Maybe hanging out with Michael Jackson rubbed off on him? I see this is a lesser McCartney song to be sure, but I always liked it. The high pitched parts are actually cool because he so rarely does that sort of thing. I like having Ringo in the video, too, and I think that's Eric Stewart from 10cc as well (he played on the recording).
McKean also almost joined the Left Banke, famous for Walk Away Renee. It's a pretty interesting story. After their two hits and their first album, the main artistic force in the Left Banke, Michael Brown, decided to form a new Left Banke for touring purposes; the original band was at that point not currently playing together. McKean was to be part of that touring band. Brown then recorded a single with a bunch of session musicians, not including McKean, and released it as the Left Banke. No one told the original band members about any of this, so they went to the press with their anger. Radio DJs decided the new single, 'And Suddenly/Ivy Ivy', was not legit and didn't play it. The song tanked, and the group never recovered. In the end, McKean never played with the Left Banke after all; the touring group fell apart after And Suddenly bombed. The group the Cherry People did cover And Suddenly in 1968 and scored a minor hit, reaching 45 on the charts. And now you know... the rest of the story.
Question: When you hear songs like “Footloose” or “Maniac” - do you think of the singer or a movie clip? Every time I hear, “I’m Alright” - I never think of Kenny Loggins, I think of the gopher in “Caddyshack”
Sembello yes, Loggins no. Michael had success as a sideman and producer, but as performer is solely known for having one hit single from Flashdance. Kenny had a lot of hits besides Footloose so it's easier to think of him
I typically think of the movie, not Loggins. But agree with @Jmac1979 that Loggins at least had an image apart from the songs for movies. I couldn't even picture what Sembello looks like in my mind, and I think I'm the one who recently posted his follow-up video to "Maniac" upthread...
Footloose : I was never a big fan of this song but I can appreciate it as a catchy, well produced single that connected with a wide audience. I also have to hand it to Kenny Loggins for successfully reinventing himself for the MTV era, something that many of his contemporaries weren't able to do. Give It Up: Loved this song. It was great to hear KC on the radio again.
I suspect he was brighter than most of his contemporaries and didn't have a stick up his rump. Most of his big hits have some unusual, creative touches, like that funky intro to "This Is It" or the overall wackiness of "I'm Alright". I mean, his breakthru was "Your Mamma Don't Dance", which itself is pretty common denominator but also very humorous.
"Footloose" is a better song now as a 53 y.o. than when I was a teen. I got sick of hearing it. Not as good as "I'm Alright" but better than "Danger Zone". I had never heard "Give It Up" until now. It stalled at #43 in Canada which explains why. Not really my jam, but I appreciate his little dance in the video.
I was never a big movie person either.Music is what grabbed a hold of me.Have never seen either of those.I watched Footloose a few years ago and it was ok.I think I didn't care for the soundtrack which is no surprise as my teeth had been cut on music about ten years earlier.
I'm not a movie person either, but back in the 80s I was renting movies all over the place. I had quite a collection of some classics.
Geez, pretty cheapo indeed! However, he couldn’t get a major US label interested in even releasing Give It Up, though it seems like it would have been an obvious hit. He found some little no name small label to put it out, and the fact that it got air play and did reasonably well (no thanks to that video I assume) shows a good song still had a chance. It did get included on a vinyl import compilation by Epic a few years later.
"Footloose" is a certainly a hook-fest, which I respect,and normally it would be enough for me to like a song; but it's one of the few big hits that I really dislike from this era; oh, it brings back a certain mid-80s nostalgia, but it played in my market well into the late 80s very regularly and after a while it really, really, really really Grates. My own music from this year and really 1983 too tends to be almost exclusively alternative music, with the exceptions of Prince/Springsteen/Madonna/Wham! all of whom I love.
Some people may not be aware but movies back in the very early 80s were about $80.I told my 17 year old and she said...whaat?
I'm surprised that "Give It Up" only topped out at #43 up here. I do remember it getting a decent amount of airplay at the time.
One of my favorites from this era is "I Want You Back" by Sherry Kean, a Canadian hit that was about to peak at 16 on the RPM charts. I don't believe it got any traction in the States.
