Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

my music

30 for 30 Project, 1987: “Alone” – Heart

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Allow me to explain how Heart’s 80’s power-ballad “Alone” is the best possible illustration of why this project is such a positive endeavor for me.

Heart is the combination of Ann and Nancy Wilson, and their first two LPs – Dreamboat Annie and Little Queen – are solid gold in my book. Yet, in the early 80s the group faltered with two poorly-received albums, and seemed to be headed for a fade out.

Then they released their biggest hit to date – 1985’s self-titled Heart, and followed it up with the strong Bad Animals in 1987.

What changed? A quick look at the liner notes will tell you. The two lesser successes were written entirely by the Wilsons. The two hits include more outside co-writers, and some songs not written by the band.

Case and point: “Alone” is Heart’s biggest hit, and it was written by Tom Kelly & Billy Steinberg – the major songwriting guns responsible for “Like a Virgin,” “True Colors,” “So Emotional,” and “Eternal Flame,” among other hits.


(Watch me cover “Alone” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post or view the 30for30 tag.)

(Today’s video features special guest-star E, who can be heard elsewhere as the lead singer of Filmstar, because I could not bear to play this song sans its signature harmony. You can see us both play as Filmstar on Thursday night at North Star Bar around 9:45p, or for free on October 15 at Fergies @ 10pm).  [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1987: “Alone” – Heart

30 for 30 Project, 1986: “You Can Call Me Al” – Paul Simon

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Here is my beef with music made for kids: it is usually unnecessary.

We’ve established I was obsessed with “Thriller” at three and tumbling 4 ya at four. And, as the article about me in the new issue of Jump Philly points out, I was jamming out to Jem in the back seat at five – but Jem wasn’t exactly The Wiggles, if you catch my drift. It was more like Katy Perry, sans the self-hatred and misogyny.

Case and point: “You Can Call Me Al,” from Paul Simon’s seminal Graceland. As I child I was obsessed with it, as well as with “Me & Julio” from his debut.


(Watch me cover “You Can Call Me Al” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post or view the 30for30 tag.)

The song is a little silly and repetitive. It has lyrics like “roly-poly little bat-faced girl” that delighted me as a child. It also told a story, with its setting painted in vibrant swaths of words … some of them big words, like “redemption,” “allegations,” and “architecture.”

I say, who needs Kidz Bop when you have Paul Simon?

(I was in a real crisis on my 1986 pick, as both my alternates were pretty difficult tunes that I’d rather track against a click (and thus remain top secret). Luckily, I realized “Al” saw its original release from Graceland in ’86, even though it primarily charted in 1987. Ass = saved.)

30 for 30 Project, 1985: “How Will I Know” – Whitney Houston

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As a child I was of the firm belief that Whitney Houston was boring grown-up music because of the cover of her eponymous debut LP.

I liked it less than broccoli, and I think it’s easy to see why. It’s just a horrific album cover, and it screams “I am an adult album of blah-d-blah ballads about loving and kissing.”

As I kid I was all about romancing, but I had no interest in slow-dancing.

That LP of ballads did have one killer pop song on it, which is maybe how I got to know the album cover so well. The song? “How Will I Know.”


(Watch me cover “How Will I Know” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post.)

Whitney Houston is a rare artist that is all things to all people, and after her first album her image began to reflect that more clearly. She’s a peerless balladeer. She has a catalog of R&B standards. She sings exuberant, gospel-tinged dance/pop songs.

Even with her relatively meager catalog of LPs over the past 25 years, I don’t think it would be a stretch to affix the Greatest of All Time title to her name (save for perhaps her sad decline in the past decade). [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1985: “How Will I Know” – Whitney Houston

30 for 30 Project, 1984: “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” – Wham!

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Apparently, 1984 is the point when the 80s were completely gay.

Note that from me that label is never meant as slander. Here it’s about the celebration of all things glamorous and fey being totally mainstream, and it’s the only explanation I have for Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” hitting number one in the same year as “Karma Chameleon” from Culture Club.

Hell, the number one album spot spent over half the year occupied by Thriller and Purple Rain, neither especially a symbol of restraint and masculinity. In 1984 it was totally cool to be a over-wrought, over-styled, over-the-top male vocalist.


(Watch me cover “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post.)

1984 is also a year that I have some vague musical recollections from, and I’ll tell you that in my house we are all about gay 1984. We had all four the LPs mentioned above, and songs from each are encoded on my DNA. I even had a somersaulting routine set to the prior year’s “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya.” [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1984: “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” – Wham!

30 for 30 Project, 1983: “Hungry Like the Wolf” – Duran Duran

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There are certain bands – significant, important bands – that I grew up completely ignorant of.

This was surely my parents’ fault. My father, as has been established, brooked with no current music. My mother was all about her Motown, disco, and glossy 80s dance pop.

There was no middle ground for New Wave or 80s rock, so I grew up assuming both were either non-existent or unspeakably terrible.

(Watch me cover “Hungry Like the Wolf” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post.)

As a result, I know some bands less as artists and more as totems of their time. Duran Duran is one such band. I’m sure I saw an occasional video on MTV growing up, but they’re largely a band I know about in retrospect as a symbol of New Wave acts that lasted long enough to constitute a small genre of 80s rock that wasn’t all about Americana. [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1983: “Hungry Like the Wolf” – Duran Duran