- Simple Minds: Belfast Child
- Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
- Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
- Sam Brown: Stop!
- Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
- S'Express: Hey Music Lover
- Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
- Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
- Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
- Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
- Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
- Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
- Holly Johnson: Love Train
- Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
- Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
- Tryee featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
- Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
- Yazz: Fine Time
- Def Leppard: Rocket
- Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
- Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
- Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
- Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
- Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
- Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
- Deacon Blue: Wages Day
- Roy Orbison: You Got It
- WASP: Mean Man
- The Style Council: Promised Land
- Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
- Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
- The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
- Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
- Paula Abdul: Straight Up
- Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
- Simply Red: It's Only Love
- Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
- Sheen Easton: The Lover in Me
- Roachford: Cuddly Toy
- Vixen: Cryin'
~~~~~
I once had a friend who was absolutely crazy about Michael Jackson. He had many of his CD's and cassettes - even a few cassingles if I remember correctly - a couple posters up in his bedroom and a well-worn VHS tape of virtually all of his videos taped off of Much Music. I can't say as how it came up but he was once aghast by my claim that MJ was much more popular in Britain than in North America. He demanded I back up my assertion but I really couldn't and I'm sure I couldn't now. It was simply a feeling. He remained seminal for much longer: while my mum bought Thriller, only his commited fanbase bothered with Bad but his appeal among more general members of the public in the UK remained. Growing up in Canada it seemed like there were always Michael Jackson jokes, in England he was still revered. I guess the tabloids were too busy with Princess Diana.
There are a lot of songs that attempt to take on critics and/or the press. A small number are quite good (Bob Dylan's Ballad of a Thin Man, The Beatles' The Ballad of John and Yoko - these are obviously throwbacks to a time when the term ballad didn't mean simply "slow song"), most are lousy (New Kids on the Block's Games, Eminem's Without Me and Stereophonics' Mr. Writer are all especially wan) and an awful lot are by people I've never heard of, which would indicate it's a growing trend of late since I have practically nothing to do with contemporary music. Michael Jackson's Leave Me Alone is one of the more famous examples of this and while by no means terrible, it does leave a lot to be desired. The eighth (eighth?!?) single released off of Bad it gives scraping the bottom of the barrel a whole new meaning (and he wasn't even done there as we'll see in the summer). A riposte to the tabloid fodder that was building up around him, it was accompanied by an innovative video that bravely laid out all the whispers and innuendo that surrounded him at the time (well, most of them anyway). In the modern parlance, he was owning the rumour mongering and may be commended for sending up up all this absurdity.
A listen to the lyrics, however, and things get a bit more suspect. Opening with the line "I don't care what you talkin' 'bout baby" is an eyebrow raiser. Surely if he really didn't care what people say about him then he wouldn't have written a song about it, particularly with such a revealing video. That's what's called a tell. The words in fact seem to be about a relationship but it's impossible to divorce it from the paparazzi that were hounding him, particularly when he's taking us on a tour of his freakshow Neverland Ranch and dancing with the bones of John Merrick in the video. It's also hard to swallow given that Jackson courted the press just as much as he derided it. While the song itself isn't bad - aside from the awful and repetitive hammering drums - it's unlikable and a sign that things weren't right for the Peter Pan of pop.
If Leave Me Alone represents Jackson as jaded and fraught then My Prerogative is Bobby Brown embracing the spotlight, hungry for fame and with much more of a commitment to flipping the bird to the critics. Being in England at the time, it was a funny song with which to be introduced to the new solo star from the USA. He was relatively unknown so not too many people would have been talkin' all this stuff about him as he claims. Still, it works as a statement of intent as much as anything else. My Prerogative is effective in this respect but I didn't care for it at the time; it seemed far too confrontational to have appealed much to me but, given that I quite liked the hits the soon followed, it likely provided a good introduction. A shame, then, that Brown's career would end up nosediving within a year or so. It seemed like he was going to remain relevant for a while but he, too, soon fell victim to the tabloids and the status of being famous for being famous. A good thing, then, that My Prerogative maps out the course of his career warts and all. He's not playing the victim just living the life he chooses. Who can't respect that?
The Norwich City-Manchester United clash from last week's entry was just a part of our second weekend up in Norfolk. Former exchange teacher Janice and her husband David graciously invited us to stay with them at their beautiful home in the picturesque hamlet of Old Buckenham. It was pretty much a cliche of every North American's fantasy of an English village: Tudor houses, thatched roof cottages and a village green. Janice and David's friendly black Chow Chow Sophie immediately won the hearts of my sister and me. Sunday morning we joined David as he walked Sophie and I couldn't have been happier. Why couldn't we live here in this village, in this house, with this dog?
It was, therefore, particularly dispiriting to be back in Laindon in our cold, uninviting, dogless home. I've mentioned our uninspiring dwellings on a few occasions here but I've so far neglected to go into much detail. Part of the problem is reluctance. I'm happy to discuss music that I found poor and places we visited that were disappointing or nondescript but I haven't had much desire to go into detailed about where we lived. The other problem is that it doesn't stand out the way so many other remnants of our year do. It was the first place we saw after arriving and the last place before we left. It was a glorified flop house. But I'll do my best to provide a few images and feelings.
To be continued.
~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Help!
older Paul's retro pick: Looking for Linda
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