The greatest decade of all time was on the tail end in 1988, and still the world of music was exploding. U2 took home Album of the Year for The Joshua Tree. Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera dominated the 1988 Tony Awards, winning seven awards including Best Musical, with Michael Crawford and Judy Kaye taking home acting wins. Jody Watley won the coveted Best New Artist Grammy following her breakout solo success from Shalamar. Pop hits like Tiffany's chart-topping tracks and the lasting radio dominance of tracks like Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth" defined the year's sound. Meanwhile, Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine and Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar on Me topped the MTV charts. All the while, one question kept being asked. Who's the red head kid in Rod Stewart's Forever Young music video?
Was it his son? Grandson? Nephew? Did he just roll up with a van and snatch him off the street? No, it turns out he was just actor, Alex Zuckerman. The song would be inspired by Stewart's children, conceived while touring when the realization came to him that he was missing critical moments of their childhood while being on the road.
It would be this song, and music video, which would help rekindle Stewart's career, launching Out Of Order up the charts, and becoming a massive financial success. The album would go multi-platinum and gold in various countries, making it his most successful album since 1978's Blondes Have More Fun. Despite this, the song itself never actually cracked the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, only peaking at number twelve.
Single, Lost In You, would also stall out at number twelve. Instead, it would be My Heart Can't Tell You Know, which would become the biggest success, peaking at number four. Mind you, if you look past the Hot 100, these singles also did well on the adult contemporary and mainstream rock charts.
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You know what's a fun feeling? When a song starts to play, and you get those, "Hey, I know that!" moment. That's what happened with Lost In You. Man, I love finding songs I'd forgotten about. It's like having an extra helping of icing on that slice of cake.
It then happened again with My Heart Can't Tell You No. What the heck?
Unfortunately, once you move past the singles, while you do get Stewart's unique vocals, it's once again an okay album, but nothing really special, nor memorable. Further, it feels long. With tunes pushing the five-minute mark, they feel over extended.
With the emergence of grunge in the 90's, one could wonder if Rod Stewart would adapt with this new wave of loudness, much like he had with synth pop, or if he would slowly fall out of relevance and disappear. Well, it turns out he thrived quite well through the decade, and more so for going against the flowing stream.
Things kicked off with 1991's Vagabond Heart, which exploded across the world both in sales and charts. From there, he returned to the studio to complete the album, Once In A Blue Moon, only to shelve it to focus attention on the live album, Unplugged...And Seated. This was in response to the highly successful MTV Unplugged series and led to a slew of "new" radio hits for him. Rather than compete with himself by releasing a studio album, Stewart instead waited until 1995 to produce a new record.
When We Were The New Boys was released in 1998, and by 2000, his contract with Warner Bros. expired. Rather than renew, he would end his twenty-five-year relationship with the label and move on to Atlantic Records, releasing 2002's It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook. Unfortunately, this would prove to be a bad decision, as Atlantic would take his music in a different direction, trying to shift him to a trendy R&B singer, while also not utilizing any material written by him. The album would be a massive failure in comparison to his previous work.
The following year he was offered the opportunity to sign to J Records, founded by Clive Davis. Stewart jumped at the chance. He'd stay there until 2012, releasing six studio albums between 2003 and 2010. This change would bring with it a massive resurgence in his popularity, returning him to multi-platinum selling status and chart dominance.
After a decade, Stewart would part ways with Davis and sign a massive worldwide recording agreement with Universal Music Group in 2012, moving over to Capitol Records in the process. Since then, he's continued to release albums through 2024's Swing Fever with Jools Holland.
A legend, an icon, and multi-decade dominating artist, Rod Stewart came, concurred, and stayed relevant through an ever-changing landscape. He remains very active with touring, showing no signs of stopping.
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And now, 31 Days Of Halloween!
We were "home" for the holidays, visiting grandparents in Pennsylvania, when mom and dad did something rare. They loaded us up in the car and took us to the movie theater. There, we sat down for the first time to see the classic film, Gremlins. Well...sort of. The film scared the ever-loving crap out of my brother and I, and we ended up having to be taken out of the auditorium by mom, where we sat until grandma showed up to take us back to her house.
It wouldn't be until I was much older that I'd see the film in its entirety and then go back to the theaters to see the long-awaited sequel, which I'm happy to say I made it through from start to finish. Candidly, as much as I now love the first film, I think the second will always be my favorite.
As someone who doesn't live in the world of streaming, I never saw the animated series, but I hear it's a mixed bag. The biggest complaint I hear is that it leans heavily into animated story tropes, but honestly, is that a bad thing?
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