Money Mike profiles Kanye West on the inside of the site tonight. Included are a very cool picture from a show this year, a discography and even background on how Kanye West became simply Kanye. Check it out!
Category: People
all-about-musicians-and-the-people-who-help-them-make-music
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Infatueighties: #81: “State of the Heart”
I could have sworn there was a video for this, but I can’t find it on Youtube. Anyway.When folks think of Rick Springfield, 9 out of 10 think “Jessie’s Girl”. However, that was far from his only hit single, and good as it is, it’s certainly not his best. He scored a fairly lengthy string of Top 20 singles from 1981-1985, with “State of the Heart” serving as almost the end of the line (he scored one top 40 hit three years later with “Rock of Life”.
A synth-pop ballad, “State” bears a resemblance to John Waite’s “Missing You” (itself a knockoff of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”). The fortunate thing, of course, being that “Every Breath You Take” was so good a song that even a second-generation knockoff is good stuff.
While I don’t know how many vocal sweeteners there were in 1985, something tells me at least a portion of his vocal is computer enhanced. When he performed at Live Aid that summer, he dropped the song down a full octave so he could hit the notes. So while there wasn’t an Auto-Tune, his vocals were either run through an Emulator of some sort OR simply sped up (I’m voting for the latter). Trickery aside, it’s a great song with a hilariously unhinged synth/guitar solo.
Since I couldn’t locate the actual video and I don’t care much for the Live Aid version, here is Rick
lip-synchingperforming it on a hit Eighties’ TV show. -
Out There!- “Shake For The Sheik”, “Walking Through Walls”, & “I’ll Be There” (The Escape Club’s Lesser-Known Hits)
We all remember the Escape Club, right? Back in 1988, none of us could escape The Escape Club and their smash hit, Wild Wild West. Wild Wild West hit the top of the charts, and was supposed to lift the band to further acclaim. Sorry, but it didn’t happen! Yet, the Escape Club would be known for another song, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. Wild Wild West was on pop radio every fifteen minutes, and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. One of MTV’s legendary and best-known videos, it featured these strange combo arms and legs (without a crotch) getting down to the beat.  Twenty years later, and I still haven’t gotten those flopping arms out of my head!  The Escape Club consisted of a singer who could pass as Bono’s younger brother (Trevor Steel), “Booger Presley” on the lead guitar (John Holliday- doesn’t he look like Booger from Revenge Of The Nerds? If not, how about Eric Bogosian?), the rasta-haired bassist (Johnni Christo) and the quiet Steven Seagal inspired pony-tailed drummer with no personality (Milan Zekavica). You know what? Even twenty years later, the song still hasn’t aged one bit.