"It's the story of a man, a taxi driver, but he doesn't think that he is - he lives in another world. He thinks about music and the Amazon, and his problems get out and he's fine with rumba and mambo. Joe likes to drink soda - it's a way to say he's a strong man. I've never met anyone like him before - he's an imaginary person, but he can exist I think.”
"I'm on holidays from school near Paris at the moment - I'm 15. My real friends are very happy for me that I'm a pop star, but I've lost friends because they are jealous of me. But they were not my real friends. I'm very timid so I don't say what I do.
"I didn't write Joe le Taxi but I will write songs in the future. Not the music, it's very difficult, but the words. I don't know what I'll write about, not other taxi drivers hihihi."
A star at such a young age, Vanessa Paradis found her love was acting. Won the César for Most Promising Young Actress in 1990, signed to the Chanel cosmetics company in 1991. Particular films of note include Witch Way Love, and A Monster in Paris.
Vanessa seemed to have a knack of falling in with bad boys. Florent Pagny, the French pop star, was her first public fling. Then she moved on to Lenny Kravitz, producer for her eponymous 1992 album, and paramour for the next five years. "I think Vanessa is a very intense young lady. I think she's extremely talented," said Kravitz. "I learned a lot about producing, working with an artist, but this music was really, really tailored for her. I tried to get inside of her mind."
After uncoupling from Kravitz, Vanessa spent fourteen years with Johnny Depp, and bore him two children. Fourteen years with Johnny Depp? People get less for beating their wives. She got out of that relationship, and has been married to film director Samuel Benchetrit for ten years.
Vanessa's continued to record music, including the 2007 album «Divineidylle». The album won popular plaudits, critics called it her best work. Here's the title track.
Tiffany's management didn't know how to market their young singer. Club performances didn't work - she was just 16, couldn't really be there. An A&R guy who was at the shopping mall with his kids one day and looked around and said, "What about singing in a mall?"
And that turned out to be Tiffany's unique selling point, something to make her stand out from all the other young women. She's singing in your space, in your local shopping centre. There's a big oral history of Tiffany's mall tour.
Tiffany was someone just like you. Dressed in clothes that are affordable and accessible - jean jacket, crimped hair, earrings. Anyone can follow that fashion, however little budget, however little fashion sense.
I first came across Tiffany when the single came out here. “I think we're alone now" was bright and breezy, a vaguely familiar song reinterpreted by someone who sounds like she could mean it. And, during a weak January sale, it rose to the very top.
That’s a brave TOTP performance. A chunky cardigan, far too big for her; not going to get into Legs & Co. Live vocals, because Tiffany is at her best when she’s singing live. Different vocal line from the single, almost as if she’s distancing herself from it. Tiffany’s better than this? Too right!
For about six weeks, I was very interested in Tiffany. Hello, hormones. Hello, "yeah, would like to pop over and help with your maths homework, look after your plants. See the all-white bedroom, get something in black."
There’s childhood crushes that never go further, and there’s another act on that week's TOTP. David Van Day of Dollar fell head-over-heels with young Tiff. Sent her red roses, and his number, and a note saying how she was his “forever girl”. How utterly spewsome! The pervgusting Van Day (31) was told where to go by the management of Tiffany (16).
Traffic chaos in London, where huge crowds turned out and blocked the Euston Road. "Come and see Tiffany" said Capital Radio presenters Pat and Mick, and the rest was a mess.
"She's the next Barbra Streisand," said Elsie Gummer of Bromley. Maybe she'd heard the second single, the heartbreaking song Could've been.
"It's about the end of a relationship that doesn't quite work out, one that improves your life and you wouldn't go back on it."
Written by Lois Blaisch, the song turned out to be one Tiffany could convincingly sing, and one that fitted her vocal style. With the benefit of hindsight, we file it as a neighbour of Duncan Laurence's "Arcade".
A cover of The Beatles' "I saw him standing there" gave Tiffany a third top ten hit, but follow-up "Feelings of forever" failed to trouble the top 40. Behind the scenes, Tiffany had sought to cut ties with her mother, there were disagreements in her management, and it showed.
