In 2006, Justin Lee Collins took to the channel four airwaves in the UK with a mission. Bring Back...One Hit Wonders. For those of you who haven't seen the show, you're missing out, or I suppose better stated, missed out, since it came and went between 2005 and 2009. During its four-year run, Collins went out into the world to reunite cast members of pop culture, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, A-Team, Grange Hill, Fame, and Dallas, and of course, artists who produced some of music's greatest one hit wonders.
It was during this particular show that I saw a snippet for Boy (Summertime Love) by Sabrina. Looking up the song, I found it to be pretty okay and decided the album would also make a unique one for my collection. It's been sitting in said collection since April of 2022.
Born Sabrina Salerno in Genoa, Liguria, Italy, she lived with her aunt until the age of fifteen, when she went to live with her mother. It was here that she joined a Catholic choir and ultimately ended up forming her own pop group. At the age of sixteen (1985), she won a local beauty contest, which garnered her the opportunity to start a modeling career. This was followed by a stint in the prime-time series, Premiatissima.
By the age of sixteen, she released her first single, Sexy Girl, which benefited by being sung in English, which helped it become a modest international success, while also reaching the top twenty in Italy. This was followed by her 1987 studio album debut, Sabrina.
The track, Boys (Summertime Love), would climb the France and Switzerland charts, nabbing the number one spot, creating an instant breakthrough for her. One would argue that this was aided by the risqué music video which Sabrina filmed in a bikini that conveniently slipped down multiple times to reveal her nipples. Of course, a music video like that would never air in the USA or MTV. Of course, if you really wanted to check it out, you could purchase the VHS, Sabrina: 6 Sensual Videos, or know someone who already has it...
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Not only did it land with Boys (Summertime Love), but also Hot Girl, Get Ready (Holiday Rock), and Kiss Me. Though the second half is heavily weighed down with cover tracks, admittedly, her take on Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan's Lady Marmalade, made popular by funk band Labelle in 1974, is pretty tight.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for her take on Prince's Kiss, nor Rod Stewart's Da Ya Think I'm Sexy. She does, however, give a pretty good go of The Knack's My Sharonna, but since it doesn't stray much from the original, it's hard to prop it up as anything worthwhile. I suppose in hindsight, that can also be said about Lady Marmalade, which also doesn't deviate far from its predecessor.
Overall, though, it's a pretty solid pop album, if not a little dated by 1987 standards. Regardless of Michael Jackson's Bad tearing up the charts that year, as a whole, the industry was moving more towards hair and heavy metal bands. So, to have a pop album of this caliber was a bit rare at this point in time.
Fun Fact: The German television show, Formel Eins, featured Sabrina as a guest artist in 1987, where she performed, Hot Girl. Dancing on stage in the background are three men, two of which are Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, soon to be known to the world as Milli Vanilli.
Following her immediate and immense popularity, Sabrina wanted more creative control over her music, and to transition away from the manufactured, pure pop and television-bound "showgirl" image managed by Silvio Berlusconi’s Fininvest network. For this, she left her label, Five Records, and signing with Videogram. Under this new banner, she released her 1988 follow-up, Super Sabrina, but that's where we'll pick up tomorrow.
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