Welcome to the regular Reminiscings of Youth article where I post about a song or an album from the West that caught my ears back in my adolescence or childhood. And one of the biggest and happiest purchases that I ever made was for Anita Baker's "Rapture", her second album from March 1986. Back in early 2021, I put up a ROY recognizing the Queen of Quiet Storm's big hit "Sweet Love" which launches "Rapture", and you can read about all the emotions I got from hearing that one for the first time on radio. Well, for this ROY, I've decided to also give some of the other great tracks their time in the KKP sun.
"Caught Up In the Rapture" isn't only the third track on "Rapture" but the third single to come out from the album. It did pretty well on the Billboard charts by coming in at No. 37 but also No. 6 on Billboard's Hot Black Singles chart. Back on my "If I Had an All-Night Radio Show..." article, I had placed "Sweet Love" as one of the songs to play on the first show; my second show would have automatically followed up with "Caught Up In the Rapture". It's a wonderful soul ballad.
"Same Ole Love (365 Days a Year)" is the fourth single that came out in February 1987 which also broke the Top 10 on the Hot Black Singles chart by placing in at No. 8 and doing more modestly on the Billboard general chart at No. 44. I've often written about how certain songs have reminded me of certain places, and for "Same Ole Love", I've reminisced about the Toronto Blue Jays' old base of operations, Exhibition Stadium, downtown before Skydome was constructed and opened in 1989. When I was there for one game at the old stadium, "Same Ole Love" just happened to be playing before the teams made their way out onto the field.
"You Bring Me Joy" wasn't released as a single. Instead, it is the second track following "Sweet Love" on the album which I have always thought somewhat strange because I feel that it should have been the final track on "Rapture". This gospel soul ballad is so explosively sung by Baker that it could have been one showstopper of an ending to a brilliant album especially when she and the chorus yell out "MY JOY!". I was at one party at the end where I was dancing with a lass to this one; that was quite the surge of energy to finish off things.
There are other tracks but I'll leave it here for now because there is especially one other track on "Rapture" that I'd like to feature solo. "Rapture" peaked at No. 11 on Billboard, won two Grammy awards and sold three million copies by October 1987. In Canada, it reached No. 25 on RPM.
So, what was hitting the Top 10 of Oricon just a few days before the release of "Rapture"? I give you Nos. 3, 4 and 5.
3. Misato Watanabe -- My Revolution
4. Akina Nakamori -- Desire
I knew My Revolution(Misato Watanabe) & Desire(Akina Nakamori) but I did not know any of Anita Baker's songs nor did I know Checkers' Oh!! Popstar.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. "Oh!! Popstar" was something that I heard a lot back in university mostly because my old friend there had a huge crush on vocalist Fumiya Fujii, so she was playing Checkers' stuff all the time.
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