One person’s view: “Somehow makes [the Ann Wilson & Mike Reno duet] ‘Almost Paradise’ seem kind of awesome.” – thx4noting @ Rate Your Music
The public’s view: 2.08 / 5.00
If Ann Wilson is not the very best rock singer in the world, she is certainly a contender for the title – notwithstanding her omission from Rolling Stone’s widely ridiculed list of the “200 Best Singers of All Time”. Whether with her band Heart or as a solo performer, she can make any ballad sound amazing. She can make any up-tempo song sound amazing. She could sing the instruction sheet for a Crock Pot and it would sound amazing. (How could anyone defy a command like “Do not use device while swimming” after it has been powerfully wailed to them by Ann Wilson?) Duets, however, are not her strong suit. She devolves into a lowly mortal the moment she gets paired up with another good vocalist. Instead of lifting the song up, she gets dragged down to the level of the material. At least, that is one of the lessons that I take from “Surrender to Me”.
Richard Marx and Ross Vannelli wrote “Surrender to Me” for the Mel Gibson film Tequila Sunrise. The recording of this power ballad combined the ample talent of Ann Wilson with that of Cheap Trick’s lead singer Robin Zander. Four of the five aforementioned people were blazing hot properties in the late ‘80s, and all of them did their jobs exactly as needed to achieve maximum commercial effect. Tequila Sunrise went on to gross over $100 million and “Surrender to Me” made it to #6 on the pop chart. Unfortunately, this duet did not become one of the classic ‘80s movie songs that we adore. It had the shelf life of a banana. Most people today would rather hear absolutely any other tune by Heart or by Cheap Trick, or perhaps even a song by Richard Marx. Some listeners prefer a bootleg tape of Mel Gibson’s Oration from a Malibu Police Car. Following in the noble tradition of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, this was the actor’s protest against his unjust confinement. Gibson’s speech was so successful that it led to a sequel, Apology to the Jewish Community for Oration from a Malibu Police Car.
“Surrender to Me” is sung from the viewpoint of a couple who are in a very tense relationship but are about to screw anyway. Although this concept is general enough for any movie steamier than The Little Mermaid, the song’s video establishes the duet as the exclusive property of Tequila Sunrise. In fact, the video is almost nothing more than a collection of scenes from Tequila Sunrise! The few one-second shots of Ann Wilson and Robin Zander look like they might have been taken from performances of other songs, and there is nothing else that references “Surrender to Me” as a work of its own. The video doesn’t even function as an effective promo for the movie, because it reveals several plot points – including the ending. In the storied history of not giving a crap, rarely has someone given less of a crap than the people who spliced this clip together, called it a “music video”, and shipped it off to VH-1.
Let’s compare “Surrender to Me” to the music that Zander and Wilson were making with their bands around the same time, such as Cheap Trick’s “The Flame”. “The Flame” is not an outstanding composition, but Robin Zander wrestled it into submission. Hearing him perform that song is like watching a man setting up a tent during a windstorm: it’s a seemingly futile task that he shouldn’t be attempting, but you nonetheless root for him to succeed and are surprised when he does. (As Tom Breihan of Stereogum wrote: “Even on a big blank of a song, Zander brings some real personality. Without him, there’s simply no way the song could work.”) Heart’s “Alone” is inherently a better song than “The Flame”, but still it needed a singer of Ann Wilson’s caliber to turn it into a #1 hit. She delivered a compelling and worthwhile aria as she is known to do, and our lives were improved by it.
“Surrender to Me” doesn’t touch me in the same way as the work of Cheap Trick or Heart. Both vocalists give it their all, but there’s nothing at stake that would justify their bombastic over-emoting. Imagine the Harlem Globetrotters doing a bunch of tricks while walloping a middle school basketball team; at some point it crosses the line from entertainment to showing off. It’s even more distasteful to know that the song is just an ad for a movie, and that the star of the movie is now famous primarily for putting his foot in his mouth so often that he probably flosses with his shoelaces.
This is nowhere near the worst duet to have hit the top 10 in the 1980s, but it serves as a textbook example of why duets so often lead to disappointment. It’s a forgettable love ballad with an even more forgettable video. It’s tied to a Hollywood project with an insubstantial legacy. Above all, it misdirects the talents of two elite singers into a generic product that isn’t worthy of them. “Surrender to Me” is the rare record that I would appreciate more if it had been performed by someone less competent.
My rating: 3 / 10
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