Second album Hold an Old Friend's Hand came out for Christmas 1988, new product for while there was still a decent fanbase. The lead single was "Radio romance", promoted with an appearance on Going Live.
"It's happened so fast... it's been my dream come true."
Tiffany's career on the top 40 lasted exactly one year: 1988. "Radio romance" fell out after Gift Token Week, follow-ups "All this time" and "Hold an old friend's hand" stalled.
Stateside, Tiffany started a tour supported by New Kids On The Block; by the final date, it was New Kids On The Block supported by Tiffany. When she was the voice of Judy in The Jetsons Movie in 1990, we thought, "Good grief, remember Tiffany?"
Freed from the pressure of making hit records, Tiffany was able to follow her own path, and actually write some songs of her own. 2000's album The Color of Silence was praised by critics, there was some dance singles, reality shows, support for the LGBTQ+ fans because we stood solidly by her, nostalgia tours with New Kids on the Block and Salt-n-Pepa, and much more.
And in 2022, Tiffany released a new album, Shadows. Here's "I like the rain", a "sarcastic and fun song about chaos, owning your mistakes, rebelling and not caring what people think but making adjustments as you go along in life to another season."
Tiffany's only turned into Stevie Nicks! Who'd have thunk that the little denim-clad gal at the mall would turn out to be a closet rock chick?!
What does Belinda Carlisle do after the hits dry up? Moves to France, raises her children, lives off the royalties and plays the nostalgia circuit.
And record an album of French chansons.
2007 album Voila still has glimpses of the polished pop from the 80-90s, but it's all very different. The repertoire is no longer Nowels and Shipley power pop, but tender songs like “La vie en rose”.
"Merci, chérie" is the most unusual choice, the song (written by Baker Cavendish, Udo Jürgens, Thomas Hörbiger) is most famous as the Eurovision Song Contest winner of 1966. Belinda finds a certain sensuality in the song, absent from Udo's winning turn four decades earlier.
By 2010, Belinda Carlisle released her memoirs, Lips Unsealed, where she opened up about her addictions. Belinda did a turn on Ballroom With The B-List, and absolutely hated it, and was first out. Even Debbie Gibson did better!
Yet another greatest hits compilation came out in 2013, adorned by new song "Sun". It’s worth the price of admission.
"I don't have to record something unless I really love it. And for the last 15 years or so, truly great songs haven't been easy to find. So when I heard "Sun", I loved it, and I decided to record it. It's age-appropriate, while still being modern and youthful in its spirit, and I particularly appreciated that part of it."
The decade from 2013 to now has seen Belinda perform on the nostalgia circuit, re-release the old albums in remastered versions like everyone does these days. She’s recorded a passion project of yoga mantras, toured the old albums, but didn’t find room to include new song “Big big love” - other than a performance on Radio 2′s Ken Bruce Show.
To finish this career retrospective, we'll step back to Belinda's crowning moment, the lead single from Runaway Horses.
"Leave a light on", written by Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley, as is obvious from the banging introduction to the two-part chorus. Then, just when we're flagging, just like a spark lights up the dark, it's George Harrison’s guitar solo - the one contribution from Belinda's paramour in the song.
The song has a message of "life might be shit, and we're parted right now, but have faith we'll be reunited. And, until then, let’s enjoy ourselves as best we can."
To call your greatest hits album Best of Belinda Volume 1 is provocative. It’s a challenge. A challenge to yourself, that you're going to come up with at least another album of hits. A challenge to the public, that this is a staging post in your career, filling your contract with the record company before you move elsewhere.
The album sold well, a week as the best-seller, and number 28 for 1992. "Little black book" was lifted as a new single to market the collection. "I plead insanity" was earmarked as a second single before Christmas, but never quite made it to the stores. The sharp-edged dance tune had been on the album Live Your Life Be Free, was slightly remixed, may have got onto The Chart Show, but never came out as a single.
