“Ballerina Girl” by Lionel Richie (1987, #7)

One critic’s view:  “I realize there’s a place in this world for quieter songs, but this song is so slow I think the tempo is written in negative numbers.” – Todd in the Shadows

The public’s view:  2.13 / 5.00

I will say this for Lionel Richie:  his songs are the absolute opposite of misogyny.  He always expresses an almost servile sense of admiration for women.  Maybe there’s an exception lurking deep in his discography, a nasty diatribe in which Lionel calls his Aunt Flossie a bitch or something like that, but I doubt it.  Even his two big Commodores songs about the joys of ending a relationship – “Easy” and “Sail On” – are so mellow and relaxed that it’s hard to detect much bitterness toward the ladies involved.  I think the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame decided to induct Richie and Eminem in the same year so that they would cancel each other out.

“Ballerina Girl” fits right in with Richie’s fawning-over-awesome-females addiction.  My research reveals that he wrote it for a young girl named Nicole who Lionel and his wife were in the process of adopting as their daughter.  I am sure I originally heard this fact on American Top 40 back in 1987 but declined to commit it to memory.  I needed the brain space for more captivating and useful information, like the chemical formula for Altoids and the names of the 100 largest cities in Pennsylvania.  I guess I’ve always tried to avoid knowing anything about “Ballerina Girl”.  Many other music fans share my antipathy for the tune.  It has been rated as our mustachioed friend’s worst hit single, and it serves as a sad punctuation mark at the end of his long string of top tens.

One of the problems with “Ballerina Girl” is that it is quite specific compared to Richie’s other ballads.  “Truly” was never going to spur a listener to jubilantly bounce his butt around on the dance floor, but at least it was a heartfelt general-purpose love song.  “Ballerina Girl”, on the other hand, is relatable only to ballerinas and those who adore them.  That isn’t much of an audience because, as actor Timothée Chalamet was recently praised for pointing out, ballet is not very popular anymore.  It peaked in the 1800s and has declined ever since.  The typical modern family doesn’t attend a ballet more than a couple times a month, and most folks are entirely unfamiliar with the nomenclature of the sport.  They think that an arabesque is a type of horse and a grand jeté is the big stream of water that spouts from the low-rise drinking fountains that you find in Parisian hotel bathrooms.  Even Nicole Richie seems to have abandoned her ballet ambitions, focusing her talents on slightly less pointless pursuits such as TikTokking and unscripted television.  She was appointed Ambassador of Urban Decay in 2017, with no senators of either party opposing her confirmation to this post.  (Add this to the file of 100% true facts that you probably think I made up.)  I haven’t heard much about her recent activities, but I doubt that she’s trying to eke out a living performing Swan Lake in front of three people.

For the 99.9238% of us who have no interest in ballet, “Ballerina Girl” is just a man bragging about his daughter.  We may as well listen to a song called “Thin Mint Sales Champ” or “Spelling Bee Brat”.  But at least Lionel made sure to accompany his praise of Nicole with some of the most boring music in a pop hit since the Great Soft Rock Apocalypse of 1981.

My rating:  3 / 10

“Heartbeat” by Don Johnson (1986, #5)

One person’s view:  “Was nobody nearby to shout a loud:  ‘Stop singing!!!’ when this was produced?!?” – Headphonian @ Rate Your Music, regarding the Heartbeat LP

The public’s view:  2.52 / 5.00

Miami Vice premiered at the perfect time to grab my attention.  I had recently abandoned my favorite TV show, The Dukes of Hazzard, because I was slowly starting to suspect that the Duke boys were never going to successfully assassinate Boss Hogg.  I was yearning for a new series to fill the void.  However, Miami Vice’s marketing was so off-putting that I never got around to tuning in.  It seemed as though the show’s hero, Detective Sonny Crockett (played by Don Johnson), was constantly canoodling with pretty women on yachts while smoking premium cigarettes and eating exotic foods such as braised eagle hearts and Acapulco-style tiramisu.  This didn’t hold any appeal for me.  A police drama is supposed to be about destructive car chases, not glamour and conspicuous consumption!  Crockett wouldn’t last a day in Hazzard County.  One speck of mud on his stylish suit and he would be on the first Ferrari back to Florida.

It may be an unfair perception, given that I didn’t actually watch the show, but I saw Miami Vice as emblematic of 1980s entitlement culture.  This was the era in which a new breed of entitled twit was invented:  guys who can’t understand how poverty exists when the markets are doing so well.  Why don’t the homeless simply cash out their stock gains and buy houses?  (We still have these twits today, but most of them are either in Congress or are hosting podcasts.)  Don Johnson’s brief singing career was also the product of entitlement.  If record contracts had been based on musical talent, rather than starring in a hit TV show, he’d be waiting near the back of a long queue for his turn on the Hot 100.

Johnson is really not a bad vocalist as compared to the average person.  If I was working with him in a cubicle farm somewhere and we all went out for office karaoke night, my reaction would be:  “Gee, I didn’t know that Don had pipes like that.  His singing is even better than his widely praised PowerPoint skills.”  It is, however, a long leap from karaoke to the Billboard charts.  Successful recording artists usually have something distinctive about their styles, but Johnson’s Heartbeat LP is the most generic mid-‘80s pop-rock record that I’ve ever heard.  If I find an obscure album by someone named John Donson in a discount bin, and the cover is just a picture of a guitar flying over a bunch of random geometric shapes, I would expect it to sound exactly like Heartbeat.  I am not saying this to throw shade at Don, because I would much rather hear generic 1986 music than generic 2009 music.  An album by the Wack Eyed Bees, with a picture of an Auto-Tune console on the sleeve, is not worthy of buying no matter how steep the discount.

The title track of Heartbeat fits right in with the rest of the album.  Its lyrics are comprised of a vague complaint directed at an ex, followed by some cryptic rumblings about seeking a new mate who will be better in some way.  All of this has something to do with a heartbeat, a word that is repeated with emphasis at least 30 times.  The music is just as nondescript as the lyrics.  It’s anchored by a scratchy guitar that would have sounded better if Dweezil Zappa had played on the track instead of just pretending to in the video.  Johnson holds things together OK for the first couple of minutes, but then the song changes its key and pushes him to reach greater heights of vocal prowess.  Karaoke Don isn’t up to the challenge.  By the end I have a mental image of Sonny Crockett’s yacht sinking into the sea, with a few bubbles rising to the surface along with a premium cigarette and the jacket from a stylish suit.

Johnson might be able to out-sing Eddie Murphy at a karaoke bar, but Murphy’s “Party All the Time” was at least catchy.  “Heartbeat”, by contrast, is a composition that relies on expressive musicianship rather than a strong hook.  Its lead singer and its lead guitarist determine whether the song lives or dies.  When their performances are merely average, the result sounds more like a filler album cut than a major hit.  Fortunately, Americans in 1986 learned a lesson from Eddie Murphy and Don Johnson.  The public drew a line in the sand:  no more unqualified actors would be allowed to declare themselves pop singers and sneak into the top 10!  At least not until 1987.

My rating:  3 / 10