Date: Nov 28, 1992
Weeks: 14
Here's a song that is hard to listen to on its own terms. It's mostly known as the song that plays when spoofing The Bodyguard. It's probably second-best known for being one of those songs sung by people who overestimate their talent, to painful effect. On the other hand, the song is better-remembered than the movie it's from, and it's an excellent showcase of Whitney Houston's talent.
Unlike the last Whitney Houston song I reviewed, Houston's talent is put to good use here. She makes the song seem easy, but the cadre of terrible imitators shows us that it isn't easy. The song requires incredible range and control, and she has it. Her vocals build expertly from seemingly simple and understated to elaborate and powerful. Every time she sings the title, she sings it with more power and emotional intensity than before. She adds fancy vocal flourishes, but it never feels like she's oversinging. This is probably the best showcase of her voice, and I can't find any fault with it.
Unfortunately, the backing music is substantially weaker. The synthesizer, drum machine, and wind chimes are just what was done for soft movie tie-in ballads at the time. This may actually be the same backing music as "A Whole New World" (#775) (which, by the way, was the very next No. 1 song after this), just with the guitar solo replaced with a sax solo. It's cheap and uninteresting and a serious detriment to the song. However, at least with music this small and inconsequential, Houston's voice is allowed to stand out, which is to the song's overall benefit. And for some reason, I don't think going simpler and smaller would be the right choice here. The music gives the song an appropriate amount of oomph when it needs it.
Lyrically, this song accepts the breakup as the right choice, but the singer reserves the right to be sad about it. It works a little too hard to make the singer a martyr. "Bittersweet memories, that is all I'm taking with me. So goodbye, please don't cry. We both know I'm not what you, you need." She sounds like she's giving up on the relationship for the other person's own good, but won't take any benefit from the breakup herself. She's acting like she's giving up what she wants just for the other person's benefit.
It's worth noting that this song was originally written by Dolly Parton, and according to Wikipedia she wrote it for a breakup she had. Parton does a nice version of the song as well. She's not the vocalist that Whitney Houston is, but she imbues it with heartfelt emotion. I like Parton's backing music better, just some simple country guitar. It's really too bad the early 90s had to cranky every movie ballad through that terrible backing music machine.
My verdict: Like it. I don't care for the backing music, but Houston's voice blows it away and makes it less of a problem.
Showing posts with label 1992. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1992. Show all posts
Friday, January 27, 2012
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Song #773: "How Do You Talk To An Angel" by The Heights
Date: Nov 14, 1992
Weeks: 2
The Heights was a brief-lived TV show that was canceled one week after this song fell from the No. 1 spot. This was its theme song, which was all over the radio for months after the show was over and forgotten. Usually when a song from a TV show or movie reaches the top of the charts it's because the show is popular, but this time I think people were listening to the song who didn't even know it came from a TV show. I never watched the show, so thankfully my opinion of this song is entirely about the song. And this is a terrible song. It's not unpleasant, but it does showcase a lot of regrettable musical trends from the time.
The song opens in a way that sets the mood for an acoustic guitar song, which isn't something I generally care for. Then the song adds in a saxophone and a couple electric guitars. And none of them have any structure, they just improvise some blaring space-filler. This is classic generic power-ballad stuff, and it feels overmixed and overproduced and inorganic. I suppose that's what I should expect from a song specifically composed to be a network TV show theme song.
The sheer amount of vocals is part of that overproduction, too. I understand that this was supposed to be a showcase for the fictional band from the TV show, but when this many voices all sing the same thing, it loses its natural, organic feeling. The lead singer's voice is so gravelly, it almost seems like a parody of all the gravelly-voiced singers on the radio at the time (such as Bryan Adams, Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart, and so on). Maybe he has vocal talent, but I can't tell, because he's obscuring it behind his efforts to sound gravelly and bland.
For a 4 minute song, there aren't very many lyrics here. And even the few lyrics there are feel stretched to fill the time and the meter. The guy is trying to work up the courage to talk to a girl he's put up on a pedestal. "How do you talk to an angel?" It's a fine topic for a song, I suppose, although I think it's better to pursue the one you feel can talk to than the one you don't. The lyric-stretching really gets me on the line "Tell me, tell me, the words to define, the way I feel about someone so fine" Saying "tell me" twice is filler. "The words to define" is also one of those phrases that feels like they've deliberately tried to use as many words as possible to fill out the meter. Other than that, there aren't a lot of lyrics to nitpick, because there are only 2 verses, the second one is only 2 lines, and the rest is the chorus over and over and over again. Listen to this song once and you'll feel like you heard it twice.