Was that the end for Belinda? Not at all. The album Real in 1993 was Belinda's first for Virgin Records. Lead single was "Big scary animal", written by Belinda with Charlotte Caffey of The Go-Go's and Ralph Schuckett from Todd Rundgren's band. It's a decent pastiche of a Nowels and Shipley song, the build-up, the belting chorus, the tremendous sense of fun and freedom.
And here’s a provocative thought. Real is Belinda Carlisle doing alternative rock once more.
The album came out at that fascinating time - after Nirvana and all the grunge had gone mainstream, but before the form ossified with Hootie and the Goo Goo Dolls. 1993 was post-grunge in a liquid state, resonating with Belinda Carlisle the alt-rocker from a decade earlier. File Real alongside works from 4 Non Blondes, Belly, and the Breeders; a record that could only have been made by an American woman in 1993.
Whatever the cause, Virgin decided not to release any more work from Belinda Carlisle, and that was that.
The end of Belinda Carlisle? Nonsense! The Go-Go's worked together again, a full album came out in late 1994. Belinda's solo career resumed in 1996 with A Woman and a Man. It's not a record Belinda remembers with fondness, she believes it was horribly compromised by her various addictions; I agree it’s weaker than the previous work.
"In too deep" was the lead single, written by Rick Nowels. The first time we'd heard Carlisle sing Nowels in five years, and it was like coming back to meet an old friend. They haven't changed a bit! Pounding piano riffs, a rising verse, and - vam! - a chorus to belt out and be heard halfway around the planet. Long notes mean anyone can join in, even us.
Like most of the songs on A Woman and a Man, "In too deep" was a cover - the first version was by the Kiwi singer-songwriter Jenny Morris.
Dave Tickle was responsible for the production on the album, and it's a bit gloopy - he needed to give Belinda more space to breathe, particularly on the album's soft ballads. And the choice of songs was poor - a pedestrian cover of "Jealous guy", naff closer "The ballad of Lucy Jordan", uncomfortable Roxette song "Always breaking my heart".
Not on the album, "Falling into you", which ended up being nabbed by Céline Dion like a discarded sack of potatoes.
"California" was the final single off the album, written by Rick Nowels, Maria Vidal, and Billy Steinberg. The song is imbued with mid-90s references - the death of River Phoenix, an earthquake in early '94 - and generally pines for the California of the singer's memory. Backing vocals come from Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, passing the torch of California rep to a next generation.
And that really was the end of Belinda Carlisle as a big hitmaker. A live album to the fanbase in 1999, and 2004's "A Place on Earth" was another collection of great hits, filling the promise she'd made a dozen years earlier.
The end of the hitmaking career, but not the end of Belinda Carlisle...
With 14 days to live with Belinda, I can take four singles from the Runaway Horses album, but not in chronological order.
"La luna" Ah, the new single by Gloria! Wait, what? No, this flamenco track is Belinda, a cut above so many other records from late 1989. The songwriters are Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley, Belinda’s regular authors, and the song is based on a passionate one-night stand Ellen once had. Days later, she's wandering in a bit of a daze, wondering if she was a bit too hasty in throwing Mister Big out.
Andy Morahan directed the video, which we can summarise as Belinda In A Bed. And, for some reason, a Victorian theme, as if they wanted to sanitise the 15-cert song and make it ok for daytime MTV and kids' shows. Musicologists note how this song is in the same key (F♯ minor) and same pace (124 bpm) as Bros's "I owe you nothing".
"Runaway horses" has an example of text painting. Belinda sings over a trotting clip-clop beat, picks up to a canter and then a full-throated gallop at the chorus. With the public's head turned by The Stone Roses and Tiffany's Support Act, could only make number 40 in early 1990.
Nowels and Shipley wrote this. Greg Masuak did the video, which is all Belinda running away and not enough horses. The wide open spaces are just right for the song, which is all about escaping from the humdrum and moving on with your life. A couplet from the bridge, "With every end, we'll begin again" may have played on the mind of Semisonic a decade later.
