Wanna feel really old? Tina Turner will turn 80 years old this year.
Though the fiery soul singer has chosen to keep a low profile as of late, her life story "Tina" comes to Broadway this fall. What better excuse to look back at her 1984 comeback album Private Dancer, which did for the 46-year-old Turner what Let's Dance had done for David Bowie a year earlier, introducing both to the MTV generation.
Coincidentally, the pair would duet on the title cut to Bowie's Tonight only months after "What's Love Got To Do With It?" put Turner back on the map.
While the Bowie-Turner duet failed to dent the Top 40, Private Dancer, her first album for Capitol Records, was only getting warmed up.
Follow-up single "Better Be Good To Me" was a Holly Knight/Mike Chapman/Nicky Chinn composition that featured Jamie West-Oram and Cy Curnin of the Fixx, becoming the second of three Top 10 singles from the album.
Next time you listen to the sultry "Private Dancer", just remember that it was written by Mark "Money For Nothing" Knopfler. Also, despite the song featuring much of the Dire Straits line-up of the time, lead guitar duties were handled by Jeff Beck, who, in a recent interview, commented that he'd shown up to the session with a pink Charvel guitar, which only sounded decent on the "screechy" high notes.
The end result was a solo that Mark Knopfler would later call "the world's second ugliest guitar solo" when interviewed by New Zealand's Stuff. Inexplicably, the writer neglected to ask Knopfler to name the ugliest guitar solo AND chose to leave Knopfler's jab at Beck out of the published interview.
After three U.S. Top 10 singles, Capitol Records began thinking they could release any song from the album as a single, leading to the stupefying choice of "I Can't Stand The Rain" when the incendiary rocker "Steel Claw" was tailor-made for radio.
Two years later, Turner would return with Break Every Rule, an album could just as easily have been called Private Dancer II.
Of course, the writers of "What's Love Got To Do With It", Terry Britten and Graham Lyle, were given most of Side One, rounded out by an ill-advised cover of Bowie's "Girls".
Of course, the centerpiece of the album was the #2 smash hit "Typical Male", featuring drums by Phil Collins. Beyond that, the album is littered with return appearances by most of the folks who contributed to or played on Private Dancer. Hell, even Fixx guitarist Jamie West-Oram returns to add guitars to the title cut and "I'll Be Thunder".
Mark Knopfler even shows up to produce two songs, "Overnight Sensation", which he wrote, and Paul Brady's "Paradise Is Here". More importantly, he handled guitar duties for both tracks, eliminating the need to invite Jeff Beck to take part.
While Private Dancer moved over 5 million units in the U.S., Break Every Rule suffered from "Eliminator Syndrome" (so named after ZZ Top's hit album, which was the band photocopied twice by the band to diminishing returns), barely going Platinum in the States.
Perhaps if Turner had chosen to play to her strong suit and add a couple nitro-burning rockers to the album, a la 1985's "It's Only Love" (her Top 20 duet with Bryan Adams), the album would have fared better.