I'm sure Ann could shoot a few holes in the people's looks who think woman of a certain size are unattractive.
I don't remember any talk about Ann Wilson's weight or body size back then anywhere. Same with Janet Jackson. The media did talk about Mariah Carey when she had her breakdown in the early 00s, but so what if she has some extra pounds on her? Besides, lots of guys liked her when she had some meat on her. In general, this forum can't seem to talk about any female singers without discussing their body if they are chubby or overweight, and it's a form of sexism.
Not only that, some people on here can't seem to understand that calling women "chicks" and posting random pics of girls into threads like they are some horny teenagers is not cool at all.
Well, the jury is out on the term "chicks". Where I live, a lot of women even call themselves that, and more. But, yeah, we got a lot of horny old men here. Some women here may not mind it, but times are changing and it isn't cool in this context. If you want to see scantily-clad females, go to a porn site...or to the grocery store.
Oh boy, I sure do. I remember people laughing at their videos in college and making snarky remarks about how heavy she'd gotten. When the Behind The Music special on Heart happened in the late '90s her weight gain was a big topic during the second half of it (no pun intended). I didn't really care. In general, women sing better with some meat on their bones. Debbie Harry said that in the '90s when she was more zaftig than in earlier years, and it was true.
Jim Morrison Although, I'm not sure he was as heavy as Ann was. And, Brian Wilson got really fat, but I don't think it was alcohol.
Same here. I remember watching the All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You video on MTV and my sister kept commenting about how fat Ann had gotten. Of course it turns out my trainwreck of a sister was a bulimic at the time but still, Ann's weight was singled out too much back then
I had no friends at this time to watch with so I just thought Heart sucked but had no one to discuss it with. I do vaguely remember publications like Smash Hits/Star Hits, which was a sort of teenybopper mag from the UK that I liked saying things about her weight though. The UK press was harsher about that kind of thing back then...maybe still are, not sure.
Actually...Ann was overweight as a child and pre-teen, and only lost weight later on due to extreme vigilance, she had fought weight gain her entire life.
And I think the label and some of the public freaked out about it because Ann was thin when she came to prominence, and gained weight later..... while Cass Elliot, who was rotund from the outset, was just accepted as is. It's usually directors and producers of TV shows and music videos that are the culprits here. I mean, you had ridiculous crap like people telling 16 year old Marie Osmond she was too fat at 115 pounds. We even had the tragedy of Karen Carpenter's death 3 years prior to this, yet here it is, happening again. Although Ann's response was just to eat MORE.
Sadly this is why there's so many eating disorders in the business. Times have changed quite a bit though. Look at Lizzo, practically morbidly obese (bigger than Ann ever was), unashamed to post naked on her album cover or on Instagram, and she's very successful and has that "if you don't like the way I am, **** you" confidence
Well, as long as we're talking about the music, it would seem that the Heart comeback of the 1980's may have had its fuse lit when Ann Wilson duetted with Mike Reno of Loverboy on "Almost Paradise" from the Footloose soundtrack . . . Doesn't it say something that both "oldies" stations and "classic rock" stations seem to shy away from Heart's 1981 cover of the old Aaron Neville hit "Tell It Like It Is"? Long time since I last heard their rendition on the radio . . .
True. While people always remember "What About Love" bringing them back to the charts, "Almost Paradise" was a hit a year earlier. The irony is that in 1984, Loverboy was the far hotter act of the two, and yet in less than two years, Heart would roar back and be bigger than Loverboy ever were, while they fade out before the end of the decade (the irony was when Mike Reno was on VH1 blaming Nirvana for his band's fall in popularity when chart stats alone show Loverboy were pretty much done in 1987)
Sometimes I wonder if all Heart needed was a new label, which signing to Capitol pushed them back into the forefront. But the 1985-1990 lineup actually first appeared on 1983's Passionworks, which was their final album from Epic. How Can I Refuse actually topped the rock charts that fall, but missed the top 40 on the main chart, so I wonder if a lot of it had to do with Epic seeing them as a past-their-prime 70s act and simply didn't bother with promoting them knowing their contract was running out and their previous album had been a dud (keep in mind, 1983 was also the year of Thriller, and they also were distributing Culture Club at the time as well, with those two acts, why pump resources into some act who peaked around 1977?) whereas when Capitol signed them, they needed to turn a profit and give them a new life.
Not the last time that this would happen with a "legacy" act, viz Capitol. Other than this, I shan't say more.
Of course, Epic had no problem trying to cash in on their popularity by releasing compilations of their hits from that era, which led to Capitol releasing comps of THAT era, finally they got together and just put out The Essential Heart (compiling all of their Epic and Capitol hits).
Already happened - Private Dancer back in '84. Much is made of Clive at Arista bringing Dionne Warwick and later Aretha Franklin back to the top of the pop charts, but Capitol was at least as successful at doing it. Also David Bowie (at least in the US).
Oddly enough while Capitol stuck gold in the 80s with several "legacy" acts (Heart and Tina and a few more not mentioned yet), signing Queen actually accelerated their stateside decline at a time when their star power was brighter than ever for the rest of the world
There's been quite a few instances of different labels doing their own compilations of the hits from their tenure... though like "The Essential Heart", there's been some in the last 15-20 years that actually had the record labels compromise and work together for acts who had huge successes on multiple labels (Aerosmith, Clapton, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson and The Rolling Stones to name a few who eventually had a compilation where both labels compromised for to paint a bigger picture)
There may be people here who disagree, but in my memory Queen was basically a non-entity in America after The Game album ran it's course. I know "Radio Ga-Ga" (and maybe a few others) hit the charts, but Queen was considered washed up in the '80s here. They actually only came back into the public eye in America in 1991 when Freddie Mercury died and "Bohemian Rhapsody" was featured prominently in the movie Wayne's World.
True but it's surprising Capitol couldn't bring them back, especially after they stole the show at Live Aid...
I hear it in stores' Muzak systems. I always loved their version, and think it's one of their best songs. And, it did make #8 in 1980.
But, Epic's greatest hits was released in 1980 with that song "Tell It Like It Is". As for the Essentials collection, it was a lot of legal dealing to get the Capitol tracks on it.