Retro Video of the Week: "When I See You Smile" by Bad English

A mere 35 years ago yesterday, British-American supergroup Bad English released its self-titled debut album.  The band featured:

-Lead vocals:  John Waite, who had success as the lead singer of British power pop band The Babys in the late '70s and further success as a solo artist in the early and mid '80s, topping the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984 with "Missing You"

-Rhythm guitar and keyboards:  Jonathan Cain, who had been in The Babys with Waite before leaving the band to join Journey in 1980.  He's the guy who composed and played the iconic piano riff on "Don't Stop Believin'."

-Lead guitar:  Neal Schon, who played with Santana for two albums before co-founding Journey

-Bass:  Ricky Phillips, who was also in The Babys

-Drums:  Deen Castroneves, who had been in heavy metal band Wild Dogs and would eventually join Journey

The album reached #21 on the Billboard album chart and eventually went platinum in the U.S., and it featured three Top 25 hits on the Billboard Hot 100:  "When I See You Smile" (#1), "Price of Love" (#5), and "Possession" (#21).  If you know one Bad English song, it's probably "When I See You Smile," a power ballad in the heyday of power ballads, written by songwriting wunderkind Diane Warren.  Not only did it top the charts in the U.S., but it also hit #1 in Canada and #4 in Australia.  The video is a classic "performance" video, directed by Cain himself.

Hair Band Friday - 6/21/24

1.  "Lipstick and Leather" by Y&T

2.  "On the Edge" by Great White

3.  "Before the Dawn" by Judas Priest

4.  "Through These Eyes" by Lynch Mob

5.  "Farewell" by Europe

6.  "Little Dreamer" by Van Halen

7.  "When The Levee Breaks" (live) by W.A.S.P.

8.  "I Want It All (I Want It Now)" by Black 'N Blue

9.  "Sweet Little Loving" by White Lion

10.  "Bang Bang (Balls of Fire)" by Kix

Retro Video of the Week: "Looking For Freedom" by David Hasselhoff

With the Euro Cup currently being hosted by Germany, it seems fitting to have a Retro Video of the Week with a German tinge. Friday will mark the 35th anniversary of the release of Looking For Freedom, the third studio album from a guy who once watched me play a high school football game, David Hasselhoff.  A lot of people don't know this, but Hasselhoff is from America and not Germany.  Already a popular actor because of the hit TV show Knight Rider, Hasselhoff began to record music in the mid '80s.  While his music failed to break through in the U.S., the Germans, Swiss, and Austrians loved it.

In December 1988, Hasselhoff had released a single named "Looking For Freedom," which was a huge hit in parts of Western Europe -- well, the German-speaking ones anyway.  It was a poignant song given the wave of Eastern Bloc nations that were starting to open up and drop communism.  It spent 8 weeks at #1 on the German pop chart, 4 weeks at #1 on the Swiss pop chart, and one week at #1 in Austria.  It also went to #4 on the European Hot 100 Singles chart, and it was the #1 Year End chart song for 1989 in both Germany and Switzerland.  Spurred by the success of that song, Hasselhoff decided to name his 1989 album the same thing (the song was on the album as well).  It went to the Top 5 on the album charts in -- you guessed it -- Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

Hasselhoff would famously sing "Looking For Freedom" on New Year's Eve at the end of 1989 at the Berlin Wall, only seven weeks after protesters crashed the Wall and started to dismantle it.  But the official music video has nothing to do with that.  It's the Hoff singing while walking through a post-apocalyptic waste land and then singing while two scantily clad nurses fight over him, with some random Knight Rider clips interspersed.  God, I miss the '80s.

Hair Band Friday - 6/14/24

1.  "Blow My Fuse" by Kix

2.  "Widowmaker" by W.A.S.P.

3.  "Red Hot" by Mötley Crüe

4.  "Lady Starlight" by Scorpions

5.  "Straight Through the Heart" by Dio

6.  "Hang 'Em High" by Y&T

7.  "Locomotive (Complicity)" by Guns N' Roses

8.  "Never Use Love" by Ratt

9.  "Take What You Can" by XYZ

10.  "When Darkness Calls" by Lynch Mob

Retro Video of the Week: "On Our Own" by Bobby Brown

35 years ago today, the soundtrack for Ghostbusters II was released, four days ahead of the cinematic release of the film.  The soundtrack did pretty well, peaking at #14 on the Billboard album chart and eventually going gold in the U.S.  It featured songs by a pretty nice list of male musicians:  Run DMC, Elton John, New Edition, Glenn Frey, Bobby Brown, Oingo Boingo, Doug E. Fresh and The Get Fresh Crew, James "JT" Taylor (the former lead singer of Kool & The Gang, not the singer-songwriter), and Howard Huntsberry (who had played Jackie Wilson in the Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba and covered Wilson's "Higher and Higher" for this soundtrack).

The biggest hit from the album was Bobby Brown's "On Our Own," which was written by Babyface, LA Reid, and Daryl Simmons.  Babyface and Reid also produced the song and respectively played keyboards and percussion on the song.  It's squarely new jack swing, which was burgeoning in popularity at that time, and Brown was one of the genre's biggest stars.  The first four songs off his 1988 album Don't Be Cruel had reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 (including three Top 5 songs and one #1), and "On Our Own" kept the momentum going.  Not only did it hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard R&B singles chart, but internationally, it reached the Top 5 on the pop charts in Canada, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand (where it went to #1), and the UK.

