Post by erik on Oct 14, 2023 19:37:41 GMT -5
Motown legend Stevie Wonder's final (to date) Top 40 pop hit is in this week's Pop Music Hits Spotlight this week.
SKELETONS (Stevie Wonder; Tamla; 1987)—For a twenty-four year stretch, beginning with his first hit “Fingertips” in 1963, Stevie Wonder was almost uncertainly the single most popular solo artist on the Motown label. Major success came in 1973, when he had hits like “Superstition”, “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” and “Livin’ For The City”. While he had many iconic straightforward pop/R&B hits like “Sir Duke”, “That Girl”, “I Just Called To Say I Love You”, and “Part Time Lover”, to name just four, throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, Wonder was also not above doing political and topical material as well, as could be gauged by his 1974 smash “You Ain’t Done Nothin’” (a big hit in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal) And by the mid-point of the 1980’s, he also made moves into the socially-conscious side of urban rap music and electronic pop. This could be gauged by his 1987 album Characters, which had one of his most danceable and topical hits in the form of “Skeletons”. Over a danceable groove full of keyboards, the song is about lies and deceptions among people being uncovered, the “skeletons” in one’s closet. The music video featured Wonder sitting on the front porch of his home watching his archetypal neighbors, with legendary actress Karen Black appearing as a housewife hiding a secret alcohol addiction. The 12-inch extended version release featured audio snippets from both president Ronald Reagan and the infamous U.S. colonel Oliver North telling lies to the American public about the Iran/Contra scandal that enveloped the Reagan administration in 1986-87. “Skeletons” got a fair amount of airplay on Top 40 radio in the fall of 1987, but it was a far bigger hit on Billboard’s R&B singles chart, hitting #1 on that chart in November, while stalling out at #19 on the Hot 100 for the week ending November 28, 1987. Incredibly, as of 2023, it remains Wonder’s final Top 40 hit, though a snippet of it was featured in the 1988 action film smash Die Hard. Wonder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.
[/i]
SKELETONS (Stevie Wonder; Tamla; 1987)—For a twenty-four year stretch, beginning with his first hit “Fingertips” in 1963, Stevie Wonder was almost uncertainly the single most popular solo artist on the Motown label. Major success came in 1973, when he had hits like “Superstition”, “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” and “Livin’ For The City”. While he had many iconic straightforward pop/R&B hits like “Sir Duke”, “That Girl”, “I Just Called To Say I Love You”, and “Part Time Lover”, to name just four, throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, Wonder was also not above doing political and topical material as well, as could be gauged by his 1974 smash “You Ain’t Done Nothin’” (a big hit in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal) And by the mid-point of the 1980’s, he also made moves into the socially-conscious side of urban rap music and electronic pop. This could be gauged by his 1987 album Characters, which had one of his most danceable and topical hits in the form of “Skeletons”. Over a danceable groove full of keyboards, the song is about lies and deceptions among people being uncovered, the “skeletons” in one’s closet. The music video featured Wonder sitting on the front porch of his home watching his archetypal neighbors, with legendary actress Karen Black appearing as a housewife hiding a secret alcohol addiction. The 12-inch extended version release featured audio snippets from both president Ronald Reagan and the infamous U.S. colonel Oliver North telling lies to the American public about the Iran/Contra scandal that enveloped the Reagan administration in 1986-87. “Skeletons” got a fair amount of airplay on Top 40 radio in the fall of 1987, but it was a far bigger hit on Billboard’s R&B singles chart, hitting #1 on that chart in November, while stalling out at #19 on the Hot 100 for the week ending November 28, 1987. Incredibly, as of 2023, it remains Wonder’s final Top 40 hit, though a snippet of it was featured in the 1988 action film smash Die Hard. Wonder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.
[/i]