Category: One-Hit Wonder Status: Accepted

May I Have Another?: Alannah Myles

Ever watch one of those VH1, “one-hit wonders” specials, where the random D level commentators start talking about these artists that had one hit, where half of them actually had multiple songs that charted? Random commentator probably has no idea but then somewhere in there Matt Pinfield comes in with his “I’m smarter than you and probably no fun at all” persona and makes sure you know they had another song that charted exactly at #98 for one week in 1984. Well, I’m the everyman’s Pinfield but funnier and better looking. This series will go back to the 80s and spotlight one-hit wonders (in the US), real (truly only one charting hit) or perceived (other songs charted low but they are known for just one song) and come to a definitive verdict if we should accept or reject their status as that one-hit wonder.

Alannah Myles burst onto the scene here in the U.S. in 1989, with her hit song “Black Velvet” which was a pretty great, sultry blues-pop tune and then she promptly faded away. She had a bigger career in her native Canada but for the purpose of this blog, we focus on the US.

“Black Velvet”

Myles was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as Alannah Byles and was performing from age of 12 or so all around Ontario. She put in her dues for a good six years before meeting Christopher Ward, who was not only a songwriter but the very first VJ on MuchMusic in Canada (think MTV of Canada). Ward truly believed in her talent and although she shopped a demo around for years with no traction, about nine years after they met, he was still working with her and helped her get a record deal with Atlantic in 1987. She then teamed up with Canadian producer and writer, David Tyson and started recording the debut record. Released in 1989, Alannah was already 31 at the time which was a bit older than the age of many of the artists on the radio then. Ward/Tyson had a hand in writing nine of the ten songs on the record including “Black Velvet” which went to #1 in the US. It was actually her second single with the song “Love Is” charting at #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 before that. The self-titled debut represents the 80’s pretty well, a bit of rock mixed with adult contemporary pop and Myles had a bit of a smokey voice, with a bit of grit, reminding me of Pat Benatar at that time. The album itself is really enjoyable from front to back. Listening to it in 2019 shows that it’s extremely dated but represents 1989 pretty well.

As good as the debut is, there’s a glaring flaw that is likely the reason she never made another dent in the US charts. Nothing else on the album sounds close to “Black Velvet” and therefore there was no perfect follow up single to the hit. In addition, if you watch the video for the track, she’s dressed in cowboy gear and playing the southern blues chick. It worked well for the track at hand but that didn’t translate to the rest of the album. There’s one acoustic blues track ending the record, called “Hurry Make Love” but it wasn’t a radio ready track. Much of the rest of the album was pretty rockin’ for the time. Her gravely voice blended well with rock guitars and the album focused on that. IMO, if the record company had pitched her as a rock star first and released “Just One Kiss” as the first single, “Love Is” as the second and “Black Velvet” as the third as a ballad from a rocker, she could have had significantly more success. I think if you put “Just One Kiss” up against, say Pat Benatar’s “All Fired Up,” you have a pitch that might have worked in the end. Of course that still doesn’t leave a proper follow up to “Black Velvet” but her persona would have been way different.

“Just One Kiss”

A little over three years later, she followed up with the album Rockinghorse, which followed the same general path as the debut, although I definitely wouldn’t have started the album with a rap like she did on “Our World Our Times.” The album opens up with pure rockers like the aforementioned track, which has a guitar riff very similar to “Kyrie” by Mr. Mister and “Make Me Happy” which seems to share the same bassline as Poison’s “Unskinny Bop.” The track that really should have been a hit was the ballad, “Sonny Say You Will” which would have been a perfect song for 1992. Instead, the first single was “Song Instead of a Kiss” a painfully slow ballad filled with epic string movements. While a good enough song on its own, not something that would have gotten much airplay in the U.S. It did hit #1 in Canada, but here, did nothing. And that was pretty much her last real shot in the states.

“Song Instead of a Kiss”

From this point on, the focus seemed to be on her native Canada where she actually had five hits off Rockinghorse. In 1995, she released her third record A-Lan-Nah, on which she brought in new songwriters. Ward and Tyson had their hand in four tracks on the record but Phil Johnstone (Robert Plant) co-wrote a few tunes and Pat McDonald (Timbuk3) co-wrote two others. The album had a decidedly less rock feel and went more in the pop direction. With acoustic guitars heavily in the fold this time, the disc has an overall singer-songwriter vibe. But the lead track on the disc, “Mistress of Erzulie” sure sounds a whole lot like another top Canadian artist at the time – Alanis Morrisette.

“Mistress of Erzulie”

After her 2007 release, A Rival, she took a break from recording, though still toured over the years. In 2009 though she released the creatively titled Black Velvet which was not a greatest hits record but rather new songs and of course a re-recording of her most famous hit (in a clearly inferior version). 2014 was her 25th anniversary, so you know, instead of repacking the original record and re-releasing it, her label at the time decided to expand the Black Velvet album out a bit, rename it 85 BPM and re-release that, of all things.

“Black Velvet” 2008 remake

In the end, Alannah Myles career in the US seemed to have been just a series of weird and possibly bad decisions. No one is really going to argue with having a #1 hit but she was a good enough rock artist to have had better success here in the end.

