This evening, I decided to look at some songs from 1983. It seemed like a quiet year to my recollection, because I didn't seem to remember anything really big from that time. So, I looked at a list of songs and was surprised to see so many that I can remember scaring the daylights out of me when I was younger. Granted, I wasn't even 10 in 1983. In fact, I hadn't started playing clarinet yet, so I was pretty young. Needless to say, many songs from that year scared me for various reasons. I revisited one this evening and decided to pass -- because I was still scared -- almost 30 years later!
Oddly enough, what scared me in a figurative sense was that somehow I stumbled upon the music of Samantha Fox. Yeah. Back in '87 and '88, when I was in middle school, she was the bomb for sure. Guys drooled over her, and all the girls wanted to be just like her. We danced around and sang her songs -- we had no idea what they were about. I distinctly remember that we found it to be so cool that she was from England. Back in the '80s, it was also very hip to have short spoken parts in songs -- and she always had those. It was just too cool to have spoken words by someone from England! (Well, at least for us teeny boppers stateside). Unfortunately, I listened to her songs once again tonight and watched the videos. Yeah, I could see why we thought they were cool. She always had this hip jeans jacket and lots of great dancing in the videos (although nothing nearly as complex as Janet Jackson). She even had blond hair that was dyed pink underneath in her "Naughty Girls Need Love" video. I watched that one, "Touch Me," "I Wanna Have Some Fun," and "Love House." I have to say that they were all pretty awful (I hope I don't get struck by lightening for saying that!). Thank goodness she had the group Full Force to back her up in some of those. Whew. At least that made things somewhat more vocally and musically complex. Meanwhile, I forgot that "Love House" creeped me out. There's a spoken part in it -- kind of Vincent Price-esque -- that says, "Want to visit the house?" CREEPY! Of course, then Samantha Fox says, "Ici Samantha! Oui oui!" Well, that did it. Fright was scared away by cheese. Anyway, I felt my ears had melted a bit after all this terrible pop. To think that I loved it when I was in middle school! Gosh -- what did I know? Thank goodness I went on to become a trained musician. I read that "I Wanna Have Some Fun" sampled Loleatta Holloway's "Love Sensation," which I had never heard (the tune, that is). I actually heard bits of it sampled in Marky Mark's "Good Vibrations" and in some Black Box tune. "Love Sensation" was released in 1980, so it just made it to this blog! I had to listen to it a few times to cleanse my ears, and I decided to put it in this post. Now, this is a real tune with awesome, full-bodied vocals and amazing instrumentals. I thought my computer was going to pop from that awesome trombone playing. If this tune doesn't make you want to get up and dance -- or at least jam in your Lazy Boy, then there may be no hope. Enjoy!
