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  • Friday Throwback – I’ll Be Your Everything

    Who is Tommy Page? I mention the name Tommy Page to anyone and I get nothing but blank stares.

    Tommy Page is a product of sappy, early 90s pop music. Page actually opened up for the New Kids On The Block when his debut album was released. After touring with them, they lent a helping hand on his second album, Paintings In My Mind, which spawned his number one single, I’ll Be Your Everything. You can hear the New Kids influence on the song. Jordan Knight is on the hook and he hits one of his ball busting, groin punch falsettos, which kind of overshadows Tommy.

    – Ya, I don’t get the ballet theme either.

    – Sing in your highest voice possible – “I’ll be your friend”.

    – Is Tommy wearing leather trousers or are they Z. Cavaricci’s?

    – And while we’re at it, where’s his bolo tie?

    – Since when is the word “last” pronounced “la-hast”?

    – Yet again I must ask you to sing in your highest voice possible – “I’ll be your friend”.

    – “Just reach for me, I’ll be the one to set you free.”

    I do have some bonus Tommy Page coverage for you. If someone does remember Tommy Page when I bring up that name, it’s for this little gig he did below. Tommy Page!!!!!!!!!!

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  • New Video: Maroon 5’s “Goodnight Goodnight”

    How many bands these days can go five songs deep on an album? You’ve gotta hand it to Adam Levine and company for making one of the better pop albums of the past 2 years or so with “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long”. There have also been a couple of interesting videos, such as the airport fantasy of “Makes Me Wonder” and the mini-action movie of “Wake Up Call”. Their last single, “If I Never See Your Face Again” was a funked-up jam that featured an unnecessarily shoehorned-in Rihanna, and now they’re back in ballad territory with “Goodnight, Goodnight”.

    This was always one of my least favorite songs from the album, partially because the lyrics are a bit trite, partially because the song’s into rips off 3 Doors Down’s “Kryptonite” (seriously…no one recognized the similarity?), but it’s grown on me significantly over the past couple weeks. And while I’d have much rather seen “Can’t Stop”, “Nothing Lasts Forever” or “Better That We Break” released as singles, I’ve also gotta admit that this is a pretty good video. Check it out for yourself.

  • The Infatueighties Countdown: #93: “Just Be Good To Me”

    By the time “Just Be Good To Me” hit the R&B charts in 1983, it looked like all The S.O.S. Band was going to show for their years of toiling in the Atlanta music scene was the 1980 disco smash “Take Your Time (Do it Right)”. Two albums worth of follow-ups had come and gone while making little noise.

    The S.O.S. Band\'s 1983 album \"On the Rise\", which featured the hit single \"Just Be Good To Me\".

    S.O.S. then became one of the first artists to benefit from the magic touch of Time members Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. The budding producers laced S.O.S. with a nasty midtempo groove, complete with a blazing guitar solo on the unedited (9 minute!!) version. Add in slightly eyebrow-raising lyrics (the song’s protagonist shrugs her man’s infidelity off, singing “I don’t care about the other girls…just be good to me”), and you have the makings of a classic. This was the beginning of a very fruitful 3-year relationship between Jam, Lewis & the band, which resulted in a handful more R&B classics, such as “Tell Me if You Still Care”, “Just the Way You Like It”, “No One’s Gonna Love You” and “The Finest”. For a time, S.O.S. was a mainstay on the R&B charts, even if none of these songs made it to the Top 40 pop back in the days when you had to “cross over”. Although Jam & Lewis’s production career has become legendary in the past quarter century, this, their first major hit, remains one of their all-time best songs.

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