Summary: Despite “Love Is” going to #36 in 1989, no one really knows that song. In the US, it was all about “Black Velvet” and for that, I’m going to accept her status as a one-hit wonder. Part of my accepting or rejecting the status is my thoughts on whether an artist should have been a bigger hit or not but in a case like this, either herself or her label really didn’t do her many favors in their choice of songs. If the singles would have been the right ones but just didn’t chart, I would have rejected the status but in the US at least, the decision makers failed her here, to the point where I simply have to say that one-hit wonder-dom was her true fate.

May I Have Another?: Modern English

Ever watch one of those VH1, “one-hit wonders” specials, where the random D level commentators start talking about these artists that had one hit, where half of them actually had multiple songs that charted? Random commentator probably has no idea but then somewhere in there Matt Pinfield comes in with his “I’m smarter than you and probably no fun at all” persona and makes sure you know they had another song that charted exactly at #98 for one week in 1984. Well, I’m the everyman’s Pinfield but funnier and better looking. This series will go back to the 80s and spotlight one-hit wonders (in the US), real (truly only one charting hit) or perceived (other songs charted low but they are known for just one song) and come to a definitive verdict if we should accept or reject their status as that one-hit wonder.

So let’s stay this right up front. Modern English as a whole, sound nothing like the song that gave them their one-hit wonder status, “I Melt with You.” They were on the 4AD record label, which was not exactly known for its catchy pop hooks as the home to the Cocteau Twins, Bauhaus, Dead Can Dance and many other post-punk and dream pop artists starting in 1980. These guys also had a heavy Joy Division influence early on. They released their debut, Mesh & Lace back in 1981 and showcased a noisy somewhat unstructured post-punk sound.

“Swans on Glass”

A year later they released their second record, After the Snow which wasn’t really a commercial record but varied quite a bit from the debut. Style wise, it’s a bit scattered. There are post-punk moments on opening track, “Someone’s Calling” but the addition of lots of keyboard on this record overall, added a new pop dimension to their sound. But then it’s followed up with “Life in the Gladhouse” which was actually the first single to be released from the record and has more of a darker post-punk sound, similar to the debut but a little more polished.

“Life in the Gladhouse”

The hardest thing about the record overall is the lack of direction. Almost every track feels completely different from the one before it and while the flow of the record isn’t nearly as bad as I would have expected it to be, it’s a bit jolting to hear them try to mesh as a cohesive body of work. But the reality of Modern English around this time is that their sound was formed quite a bit by producer Hugh Jones. He became known for being a fantastic post-punk, alternative and new-wave producer, working with Simple Minds, Adam & the Ants, the Damned, Icicle Works, Echo & the Bunnymen and many more artists within that same vein.

After you get through a couple really melancholy tracks in a row, you hit “I Melt with You” which sounds as out of place on a record as I’ve ever heard, especially with three songs afterwards that go back to the post-punk vibe.

“I Melt with You”

Let’s also not forget that despite the track not sounding like anything else in their catalog, they re-recorded and re-released it in 1990 in an inferior version to the original.

“I Melt With You” 1990

Two years later, they followed up their brief success with their third album, Ricochet Days, but by this point, without a clear direction in which the band was going, they were kind of in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario. They went even further down the new wave path on this record but not enough to make them a new wave band, nor were any of their songs good enough to be more than a blip on the chart (“Hands Across the Sea” peaked at #91 on the Hot 100 in the US). When they did try something different like the title track, it missed its mark. That tune starts off as a really dull, post-punk song and halfway through, adds a funky baseline prominently in the mix and turns the ditty into new wave for the remainder of the time. The first single from the record, “Chapter 12,” might actually be the best track on the album but it’s also buried as the final track. In the end, what held the band back a bit is fully evident if you listen to Ricochet Days as a whole. Lack of consistency, poor flow from track-to-track and what seems like a lack of understand on which direction they wanted to take the band in.

“Chapter 12”

Their best shot at another hit was with the 1986 single “Ink and Paper” which was a catchy pop-rock song that might have been a hit if it was released right after Midnight Oil hit with “Beds are Burning” in 1987, as it has a similar sonic vibe to it. But the song didn’t do anything in the US and the terrible video surely didn’t help them get MTV play.

“Ink & Paper”

The Modern English story gets a little weird from there, as they broke up in 1987, got back together in 1989, recorded a new album which was released in 1990, then broke up again a year later. After the split, lead singer Robbie Grey formed a band called Engine, which in 1996 would then be rebranded into Modern English. So in ’96, Grey released a Modern English album with pretty much a whole new band aside from the keyboard player. Finally in 2010, the original band got back together to play and put out an album in 2016 called Take Me To the Trees. I’ve only heard random snippets but they seem to have gone back to a post-punk type sound.

“Trees”

Verdict: Well, unless you’re counting the fact that “I Melt with You” charted twice, then Modern English’s one-hit wonder status is accepted. The hit actually only peaked at #78 in the original form and #76 in the remade version, so by chart standards it wasn’t a big hit and “Hands Across the Sea” was the only other track to hit the Hot 100, peaking at #91 and leaving no real lasting mark. Some of these verdicts are a bit fuzzy to figure out but there’s really no doubt about this one.