"Affair of the Heart" by Rick Springfield

Song 21:

"Affair of the Heart” by Rick Springfield

Peak: 9

Year: 1983

Year end position: 57

Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/9

Chronological Songs by Artist: 6/9

Video?: Yes

Wikipedia?:  Yes:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affair_of_the_Heart

Spotify?:  Yes

Lyrics:  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rickspringfield/affairoftheheart.html

On yesterday's blog post, Hall & Oates made their first appearance, making them the act with the most songs we've seen so far.  That also made them the third Hall of Fame act we've come across.  That brings us, sadly to Rick Springfield.  As you know by now, my criteria for inclusion into the Hall of Fame is 10 songs in the top 20 over the course of a career.  If you read the stats at the start of the post, you will notice that Rick came up one song short.  What makes that a little bit sadder is that he had 7 songs peak between 21 and 30.  He just needed one of those to creep over the bar to make it in.  Not only was he really close, he was really dominant during his chart peak.  He had a somewhat obscure song in 1972 that we will get to ("Speak to the Sky"), but his other 8 songs all hit the top 20 between 1981 and 1984.  If you just look at that time frame, his 8 songs were tied for second most with Lionel Richie and Culture Club (3 songs behind Hall & Oates).  Rules are rules though, so Rick Springfield doesn't make it in the Hall.

"Affair of the Heart" came right in the midst of Rick Springfield's peak powers.  At the same time as he was hitting the charts, he was also starring as Dr. Noah Drake on "General Hospital".  It was also right before he started filming on his star vehicle movie "Hard to Hold", so Rick Springfield saturation was almost total in the pop culture of the day.

I was looking up just what an "Affair of the Heart " actually is.  The definition I came across most often is a close, intimate relationship that contains virtually no sex.  This definition seems almost totally in opposition to the lyrics of the verses of this song.  Take the following line for example:  " When we make love, it's a passionate thing / You shudder and shake, sink your teeth in my skin".  That seems like they are having some pretty wild sex, making it more than an "Affair of the Heart".  It's in the chorus, where it seems like there is some cooling off for Rick.  He says "Don't try to tell me you think it's all physical / It goes much deeper than that" making me think that Rick thinks, yeah the sex is great, but the connection he feels is much stronger.  That may be true, but I think he hasn't used quite the correct term to describe their relationship.  Another interpretation may be that the woman he is singing to thinks it's just sex, but Rick thinks it's more involved and he is trying to convince her of that.  I have figured out where the "blind faith" lyric plays into all this, but then again, maybe I'm not supposed to read too much into this song.  It is a straight forward rock song and I'm sure it did very well for Rick on tour.

There is a part of the song around the bridge that I never could wrap my head around.  It sounds like he's saying some words like "touch you...  seize you...."  I really can't make out the words, but it reminded me what witches sound like when they are gathered around a cauldron mixing up some kind of sinister potion.  The words are all distorted, so I'm not even 100% sure what they are saying exactly or how it relates to the rest of the song.  It's kind of a neat effect, and gives the song a mysterious streak, so it's at least memorable.

As with a lot of videos in this era, the concept is virtually incomprehensible.  I think Rick is trapped in some kind of room, but he opens a door and pushes down a window into another room.  Once he is in the second room, there is a stage and he plays "Affair of the Heart" to about 20 people before going back into his room by running the original tape backwards.  There is a lot of shots of shirtless Rick Springfield, so it's good if you want to see a lot of the hunkiness that is Rick Springfield.  I'm guessing that was most of the concept for the video.

I like Rick Springfield.  It's too bad he never had the 10th song make the top 20 so he could take his place in the Hall of Fame.  Anyone that can release a song called "Bruce" about how people mistake him for Bruce Springsteen deserves at least a great deal of respect from me.

"Adult Education" by Hall & Oates

Song 20:

"Adult Education” by Hall & Oates

Peak: 8

Year: 1984

Year end position: 70

Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/22

Chronological Songs by Artist: 16/22

Video?: Yes

Wikipedia?:  Yes:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_Education_%28song%29

Spotify?:  Yes

Lyrics:  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/halloates/adulteducation.html

Up until now, we've only had 2 songs by acts that I considered in my "Hall of Fame" (meaning they've had 10 or more songs make it into the top 20).  Today  we have the third, and they are by far the biggest we've had on the blog.  For those that have forgot or skipped some entries, The Jackson 5 (13 songs) and Dion (10 songs) were the other two.  Hall & Oates had a grand total of 22 songs make it into the top 20.  For some perspective, that makes them currently tied for 27th place all time with old time acts Connie Francis, Perry Como and Paul Anka.  I was a little surprised to see that of the acts in the top 27, only 8 had their careers start after Hall & Oates (in 1976).  Then again, 22 songs in the top 20 is a lot of songs.  It usually takes a long time to amass that many songs (unless your name is Taylor Swift).

