90's Nostalgia: Tevin Campbell - 'Can We Talk'

"Last night I,

I saw you standing,

And I started,

Started pretending,

I knew you and you knew me too,

And just like a roni,

You were too shy,

But you weren't the only,

Cause so was I,

And I've dreamed of you ever since,

Now I've built up my confidence,

Girl next,

Next time you come my way,

I'll know just what to say

Can we talk for a minute

Girl I want to know your name"

I'll never forget getting in a cab a few years ago. The driver was in his 40's and had big curly headbanger hair, still frosted as if it was 1988. He was wearing an old RATT concert tee that blended in with his sleeves of tattoos. He was on the phone at first trying to figure out who was going to get the Motley Crue tickets for him and his friends once they went on sale the next day and Instantly liked him. He was like a fossil left over from the 80's but the thing was, he was the real deal. He stayed true to the music that he was raised on and had no desire to change any of that. Or it least that was my first impression. I've since learned never to think for certain that I have someone all figured out in a quick glance or three.

As the cab finally started to move he asked if I minded the radio and of course I didn't. Then he told me he didn't like what was on so he was switching over to a CD. The CD was Tevin Campbell and my jaw hit the floor. As "Can We Talk" started to play I told him I never expected to hear that in any cab, because years later most people don't seem to remember him let alone play his stuff. The driver loved him as much as I always have and we totally bonded over 3.5 songs before I got out of the cab.

Tevin first broke through in 1991 with his album T.E.V.I.N. but I wasn't hooked until he dropped I'm Ready in 1993. I think he was the artist that really convinced me to pay more attention to some of the slow jams peppering the charts, in between my Hole and Nirvana listening parties. The video for "Can We Talk" was shot in NYC's Central Park and I love it to this day. Check it out below.

Daily Boom 80's Throwback: Love & Rockets - 'So Alive'

"I don't know what color your eyes are, baby
But your hair is long and brown
Your legs are strong, and you're so, so long
And you don't come from this town

My head is full of magic, baby
And I can't share this with you
The feel I'm on a cross again, lately
But there's nothing to do with you

I'm alive, huh, huh, so alive
I'm alive, huh, huh so alive."

So, I'm recovering from a bad bout with the flu this week and most certainly not at my best, maybe my most grateful, but not my best. I'm not doing live radio for a few days and if you've been reading here for any length of time then you know that radio is my second home. It takes me back to childhood when my dad would take me to the station with him. I called dad yesterday to check-in and I love the fact that just as I'm revisiting the 80's and 90's, so is he. Dad will discover a song that he passed over when it originally charted and his excitement is something that I can totally identify with.

So yesterday dad says that his new favorite song is Love & Rockets "So Alive". It's one that I play on my show fairly often and more importantly, it gives me another song that will remind me of him now every time that I hear it. Love & Rockets first got together in 1985 after their former group, Bauhaus, disbanded. They were an underground British group that fused pop with an old school college radio alternative vibe. "So Alive" went to number three on Billboard's Hot 100 and it spent five weeks atop the Modern Rock charts in 1989. Listen for 20 seconds and I'll bet even if the title doesn't ring a bell, the song itself will.

Daily Boom Lost Hit: Alice Cooper - 'Poison'

Daily Boom 80's Throwback- Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb- 'Guilty'

"Shadows falling, baby, we stand alone

Out on the street anybody you meet got a heartache of their own

(It oughta be illegal)

Make it a crime to be lonely or sad

(It oughta be illegal)

You got a reason for livin'

You battle on with the love you're livin' on

You gotta be mine

We take it away

It's gotta be night and day

Just a matter of time

And we got nothing to be guilty of

Our love will climb any mountain near or far, we are

And we never let it end."

How do you write about old school pop culture for years and not write about Barbra Streisand? Exactly. At the very start of the 80's, she was leading the pack of female artists. She already had more than 20 albums under her belt and had enlisted Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees to write and produce an album for her. He delivered on a grand scale because Guilty remains Streisand's best selling album of all time.

The album's first single, "Woman In Love" skyrocketed its' way up Billboard's charts and remains one of the diva's most beloved songs nearly forty years later. The title track, a duet with Gibb also became a fan favorite. Watching Streisand actually perform some of these classics is almost bizarre. She vacillates in and out of connecting with the song and just seems really quirky onstage. Maybe that's why her fans love her so much. I'm not sure but what I do know is that I still do love "Guilty". Check out a live version below and tell me if you see the quirkiness that I mentioned.

Daily Boom 80's Throwback: Timex Social Club - 'Rumours'

"How do rumors get started

They're started by the jealous people

And they get mad seeing something

They had and somebody else is holding."