My verdict: Don't like it. It's about as generic and bland as you would expect from a song written to be a TV show theme song. It doesn't strive to be anything better than that.
Weeks: 2
The Heights was a brief-lived TV show that was canceled one week after this song fell from the No. 1 spot. This was its theme song, which was all over the radio for months after the show was over and forgotten. Usually when a song from a TV show or movie reaches the top of the charts it's because the show is popular, but this time I think people were listening to the song who didn't even know it came from a TV show. I never watched the show, so thankfully my opinion of this song is entirely about the song. And this is a terrible song. It's not unpleasant, but it does showcase a lot of regrettable musical trends from the time.
The song opens in a way that sets the mood for an acoustic guitar song, which isn't something I generally care for. Then the song adds in a saxophone and a couple electric guitars. And none of them have any structure, they just improvise some blaring space-filler. This is classic generic power-ballad stuff, and it feels overmixed and overproduced and inorganic. I suppose that's what I should expect from a song specifically composed to be a network TV show theme song.
The sheer amount of vocals is part of that overproduction, too. I understand that this was supposed to be a showcase for the fictional band from the TV show, but when this many voices all sing the same thing, it loses its natural, organic feeling. The lead singer's voice is so gravelly, it almost seems like a parody of all the gravelly-voiced singers on the radio at the time (such as Bryan Adams, Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart, and so on). Maybe he has vocal talent, but I can't tell, because he's obscuring it behind his efforts to sound gravelly and bland.
For a 4 minute song, there aren't very many lyrics here. And even the few lyrics there are feel stretched to fill the time and the meter. The guy is trying to work up the courage to talk to a girl he's put up on a pedestal. "How do you talk to an angel?" It's a fine topic for a song, I suppose, although I think it's better to pursue the one you feel can talk to than the one you don't. The lyric-stretching really gets me on the line "Tell me, tell me, the words to define, the way I feel about someone so fine" Saying "tell me" twice is filler. "The words to define" is also one of those phrases that feels like they've deliberately tried to use as many words as possible to fill out the meter. Other than that, there aren't a lot of lyrics to nitpick, because there are only 2 verses, the second one is only 2 lines, and the rest is the chorus over and over and over again. Listen to this song once and you'll feel like you heard it twice.
My verdict: Don't like it. It's about as generic and bland as you would expect from a song written to be a TV show theme song. It doesn't strive to be anything better than that.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Song #772: "End Of The Road" by Boyz II Men
Date: Aug 15, 1992
Weeks: 13
Boyz II Men set a standard for emotional slow songs in the early 90s, and spawned plenty of imitators and parodies. Any time a joke song stops and somebody speaks in a really deep voice? They're parodying this song. Boyz II Men are genuinely talented, but their talent is not always well-used.
This song has two major problems. The first is a simple matter of oversinging. Yes, these guys are talented vocalists. The chorus is excellent. Their vocal harmony is great and when the song showcases that harmony, it shines. But their singing in the verses is overwrought, overdramatic, and overdone. It's not necessary and it feels like they're showing off instead of creating a good performance of the song. The spoken bass part is particularly cheesy.
The second problem is the backing music. It's cheesy and really delicate. The bass is fine, but the drums are too slight, and the synth chords and plucked guitar sounds feel out of place. They don't mesh with the vocals. When the vocals are so harmonious, making the instruments compete with them doesn't really work out in the song's favor.
Near the end of the song, the instruments fall away, and it becomes an a capella song. And that is when we see that the song should have been an a capella song all along. The instruments were only masking what Boyz II Men could really do. That small section of the song shows what might have been, but it also shows why the rest of the song fails.
The lyrics are very doormat-y. The song is about a girl who cheated, and it's from the point of view of the guy she cheated on. He's lamenting the end of their relationship, and how painful it is for him. And that's a perfectly fine and interesting topic for a song, but all he wants to do is forgive her, get back together, and forget the cheating. Because, I guess, he just can't get used to not being with her? I suppose this song could be interpreted as his inner thoughts and weaknesses, rather than what he's actually saying to the girl in question, but it's hard to take it that way when you consider this song is intended to be played as a love song on the radio or at a dance or whatever.
My verdict: Don't like it. It could be a decent enough song with a few tweaks, and Boyz II Men are talented performers, but this performance of it is not good.
Weeks: 13
Boyz II Men set a standard for emotional slow songs in the early 90s, and spawned plenty of imitators and parodies. Any time a joke song stops and somebody speaks in a really deep voice? They're parodying this song. Boyz II Men are genuinely talented, but their talent is not always well-used.
