Whitney Houston’s “I’m Your Baby Tonight” top YouTube official video comments:

1. fact: she recorded this song in one take because she wanted to go to the mall

2. *i’m laughing because of the sheer talent, like the audacity to record this whole ass bop and go to the mall like she didn’t lay some HEAT

3. ***(response 1)*** Nothing stands between a woman and the mall…nothing !

4. Okay for those wondering the scenes where she pays homage, the first is Marilyn Monroe painted by Warhol, the second is Marlene Dietrich, the third is Diana Ross and the Supremes and the last is Audrey Hepburn from Funny Face.

5. She had the baddest “Can I speak to a manager” haircut in the business.

6. The people who disliked this are superstitious about broken mirrors.

Meanwhile on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart… it’s time for EVERYBODY (to) DANCE NOW!

For C&C Music Factory were Number One with “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” probably the most perfectly engineered industrial grade dancefloor filler of the decade! They’d stay at Number One for Five Weeks, which in the New-Number-One-Every-Week world of the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart makes it a “Despacito” / “Old Town Road” sized hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaTGrV58wec

The C&C Music Factory didn’t call themselves a Music Factory for nothing. C&C Music Factory demonstrated both the strengths and the weaknesses of capitalism; both its tendency to exploit (just ask Martha Wash) and its ability to deliver top quality product at a high degree of efficiency.

And efficacy for that matter.

Nothing was left to chance: sure they could have gotten Zelda to holler “EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!” herself – her scatting was top notch – but why put the quality assurance program at risk; better use Martha Wash instead. And then, for similar quality assurance reasons, better not put her in the video.

They found a rapper, Freedom Williams, without an ounce of fat, and with muscles bulging out of places where muscles shouldn’t even be (Madonna thought he was hot… from the neck down) and with a tendency to sound like fascist gym instructor – “I’m gonna make you sweat till you bleed” – with the exception of that one line where he says he’s a squirrel.

Freedom Williams and Zelda Davis were not members of C&C Music Factory exactly; at best they were employees (of the Public Relations department), at worst they were cogs. Although I’m sure that Civilles and Cole gave them regular pep talks about how they considered them family or whatever.

“Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” gets ten out of ten cogs in the capitalist machine.

Oh shit, this rules. Whenever an artist discovers ZZ Top, you know you’re in for a good time.

My Top 10 for 1990

1. “Freedom! ‘90” – George Michael, “Groove is in the Heart” – Dee-Lite (Tie)

3. “Nothing Compares 2 U” Sinead O’Connor

4. “The Humpty Dance” – Digital Underground

5. “All Around the World” – Lisa Stansfield

6. “Roam” – B-52’s

7. “Feels Good” – Tony! Toni! Toné!

8. “Hold On” – En Vogue

9. “Being Boring” – Pet Shop Boys

10. “Escapade” – Janet Jackson

Honorable mentions

Vogue and Tom’s Diner.

The sequel, 2 Love Takes 2 Times, directed by Michael Bay, is even worse.

well done post.

This reminds me of a Roger Ebert review of the movie “Pearl Harbor” with Ben Affleck.
He wrote, “Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how, on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality.”

First of all, everyone should find Spring Love by Stevie B. and listen to that instead of this, because I love it (The Bixman’s Song)

Peaking at #8 behind “Because I Love You (The Postman Song)” for two weeks, “Freedom! ‘90” by George Michael.

I tried to write about “Freedom! ‘90” dozens of times, each time I hit a roadblock. I think that’s a metaphor. A few years back I was in a long line at a Hot Wheels convention, talking to a younger friend from Iowa. He was a birder with passionate love for certain songs. It wasn’t unusual for a song on his iTunes to have 2-3,000 plays. “Freedom! ‘90” had just joined the thousand play mark, which he proved by pulling out his phone and playing it.

Later, when we were in a hotel room talking, I googled the lyrics for “Freedom!” and realized I had misheard lyrics all these years. The funny thing, it didn’t change the song’s meaning to me.

“All we have to do is take these lies and make them true somehow” is not all that different from what I heard, “All we have to do is take these eyes and make them blue somehow.” I still swear he changes it up once or twice during the song.

Over the years I came to realize that listening to “Freedom! ‘90” is like hearing the inner monologue of someone who realized there are costs in living a lie. George is having a conversation with himself, about himself. There are costs in not being who you are. Changing lies to truths or changing eyes to blue are analogous.

Coming out for me was a conversation with myself, an inner monologue that carried on over decades. I wish I could say that it was tied to a song, especially a song like “Freedom! ’90.” However, no song soundtracked my initial coming out, just tears, silence and a cold wind.

I was vising a friend and former coworker in Minneapolis. We were downtown on a Sunday, and she was quiet. I tried to get it out of her, why I was getting the silent treatment and she put it back to me. “What’s wrong with me? Why do I love you when you obviously don’t love me?”

This is the cost of living a lie, not a truth. By not being honest about who I was, I had led someone on, someone I really cared about. I opened up to her by coming out, but that didn’t ease her pain, the tears were hard to erase.

However, from that moment on, my inner monologue became an outer one. “Freedom! ‘90” is a cumulative song, starting with spare percussion and adding and building while George talks amongst himself about being himself instead of what everyone else expected him to be. That was me coming out. A quiet, tearful conversation started the process, and with each conversation my closet doors would inch open. I frequently state that I am more honest than out; the lies became truth, somehow.

For Pride weekend, in 2020 Radio Andy on Sirius radio had various celebrities share their Pride playlists. Invariably there would be a point in each show where the host would say “And here’s “Freedom!” by George Michael.” There’s no coincidence that a song about being yourself despite the pressures to be someone else has resonated with the LGTBQIA community. It has become a universal rallying song about personal identity for all sort of people, including a birding, Hot Wheel collecting, “Freedom!” loving friend from Iowa.

I’m just here to applaud Tom awarding a 10 to “Groove Is In The Heart”! One of my all-time favorite songs and videos.

https://c.tenor.com/iZ0vJsuLxHIAAAAM/im-pooping-elmo.gif

“Love Takes Time” indeed. Four interminable minutes, to be exact. 2/10.

ugh.. if he’s the boss i quit

This band has become a parody of itself.

Nervous about this album, “I Don’t Here Anymore” is clunky, and doesn’t really approach anything on A Deeper Understanding. Hopefully the other songs are better, can’t really take much from this review, other than the reviewer has a tin ear.

Clubbing in the living room. Dire

I saw StV in ’15 and was impressed. I had heard about women playing electric guitar but had never seen it. I went with my son’s girlfriend (not creepy, he was sick and we couldn’t find anyone to go). She loved it saying “Annie can shred for days.” Which I thought wad sexual until she explained.

That is indeed the case. It was about avoiding the leak, not avoiding the singles. Though I like how it’s morphed over time, but never forget, singles are Howse-approved.