1988 was a unique year for music. Though glam metal had made the careers of multiple bands, and still had a strong selling point, it was also on the verge of dying, being replaced by the forthcoming grunge scene. As such, when Femme Fatale entered the arena, they were met with mild fanfare, but not enough to keep them relevant long term.
Lead singer Lorraine Lewis, guitarist Bill D'Angelo, Guitarist / keyboardist Mazzi Rawd, bassist Rick Rael, and drummer Bobby Murray release Fatale's self-titled debut in November 1988, delivering with it two music videos, Waiting For The Big One, and Falling In And Out Of Love. With steady rotation on MTV, album sales were pushed into the two hundred thousand range, peaking at 141 on the Billboard 200. The track, Touch And Go, would also make its way to the soundtrack for the Corey Feldman / Corey Haim film, License To Drive, released that same year.
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Fatale certainly has the 80's hair metal sound down. It's loud, with powerful vocals, and sure, it even delivers solid hits in the two aforementioned tracks. But at the end of the day, it's also just another here today, gone tomorrow album. There's no longevity here. Nothing that I'm going to find myself wanting to play again. It's good. It's just not great.
I hate to be that guy, but looking at the cover of their debut album, the back of my mind kept pinging that something was off about the group. It finally hit me, the members looked really old. A little digging revealed that Lewis herself was thirty years old when their debut landed. While that's certainly not ancient in the grand scheme of things, it certainly is in the rock and roll world. To put it in perspective, Jon Bon Jovi was 22 when Bon Jovi's first studio album came out, Vince Neil 20, Axl Rose 25, Bret Michaels 23. You see where I'm going with this? A thirty-year-old isn't very relatable to a late teen / early 20's person. You're that dude that's too old for the people you're attempting to hang out with, but worth keeping around to buy the beer.
After completing their support tour, the band was all set to return to the studio to record their follow-up album. However, this would end up not happening. This was a combination of shrinking support from label MCA, mostly due to the band's inability to compete with other popular hairbands, and their manager developing brain cancer (yikes). Sessions were ultimately scrapped, and Fatale disbanded in 1990.
Lewis would reform the band in 2013 with an all-female lineup. Signing with FnA Records, their second album, One More For The Road, consisting of tracks recorded between 1989 and 1990, would finally see the light of day.
In 2019, Lewis joined Vixen as their new lead vocalist. While they would release the live album, Live Fire in 2018, to date, there have been no new studio albums. She would also return to Femme Fatale in 2025, to record and release the single, Living Like There's No Tomorrow. However, much like Vixen, there's been no new Fatale studio albums.
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