"Adult Education" came out in what is probably the late period of Hall & Oates career.  After a total of 5 songs making it into the top 20 in 1984-1985, they only had 2 more top 20 songs over the last 5 years of their productive career.  The fact that this was an added song on a "Greatest Hits" album should give an indication of a few things.  The first is that they had enough hits to release a greatest hits album while they were still releasing popular songs.  The second is that they were cashing in.  A friend of mine once told me his theory about "Greatest Hits" albums:  once a greatest hits album appears, the act is essentially throwing in the towel.  Typically, that is correct.  It is fair to say that when this greatest hits album came around, Hall & Oates were at the tail end of their career, but certainly not done by any stretch.  They did manage 7 more songs after that, which is as many as Robert Palmer and the Steve Miller Band in their whole careers, so let's not sell Hall & Oates short.

"Adult Education" is probably a lesser Hall & Oates hit.  They had 14 other bigger hits throughout their career, so you can be forgiven for not remembering it.  The lyrics are mostly referring to scenes from a high school.  There are references to lockers, home rooms, teachers, underclassmen and student bodys.  It seems like the theme of the song is summed up in the line, "Believe it or not there's life after high school".  It makes me think that the adult education is not necessarily about educating adults, but about education in how to be an adult.  It paints a pretty bleak picture of high school.  It even goes so far as saying it's a "bad situation".  Maybe it's more about feeling stuck in High School and really wanting to be an adult.  One other feature I like about this song is the chorus of kids singing "Oh Yeah".  I think that gives a little credence to my theory that the song is about kids since, you know, there they are on the song.  Maybe it was just a cool production trick.  It's kind of hard to know for sure.

There is a video for this song, and it is totally incomprehensible.  I am not one to bash songs or videos on this blog, so I will let none other than John Oates explain it.... " That was a mistake from the beginning. That was stupid... We literally showed up at the shoot and saw this enormous post-apocalyptic New York set, all these extras with torn clothes and crazy s--t, and we just went along for the ride. But as we were doing it, we were thinking, this is really stupid. That’s one of the dumbest things we’ve ever done."  I'll admit that I was baffled when I watched this video, so I'm glad that I wasn't alone with that feeling. 

"Adorn" by Miguel

Song 19:

"Adorn” by Miguel

Peak: 17

Year: 2012

Year end position: 84

Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/1

Chronological Songs by Artist: 1/1

Video?: Yes

Wikipedia?:  Yes:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adorn_%28song%29

Spotify?:  Yes

Lyrics:  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/miguel/adorn.html

So far in this blog, the songs we have gone over have averaged coming from the year 1988.  That skews a little more recent since the overall average year is 1981.  If all years were equal, the average would be somewhere in 1985.  I bring this up because today is the most recent song chronologically we have had, appearing on the chart in 2012.  If you remember my post about "ABC", you know my theory about short titles, and this song fits that criteria perfectly.  There is also a trend to make the singers names shorter.  As evidenced by this graph:

It looks like around the early 90s (roughly the start of the hip hop era), men's names became more prominently one name, as opposed to 2, which was clearly the norm before 1990.

Miguel was born Miguel Jontel Pimentel in Los Angeles, California.  As of the time of this writing, he is considered a one-hit wonder.  That seems a little premature to say, since this song is only 3 years old, and he is still producing records.  So far, most of his success has been with critics and on the R&B Charts.  As of this writing, he has only had one other top 40 song other than "Adorn".  There is still a lot of hope for Miguel to avoid becoming a one-hit wonder, but the jury is still out on whether that will happen.

Miguel actually poses an interesting conundrum.  What are the rules for determining who is and who isn't a one-hit wonder.  From my definition, I am currently classifying anyone who has had one and only one song as the main artist hit the top 20.  But, take the example of Chris Stapleton into consideration.  He just had his first song hit the top 20 this week.  Is he a one-hit wonder?  It seems quite premature to say that he is.  It seems more appropriate to have some kind of time consideration thrown in.  I don't really know.  I'm just posing the question.

This song made me go to the dictionary to look up what "Adorn" actually means.  Apparently, it means "to make more beautiful or attractive".  That's pretty good usage by Miguel, as he sings a lot in the song about letting his love adorn the woman he is singing to.  It also works pretty well in that it sounds similar to "Adore", which Miguel also says he does.  I read some influences of Miguel, and this song seems to have a similarly smooth delivery and similar rhythm to Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing".  I wasn't able to find anywhere where Miguel lists him as an influence, but this song seems so similar to me.  If nothing else, this song seems to be treading over similar ground in that the aim of the song is tell the object of the song how much the singers love and appreciate them.

