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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Infatueighties

  • Infatueighties #70: You’re the One for Me by “D” Train

    Man, what I wouldn’t give for the chance to have been born 10 years earlier, so I could have witnessed the club culture of the early Eighties. Disco didn’t die, it just went back underground where it started, where it served a faithful group of urbanites, minorities and gays. Some of the best “disco” records actually didn’t surface until after disco allegedly died.

    Case in point-You’re the One for Me. James Williams (who for all intents and purposes, was D-Train) could have just as easily been crooning seductive Teddy Pendergrass-esque tunes in that husky baritone, but he chose to focus on the dancefloor instead of the bedroom, probably secure in the knowledge that one led to the other anyway.

    I love watching clips like this where there’s a guitarist and drummer on stage, but it’s beyond obvious that there’s not one non-synthesized instrument to be found anywhere on this song. Also keep in mind that this isn’t the original version, but instead a slightly remixed version-slightly sped up and given some more synthy goodness by Paul Hardcastle, who scored a couple of hits of his own in the Eighties with Rainforest and 19.

  • Infatueighties #71: “Rumors” by Timex Social Club

    Gossip. We love it and we hate it. No song has ever laid that out more clearly than Timex Social Club’s 1986 smash Rumors. Produced on a shoestring budget by a guy named Jay King and released on a tiny independent label, the song struck enough of a chord that it became a Top 10 pop hit and landed Top 5 R&B as well. You couldn’t sneeze in New York City that summer without hearing this song.

    The story is simple-the guy singing hates busybodies and wants the rumors to stop. That’s all. Is he wrong about that? Just because Michael moves a certain way, it doesn’t mean he’s gay! And stop telling lies about the singer and the girl next door!

    Timex Social Club is widely viewed as a one-hit wonder, but Jay King morphed TSC into Club Nouveau, who had a hit with an odious remake of Bill Wither’s Lean on Me a year after Rumors hit. Meanwhile, two Nouveau members, Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, became a hit production team, working on Tony Toni Tone’s first album and discovering En Vogue. A little “rumors” can go a long way, apparently.

  • Infatueighties #72: New Order’s “True Faith”

    For the longest time, I thought this song was sung by Depeche Mode. Don’t look at me funny. I’m sure there were times you couldn’t tell DM and New Order apart, either.

    Forming from the ashes of Joy Division after Ian Curtis hanged himself, New Order’s music was a little more on the commercial dance/pop side, with only slightly less dour lyrics. I’m sure lines like “I used to think that the day would never come/I’d see delight in the shade of the morning sun” attracted the producers of the movie “Bright Lights, Big City” (you know, it’s the one where Michael J. Fox plays a drug addict…what? you don’t remember?) enough that it wound up on the soundtrack. The song itself perfectly captures the rush as well as the comedown that many drug addicts experience (not that I would know, I’m scared to death to ever use coke. Remember, I came up in the age of Len Bias).

    Despite New Order’s near-legendary status as a band, “Faith” was one of only two Top 40 hits the band had (“Regret” was the second, six years later…no, “Bizarre Love Triangle” never hit the Top 40). Enjoy the video…and don’t do the coke, kiddies. It’s bad for you.

    …and no, I don’t know why the people in the video are slapping one another, either.