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Friday, November 05, 2010

Friday Morning Videos: "Nothing Compares 2 U"

According to my dashboard, this in my 100th Friday Morning Video--done over a period of exactly two years. I don't know how or why exactly it worked out like that, but it did. Cool. Well, anyway, onward and upward. A year ago--and, for that matter, two years ago as well--I shared Go West's "King of Wishful Thinking." But if they had another hit that made it onto the music video circuit, I can't find it. So how about another one from the same year? I can't believe it's taken me so long to get around to this gem.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

A pale, soulless shadow of the Prince original. Really, this ranks up there with the great flaccid covers of that period, shoehorned between Tiffany's "I Saw Him Standing There" and the Bangles' "Hazy Shade of Winter." (Oh, hell, now you're going to spotlight the Bangles, aren't you? Should've kept my mouth shut.)

AbbotOfUnreason said...

Ha. I say yay for the Bangles.

I like how these two videos (this one and the year-ago one) go together thematically.

Russell Arben Fox said...

Anonymous, I know and like the original Prince version, and I won't deny that Sinead's lacks soul. But then, the lyrics of the song also really work well when given her very moody, ethereal spin, and I like that even more. Plus, and more importantly, there was no video to the Prince version.

I have no interest in Tiffany, partly because she was a no-talent flash in the pan, and partly because, if I remember correctly, her video for that song consisted of her dancing around while performing for a bunch of mall rats somewhere, and who cares for that? But the Bangles now...Abbot has a point. I could go for some of them. Prince wrote half of their good songs as well, after all.

Lee said...

Prince's version isn't exactly the original. He wrote it for Sinead and then when he saw what a big hit it was he decided to record his own version.

Anonymous said...

Actually, Prince wrote it for his pet band The Family, who recorded it in 1985. O'Connor's cover came out five years later.

Lee said...

I stand corrected! I was under the impression that the Rosie Gaines live duet was the first time Prince recorded it.

Russell Arben Fox said...

Man, I learn so much from this weekly feature. I'd never even heard of The Family before, even though Morris Day and The Time's "The Walk" was one of my guilty pleasure when I finally discovered 80s funk, about a decade too late. I wonder if I could find that self-titled album of theirs anywhere...