I was a pretty confused kid in 1989. Well, not a kid, really — I was 17 going on 18. I had a couple of hundred vinyl records, and David Foster was my guiding light , but when I bought my first CD player that year, I didn’t really know which direction to take my budding CD collection. I had calculated that Lionel Richie would release his fourth solo album in 1989. That didn’t happen. I hated my old favorite band, Chicago, with a passion after they disposed of David Foster and released the Diane Warren-infused trainwreck Chicago 19 in 1988, so I couldn’t care less what they were up to. Level 42 were more or less in shambles after the departure of Boon and Phil and I didn’t expect a new Toto album until the next year. Pet Shop Boys released the glorious single “Left to My Own Devices” but I wasn’t really into singles, and their 1989 remix album (Introspective) wasn’t great. The whole New Romantic/Sophisti-Pop movement was waning, and while I was still listening to Johnny Hates Jazz and trying to make my hair look like Clark Datchler’s with Studio Line, the girls in my class got into Guns ‘n’ Roses and suddenly they dug long-haired dudes on motorbikes.
I had one foot planted on the dancefloor at the time as well, but Italo Disco didn’t sound quite as appealing to me as it had in 1986, and Black Box’s “Ride on Time” wasn’t exactly my idea of fun. I tried to get into house music and bought a volume in the “House Sound of Chicago Megamix” series, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t for me. I was getting sick and tired of the synth gurus that used to thrill me in the mid-’80s — Jean-Michel Jarre was turning into Napoleon Bonaparte with a Laserharp, Tangerine Dream swapped their Moogs and ARP’s for rhythm presets on a cheap Korg Wavestation, and the Miami Vice/Jan Hammer thing wasn’t really happening anymore. And where was David Foster? Foster was almost invisible on record in 1989. Rock wasn’t really an option yet, and I didn’t get rap at all. So what was I to do?
One day after school I listened to the radio. They presented a batch of new releases, and suddenly I heard these sweet piano tinklings that reminded me of David Foster’s “Winter Games,” only slightly jazzier and with a snappy beat. Oh, yes. Jazzy David Foster with a snappy beat. Groovy. This couldn’t be wrong.
David Benoit. Hm.
Not at all wrong. (more…)
The great thing about breakup songs is that you have absolutely no control over what they are; they just happen to be playing in the background, clamped into the CD player or turntable by some tinpot DJ who has no idea the sheer level of emotional damage you’re either enduring or creating. Sometimes this random process creates entertaining non sequiturs; sometimes it creates a moment so jarring that even Patrick Swayze couldn’t make it more awkward.