Top 10 Alert!
Song#: 0057Date: 02/16/1980
Debut: 61
Peak: 2
Weeks: 21
Genre: Pop, Soft Rock
Pop Bits: There is a running legend about the curse of the Grammys where winner of Best New Artist fails to fully follow-up their initial success. While some do go on to huge careers (The Beatles, Natalie Cole, Bette Midler, The Carpenters, Mariah Carey) others seems to flame out soon after (Starland Vocal Band, Arrested Development, Men at Work, Jody Watley). But out of any New Artist winner, none had a more spectacular decline than Christopher Cross. His self-title album was a big hit and spawned four Top 20 song and he cleaned up at the 1981 Grammys winning five. But whether it was the changing musical landscape of the 80s or just a lack of material that matched his debut, his next album briefly flickered and faded. After that, he was never able to put an album on the chart again. "Ride Like the Wind" was his debut single and it featured Michael McDonald on backing vocals.
ReduxReview: My main connection with this song is that in my senior year of high school our band was going to play this during our spring concert. Our director allowed me to rehearse the band and then I conducted the song during the concert. It was so cool to do and I've always appreciated that I had that opportunity. So I may be a little bias in my love of the song, but it really is a soft rock classic (although on most of his songs I can barely understand what Cross is singing...is it just me?).
ReduxRating: 8/10
Trivia: At the time, Cross was the only artist to win the four general categories of the Grammys in the same year - Album, Record, and Song of the Year plus Best New Artist. Decades later, an artist won all four, but not in the same year. Adele won Best New Artist in 2009 and then cleaned up with the other three awards in 2012. Then in 2020, Billie Eillish became the second artist to win all four awards in the same year.
_________________________________________________________________________________
I have a pretty heavy love for the soft rock myself. This is a really good song. However, I might argue with the statement about Men At Work flaming out.
ReplyDeleteMen at Work will get proven later. It was a similar burn out with 1 huge album, 1 medium album, then a blip, then breakup. New Artist curse at work!
ReplyDeleteChart Run: 61 - 46 - 31 - 23 - 17 - 14 - 9 - 7 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 9 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 36 - 63 - 96
ReplyDelete