This song has two major problems. The first is a simple matter of oversinging. Yes, these guys are talented vocalists. The chorus is excellent. Their vocal harmony is great and when the song showcases that harmony, it shines. But their singing in the verses is overwrought, overdramatic, and overdone. It's not necessary and it feels like they're showing off instead of creating a good performance of the song. The spoken bass part is particularly cheesy.
The second problem is the backing music. It's cheesy and really delicate. The bass is fine, but the drums are too slight, and the synth chords and plucked guitar sounds feel out of place. They don't mesh with the vocals. When the vocals are so harmonious, making the instruments compete with them doesn't really work out in the song's favor.
Near the end of the song, the instruments fall away, and it becomes an a capella song. And that is when we see that the song should have been an a capella song all along. The instruments were only masking what Boyz II Men could really do. That small section of the song shows what might have been, but it also shows why the rest of the song fails.
The lyrics are very doormat-y. The song is about a girl who cheated, and it's from the point of view of the guy she cheated on. He's lamenting the end of their relationship, and how painful it is for him. And that's a perfectly fine and interesting topic for a song, but all he wants to do is forgive her, get back together, and forget the cheating. Because, I guess, he just can't get used to not being with her? I suppose this song could be interpreted as his inner thoughts and weaknesses, rather than what he's actually saying to the girl in question, but it's hard to take it that way when you consider this song is intended to be played as a love song on the radio or at a dance or whatever.
My verdict: Don't like it. It could be a decent enough song with a few tweaks, and Boyz II Men are talented performers, but this performance of it is not good.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Song #766: "To Be With You" by Mr. Big
Date: Feb 29, 1992
Weeks: 3
You may also remember Mr. Big as the band behind the song "Wild World." I guess this one came first, although really they're so similar that you can be forgiven for getting them confused. This apparently wasn't the type of music Mr. Big usually made. Their usual music was a bit harder, kind of similar to what Aerosmith was doing at the time. But they wrote a softer song on a lark and stuck it on their album, and somehow that's the song that got popular, and here it is at No. 1.
For whatever reason, hard rock bands loved doing acoustic songs in the late 80s and early 90s, and people rewarded them for it, I guess because they thought the songs had deeper meanings just because they were presented as soft songs. The problem is that when all the production falls away and leaves only a basic string of guitar chords, with tambourines and handclaps for percussion, the song winds up living and dying on its vocals.
And the vocals are not great. Look, you don't need to be a great singer to sing great music, but singers need to know their strengths and weaknesses and match themselves to the right kind of music. Hard rock is the right kind of music for these singers; acoustic guitar songs are not. The lead singer is especially problematic. I think he's going for "emotionally vulnerable and intense" but he winds up being "whiny and arrhythmic" instead. The other members of the band harmonizing on the chorus do a better job, but they aren't an especially talented group of singers because I don't think that's what they joined the band to do.
As for the lyrics, the general idea is that this guy has been waiting for a woman to stop dating other guys and get around to noticing him. I feel like I just reviewed the exact same song yesterday. Is it universal, or is it cliche? This one at least has some silly lines in it, though. "Your game of love was all rained out." That's a bit of a thin metaphor right there. "Waited on a line of greens and blues." What does that even mean? Somebody out there claims it's referring to the singer's envy (green) and sadness (blue), but that seems like a thin metaphor considering how that sentence is constructed. Also, the song keeps referring to the woman as "little girl," which is obnoxious. I mean, I get why relatively immature guys refer to women as "girls," but "little girl" just seems intentionally diminishing.
My verdict: Don't like it. I was going to criticize the singer for just waiting around and never saying anything to this woman, but I suppose the song itself is a declaration of his affection. Anyway, I sort of liked this song back when it was new, but time has not been kind to it.
Weeks: 3
You may also remember Mr. Big as the band behind the song "Wild World." I guess this one came first, although really they're so similar that you can be forgiven for getting them confused. This apparently wasn't the type of music Mr. Big usually made. Their usual music was a bit harder, kind of similar to what Aerosmith was doing at the time. But they wrote a softer song on a lark and stuck it on their album, and somehow that's the song that got popular, and here it is at No. 1.
For whatever reason, hard rock bands loved doing acoustic songs in the late 80s and early 90s, and people rewarded them for it, I guess because they thought the songs had deeper meanings just because they were presented as soft songs. The problem is that when all the production falls away and leaves only a basic string of guitar chords, with tambourines and handclaps for percussion, the song winds up living and dying on its vocals.
