Divas In Disguise: Top Five Most Misguided Phases of Musicians

By Emily C.

5. Spinal Tap does jazz fusion (from This is Spinal Tap)
“On the bass. . . Derek Smalls. . . he wrote this. . . “

In the film This is Spinal Tap, the most hilarious scene (and there are a ton of scenes to choose from) is when guitarist Nigel (played by Christopher Guest) quits the band due to David St. Hubbins’ (played by Michael McKean) Yoko-esque relationship with his super-controlling girlfriend. The band ends up becoming a trio, and decides to embark on what David calls “the new birth of Spinal Tap, Mark II.” This clip embodies what happens to a hard-rock quartet when they become a trio overnight.

4. Cher attempting to be Native-American with “Half Breed”
In the 1970s, Cher decided to do a song which depicted the unique plight of being part Native-American. The title of this song, however, was the rather brusque “Half Breed.” The video for this masterpiece shows Cher draped in the most glittery, sparkly Native-American regalia ever, sitting suggestively on a pissed-off looking horse, tapping her feet to the song, and detailing how her “people” wanted nothing to do with her because she was a “half-breed” (her words). Somehow Cher’s extremely glammed-up, extremely un-PC approach works for this song.

In reality, Cher is half-Armenian (on her father’s side), although her mother has some Cherokee ancestry. Amazingly enough, this song became a sizable hit for Cher, and there was no controversy around the subject matter. These days a song like this would probably be deemed completely politically incorrect, and would never be heard. In 1973 this song was perfectly acceptable for prime-time viewing.

3. Iggy Pop’s “Girl, I love you” phase
In 1986, Iggy Pop made a “comeback” album of sorts entitled Blah Blah Blah. This album was a collaborative effort with ex-Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and David Bowie (who was going through a very bad adult contemporary phase around the same time). The album was slick and over-produced, as many albums were in the mid-1980s; even the album cover depicted a clean, perfectly groomed, almost respectable-looking Iggy, looking like he had been hanging out by the jeans racks at the Gap. This was as far from punk rock as one could get.

The song “Cry for Love,” while possessing a “hard rock” mood, is a bit disingenuous; it’s difficult to imagine Iggy Pop having to “cry for love” as he always seemed like a total badass who simply took love from various people. Iggy has apparently distanced himself from this album because of its rather obvious commercial aspirations.

2. Lou Reed’s “Girl, I love you” phase
In the early 1980s, between yelling at random people and sending lists to John Cale entitled “100,000 reasons why I HATE you, because it’s Tuesday” via fax machine, a clean-and-sober Lou Reed did some love songs about his (then) new marriage to Sylvia Morales. This was pretty shocking because Mr. Reed was not really known for his cuddly, affectionate side; this is a guy who allegedly greeted a guitarist he liked with an enquiry that went like “Hey, I fuckin’ like your work, FUCKIN’ LOOK AT ME WHILE I TALK TO YOU,” etc.

If you check out the names of songs from Lou’s 1980 album Growing Up in Public, you will see something weird going on: song titles which are sweet (most notably “How Do You Speak to An Angel?” and “Love is Here to Stay”). He even softened up enough to reunite with his friend/archenemy John Cale by the end of the decade for the Andy Warhol tribute Songs for Drella. While it was refreshing to see them together again, obviously the mutual “cuddliness” didn’t last long.

1. Duran Duran attempt to rap, hilariousness/disaster ensues
Duran Duran did a covers album in 1995 called Thank You. While this was meant to be a “tribute” album of sorts to musical artists who influenced them, some of the covers were so ambitious and far-fetched as to be embarrassing. For example, the cover of the Grandmaster Flash classic “White Lines (Don’t Do It)” doesn’t really sound like the coked-up ghetto epic it was meant to be. It sounds more like a glam-trash group of aging English guys attempting to be cool and “down with the kids” (and I am a fan of Duran Duran, seriously). They also did a cover of Public Enemy’s “911 is a Joke” which must be heard to be believed!

Duran Duran met some success with their cover of Lou Reed’s (!) depressing drug classic “A Perfect Day” from the same album. Apparently Lou said it was one of the best versions ever of his songs, proving that some of his sweet, slightly impertinent cuddliness from the 1980s still remained.