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Friday Flashback: Take a look at the solo artist in his natural setting: the group. This week: Pharrell in N*E*R*D.
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Forgot to mention that Cher’s fashion has inspired school uniforms throughout the world.
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Going Solo would like to honor those solo artists who have risen to the challenge of making it without bandmates. This week’s Humpday Success is: Cher. Cher bursted onto the scene in the 1960s with her main squeeze, Sonny. They released the iconic hit “I Got You Babe” and starred in a variety show together. Sonny and Cher were an “it” couple. When they split up, they continued on disparate paths. Sonny would eventually turn to politcs and Cher made everyone forget that Sonny ever existed. She’s been a successful singer, actress, tour artist, etc. There are only so many people who can get away with one name monikers, and Cher is probably one of music’s earliest examples of this. While she’s not as relevant as she once was, this can probably be attributed to her not needing to do anything—she’s extremely well-known and probably rich beyond her wildest dreams. Humpday Success welcomes Cher to the club.
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Pharrell dropped the ball on his solo career but when he went to look for it, he found a sparkly ring.
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Pharrell Williams is probably one of the hardest working fellas in music today. He runs an extremely successful production company called The Neptunes, is a member of N*E*R*D and has been featured in countless songs helping out the likes of Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg. However, his career as a solo artist has not been able to reach the peaks that Pharrell may be accustomed to in other situations. He released this song, “Frontin’” in 2003 and it was pretty popular, reaching #5 on the Billboard charts. Perhaps his other projects took him away from releasing more, but Pharrell took 3 years before releasing his first album in 2006. Talk about striking while the iron was hot! Talk about NOT! We know that Pharrell is a very talented musician but his generosity with others worked to the detriment of his own solo aspirations.
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If nothing else, this show introduced us to Jennifer Garner’s perky breasts.
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Actor Spotlight veteran Jennifer Love Hewitt returns to the blog for an entirely different crime. She commited the sin of the spin-off. J-Love was a character on the immensely popular primetime soap “Party of Five.” Her star was rising in films and she was a stand-out on the ensemble drama so Fox granted her own show. This show was called “Time of Your Life.”
The show was centered on Hewitt’s character’s new life in New York City as she tries to find out more information about her biological mother’s life in New York City before she bore Sarah, and search for her biological father. Along the way, Sarah moves into her mother’s old apartment and makes a new group of friends. [via]
While this seems like a perfectly plausible premise, the show was plagued by bad reviews and viewer apathy—not the best combination when launching a new show. At least the episodes were titled in a gimmicky way like “The Time She Came to New York” or “The Time They Got E-Rotic.” At least this wasn’t a career killer for the young JLH. She has since whispered to ghosts on her own CBS drama and kept a list of clients on a recent Lifetime movie.
*Note: if the clip above couldn’t save this show, then you know there was something extremely terrible about it.
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Friday Flashback: Take a look at the solo artist in his natural setting: the group. This week: Brian Wilson in THE BEACH BOYS.
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Brian Wilson’s solo career is an interesting one as it is blamed on supposed mental illness. In other words, if you thought he’d have to be crazy to release his own music—well he just may well have been! Wikipedia points to Wilson’s therapist for exacerbating his issues.
Eugene Ellsworth Landy, Ph.D. (November 26, 1934 – March 22, 2006) was a controversial American psychologist and therapist known for his unconventional treatment and eventual exploitation of composer/musician Brian Wilson.
So, Landy helped Wilson beat some of his substance demons but allegedly implanted new demons in him. Like the one that told him to go solo. Even after escaping Landy’s treatment, Wilson continued to release solo albums. So either, Landy did a really good job of brainwashing him or he’s been doing this on his own accord. Either way, he hasn’t reached the same heights that he was with The Beach Boys. In fact, his top-charting album was one that had been incomplete in the 1960s and was released decades later. One could chalk the success of that record to The Beach Boys’ fanbase moreso than Wilson’s own. Enjoy his song “Melt Away.”
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Going Solo would like to honor those solo artists who have risen to the challenge of making it without bandmates. This week’s Humpday Success is: Mick Jagger. Like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones are one of those larger-than-life iconic bands. Supergroups like these have rabid fanbases who will love the band but cling to a certain band member in particular. Being that Mick Jagger is the lead singer of The Rolling Stones, he had a huge leg up. Other than a cover of Dancing in the Streets he performed with David Bowie, Jagger did not have any massive singles stateside. He had an album go platinum and another gold—so he’s doing pretty well. Sticking with his band and not abandoning them for his solo career has probably encouraged fans to embrace Jagger in his various music projects. His head must not be TOO big.
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