Monday, July 13, 1987

Terence Trent D’Arby’s debut released

Introducing the Hardline According to…

Terence Trent D’Arby


Released: July 13, 1987


Peak: 4 US, 13 RB, 19 UK, -- CN, 15 AU


Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US and UK)


Genre: R&B


Tracks:

Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts.

  1. If You All Get to Heaven [5:17]
  2. If You Let Me Stay [3:14] (3/14/87, 68 US, 19 RB, 7 UK, 36 AU)
  3. Wishing Well (D’Arby/Oliver) [3:30] (6/20/87, 1 US, 1 RB, 44 AC, 4 UK, 9 AU, gold single)
  4. I’ll Never Turn My Back on You (Father’s Words) [3:37]
  5. Dance Little Sister [3:55] (10/10/87, 30 US, 9 RB, 20 UK, 41 AU)
  6. Seven More Days [4:34]
  7. Let’s Go Forward [5:32]
  8. Rain [2:58]
  9. Sign Your Name [4:37] (1/9/88, 4 US, 2 RB, 13 AC, 2 UK, 3 AU)
  10. As Yet Untitled [5:33]
  11. Who’s Lovin’ You (Robinson) [4:24]

Songs written by Terence Trent D’Arby unless noted otherwise.


Total Running Time: 47:11

Rating:

4.155 out of 5.00 (average of 12 ratings)


Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album:

Terence Trent D’Arby burst out of the gates with what has been called “one of the best debuts ever.” AL The album debuted atop the UK album chart and sold a million copies within its first three days of release. WK Three singles from the album reached the top 10 in the UK. However, it wasn’t until Wishing Well, the album’s second single, that the album took off in the U.S. It peaked at #4 the same week that “Wishing Well” reached #1.

In an all-time hype-worthy move, the “young, cocky black British singer” RB “claimed that this was the most important album since the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper.” RB Introducing the Hardline… certainly isn’t that essential, but it is still “a stunning, soulful approach to merging old influences and new realities.” AL “Although the production is quite modern, D’Arby shows his roots in the work of older artists, borrowing a page or two from Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, while James Brown appears to have had the strongest influence on d'Arby's stage presence.” RB

D’Arby may not have have changed the world with this album, but it still had its influence. D’Arby, “who wrote virtually every note [and] played a multitude of instruments,” RB crafted an an “egomaniacal/lover stance” AL without which “it’s hard to fathom Maxwell, Tony Toni Tone, or any other neo-soul boys.” AL The BBC called the album “a soundtrack to the turning point when the ‘80s turned from austerity to prosperity. It’s…central to that decade…It remains one big, infectiously glorious record.” WK

Resources and Related Links:


First posted 3/4/2008; last updated 8/24/2021.

Marillion “Tux On” released as B-side to “Sugar Mice”

Tux On

Marillion

Writer(s): Fish (lyrics), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas (music) (see lyrics here)


Released: July 13, 1987


First Charted: --


Peak: 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.)


Sales (in millions): --


Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.25 video, -- streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

Marillion only released four studio albums with Fish on vocals. However, those four albums cemented the band as my favorite of all time. Thankfully, there were also enough B-sides from singles released from 1982 to 1987 to warrant the release of the B’Sides Themselves compilation in January 1988. The release of the double live album The Thieving Magpie in November of that year would then serve as the finale to the Fish era.

As big as Marillion had become for me, the B’Sides Themselves collection introduced me to “new” Marillion songs. I already knew some of the material. “Market Square Heroes” and “Cinderella Search” were featured on the 1984 live album Real to Reel. “Lady Nina” and “Freaks” had been released on the 1986 EP Brief Encounter.

The song that most captured my attention from the collection was “Tux On.” The song was initially released as the B-side of “Sugar Mice,” the second single from 1987’s Clutching at Straws album. The song uses the tuxedo as “the uniform that symbolizes the comfortable life,” taking the listener through various scenarios in which a man might wear a tuxedo, including him lying in state in a coffin.

“’Tux On’ points the way towards the sort of music the band would be producing a couple of albums down the line and dispenses with the neo-prog sensibilities to embrace the poppier side of the band’s psyche. It is a catchy little number nonetheless and shows that Marillion had ambitions beyond their cult status which were finally realised when Misplaced Childhood broke them into the mainstream.” SM


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First posted 7/3/2022; last updated 10/28/2022.

