"Fool's Game" by Michael Bolton

1983 / #82

Rate Your Music score: 3.04 out of 5!

Michael Bolton a hard rocker?

I repeat: Michael Bolton a hard rocker?????

This lost hit appeared in 1983, when I really didn't appreciate all the interesting music that was out there. I had a few rough times with some things in life during the preceding time frame. Fourth grade was a disaster (but still somehow less of a disaster than high school). Even outside of school, there were a couple of incidents that still stuck in my craw.

So I hated to lose, and almost anyone who challenged Men At Work's dominance met my wrath. Take the Eurythmics and the Police, for instance. These were generally decent bands. But they incurred the displeasure of the Great Royal Tim when their hit singles prevented Men At Work from charting higher.

I think I liked "Jeopardy" by the Greg Kihn Band. But even Greg wasn't safe from my disappointment, because he was one of many music stars of the era who appeared in annoying radio or TV commercials for soft drinks. I think it was the same for Laura Branigan.

Anyway, back to Michael Bolton. "Fool's Game" only peaked at #82, so it wasn't much of a threat to Men At Work's chart prominence. But Michael elicited my chagrin because stations kept playing this track when they could have been playing Men At Work instead.

It's actually surprising that this lost hit only got to #82. I know competition was fierce in 1983, but maybe the sound was just too familiar. I think "Fool's Game" sounded a little bit like the previously popular "Shadows Of The Night" by Pat Benatar, so maybe that sound wasn't considered new anymore. But, a couple years later, "Crazy In The Night (Barking At Airplanes)" by Kim Carnes - which is now a lost hit - actually did pretty well on the chart, and it had that same sound.

A few years after "Fool's Game", Michael reemerged as an MOR crooner. I kept reminding folks that he had that action-packed rocker "Fool's Game" a few years earlier, but somehow that song had been consigned to the memory hole. Everyone thought I was making it up.

Michael Bolton. The man, the myth, the legend!