Music I Love to Hate to Love, Part I

Sigh.

So, Whitney Houston died, and as a result, we've been hearing several of her biggest hits, from "The Greatest Love of All" to "I Will Always Love You." But the song of hers that comes to mind  — that is, my mind — is one of a number of songs I categorize as songs I hate, but listen to anyway.

The Whitney song I'm talking about, by the way, is "Love Will Save the Day," which I talked about in my other blog that discusses the reviews of "Dean of American Rock Critics" Robert Christgau.

Enough about Whitney (for now). I'd like to discuss some other songs that I'm ashamed to have had (and may still have) on various CDs, iPods, and cell phones.


Tiffany, "Coulda Been" (1988)
Hoo-boy am I a sucker for shitty ballads, which make up most of this list. Sometimes I play a sappy slow song as an aural-palate cleanser that precedes of something more upbeat, like the remix of "Flava in Your Ear," but other times I just endure these songs for their own merit. (Note: these songs don't have any merit.)

Tiffany was unleashed to the world around the same time as Debbie Deborah Gibson, so the two teen queens are often spoken of in the same sentence, and that sentence usually begins, "Two singers who ruined a great deal of my high school radio experience are..."

Arguably (but who's arguing?), Gibson had the greater talent — or at least more endurance as a recording artist. I have to add that one of Gibson's most shit-tastic songs is a ditty from the end of the first side of her debut album.

Let's look at the track listing from the first side of that album, owned (disowned?) by 3 million American mall rats and 8 million worldwide:

1. "Out of the Blue" (3:55)
2. "Staying Together" (4:07)
3. "Only in My Dreams" (3:54)
4. "Foolish Beat" (4:25)
5. "Red Hot" (3:54)

The first four songs were hard to miss if you listened to Z100 in 1988. (Another hit, "Shake Your Love," is on side two.) But what about that "Red Hot"?

Truly, truly awful. Just isolate the part where she says "Red hot! Red hot!" and loop it and send it to Guantanamo Bay, and by gum, the Terrorists Will Have Lost.

But I'm digressing here. I could probably discuss Debbie Deborah Gibson enough to warrant a separate post. Let's move on.

Timmy T, "One More Try" (1990)

This song delivers a heaping dose of 90s-era freestyle cheese, and affects me in a way that Stevie B and his off-key ballads never could. What I like about this song is that Timmy basically admits he's a lying, cheating asshole and realizes what a mistake he made by shitting on his girl and, oh yeah, can we get back together?

My favorite part is at the end, where he mumbles some plea that starts with, "Oh girl..." It reminds me that I've never addressed anyone as "Girl." I never refer to my daughter as "Girl," even though I've called my son "Boy" every now and then, though I have to stop that habit because I'm paranoid that if I might call him in a public place within earshot of black people and there will be some kind of tragic misunderstanding.

Anyway, this song by Timmy T (by the way, if I were named "Timmy T" I would probably Killy Kill myself) resides side-by-side on my phone with the George Michael tune of the same name that was released a couple of years earlier. And that song (George Michael's) is like One Of The Greatest Songs Of All Time And I Am Not Being Sarcastic.

Still, I admire Timmy T's song because it reminds me of a time when love seemed (in hindsight) much simpler: you like a girl, she likes you, you fight, you make up, wash, rinse, repeat. There's no talk of mortgages and employee benefits and kids and dashed dreams and what the hell do you mean you were willing to live in Manhattan during the first year we got married you never said that!

Why is it that love seemed much more complicated back then? Timmy T doesn't give answers, only promises. DAMN YOU TO FREESTYLE HELL, TIMMY T!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S (GOING TO BE) MORE

You're welcome, America. (Image stolen from
this guy, who has more Stevie B. info than
should be allowable by law, as well as info
regarding other juicy but now-obscure gems.)

I'll stop here for now and return to this series again. But here are some somewhat-interesting things I learned while doing research for this post:

• I was going to link to the Stevie B croon-tang "Because I Love You (The Postman Song)," which ruined 1990 in music because it was on every pop station and the song felt like it was nine minutes long and though my memory is hazy I could swear that every time he tried to hit certain notes during those pre-Autotune days my glasses would break from the effort, but every YouTube video of the song has the audio muted automatically because of copyright infringement. This may be the first instance of "censorship" that actually benefits mankind.
• Stevie B not only still performs, he was arrested a few months ago after a performance because he (allegedly) owes $420,000 in child support payments. Maybe the postman forgot to deliver the checks.

Had enough shitty ballads? Now it's time for (shitty or not-shitty, depending on your preference) hip-hop!