Duran Duran, The Comeback: Take One

The late ’80s were strange and hostile times for the ‘and then there were three’ incarnation of Duran Duran. Yes, their 1986 album Notorious sold like hotcakes, and its title track went all the way to #2, but the party was over almost as soon as it had begun. The album’s second single, the slinky Prince-like “Skin Trade,” barely reached the Top 40, while the third single, “Meet El Presidente,” was the first time the band failed to crack the Top 40. “Skin Trade” is now widely considered to be one of the band’s best songs, but at the time, the little girls did not understand.

It would not be a stretch, then, to say that the band went into the sessions for Big Thing with a chip on their shoulders. In the place of departed members Roger Taylor and Andy Taylor were a bevy of session musicians (notably Missing Persons guitarist Warren Cuccurullo), and there is nothing sexy about session musicians. If they weren’t going to get unconditional adulation, then they damn well better get some respect, so they decided to make their most experimental record to date. First on the docket: a tribute to the Normal’s “Warm Leatherette,” the feisty “I Don’t Want Your Love.”

Thank goodness for them, then, that the then-ubiquitous Shep Pettibone got a hold of it before the American public did.

(more…)

Michael W. Smith - I Will Be Here for You (1992)

What? Stop looking at me like that. You think I want to write about this song? Of course I don’t. I do it because I have to. And anyway, I didn’t make it a hit — that was you, America. So, like, remove the plank from your eye before you point at the mote in mine, or whatever that Bible verse says about people with shitty taste in music.

Oh, speaking of the Bible, here’s Michael W. Smith. Mike was part of the wave of Bible-thumping pop stars who crested the charts in the early ’90s; think of him as the Miracle Whipped baloney between the two slices of Wonder Bread known as Amy Grant and Kathy Troccoli. (more…)

Chynna Phillips - Naked and Sacred (1995)

Bet you didn’t even know this thing existed, did you?

Don’t feel bad. Chynna’s post-Wilson Phillips coming out party, Naked and Sacred, was one of the biggest duds of 1995, selling fewer than 25,000 units stateside. Given how meekly EMI promoted the album, it’s tempting to believe its release was part of some contractual obligation left over from the dissolution of Wilson Phillips’ EMI-owned label, SBK Records — but then again, as any one who’s actually listened to the album could tell you, the biggest promotional budget in the world couldn’t have saved this turkey.

The problems begin with the single’s title. “Naked and Sacred” (download)? Seriously? Okay, okay — it was written by Rick Nowels, Tom Kelly, and Billy Steinberg, three names synonymous with dopey pop songs, but they usually manage to come up with a hooky melody to Sheetrock over their asinine lyrics (case in point: “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” which Nowels co-wrote with Ellen Shipley).

No hooks here. And even worse is the boner killer implicit in the title — hey, Chynna Phillips is naked! And…sacred? What? One of these things does not belong, Chynna. If you want to be naked, that’s great, but put the scriptures away. Of course, “Naked and On All Fours” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily as “Naked and Sacred,” but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it would have been a bigger hit anyway.

Thankfully, Chynna gets down to business on the single’s B-side, “Follow Love Down” (download). Yes, it’s unbelievably annoying that she spends half the song trying to “rock out” (and sounding like Lita Ford with a bad cold), but that’s easy enough to forgive, because she spends the other half moaning, singing cheap double entendres, and generally demonstrating that she’s been a very bad girl and might actually need a spanking.

I’m sorry, what were we talking about?

Oh. Right. This shitty single. Well, there isn’t much else to say, really; if you’ve listened to a few bars of one or both of these songs, you’ve heard more of Chynna Phillips’ solo album than most of the rest of the world, which is why Wilson Phillips staged a “comeback” in the early double aughts. (The resultant album, California, might have been even worse than Naked and Sacred, but that’s for another post.) But don’t be sad for Chynna — she’s got her marriage to Billy Baldwin, and their three kids, and those “Hold On” royalties. And hey, it could have been worse — this could have been titled Naked and Carnie.