Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Monday, February 23, 2015

Monday Music Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love"

I am arguing with a cold, and I had taken today off because my son is out of school today.  So we went to the range, but more on that in a subsequent post.
     I was stationed at Fort Devens in Mass for Advanced training and this song showed up on the MTV playlist that was playing in the breakroom.  We would be ready to march to class, so we would sit in the breakroom and wait for the time for us to go.  This is the place where I saw Whitney Houston for the first time, along with level 42 and many other bands.  It was a good memory for a place that I have a love/hate relationship with.   Fort Devens was returned to civilian control in the 90's during the early round of BRAC


   We GI's liked the band behind Robert Palmer......While doing research for this posting I found out that Tina Turner has her version that was around almost as long.   Her version is different but good, Nobody can do it like Tina Turner.  I will probably do a Tina song for next weeks "Monday Music"

"Addicted to Love" is a song by English rock singer Robert Palmer released in 1986. The song has become known as his signature song, thanks in part to a highly popular video featuring high fashion models. Other artists have released versions since.
It is the third song on Palmer's Riptide album. The most commonly heard version runs around four minutes, but the full album version runs a little over six minutes.
The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week ending 8 February 1986. The song ended up topping the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart. It was one of the last 45 RPM singles to receive a million-selling Gold certification. It also reached number one in Australia, and number five on the UK Singles Chart.

Originally intended to be a duet with Chaka Khan, the song was made without her because her record company at the time would not grant her a release to work on Palmer's label, Island Records. Chaka Khan, however, is still credited for the vocal arrangements in the album liner notes.
Andy Taylor of Duran Duran (and a bandmate of Palmer's from The Power Station) provides lead guitar. The other guitar part on the song is played by Eddie Martinez and keyboards by Wally Badarou. The song is also notable for its unaccompanied drum opening, which has a time signature of 7/4. The rest of the song is in common 4/4 time.
Noddy Holder (the lead vocalist of English rock band Slade) stated in an interview that this song was the main track he wished he'd written himself. "The one main song that I wish that I'd written and recorded is 'Addicted to Love' by Robert Palmer. To me, that's a perfect pop song. Everything about it really hits the nail on the head."



The 1986 produced music video (which uses the shorter single version of this song), directed by British photographer Terence Donovan, was one of the most iconic of the era. The video features Palmer performing the song with an abstract "band", being a group of female models whose pale skin, heavy makeup, dark hair and seductive, rather robot-like expression follow the style of women in Patrick Nagel paintings.
The five models in the video are Julie Pankhurst (keyboard), Patty Kelly (guitar), Mak Gilchrist (bass guitar) and Julia Bolino (guitar) and Kathy Davies (drums).
Mak Gilchrist recalled to Q magazine:
“I was 21 and got the part on the strength of my modelling book. We were meant to look and 'act' like showroom mannequins. Director Terence Donovan got us tipsy on a bottle of wine but as we were having our make-up retouched, I lost balance on my heels and knocked the top of my guitar into the back of Robert’s head, and his face then hit the microphone."
Palmer recycled the video's "iconic models" concept for the videos of three other songs of his : "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On" (also from Riptide), "Simply Irresistible" and the animated "Change His Ways" (both from Heavy Nova).
VH1's Pop-Up Video trivia about the video include the fact that a musician was hired to teach the models basic guitar fingering techniques, but "gave up after about an hour and left". The episode also pointed out several choreographic errors, including the models moving out of sync with one another, and moving during points with no back beat, such as the second chorus.
The music video ranked at number 3 on VH1's Top 20 Videos of the 1980s and was both the first and last video shown on long running UK music programme The Chart Show.
The models were also used in the spoof of the video in "Weird Al" Yankovic's UHF wearing glasses and moustaches.
The music video was parodied in the music video of Stardust's "Music Sounds Better with You" and in Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!".






Tina Turner has made "Addicted to Love" a regular feature of her live shows since 1986, although her version did not make it onto the market until two years later.
A live recording from the 1986/1987 Break Every Rule Tour of the track was included on her Tina: Live in Europe album in 1988, and was also issued as the lead single to promote the album in certain territories — instead of "Nutbush City Limits" — and was a Top 20 hit in the Netherlands.
The two singles had the same B-sides: live recordings of "Overnight Sensation" and ZZ Top's "Legs" and near identical picture sleeves. The version of "Addicted to Love" issued on the single was in fact an alternate mix of the track; the single mix was later included on the European editions of her 1991 greatest hits album Simply the Best, as well as All the Best in 2004 and Tina! in 2008.

 Tina Turner Version

Five singles were released from Tina: Live In Europe; "Nutbush City Limits", a cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love, "Tonight" with David Bowie, "A Change Is Gonna Come" and "634-5789" with Robert Cray, the most successful being "Addicted to Love" which has since become a mainstay in Turner's live repertoire and was later included on the European editions of her 1991 hits compilation Simply the Best.

3 comments:

  1. Good song, but I like Palmer's version better...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good song, but I like Palmer's version better...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I grew up with the Addicted to Love Bitches. I looked like one when I was a cop. I like Palmer. Tina Turner always rocks it.

    ReplyDelete

I had to change the comment format on this blog due to spammers, I will open it back up again in a bit.