And the vocals are not great. Look, you don't need to be a great singer to sing great music, but singers need to know their strengths and weaknesses and match themselves to the right kind of music. Hard rock is the right kind of music for these singers; acoustic guitar songs are not. The lead singer is especially problematic. I think he's going for "emotionally vulnerable and intense" but he winds up being "whiny and arrhythmic" instead. The other members of the band harmonizing on the chorus do a better job, but they aren't an especially talented group of singers because I don't think that's what they joined the band to do.
As for the lyrics, the general idea is that this guy has been waiting for a woman to stop dating other guys and get around to noticing him. I feel like I just reviewed the exact same song yesterday. Is it universal, or is it cliche? This one at least has some silly lines in it, though. "Your game of love was all rained out." That's a bit of a thin metaphor right there. "Waited on a line of greens and blues." What does that even mean? Somebody out there claims it's referring to the singer's envy (green) and sadness (blue), but that seems like a thin metaphor considering how that sentence is constructed. Also, the song keeps referring to the woman as "little girl," which is obnoxious. I mean, I get why relatively immature guys refer to women as "girls," but "little girl" just seems intentionally diminishing.
My verdict: Don't like it. I was going to criticize the singer for just waiting around and never saying anything to this woman, but I suppose the song itself is a declaration of his affection. Anyway, I sort of liked this song back when it was new, but time has not been kind to it.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Song #765: "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred
Date: Feb 8, 1992
Weeks: 3
This song has always given me a good laugh. I was shocked a while ago when I read someone call this song "unintentionally hilarious." I'm pretty sure with lines like "I'm too sexy for my cat," there's nothing unintentional about it. This is a novelty song. It's a bit of satire. It imagines the world from the point of view of a self-absorbed male model and has a bit of fun with it.
All parts of this song work together to create an enjoyable comedy song. The singer's deep, gravelly voice strains on the verses in a funny way. But he sings the chorus relatively straight, preventing the funny singing from turning annoying.
The dance beat pops and is hard to resist dancing to. The music builds, adding more elements through each verse until it gets to the chorus and all the elements gather and have a little party. I really like the bass line. It shines during the verses when it's left alone with the drums and vocals, but it's the backbone of the whole song. I also really like the guitar interstitial between verses. Apparently it's taken from a Jimi Hendrix song, so there's only so much credit this song deserves for the guitar part. But still, it's employed well.
Should I even get into the lyrics? They're funny. Like the music, they build. First he's too sexy for his shirt, and you're not sure if he's kidding. Then it's fashion cities, a party, his car, his hat, his cat, and his love. Each item he's too sexy for gets gradually more ridiculous. How can you be too sexy for a cat? What does being "too sexy for my love" even mean? And the capstone joke is that he's too sexy for the song, at which point the song abruptly ends. That's funny.
If the lyrics have a weakness, it's the line "you know what I mean?" It's filler. That may not have been the right space for another joke, but something a little less generic there would have been nicer.
My verdict: Like it. It's funny and you can dance to it.
Weeks: 3
This song has always given me a good laugh. I was shocked a while ago when I read someone call this song "unintentionally hilarious." I'm pretty sure with lines like "I'm too sexy for my cat," there's nothing unintentional about it. This is a novelty song. It's a bit of satire. It imagines the world from the point of view of a self-absorbed male model and has a bit of fun with it.
All parts of this song work together to create an enjoyable comedy song. The singer's deep, gravelly voice strains on the verses in a funny way. But he sings the chorus relatively straight, preventing the funny singing from turning annoying.
The dance beat pops and is hard to resist dancing to. The music builds, adding more elements through each verse until it gets to the chorus and all the elements gather and have a little party. I really like the bass line. It shines during the verses when it's left alone with the drums and vocals, but it's the backbone of the whole song. I also really like the guitar interstitial between verses. Apparently it's taken from a Jimi Hendrix song, so there's only so much credit this song deserves for the guitar part. But still, it's employed well.
Should I even get into the lyrics? They're funny. Like the music, they build. First he's too sexy for his shirt, and you're not sure if he's kidding. Then it's fashion cities, a party, his car, his hat, his cat, and his love. Each item he's too sexy for gets gradually more ridiculous. How can you be too sexy for a cat? What does being "too sexy for my love" even mean? And the capstone joke is that he's too sexy for the song, at which point the song abruptly ends. That's funny.
If the lyrics have a weakness, it's the line "you know what I mean?" It's filler. That may not have been the right space for another joke, but something a little less generic there would have been nicer.
My verdict: Like it. It's funny and you can dance to it.
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