As expected, the video has some clips from the movie, though generally, it's just lots of scenes from New York, with Brown on big screens on the sides of buildings.  There are a ton of celebrity cameos, including, but not limited to, Christopher Reeve, Joey and Marky Ramone, Rick Moranis, Iman, Doug E. Fresh, Jane Curtin, Victoria Jackson, and Donald Trump.

Retro Video of the Week: "The Glamorous Life" by Sheila E.

Tuesday was the 40th anniversary of the release of Prince protégé and percussionist Sheila E.'s debut album, Sheila E. in The Glamorous Life.  In the '70s and early '80s, Sheila was a percussionist in jazz/funk artist George Duke's band, and she had also recorded and performed with various other artists, including Marvin Gaye, Herbie Hancock, Lionel Richie, and Diana Ross.

She met Prince in 1977, and eventually she collaborated with the Purple One in various capacities, including touring with Prince as his percussionist and acting as his musical director for tours in the late '80s.  If you've seen the fantastic documentary released earlier this year about the making of "We Are The World" -- The Greatest Night in Pop -- you know that Sheila was part of the ensemble, but it was clear that she was asked to participate in large part because of the producers' hopes that she could get Prince to participate, which never happened.

Anywho, all the tracks on Sheila E. in The Glamorous Life were written or co-written by Prince, and he produced the album under the pseudonym The Starr ★ Company.  The album peaked at #28 on the Billboard album chart and #7 on the Billboard R&B album chart.  

The song "The Glamorous Life" was the first single released from the album, and it's a funky pop song, complete with horns and hypnotic percussion. It proved to be Sheila's biggest solo hit, reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Billboard Dance Club Tracks chart, #9 on the Billboard R&B Singles chart, and Top 5 on the pop charts in Belgium, Canada, and The Netherlands.  The song also earned Sheila two Grammy nominations, and the video garnered three MTV VMA nominations.

Retro Video of the Week: "Tootsee Roll" by 69 Boyz

Friday will mark the 30th anniversary of Miami hip hop group 69 Boyz's (I think that's how the possessive of that would work) debut album, 199Quad.  The album would peak at #59 on the Billboard album chart and #13 on the Billboard R&B album chart, and it eventually went platinum in the U.S., behind the success of their hit single, the now-classic "Tootsee Roll."

The Tootsee Roll was a dance, presumably created collaboratively by all 69 of the boyz, and the song basically tells you how to do it.  This was definitely one of those songs that was playing at high school dances and frat parties back in the mid to late '90s.  It spent four months in the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching #8, and it was also #1 on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart and #9 on the Billboard Hot R&B singles chart.  If they left us with nothing else, any time you hear someone say "to the left," you're probably thinking in your head "to the right, to the right, to the front, to the front, to the back, to the back, now dip, baby, dip." Or at least you will now.

Hair Band Friday - 5/24/24

1.  "Edison's Medicine" by Tesla

2.  "Trouble" by Shotgun Messiah

3.  "14 Years" by Guns N' Roses

4.  "Without You" (live) by Mötley Crüe

5.  "My Way" by KISS

6.  "Bones in the Gutter" by Dangerous Toys

7.  "Need Your Love So Bad" by Whitesnake

8.  "Push Comes to Shove" by Van Halen

9.  "Cross Me and See" by Bonham

10.  "Hold the Dream" by FireHouse

Retro Video of the Week: "Undone - The Sweater Song" by Weezer

Last Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the release of Weezer's eponymous debut album, which we all know and love as "The Blue Album."  Rightly heralded as one of the best albums of the '90s and one of the best debut albums of all-time, The Blue Album is basically perfect from top to bottom.  In the thick of grunge, this was a little different.  Produced by Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, it was certainly "alternative," but there was a great blending of power pop, hard rock, punk, emo, and alt rock -- sometimes crisp, sometimes feedbacky, sometimes hooky, sometimes gnarly.  And, of course, the album cover is iconic, with the four band members just standing there, not quite smiling, in front of a light royal blue background.  I saw Weezer play The Blue Album in its entirety back in early 2011, and it was awesome.  They're done it again on tour this year, and I'm seeing them in September.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the album, but let's just get to the damn Retro Video of the Week already.  The band released three singles from the album:  "Undone - The Sweater Song," "Buddy Holly," and "Say It Ain't So."  I featured all three on Retro Video of the Week at some point, but it's been a longer time since I featured "Undone - The Sweater Song" than the other two.  In fact, it was ten years and one day ago.  This was the band's first single, and it was the only one of the three that charted on the Billboard Hot 100, though it only reached #57.  It also went to #6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart.  The video is directed by Spike Jonze, who was just getting his start, before going on to become one of the most in-demand video directors of the '90s and then directing, writing, and producing feature films (and winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2014 for Her).

It's a single shot video with the band playing on a blue stage in a studio, with Rivers Cuomo looking like a mod wearing a t-shirt version of the Greatest American Hero costume.  And then a bunch of dogs run through.  But there's one thing you won't see in the video:  a sweater.

Hair Band Friday - 5/10/24

1.  "VOA" by Sammy Hagar

2.  "Faith" by Spread Eagle

3.  "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)" by Judas Priest

4.  "Loco-Emotion" by Kix

5.  "Night Music" by Dio

6.  "Dirty Movies" by Van Halen

7.  "Over the Mountain" by Ozzy Osbourne

8.  "Sailing Ships" by Whitesnake

9.  "Wanted Man" by Ratt

10.  "Goin' Crazy" by David Lee Roth