CoronaVinyl Day 254 (T): Private Dancer by Tina Turner

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "T," and we're going with one of the great comeback albums of all-time, Tina Turner's Private Dancer.

Of course, Tina Turner was famously married to Ike Turner, with whom she had a successful musical partnership, but a tumultuous personal relationship.  They stopped making music together in 1976, and then got divorced two years later.

Turner had released a couple solo albums prior to that, in 1974 and 1975, and then two more in 1978 and 1979.  Of those, only 1975's Acid Queen charted on the Billboard album chart, and it only reached #155.  And she only had one charting single on the Billboard Hot 100 from any of those albums, 1975's "Baby, Get It On" (a collaboration with Ike), which topped out at #80.

At the end of the '70s, Turner left her record label and signed with EMI/Capitol.  She teamed up with British electronic group B.E.F. in 1982 and released a cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" in the UK.  It became a surprise Top 10 hit in the UK, prompting Capitol to release it in the U.S., where it went to #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 -- her first Top 40 hit in the U.S. since her and Ike's hit "Nutbush City Limits" in 1973 (which reached #22).

At 44 years old, she released Private Dancer in May 1984, and it was a huge success, both in the U.S. and across the world.  The album went to #3 on the Billboard album chart, #1 on the Billboard R&B album chart, #2 on the UK album chart, #1 on the album charts in Austria and Canada, and to the Top 10 on the charts in eight other countries.  Turner had some help from some great musicians and songwriters as well, with songwriting and/or backing musical contributions from several members of Dire Straits, Jeff Beck, and members of The Fixx, among others.

Including "Let's Stay Together," which was included on the album, Private Dancer produced five Top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, three of which went to the Top 10, including her only #1 ("What's Love Got to Do With It?").  In addition to those two, "Better Be Good To Me" went to #5, the title track went to #7, and "Show Some Respect" went to #37.

The album revitalized her career, introducing Turner's talents to a whole new generation that, like me as a six-year-old at the time, had never known about Turner's successes in the '60s and early '70s.  She remained a chart success well into the '90s, particularly in the UK, where she became the first artist to have a Top 40 song on the UK pop chart in seven consecutive decades.

All in all, after her break with Ike, she has had 14 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including 6 Top 10s and the aforementioned #1.  In the UK, she has had 31 Top 40 hits on the UK pop chart, including 9 Top 10s.

The Spotify version of the album is the 30th anniversary deluxe edition with a bunch of extra tracks, and the order of the original songs isn't the same as the original version.

Favorite song on Side 1:  "Better Be Good To Me"
Even though this was a Top 5 song, I don't really remember it.  This is a solid mid '80s pop rock song with a much-deserved message of demanding some love.

Favorite song on Side 2:  "Steel Claw"
This one is an uptempo rocking song that seems like it cold have just as easily been at home on an '80s Springsteen album.  And Jeff Beck plays guitar on it!