If I might blow my own horn here, in reference to Kenny Loggins and his earlier hit, "I'm Alright", occasionally I'll put some recording up on YouTube for one reason or another. I put up a version of "I'm Alright" years ago and it's taken off in terms of views like none other of my efforts. We're not talking million or billions here, (but it's approaching half a million at this moment), and I don't ever do it for money since everything's copyrighted, and it's surprised me. This came about because of the way the song sounds in CADDYSHACK. It's different than the way it was on the soundtrack album or single. Even I was disappointed with it when I bought the soundtrack LP of it. The movie opens with Loggins doing this ethereal, overdubbed, a capella choral thing, and then dives into the song at the first verse. If one listens to the full soundtrack album, you'll find another track called "Make The Move", which starts with exactly that opening from the movie. Thus, in the age of Audacity, I was able to join those two parts and make the record sound like the movie opening (minus the sprinkler sounds). And this little bit of editing seems to have a lot of fans on YouTube. (The edit occurs at about 1:17).
I feel like people are too harsh on Lauper. I do think that getting in cahoots with the WWF made it harder for people to take her seriously, but musically I thought she stayed consistent. People love to bag on "True Colors" for not being She's So Unusual II, but I thought it was smart that she did go into a more serious direction because she was rapidly approaching her mid-30s and she'd already had a fun album for the kids. People just didn't want Cyndi going into the direction she took because of her persona, but I thought some of her 90s singer-songwriter work was highly underrated but unfortunately didn't reach the audience it should have because people were always going to view Cyndi Lauper as the "Girl Who Just Wants To Have Fun" and singing songs about back alley abortions or domestic abuse contrasts the image.
This is awesome, and also illustrates something I said about Loggins up above (so thanks!): he was way more creative and way less uptight than most of his Yacht Rock / Sweetheart of the Rodeo-inspired peers. He was always perfectly willing to do stuff that was really off the wall, and had really good musical instincts. Sort of Lindsey Buckingham, but not as difficult.
I thought it was embarrassing and I was 16 I think when that happened. The whole WWF thing was a big WTF. Yeah, but it was so pedestrian. I mean, "True Colors" was a pretty song, but it was also pretty generic - that could have been anyone. I will say the sparse arrangement she came up with was a great contrast to the increasingly-overproduced mid-'80s. But I'd rather hear "Time After Time" again before I ever listen to "True Colors". The best song on that album though was the hyper-'80s "Change Of Heart". The rest of the album was kind of a snooze. And then there was the WTF WWF thing, which didn't really go with the supposedly "more mature" Lauper. Pick a direction and head there. The other problem with the whole "mature" Cyndi thing? Madonna did it much, much better. Her huge ballads - we'll start getting to them soon enough - just destroyed the stuff Lauper did after "Time After Time" in my opinion. Cyndi might be the better singer, but Madge picked or wrote more interesting material and got the production just right. Meh. Her last big hit in the US was "I Drove All Night" - another cut she didn't write - and the video was ridiculous. She kind of shot her own career down prior to that with a dud film (Vibes), and dud singles like "Hole In My Heart (All The Way To China)". The video for that one is a great example of where she went wrong - three minutes of song padded out to almost six. The reality is, she just couldn't compete with Madonna on Madonna's playing field, and either she or the label didn't have sense enough to stake out different ground.
to be fair, the WWF thing for her peaked in 1985 when all her wrestling buddies appeared in the Goonies video. By the time True Colors came out, she'd moved beyond that, although she did return to the WWE a few years ago for a guest appearance. The stuff I'm referring to is from her mid-90s albums when she'd pretty much ditched pop and would've probably been more embraced by an alternative crowd (see Tori Amos or PJ Harvey or someone) if she didn't have the pesky baggage of having been a 1980s pop star (I remember a friend at the time who loathed pop music but liked people like Fiona Apple and Tori Amos being shocked when he saw Cyndi performing on VH1 around 1997 because it was nothing he ever would've expected from her). When she knew the hits were over, she did change her style quite a bit and became more of a songwriter and musically changed genres