At any rate, Outside Looking In stalled at #86 on the album charts, and "Only Love" didn't hit the singles charts. 1989's Home did slightly worse, and while the band continued to release albums and tour, they gradually became a successful working band (their albums tended to chart in the top 200, but not by much).
The band did get a second break, when their song "Closer to Free" was used as the theme to Fox's Party of Five TV show. The song went to #16 on the Billboard singles charts in 1996, three years after it had been originally released as the lead single from the band's 1993 CD, Go Slow Down. [By the way, the Rembrandts followed a remarkably similar path in 1994 when they wrote "I'll Be There for You" for NBC's Friends.]
While the video for "Only Love" is a basic performance shoot, it is one of the best videos of this type -- nothing fancy, but really well-shot, and the use of still images is quite effective.
Cool trivia fact: Jerry Harrison (of Talking Heads fame) produced Outside Looking In.
As promised, Best New Artist Grammy winners since 1975:
ReplyDelete1975 Marvin Hamlisch
1976 Natalie Cole
1977 Starland Vocal Band
1978 Debby Boone
1979 A Taste of Honey
1980 Rickie Lee Jones
1981 Christopher Cross
1982 Sheena Easton
1983 Men at Work
1984 Culture Club
1985 Cyndi Lauper
1986 Sade
1987 Bruce Hornsby and the Range
1988 Jody Watley
1989 Tracy Chapman
1990 Milli Vanilli
1991 Mariah Carey
1992 Marc Cohn
1993 Arrested Development
1994 Toni Braxton
1995 Sheryl Crow
1996 Hootie & the Blowfish
1997 LeAnn Rimes
1998 Paula Cole
1999 Lauryn Hill
2000 Christina Aguilera
2001 Shelby Lynne
2002 Alicia Keys
2003 Norah Jones
2004 Evanescence
2005 Maroon 5
2006 John Legend
2007 Carrie Underwood
2008 Amy Winehouse
2009 Adele
2010 Zac Brown Band
2011 Esperanza Spalding
2012 Bon Iver
Amazing, huh. My advice: if someone offers your band a Best New Artist Grammy award, DO NOT TAKE IT. Run like hell away. I mean, there might not really be a curse, but with a list like this, why take any chances.
ReplyDeleteI remember Colin Hay (of Men At Work) referring to it as the Best New Artist-slash-Kiss Of Death award.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds familiar. BTW, Colin Hay has put together some really solid acoustic material over the past few years -- well worth a listen.
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