I arrived at the Tina Turner party way too late.
The year was 1996, and her Wildest Dreams album had just come out, complete with a cover of John Waite's "Missing You" that I listened to so many times, you would have thought I was a forty-three year-old divorcee instead of a twelve-year-old little gay boy who had just found his musical idol.
All I knew about Tina before then was that her life was so scandalous there was a rated-R movie about it. In passing, I would hear people mention her and some of the horrors she endured. Now I realize that domestic violence at that level and at that time were so confounding to most people that it would be enough to get you talked about in hushed whispers.
But Tina Turner refused to live in the whispers.
Instead, she came back more times than Columbo, in nearly every decade, until achieving her greatest success as one of the indisputable best live acts of all time, selling out stadiums at a time when most people are retiring.
When she did retire, she RETIRED. In addition to being a certified goddess, she's also probably one of the most self-aware personalities to ever grace the music business, noting that while she probably could still sell out stadiums just by sitting on a stool and crooning old standards, she'd rather go out leaving everybody with the image of her in short skirts and big hair making a fifteen-minute version of "Proud Mary" look like a cakewalk.
While everybody knows that she's a badass, sometimes people forget that she's an extremely versatile performer.
Who else could put out a country song as good as "What You Get Is What You See," a cheesy movie anthem as good as "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)," a slow jam like "I Don't Wanna Lose You," a sounds-like-it-belongs-on-the-soundtrack-to-Weekend-at-Bernie's bop like "Typical Male," and all the while make sure the message is the same--
You deserve to be treated right.
Enjoy sex and don't apologize for it.
We don't necessarily need to be in love to have fun.
The people on the river are happy to give.
She also has the best philosophy I've ever heard when it comes to performing--
"It doesn't matter if you're playing for ten people or ten thousand, they paid for the ticket so you give them the full show."
When you listen to her sing, she's not doing any big tricks or runs or anything that would normally vault somebody into iconography. She's got a unique sound, and on older songs like the incredible "A Fool in Love" she straight-up wails in a way that probably sent shivers down the spine of every man in a five-mile radius. She's selling every single thing she sings with pure attitude, adrenaline, and the desire to do nothing more than make sure the people hearing her are having a good time.
Even when she's singing ballads like "What's Love Got to Do With It" or "Silent Wings," there's something about her delivery--or maybe it's our knowledge of her history--that personalizes everything we hear coming from her so that we're immediately able to identify with what she's saying.
I went back and listened to all of Wildest Dreams today and there are not one, but TWO songs that are definitely about espionage ("Goldeneye" obviously but also "Thief of Hearts") and I got way too big a kick out of them considering one is about a twenty-three year-old Bond movie and the other sounds like it's about a train heist.
That's because whatever Tina Turner sings is not only listenable, but addictive. There's a reason why if you start listening to her, pretty soon, all you want to do is listen to her. It's the way she sings a certain word, how she relates to the music, how she uses it to work in her favor, and how carefully constructed her dynamics are.
When you consider that at one point all of that genius was attributed to a man who spent most of his life beating up women and snorting cocaine, it's enough to make you furious.
These days, it's pretty hard to worship anybody for very long--especially somebody who's been around for sixty-plus year--without finding out something problematic about them.
Maybe that's why it's so satisfying loving Tina Turner, because even though she'd have every right to be the most difficult human being on earth, by all accounts, she's exactly what she seems like--in other words, what you get is what you see.
It's easy to post on social media about how awesome she is and have people chime in with--
"Yeah, I love her!"
But when they do, a little part of me always wants to say to them--
"But do you? Do you know all the words 'Steamy Windows?' Have you listened to every track on every album? Was 'When the Heartache Is Over' ever the theme to one of your break-ups?"
I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad about finding a love for Tina Turner later on than most people. Hell, I got there forty years late.
It's just my way of saying--
As good as you think she is, she's better.
Trust me, then go find out for yourself.
Spend a day listening to everything you can possibly listen to that has her name on it, and then listen to it one more time.
You already know she's the best, but even the best can surprise you sometimes.
