Posts Tagged ‘Karyn White’

CHART ATTACK!: 10/19/91

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Welcome back, everyone, to yet another latest edition of CHART ATTACK! As you know, we take the good charts with the bad charts ’round here. Two weeks ago, we covered a pretty stellar week from 1980. This week? Well, while we have some strong tunes this week, there are also some clunkers, too. Check ‘em out as we attack October 19, 1991!

10. Love…Thy Will Be Done — Martika null
9. Can’t Stop This Thing We Started — Bryan Adams null
8. Everybody Plays the Fool — Aaron Neville null
7. I Adore Mi Amor — Color Me Badd null
6. Good Vibrations — Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch Featuring Loleatta Holloway null
5. Something to Talk About — Bonnie Raitt null
4. Hole Hearted — Extreme null
3. Romantic — Karyn White null
2. Do Anything — Natural Selection Featuring Niki Haris null
1. Emotions — Mariah Carey null

10. Love…Thy Will Be Done — Martika (download)

You’ll be forgiven if you don’t remember this song — I know I don’t have no recollection of ever hearing it on the radio. “Toy Soldiers” might be the only song you remember of Martika’s (perhaps helped by Eminem’s sample of it in his 2005 song “Like Toy Soliders”), but she also reached #18 with “More Than You Know” and #25 with her cover of “I Feel the Earth Move,” in addition to peaking here at #10 with this song. You’ll also be forgiven if you knew this song but had no clue it was actually sung by Martika, since she sounds nothing like she did on “Toy Soldiers.” No, she sounds like she’s been taken hostage and forced to sing this song exactly the way someone else wants her to sing it…wait a minute, this song was written by Prince! Story checks out!

So yes, it’s true — for a brief, shining moment, Martika was a Prince Girl, which I think is something like being a Bond Girl but with a lot more patchouli. And she does a fine job with this song, although anybody really could’ve sung it; in fact,parts of her vocal are reminiscent of the Prince/Madonna “Love Song” duet from Like a Prayer. Musically, the song itself is a bore — the bass and drums are static throughout — but somehow ends up being oddly compelling. Prince created his own mix of the song (available on Martika’s greatest hits collection, which I double-dog dare you to buy), and he’s performed it live himself, too — our buddy (and diehard Prince fan) Pete from Ickmusic has gifted us with this version from 3/8/95, live from The Astoria in London. It’s just drums and bass until the three-and-a-half minute mark, but after that, we get a pretty good vocal from Prince. I’d say I prefer Martika’s original, but still, it’s pretty cool to have. Thanks, Pete!

Prince — Love…Thy Will Be Done (live) (download)

Curious what Tika’s up to these days? Well, she hasn’t released an album as “Martika” since this one, 1991’s Martika’s Kitchen, but she’s released two albums with her husband, Michael Mozart (I don’t know if that’s his real name, and I don’t care) as part if the group Oppera. And more recently, she’s going by the stage name Vita Edit and starring as “Lolly Pop” in a web series entitled j8ded. Mozart is in it too, billed as Michael Daemon. Martika, how the hell did you wind up being stranger than Prince?

By the way, don’t be surprised if this song is in your head all day. I keep singing it to myself, but I replace the word “love” with random one-syllable words, like “scones” and “balls.” (more…)

CHART ATTACK!: 8/19/89

I am totally attacking this chart, mofos!

Hello, everybody! I’ll be honest with you — this chart kind of stinks. I mean, it’s not “wretched,” but I wouldn’t say it’s “good by any stretch of the imagination,” either. But you know what? I open my Billboard book, close my eyes, point to a chart, and deal with what’s in front of me. (Except when I delegate it to other writers.) Anyway, prepare to get your new jack swing on as we attack August 19, 1989!

10. So Alive — Love and Rockets Amazon iTunes
9. Secret Rendezvous — Karyn White
Amazon iTunes
8. Batdance — Prince
Amazon iTunes
7. I Like It — Dino
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6. Hangin’ Tough – New Kids on the Block
Amazon iTunes
5. Once Bitten Twice Shy — Great White
Amazon iTunes
4. Don’t Wanna Lose You — Gloria Estefan
Amazon iTunes
3. Cold Hearted — Paula Abdul
Amazon iTunes
2. On Our Own — Bobby Brown
Amazon iTunes
1. Right Here Waiting — Richard Marx
Amazon iTunes

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Chartburn: 4/25/08

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Mainstream Rock: Silverchair, “Tomorrow” (1995)

John: It’s Jim Henson’s Kurt Cobain Babies!

Zack: Everybody made such a big deal out of this band because the members were so young. Just because they’re young doesn’t mean their music doesn’t suck. It kind of feels like the record company played the role of the doting parents whose six-year-old brought home a laughably bad drawing of the beach cottage the family rented last summer and hung it up on the fridge, all the while snickering behind their hands. And the public, not getting the joke, all agreed that it was pretty terrific.

Will: How far they’ve come. I didn’t give a flying flip about these guys when they first came around selling their wares, and this song reminds me why. (Granted, the video’s a little creepy.) Since they dumped the Nirvana wannabe sound and embraced the glory of the pop hook, their stock has risen considerably. The turning point for me was “Across the Night” and they’ve remained on my “can’t wait to hear the next record” list ever since.

David: What Will said. I love their last record, Young Modern, and also liked the Dissociatives, that electronic project that Daniel Johns did. But this song still bugs me. So derivative, so void of any personality.

Jeff: It should surprise none of you that I got bored with grunge sometime in the fall of 1991 right around the time “Even Flow” or “Alive” was reaching its 10,000th spin on our local rock stations and by the time Silverchair came around, anything that sounded the least bit like flannel was switched off immediately. I know this was just one aspect of Silverchair’s sound, but I’ve never bothered to check up on their later recordings, despite Will’s evangelism.

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