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  • Infatueighties: #80: “Can You Stand the Rain”

    Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, along with their mentor/former boss Prince, brought funk into the 1980s. With angular synthesized rhythms and large heapings of attitude, they hit their stride around mid-decade, scoring hits for Cheryl Lynn, The.S.O.S. Band, Alexander O’ Neal, and of course, Janet Jackson. 1986’s “Control” turned Janet from Michael’s cute little sister who starred on TV to Janet-Miss Jackson if you’re nasty, and set the standard for kid stars looking for a quick and safe jump into adulthood.

    Somewhere in Boston, the members of New Edition were watching and listening. Around the time the “Control” campaign wound down in 1987, the boy group had lost/kicked out founding member Bobby Brown, were in danger of losing lead singer Ralph Tresvant to a solo career and had hired vocally talented Johnny Gill as a potential replacement. After Tresvant reconsidered and decided to stay, the gentlemen hooked up with Jam & Lewis in Minneapolis to begin work on the product that would transform them from boys to men (the name of the resulting album, “Heart Break”‘s final track and also the name of a group that NE member Mike Bivins would discover just a few short years later).

    While “If It Isn’t Love” was the album’s biggest hit (charting at #7 pop), it was “Can You Stand the Rain” that proved to be the album’s most lasting song. An anthemic ballad with a mature lyric, it was the first NE track to successfully combine Tresvant’s boyish tenor with Gill’s chesty baritone. All the candy girls finally had a grown and sexy song to get down to. Like most of Jam & Lewis’ ballads (there are at least two more in this countdown), the song features a touch of melancholy as well. Despite narrowly missing the pop Top 40, this song spent 3 weeks at #1 on the R&B charts at the top of 1989 and sealed the deal on the longevity of New Edition’s career, a career that is now in its’ 25th year. Slow jams from the decade of excess don’t get much better than this…

  • Friday Throwback – Mentirosa

    I’m sure you all have been there. You’re working, or just hanging out and all of a sudden for some reason that you can’t even describe, a song just sticks in your mind. It doesn’t even have to be a song you’ve heard recently, or in the past 15 years. Mentirosa is that song for me. Why? I have no idea. Here’s what I remember.

    I went to Tower Records with my dad and all of a sudden saw two albums with singles that were on the radio. One was Mellow Man Ace’s album, which featured Mentirosa. The second was by this guy named Louie Louie, who had a single Sittin’ In The Lap Of Luxury. I’d love for the story to end with me looking at both albums and putting them down and walking out of Tower Records. But I think I got dad to buy Louie Louie, which was a terrible album.

    So why is Mentirosa in my head today? Who knows? Maybe someone lied to me. But I doubt it. I think it’s just one of those things that you can’t explain, but if I don’t make this the Friday Throwback, it might never leave my head.

    Check this out baby.

    – I really had no idea that Mellow Man Ace not only still recorded, but was also in Cypress Hill before they came out with an album.

    – “He told me you was drinkin’, and wasted my dinero.”

    – The problem with this song is the idea that he thinks his girl is a liar and a straight skeezer, but then still thinks of her as the possible woman for him. At what point are you looking for someone else? Oh at the end of the song.

    – Let’s be serious here about something though. The reason this song caught on had more to do with sampling Santana than anything else.

    – “Today you tell me something, y manana otra cosa.” Greatest line of all time.

    Now, that song is out of my head.

  • Kanye West – New Profile on the inside!

    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!