The year was 1996, and her Wildest Dreams album had just come out, complete with a cover of John Waite's "Missing You" that I listened to so many times, you would have thought I was a forty-three year-old divorcee instead of a twelve-year-old little gay boy who had just found his musical idol.
All I knew about Tina before then was that her life was so scandalous there was a rated-R movie about it. In passing, I would hear people mention her and some of the horrors she endured. Now I realize that domestic violence at that level and at that time were so confounding to most people that it would be enough to get you talked about in hushed whispers.
But Tina Turner refused to live in the whispers.
Instead, she came back more times than Columbo, in nearly every decade, until achieving her greatest success as one of the indisputable best live acts of all time, selling out stadiums at a time when most people are retiring.
When she did retire, she RETIRED. In addition to being a certified goddess, she's also probably one of the most self-aware personalities to ever grace the music business, noting that while she probably could still sell out stadiums just by sitting on a stool and crooning old standards, she'd rather go out leaving everybody with the image of her in short skirts and big hair making a fifteen-minute version of "Proud Mary" look like a cakewalk.
While everybody knows that she's a badass, sometimes people forget that she's an extremely versatile performer.
Who else could put out a country song as good as "What You Get Is What You See," a cheesy movie anthem as good as "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)," a slow jam like "I Don't Wanna Lose You," a sounds-like-it-belongs-on-the-soundtrack-to-Weekend-at-Bernie's bop like "Typical Male," and all the while make sure the message is the same--
You deserve to be treated right.
Enjoy sex and don't apologize for it.
We don't necessarily need to be in love to have fun.
The people on the river are happy to give.
She also has the best philosophy I've ever heard when it comes to performing--
"It doesn't matter if you're playing for ten people or ten thousand, they paid for the ticket so you give them the full show."
When you listen to her sing, she's not doing any big tricks or runs or anything that would normally vault somebody into iconography. She's got a unique sound, and on older songs like the incredible "A Fool in Love" she straight-up wails in a way that probably sent shivers down the spine of every man in a five-mile radius. She's selling every single thing she sings with pure attitude, adrenaline, and the desire to do nothing more than make sure the people hearing her are having a good time.
Even when she's singing ballads like "What's Love Got to Do With It" or "Silent Wings," there's something about her delivery--or maybe it's our knowledge of her history--that personalizes everything we hear coming from her so that we're immediately able to identify with what she's saying.
I went back and listened to all of Wildest Dreams today and there are not one, but TWO songs that are definitely about espionage ("Goldeneye" obviously but also "Thief of Hearts") and I got way too big a kick out of them considering one is about a twenty-three year-old Bond movie and the other sounds like it's about a train heist.
That's because whatever Tina Turner sings is not only listenable, but addictive. There's a reason why if you start listening to her, pretty soon, all you want to do is listen to her. It's the way she sings a certain word, how she relates to the music, how she uses it to work in her favor, and how carefully constructed her dynamics are.
When you consider that at one point all of that genius was attributed to a man who spent most of his life beating up women and snorting cocaine, it's enough to make you furious.
These days, it's pretty hard to worship anybody for very long--especially somebody who's been around for sixty-plus year--without finding out something problematic about them.
Maybe that's why it's so satisfying loving Tina Turner, because even though she'd have every right to be the most difficult human being on earth, by all accounts, she's exactly what she seems like--in other words, what you get is what you see.
It's easy to post on social media about how awesome she is and have people chime in with--
"Yeah, I love her!"
But when they do, a little part of me always wants to say to them--
"But do you? Do you know all the words 'Steamy Windows?' Have you listened to every track on every album? Was 'When the Heartache Is Over' ever the theme to one of your break-ups?"
I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad about finding a love for Tina Turner later on than most people. Hell, I got there forty years late.
It's just my way of saying--
As good as you think she is, she's better.
Trust me, then go find out for yourself.
Spend a day listening to everything you can possibly listen to that has her name on it, and then listen to it one more time.
You already know she's the best, but even the best can surprise you sometimes.
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