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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Janet Jackson

  • They Put Me In The Mix – JSlo 3

    After I created the Jam Slow mixtape, I was thoroughly impressed with how it turned out. Thus, I wanted to do it again. However, because Jam Slow had all of my favorite slow jams from that time and place on it already, the second one would have all the secondary tracks. And it turned out horribly. Jam2Slow was the worst slow jams mixtape ever created. I think I listened to it back once and then tossed it aside. Sometimes, I’ll hear songs that were on that mixtape and have to turn them off because it reminds me of Jam2Slow. Maybe my favorite on that tape was a song called It’s Over Now by a young man named Danny Boy. Danny Boy was actually on team Death Row and was the hook singer on Tupac’s I Ain’t Mad Atcha and Toss It Up. It was a rather boring song, but Babyface wrote it and Danny Boy had a pretty decent voice. I wonder what Danny Boy is doing today. He does have a MySpace page if anyone is interested. Give Danny Boy some love. You can see him in Pac’s classic video below.

    Since Jam2Slow was so bad, I waited a bit and then created the third tape, titled JSlo3 (yes, without the W). It was far better than the second one that I threw away, but still didn’t quite match the first. But there was still good material on it.

    JSlow3 (circa 1997)

    1. Dreaming Of You – Selena
    2. My All – Mariah Carey
    3. Cupid – 112
    4. Every Time – Janet Jackson
    5. Never – Boyz II Men
    6. Never Make A Promise – Dru Hill
    7. Don’t Leave Me – Blackstreet
    8. All Cried Out – Allure featuring 112
    9. Nobody Knows – The Tony Rich Project
    10. Doin’ Just Fine – Boyz II Men
    11. Where Are You Now – Janet Jackson
    12. Place Where You Belong – Shai
    13. On Bended Knee – Boyz II Men
    14. I Care ‘Bout You – Milestone
    15. The Beautiful Ones – Mariah Carey
    16. I Just Can’t Stop Loving You – Michael Jackson
    17. All My Life – K-Ci & JoJo

    My tastes certainly haven’t changed all that much. Actually, during this time, I was buying a ton of CD singles as I was a poor college student, but would soon enough buy all the albums of the singles that I bought on CD on this set.

    • It was all about the dude R&B groups back then – Boyz II Men, Dru Hill, Blackstreet, Shai.
    • I think I OD’d a bit on the Boyz II Men, but Doin’ Just Fine is still great today.
    • Who was Allure? A group on Mariah Carey’s old imprint who didn’t eventually make it. Though of course, the Lisa Lisa and Full Force version is much better, I bought this single and enjoyed the Allure/112 version.
    • The video to On Bended Knee was fantastic for the cameos featuring the beautiful Lark Voorhies (Lisa Turtle from Saved By The Bell – could Wanya really get her?) and Kim Fields (Tootie! – could Nate really get her?).
    • Who was Milestone? For the movie Soul Food, a fictional R&B group was created (K-Ci and JoJo, and the Edmonds brothers including Babyface) called Milestone and the boys together released a song for the soundtrack.
    • I remember having to cut about half of Mariah’s version of the Prince tune The Beautiful Ones (Mariah’s version featured Dru Hill) because the song was long and I was running short on time. Remember, this was audio tape.
    • All My Life was my favorite song at the time and became “our song”, when Carol (former wife, current best friend) and I started dating. Yikes, that was like 11 years ago.

  • The Infatueighties Countdown: #99: “Looking for a New Love”

    My friend Jim calls Shalamar the most underrated pop group of the Eighties, and he might have a point. The threesome of Howard Hewett, Jeffrey Daniel and Jody Watley created some of the most bubbly, well-crafted pop-R&B of it’s time, even incorporating new wave and rock textures into their music by the time of 1983’s “The Look”. They’re probably best known for the hit singles “This is for the Lover in You” (which Babyface re-recorded with the three original members in the late Nineties) and “A Night To Remember”. If Jeffrey Daniel’s face looks familiar to you, it’s because he appears in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and “Bad” videos. He apparently was also moonwalking almost a year before MJ “created” it for “Motown 25”, as the below listed clip will demonstrate.

