"My Love Is A Fire" by Donny Osmond

1990 / #21

Rate Your Music score: 2.34 out of 5!

"Baste!"

Remember the days when Donny Osmond, St. Paul, and Nelson (but especially the first two) seemed to be in a contest to see who could sound more like the others? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Donny had a big comeback that started in 1989, and his return was actually more commercially successful than that of other 1970s acts who reappeared at the same time. It was as if there was a constitutional provision that took effect then that required any '70s performer who was not Donny Osmond to be subsequently excluded from the top 6 of the Hot 100. Chart performance at the time was fueled overwhelmingly by radio, which could make or break hits at the snap of a finger.

Donny's comeback coincided with the "baste" craze. This tendency to say "baste" confronting almost every situation managed to spread to multiple schools locally. Just before the lost hit profiled in this entry charted, I had switched to a high school that was less bad than the one before, and all this "baste" business was just as big there - and just as hilarious.

This lost hit was like a basteplane of baste-o-matic proportions. At about 14 seconds in, Donny seems to declare, "Baste!"

I don't ever remember seeing the video back then, but the video just drives home the point.

One would almost think Donny also had a song called "5 Out Of 5" and that he followed up this set several years later with a cut titled "Burn Gum, It Melts." You may be surprised that he didn't later record a song called "Pooing Is Cool" that he released early on YouTube.

Donny filled in for Shadoe Stevens as host of American Top 40 for the week ending February 17, 1990. This brings to mind a funny recollection about AT40 of the early '90s. At the time, one of the show's jingles when coming out of a commercial break was preceded by a man bellowing, "Heeyyyyyyyy!" So I went up to the vents in the floor and yelled, "Heeyyyyyyyy!" That way, the rest of the house could hear it. My mom got mad because the noise kept her awake.

I remember another AT40 installment that was themed around something from Star Trek that only the most ardent Trekkies had ever heard of. Interestingly, this episode of the countdown is now highly desired by collectors.

The early '90s were full of records that charted much higher than this one that are completely forgotten now. Maybe we'll delve into this phenomenon in depth sometime.