There is a video for this song, and it looks like it was filmed primarily in a vacant building.  Miguel is singing in some empty hallways and bathroom stalls.  There is at least one woman in the bathroom wearing a veil which you don't see every day.  For some reason I couldn't comprehend, there was some shots of a cheerleader, and another of a woman in a leotard doing handsprings down the hall.  It was a little strange, but maybe they were going for a mood, which they do somewhat effectively.

Unfortunately, if you go looking for this video on YouTube, you may run into another infamous video related to this song.  At the Video Music Awards, the stage was configured so there was the main stage, and then a semicircle in front that the performers could go that surrounded a pit of fans.  I'm sure this made for a great effect on TV, as the act could look like they were surrounded by fans if they were on the semicircle part of the stage.  At some point in singing this song, Miguel decides he is going to jump over the pit and land on the semicircle part of the stage.  Unfortunately, he doesn't quite make it, and essentially  bangs two fans heads into the stage as he comes down.  I felt bad for everyone involved.  Miguel finished singing the song, but the women needed medical treatment afterwards.  It's not the way any of them wanted to remember the VMAs.  Hopefully, that's just a strange footnote in history for Miguel, and he can have more chart success in the upcoming years.

"Adia” by Sarah McLaughlan

Song 18:

"Adia” by Sarah McLaughlan

Peak: 3

Year: 1998

Year end position: 20

Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/4

Chronological Songs by Artist: 2/4

Video?: Yes

Wikipedia?:  Yes:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adia

Spotify?:  Yes

Lyrics:  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sarahmclachlan/adia.html

Today marks the third time we've heard from a solo female singer in this blog.  Unlike the previous two (Orianthi, Truth Hurts), today's singer wasn't a one-hit wonder.  This is the first of four songs we will hear from Sarah McLaughlin, and her biggest hit, reaching #3 on the charts.  I also believe this is the first song we have heard from a Canadian.  I was looking up similar acts as far as similar careers goes, and there are a few acts that are similar to Sarah McLaughlin.  She actually had a relatively short peak career.  All four of her songs peaked between 1997 and 1999, giving her a three year chart run.  Other acts that had that type of run were Tommy Edwards in the 50s, Percy Sledge in the 60s, Mac Davis in the 70s, fellow Canadian Corey Hart in the 80s, Savage Garden in the 90s, and Creed in the 2000s.  Perhaps the most similar act as far as chart profile to Sarah McLaughlin's is none other than Lil Kim.  It seems strange, but they are both solo female artists who had exactly 4 top 20 songs with the highest charting song reaching a peak of #3 ("Magic Stick" for Lil Kim, "Adia" for Sarah McLaughlin).  This seems like a strange pairing of acts, since I doubt they will or have ever shared the same stage, but their careers were at least a little bit comparable.  They were even active around the same time (1996-2003 for Lil Kim).  That's the kind of interesting analysis you'll get from this blog.

Speaking of which, I looked it up, and there are a grand total of 15 words in the English language that have 4 letters and 3 syllables.  "Adia" isn't really one of them, since it's not a word so much as it is a proper noun.  Then again, so are "Oreo", "Ohio", "Iowa" and "Oahu" and they were on the list.

This song was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1999, but eventually lost to fellow Canadian Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" in what must have been a banner year for female Canadian singers on the American pop charts.

I was able to track down a few meanings to this song, although there doesn't seem to be any consensus on what it means.  The first time I listened to it, it seemed like a break up song.  After listening to it a few more times, it seemed like the song is more about apologizing for causing a break up of some kind.  I'm not even sure that it has to be the end of a romantic relationship, just some kind of parting between two people.  I think that's what gives the song its universality.  If you want a song that sounds like it understands when you and a friend of yours had a falling out, this song works.  If you want a break-up song, this song works for that as well.  I think this song is vague on purpose.

I read a rumor that Sarah wrote this song after she started dating the man who would be her future husband.  A friend of hers had dated him before, and their friendship suffered.  I could see where that would be a little strange.  I have no idea if that story is true or not, but it definitely seems like good fodder for a song (maybe even this song).

There is a video for this song, but there isn't much to it.  It is Sarah singing in various spots around town as people walk around her.  Then, suddenly the people are all gone for some unexplained reason.  Finally, she's singing where everyone is slow dancing.  Maybe the people all disappearing symbolizes the loss of the friendship that the song may or may not be about.  Regardless, this song seems like a good all-purpose song to play on a rainy day when you feel like being introspective.