Rate Your Music score: 2.97 out of 5!
This lost hit helps illustrate the mixed reviews we have for the music of 1989. The year was full of songs like this that should have been big hits but weren't. Yet 1989 was also full of stinkers that shot straight to the top 10 - if not #1.
I actually thought "Somebody Like You" was going to be a big smash just because of that prominent strum repeating throughout much of the song. It should have at least ranked ahead of New Kids On The Block or all the duet ballads that were big that year. It should have placed ahead of all the boring ballads in general, but there were articles in the trades back then about how influential radio stations kept demanding that record labels push more ballads. It's no wonder I preferred stations that would throw in a weird oldie every now and then instead of all the new ballads that were being hyped.
Other than radio's insistence on playing so many ballads, what could have possibly hampered airplay for "Somebody Like You"? It could have been a line in the first verse: "Don't tell me 'bout all your shit, 'cause I don't want to know."
Robbie Nevil was like an amalgamation of other 1980s music performers. He had a high-pitched voice like Kenny Loggins. He had the same hairstyle as Kenny G or Judson Spence. Unfortunately, all of these resemblances didn't push "Somebody Like You" higher than #63.
Oh well. C'est la vie!
No comments:
Post a Comment