The year was 1986 and rumors were a topic that any teenage girl was familiar with. Either you spread them, listened to them or were the subject of a nasty little story that was circulating, especially if you were in high school. When Timex Social Club's "Rumors" was released not only was it a huge dance hit, but it became kind of a sing-a-long for every teen girl that I knew. The fact that it landed in the top ten of Billboard's Hot 100 solidified the notion that this song was something that the masses connected to. Check out the video below. Is it one of those songs that you still know all of the lyrics to?

Daily Boom 80's Throwback: Madonna - 'Lucky Star'

"You must be my Lucky Star
'Cause you shine on me wherever you are
I just think of you and I start to glow
And I need your light
And baby you know
 Starlight, star bright first star I see tonight
Starlight, [star bright] make everything all right
Starlight, star bright first star I see tonight
Starlight, [star bright] yeah."

It's funny because when I hear the name Madonna the first visual that comes to mind is the early-80's version. Something about the "Lucky Star" video has stuck with me for all of these- decades! I still associate Madonna with her dancers doing choreography to the heavy synth and drum track- and that's just fine with me. I loved those days of suddenly needing lace bows and lace gloves. Piling neon and rubber bracelets on my arms and thinking just about everything in my closet would look better if I chopped off the bottom of it and turned it into a belly shirt! I love the era of my own life that vintage Madonna conjures up for me!

Currently Booming: NEW Prince- 'The VERSACE Experience (PRELUDE 2 GOLD) - Listen

Currently Booming: NEW Tom Keifer Band- 'Rise' (Listen)

Daily Boom 80's Throwback: Murray Head - 'One Night In Bangkok'

"One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster

The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me."

You may not remember the name Murray Head, but you'll definitely remember the one-hit-wonder that he sang on in 1985. "One Night In Bangkok" was part of the Chess musical that came out after its' concept album took off. Murray was simply a British actor that was brought in to read the lyrics and probably never anticipated the song being so well-received. Check out the video below. Of course, you remember this, right?

Daily Boom 80's Throwback: Toto- '99'

"I never thought it would happen. I feel quite the same."

When I was a kid, Saturday afternoon usually meant a trip to the mall in the next city. My mom was always ready to shop and my dad couldn't hit the record store fast enough. There was a shop near our house, but this place was massive and it eventually turned into a local chain of about 12 different stores. But long before The Gallery of Sound was doing in-store hair band signings and meet and greets with freestyle artists, they were all about the vinyl. They also had a string of tv's set up to watch MTV, something that our cable provider wasn't yet offering. So dad would spend two hours talking to all of the same people that he had talked to the week before, clutching his new issue of Billboard as if his life depended on it. That hasn't changed at least. Getting your hands on a newsstand copy of Billboard is fairly impossible because stores that do carry it usually get a maximum of three copies in.

Anyway, I loved Saturdays because they were rooted in music one way or another. The Soap Factory Disco, Soul Train and of course, American Bandstand were all included before we even left the house. It's strange how the little things really with me because those Saturday car rides really make me smile even now. My dad had a huge gold Buick Skylark that felt (and sounded) like it could drive thru a building and come out the other side. In the summer he would drive with all of the windows down and his stereo was bumping. I realize that car radios probably sucked back then but he was forever playing with speakers and things. All I know is that I could always feel the music coming from behind me.

I soaked up Hall & Oates, Aerosmith, Tom Jones and I'm pretty sure my love of Latin rhythms first started with an extra loud extended version of Barry Manilow's Copa. There were also a lot of other songs that I fell in love with like Toto's "99". Yeah, I know there has always been a debate over the lyrics and what the song is really about. The band has changed their story a few times just to continue to throw people off and truth be told, I could care less. I can remember traffic being at a standstill just a few miles from the mall on one afternoon and not carrying because "99" was playing behind me and I could actually feel the guitar and keys. 

It's still a really beautiful piece of music to me. Check it out below.

Daily Boom 90's Nostalgia: Hole - 'Violet'

"And the sky was made of amethyst
And all the stars were just like little fish
You should learn when to go
You should learn how to say no

Might last a day, yeah
Mine is forever
Might last a day, yeah
Mine is forever
Well they get what they want, and they never want it again
Well they get what they want, and they never want it again
Go on, take everything, take everything, I want you to"

I still remember the first time that I listened to Hole's Live Through This album when it was released just days after Kurt Cobain's suicide. It just clicked on the deepest level possible for me. Everything that Nirvana was to other people, Hole became to me. Cobain had reached so many people through his lyrics, but it was his wife Courtney Love, that I connected with. She fearlessly tackled feminist issues, beauty ideals and douche men in a way different from any of the rockers before her. Lyrically, Love easily became the voice for a generation of young women.

"Violet" is rumored to have been about her screwed up love affair witch Billy Corrigan of The Smashing Pumpkins. I was in my mid-twenties when the song first dropped and I totally understood the kind of situation Love was singing about. Check out the video below.