Belinda Carlisle cites "Summer rain" as her favourite song to have recorded. It's the tale of a soldier who is carted off to the battlefield, and the ballad doesn't sound like it's going to end well. Released over here in early 1991, just in time for Gulf War II: The Yankees Enter, it just missed the top 20. The video suggests it's about a prior conflict: Korea, or the 1940s fight against fascism.
Maria Vidal of "Body rock" fame co-wrote this track, with Robbie Seidman. I really love the build-up, a verse to ratchet up the tension, short string motifs build up a baroque mood and tell us something is coming. The pre-chorus makes it sound like thunder is about to strike.
And then the chorus bursts out like flowers after the rain. Belinda and the narrator leave nothing behind. "Oh! My love! It's you that I dream of!" "Somewhere in my heart, I'm always... [the briefest of pauses, even more expectation, then gabble the payoff with excitement] dancing with you in the summer rain!"
"Live your life be free" was the lead single and title track from Belinda's 1991 album. Very much in the big chorus mould, and no surprise that it's another Nowells and Shipley work. Nick Egan with the video. Perhaps inspired by a brief reunion The Go-Go's had had in 1990, Belinda goes for a girl group sound, leading the chorus of women calling for emancipation.
So far this month, we've featured Taja Sevelle, Vanessa Paradis, Tiffany, and Debbie Gibson. All were new to the business we call show. Belinda Carlisle, by comparison, was an experienced performer.
Belinda was part of The Go-Go's in the early 1980s. After the band went their separate ways, Belinda shed the punk rock image reinvented herself as a performer of bright and breezy pop. "Heaven is a place on earth" was the massive breakthrough hit, a deserved number 1 single in early 1988, and it's been on Heart FM literally every hour since. Far better than "You give love a bad name", a suspiciously similar Bon Jovi song from a year earlier.
I think the video for “Heaven is a place on earth” is absolutely terrible, it shows far too much of the dancers and their inflatable globes, and far too little of the star. That's why I'm sharing the clip from Top of the Pops-CBS, Belinda and her band have the time of their lives.
Heaven on Earth wasn't Belinda's solo debut album. That was Belinda, released in 1986, but a filing error at record label IRS allowed her to leave after this one album. There was one hit single of note, "Mad about you". It was written by Belinda with Paula Jean Brown and Charlotte Caffey from the dying days of The Go-Go's.
Over here, "Mad about you" wasn't re-released until summer 1988, by which time "I get weak" had grazed the top ten, and "Circle in the sand" had gone top five. Like "Mad about you", the song was promoted with a beachfront video - this time at Half Moon Bay in northern California. State-of-the-art visual effects for 1988 allowed the director to superimpose other film on the washing line where some sheets billow in the wind.
Like Debbie Gibson's "Lost in your eyes", this is a song about a lasting love. Unlike the other songs, it's in D minor, commonly seen as a stubborn and serious and pious key. "One for doctor's waiting rooms", said Carlisle some years later; if only our doctor would play anything so tuneful.
Belinda also guested as an agony aunt for a short-lived magazine. It, er, didn’t go so well.
Earlier, we covered Debbie Gibson’s hit career, in 1988 and 1989.
Anything Is Possible screamed the third album in early 1991. Turned out that anything was possible, except a Debbie Gibson comeback. An interview with Phillip Schofield presaged the title track coming out as a single .... and stalling at 51. Ver Dumper says "hello, glad you’re in me".
There was a lot of good work on the album. One of the best is "Another brick falls", clearly influenced by Elton John and Billy Joel's "Stormfront" album. Here's what Debbie told Billboard in 2018:
I am still not quite sure about why I was writing about adult stress at such a young age, but I now constantly can relate to the idea that just when you have one piece of life's puzzle figured out, something else goes wrong, and nothing is ever quite all in sync at one time. I really enjoy delivering it live now with way more life experience behind it.
Here's a performance from 2018.
From here, Debbie took a surprise turn to musical theatre, Éponine in Les Miserables on Broadway, and then to London in 1993.