    Anyway, Shalamar’s story is worthy of it’s own column sometime in the future. Back to the topic at hand. The female third of Shalamar, Jody Watley, reintroduced herself to the market as the high-fashion edition of a Janet Jackson or Madonna. With Prince associates David Z. and Andre Cymone (who she later married), her first album was a Top 10 success and also won her the Grammy for Best New Artist, largely due to the success of “Looking for a New Love”, an attitudinal slab of techno-funk that spent a month at #2 on the U.S. singles charts (thankfully, it spent that time behind a song worthy of beating it: U2’s “With or Without You”.

    While Jody’s subsequent albums failed to set the world on fire, her first album is easily one of the best dance-pop albums of the Eighties, and very easily the equal of Janet’s “Control” or Madonna’s debut. She was certainly a more striking visual artist than the other two: with a highly defined fashion style adopted from several years living in London, not to mention cheekbones that you could cut yourself on. She was also the first woman I ever saw with a tattoo, but that’s neither here nor there.

    Finally, let’s give her some long-overdue props for originating the phrase “Hasta La Vista, Baby” two years before Tone Loc used it in “Wild Thing” and three before Arnie uttered it in “Terminator 2”.

    This is the extended version of the single…sounds like it was sped up a bit too.

    Oh, and one more thing…she was voguing and embracing gay culture before Madonna…as this video from 1989 (“Vogue” came out a year later) will attest to. Hey, is that Rakim rapping in a video filled with drag queens??

    …By the way, if this list had stretched to 150, both “A Night To Remember” and “Friends” would have been included.

  • The Falsettometer: DeBarge

    The Gibbs are unquestionably the first family of the falsetto. No other family group comes close-except one. Although they may not have gotten the shine they deserved in the shadow of that other big hitmaking Motown family, Michigan’s DeBarge clan ranked near the top of the soul music food chain for quite some time during the Eighties.

    A full account of their epic rise and fall can be read in this incredible Vibe article here: http://www.vibe.com/news/news_headlines/2007/08/debarge_ep_1/

    However, I’m not here to talk about foibles and tragedies. I’m here to discuss parachute pants, greasy hair and thin mustaches. I’m here to discuss rhythms of the night and the mysterious holding of women named Donna. I’m here to discuss two of the meanest falsettos to ever come out of the Midwest: brothers Robert (Bobby) and El (Eldra) DeBarge.

    Bobby, the eldest DeBarge sibling, got a five year head start on most of the rest of his family when it came to success. He, along with younger brother Tommy, were members of the funk group Switch. They were signed to Motown by Jermaine Jackson (the first in many Jackson/DeBarge intersections), and quickly scored a hit on the R&B charts with a sumptuous ballad called “There’ll Never Be”.

    Therell Never Be – Switch

    Check out the squealing, man! Giving Philip Bailey a run for his money!!

    Anyway, Switch soldiered on for a couple more albums before fizzling out just as Bobby & Tommy’s younger siblings were making their rise. Ultimately, the group, consisting of siblings El, Marty, Randy, James (AKA the original Mr. Janet Jackson) and sister Bunny wound up with the greatest pop success of the various family acts. They scored 6 Top 40 pop hits, including the huge smash “Rhythm of the Night”. However, the DeBarge song that showcased El’s creamy falsetto the most was 1983’s “Time Will Reveal”. Pay special attention to the almost inhuman high notes El hits towards the song’s conclusion.

    Time Will Reveal – Debarge

    Anyway, Motown successully pried El from the group and turned him into a solo act in 1986. His career got off to a great start with the #2 hit “Who’s Johnny?” (one of the most inane singles in a decade filled with inane singles), but things slid downhill from there. Aside from a couple of production slots and the occasional guest spot on a few DJ Quik albums, El’s released no new music since 1994. He did, however, make headlines earlier this year for being arrested on suspicion of spousal battery and becoming the subject of a most unflattering mugshot. The rest of the family has more or less met the same fate. Sister Bunny also left the group and released one solo album before disappearing. The remaining brothers welcomed Bobby and Tommy back into the fold for 1987’s”Bad Boys” (released on an indie label), but any chance of a comeback was derailed when Bobby and younger brother Chico (who had just started a solo career) were sent off to jail for being accessories to drug trafficking. Neither brother emerged from prison until the early Nineties, and Bobby sadly passed away in 1995. Chico, on the other hand, went on to record several successful albums, casting himself as a prettier version of D’Angelo. However, the hot falsetto action seems to have eluded him.

    So, despite the family’s many problems, they will always be remembered as one of the First Families of Falsetto. And for that, DeBarge, we salute you.