Marillion “Sugar Mice” released

Sugar Mice

Marillion

Writer(s): Fish (lyrics), Mark Kelly, Ian Mosley, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas (music) (see lyrics here)


Released: July 13, 1987


First Charted: July 25, 1987


Peak: 22 UK, 13 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.)


Sales (in millions): --


Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2.735 video, 3.34 streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

By the time Marillion released their fourth album, Clutching at Straws, they had risen to become one of my favorite bands of all time. Since then, they’ve been anointed as my favorite band of all time. This album cemented that legacy. I discovered the group in late 1985 because of the single “Kayleigh” and over the next year consumed everything the band had released. It set up monstrous expectations for the Clutching at Straws album.

The lead single, “Incommunicado,” debuted at #1 on my charts and by the time it was dethroned five weeks later, Marillion had locked down the entire top 10. In that time, the slower tempo “Sugar Mice” was released as the second single from the album. It would reach #1 on my personal chart, but not quite yet. In between “Incommunicado” and “Sugar Mice,” the song “Warm Wet Circle” (which was eventually released as the third single) would reach the pinnacle for four weeks. All told, the three songs collectively logged twelve consecutive weeks at the top of my personal chart.

The concept album dealt with a narrator named Torch struggling with alcohol. “Sugar Mice” “directly addresses the devastating effect unemployment can have on personal relationships.” WK The song captures the achingly painful moment when the main character talks to his kids on the phone and tries to explain why he left. Lead singer Fish said the song grew out of “a bad phone call home to a very upset girlfriend.” JC He was in a Holiday Inn and feeling down. After the call to his girlfriend, he ended up feeling even more depressed. WK

The term “sugar mice” is a reference to a sugar candy popular in the United Kingdom, especially at Christmas time. The phrase “sugar mice in the rain” thus becomes an analogy for the fragility people have in their lives as sugar mice would disintegrate in the rain.


Resources:

  • DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Marillion
  • DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Fish
  • DMDB page for “Warm Wet Circles
  • JC Jon Collins (2003). Separated Out. Helter Skelter Publishing: London, England. Page 74.
  • WK Wikipedia


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First posted 7/3/2022; last updated 10/28/2022.

Monday, July 6, 1987

On This Day (1837): Benny Goodman recorded “Sing Sing Sing”

Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)

Benny Goodman

Writer(s): Louis Prima, Leon Berry (see lyrics here)


Recorded: July 6, 1937


First Charted: April 9, 1938


Peak: 7 US, 12 GA (Click for codes to charts.)


Sales (in millions): --


Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 70.63 video, 45.61 streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

By the start of the Swing era in 1936, Benny Goodman was its king. He started playing clarinet professionally at the age of 16 and formed his own permanent band by the time he was 25. “Sing, Sing, Sing” was the band’s most renowned performance with solos by Benny as well as drummer Gene Krupa (on his last hit before leaving the band) and trumpeter Harry James. This instrumental includes interpolation of “Christopher Columbus,” PM a Chu Berry song which was written for Fletcher Henderson. SS

“Sing, Sing, Sing,” which Goodman called a “killer diller,” NPR’99 was the closer at the bandleader’s legendary Carnegie Hall concert on January 16, 1938. It was the first time jazz comprised a full concert instead of being part of a larger show SS and marked the birthplace of the legitimacy of the genre. NPR’99

“Sing, Sing, Sing” was written by Louis Prima in 1936, but was dramatically reworked as an instrumental by Goodman to become what Steve Sullivan called “the all-time house rocker of the swing era” in his book Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings. SS He credited the song with exemplifying “the sky-high excitement of Big Band jazz at its greatest.” SS

Helen Ward, who was initially slated to sing on the track, noted that Gene Krupa was supposed to stop drumming at the end of the third chorus, but when he kept going, Goodman chimed in with his clarinet. The reslt was an eight-minute cut which took up both sides of a 12-inch 78 rpm record, a break from the traditional three-minute recordings which could fit on a 10-inch 78. WK The recording was immediately well-received: Down Beat magazine’s Tom Collins said the performance “will make record history.” SS


Resources:


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Last updated 9/5/2023.