Debbie had been cast as Sandy in the stage musical of Grease, a massive West End production with all the hype that entails. And all the pressure from the 1978 film: Debbie and her co-lead Craig McLachlan could never be Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, and were right to play the parts their own way. Sandy's big number is "Hopelessly devoted to you".
Debbie did a lot of promotion for this show, including an interview on This Morning. All the years on tour playing Pictionary ensured Debbie was a whizz for Grease Week on Win Lose or Draw with Shane Richie.
Debbie also worked with Shane on Run the Risk, and particularly enjoyed being a white wolf for a hot minute. Furry 'nough.
Back in the States, the album Think With Your Heart came out in 1995, firmly for the Radio 2 audience, and coming about 25 years before the fashion to pair a great vocalist with a philharmonic orchestra. Dance-pop song "Your secret" had some regional success.
There was a jukebox musical Electric Youth, Belle in theatre's Beauty and the Beast. @matgb reminds me of a crappy straight-to-VHS movie with Tiffany and some bad CGI, which I must watch on the 30th of this month. Debbie went on Ballroom With The B-List, and was second out.
Almost inevitably, there’s been a Christmas album. Guess what - it’s a good one! Winterlicious was my favourite festive set from 2022, and it has the new year song "Cheers!". It's in memory of Debbie's late mother, the one who jokingly threatened to cut off the phone because Debbie talked too much.
Debbie Gibson is next. Do we have to start with her breakthrough hit? Really?
Very well then.
That's "Shake your love", from the short-lived CBS version of Top of the Pops. Debbie's breakthrough hit was poppy and peppy and banal and vacuous and I absolutely loathed it. Still think it's the weakest song on the album, but it's her signature hit, so what do I know?
Debbie's compiled her album Out of the Blue by asking all of her young friends, and all of her older relations, to listen to about 60 songs she'd written. They tick off the ones they like, and that helped Debbie slim down the list to about 20 tracks she can take to the producers.
This early example of a focus group produced a solid album with plenty of songs to interest all ages. And “Shake your love”.
"Out of the blue" was the third hit single, more throwaway pop. In between had been "Only in my dreams" with some interesting songwriting abilities - Debbie used a minor key to emphasise the wistful and unlikely nature of her wish. Very few western songwriters ever make that connection, and here's Debbie Gibson doing it at 17? That's interesting!
Smash Hits reviewed "Only in my dreams" - The sort of stuff that really gets miserable Morrissey's goat - and that's a good thing!
"Foolish beat" was the song where Debbie Gibson started to make some sense. Specifically, that interview with Andy Crane on BFT:TnT (the forerunner to The O-Zone). Debbie Gibson writes most of her own songs. She speaks from experience, and writes a heart-wrenching ballad.
It's trite to compare this with Tiffany's "Could've been", another song of heartbreak. But we're gonna do it. Tiffany has the difficult emotion, "We're not together, and I've the maturity to grow from the experience". Debbie has a more simple, "We're not together, and it's horrible". The song ends without any closure.
"Lost in your eyes" will probably be number one for several eons when it's eventually released, tipped Smash Hits.
Sadly, "Lost in your eyes" was the sixth single in a year, and only reached number 34 when pushed for Valentine's Day 1989. Yes, it would have been a better number one than "Belfast child", and I like "Belfast child" a whole lot more than many critics (waves at Tom Ewing).
"Lost in your eyes" is a gorgeous song. Written in the key of G, the key for satisfied passion and faithful love. Debbie's clear voice is given free rein, and the piano ballad is satisfying. The effect wasn't entirely convincing - it's only a year since Debbie had arrived in a cloud of teddy bears and pompoms, and suddenly she's singing for the grannies on Radio 2? By 2018, that's less of a problem.
But we get ahead of ourselves. Second album Electric Youth was promoted with the title track, all neon legwarmers and "this is what the marketing people think young people want". "We could be together" was a pleasant single in a minor key.
The hits may be over, but the story continues on Saturday...
