Dionne always sounded sad on most of her big '60s hits I thought. A kind of quiet, reserved sadness, with sometimes more powerful loss and regret seeping thru. Which actually makes the diva antics more surprising, given the general subtlety of her performances. Or maybe not - since she was smart enough to deliver those performance, she's also smart enough to be manipulative. Although I also wonder about what she went thru growing up and coming up in the music business - that can really warp a person.
Dionne stared out as a teenager when she went to college. She worked in N.Y. as a session background singer in the Brill Building. Her first hit "Don't Make Me Over" was recorded and released when she was 22 years old. Her family were singers too, but I don't think she had the kind of childhood you may be thinking about. Then, again, remember what we learned about Whitney Houston's mother, and how she was hardcore religious...
I think there are a lot of dark secrets in that family. Remember what came out about Dionne's sister a couple of years ago?
Back to "Freeway Of Love," though: I'm sure the Motown-derived arrangement on this was deliberate, given what the theme of the song was about, as well as the accompanying video of auto assembly line footage interspersed with Ms. Franklin singing.
Particularly in the pop music realm. ABC, Culture Club, Billy Joel, even Bananarama, have all made Motown-ish hits in the 80s.
I've always thought "Would I Lie To You" in '85 was sort of a touchstone for the revival of that whole Stax/Volt sound. Which was ironic, since Eurythmics were hardcore Motown revisionists - Lennox was all about Marvin and especially Stevie and there are all of these little Motown touches scattered about many of their biggest hits (like the faint "shoop shoop" vocals in the background on "Here Comes The Rain Again"). I've often wondered if "Would I Lie To You" was inspired by Dusty's "Don't Forget About Me", revved up a bit for the '80s: Whatever. I worshiped a slew of Stax singles when I was a kid, so I was overjoyed to have the sound back. Yup, bigtime. Although I think it owes a debt to Wonder's "Superstition" as well. There's this repeating pattern in the background that feels almost lifted from the Clavinet line in "Superstition".
I am strongly surprised it took so long for CBS to commit this. Other labels had leveraged the acts MTV wanted to show by compelling them to play other artists on the label. On the 25th anniversary of the first day of MTV (1 August 2006), VH-1 replayed the first day of MTV. I viewed it. There were a few head-shaking videos that appeared. Which I attribute to the record labels. To be able to show Queen videos (Can you imagine MTV not being able to play "Bohemian Rhapsody"?), Elektra made MTV show videos by Eddie Rabbitt, Lee Ritenour, and Shoes. The last two had two videos shown on the first day. At least Shoes is considered 'rock'. To be able to show Styx videos, A&M made MTV show Herb Alpert and Lani Hall. If MTV could play Herb Alpert, it should have been able to play Smokey Robinson. Daryl Hall & John Oates had a video played on the first day of MTV. I will let you determine in which genré they reside.
Everybody is being so dainty about this deck. It should have gone higher on the pop chart, but what likely occurred was that a bluenose, white program director figured out this song is a description of a lewd, orgasmic, sensual act , and killed the record.
And that only made MTV look worse when they claimed that they only wanted to play rock music. The Lee Ritenour song (I'm assuming it was "Is It You") was a sizable R&B hit by a white artist. Wow! Exactly! Well, they were all over the place in the 80s, but their style at the time was decidedly R&B. But, again, the duo is white.
I apologize for the consecutive replies on this thread. I somehow reinspected this thread prior | older to the last time I inspected it. In one of those cosmic episodes; while I was browsing this thread, and was viewing this reply by @sunspot42, the Chicago radio station to which I was listening, WXRT-FM, decided to play the full LP track of this record. I have YouTube on my 'block' list {streaming videos are a waste of time on v.92}, but the video of this which people should view is the titillating one which had genuine female nudity therein. There was a videocassette compilation cassette titled "Red Hot Rock" which compiled a bunch of 1980s videos which likely had no chance of appearing on MTV. (I wonder where they did appear?) I keenly recommend finding that compilation. I have heard a couple of the mixes of this song. I have sung it at karaoke at least once. I like to make up a story that they were paid $1 every time they sung "fresh"; and so you should find the remix where the closing outro is "fresh" sung once a second for about two minutes.
Before we go back too far in time, the next #1 R&B single for 1985 is: Saving All My Love - Whitney Houston Week ending September 7, 1985 1 week Now, this is the song that made me go out and buy the album. IMO, this fourth track is the highlight of the album, hands down.
My fave is a certain upcoming number, but this was the cut that made her a superstar. A #1 R&B, Pop and Adult Contemporary single, and unlike many R&B acts, she was an immediate success in the UK and Europe, going to #1 in the UK and charting in the Top 20 across the continent. The first of a whopping seven consecutive #1 pop singles in the US. As good as the studio performance was, she was every bit as powerful right out of the gate live, as this Late Night With David Letterman performance from September 12th, 1985 demonstrates:
Thought the main title was "Saving All My Love For You." But here was what firmly established Ms. Houston at the top, as has been said. It continues to be played on oldies and Lite stations to this day. Even "back then," saw the video at an arcade situated at the lowest level of New York's Penn Station. But the "going back too far in time" wording was rather ironic - given the similarity to the title of one of her future hits. Due to listening on radios that weren't exactly "hi-fi," one line in the bridge sounded almost like "But that's just an open to see." Turns out it was how she enunciated the line and it was something else altogether.
