Throwing back to the week of January 29, 1994, the Billboard Hot 100 was topped by the unlikely team of Bryan Adams, Sting, and Rod Stewart on the song ‘All for Love’ from the soundtrack of the 1993 film The Three Musketeers.
I vaguely remember that movie, which starred Keifer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, and Oliver Platt as the titular trio, but I don’t remember this song at all. That’s despite it staying in the #1 spot for three straight weeks.
‘Long Gone’ is one of the few songs on Bryan Adams’ 1984 album Reckless that isn’t an arena rock classic. I’m always blown away by the lineup of that album and I wish I’d owned it when it first came out.
The middle stretch of Reckless goes like this: ‘Run To You,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘Somebody,’ ‘Summer of ’69.’ Spare me any highbrow dismissals of Adams as a songwriter and performer — those are four stone-cold bangers right there. Add in leadoff track ‘She’s Only Happy When She’s Dancin” and late album duet ‘It’s Only Love’ (featuring Tina Turner) and you have an essential classic rock album.
Bryan Adams’ Reckless isn’t exactly Born in the U.S.A., but it shares at least one thing in common with the Springsteen classic. Six of its singles reached the top 15 on Billboard’s Hot 100, a feat matched (at that time) by only Born in the U.S.A. and Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
I know four of those singles well: ‘Run To You,’ ‘Somebody,’ ‘Heaven,’ and ‘Summer of ’69.’ Say what you will about Bryan Adams, but those are four absolute bangers, totally in place on any list of the best 80s songs.
Today’s random iTunes selection comes from the second disc of a 30th anniversary edition of Bryan Adams’ 1984 album Reckless. That disc is a recording of a live performance at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1985.
‘It’s Only Love’ first appeared on Reckless as a duet with Tina Turner, and was later performed live with Turner on her own world tour. That’s the “couple of weeks ago at Wembley” Adams refers to when introducing the song.
In a shameful move by the Academy, Lupita Nyong’o was snubbed in this year’s Best Actress race for her mesmerizing double turn in Jordan Peele’s Us. Less noticed, but equally unfortunate, was the absence of Nyong’O’s Us co-star Elisabeth Moss for her work as alt-rocker Becky Something in the film Her Smell.
Written and directed by Alex Ross Perry, Her Smell is told in five real-time segments over the course of several years in the life of the horribly self-destructive Becky. The first three scenes make Uncut Gems look like My Dinner With Andre, as a drug-fueled Becky rages at her bandmates, support team, and anybody else who gets in her way.
Meet Me In Montauk 