinda, looks like you're out-voted on this one.
