Lisa Hartman Week - Day 5
Well until my heart stops beating I'll be loving Mrs. B and here we are at day 5 of our Lisa Hartman Week and what better way to continue on then with our girl's last album Til My Heart Stops. Picture it, 1987 the drum machines are buzzing, the hair gel is flying and my girl has never looked better.
bub 48 Lisa Hartman - TIL MY HEART STOPS (2004; 1987)The only Lisa Hartman album to have an official release on CD, this 1987 freestylin' synth drum popping album is long out of print and another that fans search and search for. The last going price I found for it was $75 starting, so it's pretty cool that Bubbatunes is around and with bonus cuts to boot.
Til My Heart Stops seems to be an album that Lisa really wanted to make. Her voice is strong, the songs are well chosen rock/pop songs of the era and she even co-wrote a little. Also a thing to think of is when she recorded the album she had made a name for herslef as an actress, having chosen to leave her 4 year stint on Knots Landing and concentrate on TV films, which included the starring role in a huge mini series Roses Are For The Rich, the same year as this album, so she more than likely could've given up the singing all together but not our girl for even in a 1985 TV Guide article about her role on Knots Landing, she declared she really wanted to be a singer, "I came out here with a dream and plan to fulfill it," she said.
So Lisa fled the cul-de-sac of Knots Landing and headed to the studio to begin recording a new album of fresh material. I remember when Til My Heart Stops came out, I was so frickin' excited and I couldn't wait to get it. It seemed to have come out around my birthday in the summer of the year I was living in a car with Tim Tauges and camping out all the time, as he wrote a bad check at Camelot Music to buy it for me as a birthday present - oh the men I fell for.
Anyhoos, opening with the rocking "Tempt Me (If You Want To)", the album found Lisa in full on rock mode, a Benatar-ish attitude set to the freestyle synth pop of 1987. In fact that's perhaps what made the album fail, (chart wise) is that it wasn't anything particularly fresh or unheard of. But that shouldn't be held against her then or now as she took the style that worked for her and I can tell you this album was on constant and I do mean constant replay that summer and beyond.
The first single was the slight ballady "I Don't Need Love" complete with guitar solos and a growling Lisa bridge, there is even an awesome video featuring her 1987 hot hair. 'Til My Heart Stops goes through all the motions of the synth pop/rock including more of the ballad styled songs like the awesome "How Many Rivers" and a single "The Dress" in which she tries to get her man back by declaring she could wear the dress he used to love. "Til My Heart Stops Beating" is an epic ballad with drums and guitars and a heart felt gut wrenching performance by Lisa and is probably one of her best sung songs.
The rockier side of Lisa shows through on the rest of these 9 tracks including the bouncy "Ooh I'm Satisfied" and the bitter-ish "Tender Kiss" but it's really "Imagination" and "I Can't Get You Out Of My System" that stand out for me. In the former, Lisa is at the club when a guy eyes her up and down and up again as she wonders if it's all in her mind, the song leads to a fairly predictable solution but the grittiness and sexiness of the song takes you to that conclusion with great results. In "I Can't Get You Out Of My System", the cliches may fly fast and furious in the lyrics but what was 80's rock about if not cliches? It's a perfect product of its time and if I were in charge that is the song I would've released as a single and I think Lisa may have a had a good shot at the charts. 
As it stands I really love 'Til My Heart Stops but for some reason I don't love it as much as I did in 1987, for some reason the whole style of the sound that was so prominent then sounds more dated than her earlier 80's album Letterock. I'm sure it's the syths and the drum machines that do it, but if you get past that or if that's what you like about that era's ear than Til My Heart Stops is a great listen.In any case, it's great to hear Lisa stir up a rock album with such gusto.To add to the bonus side of this album, we took the only post- Til My Heart Stops songs Lisa has ever recorded (as of 2004). Her two hits (yes they hit the charts!) duets with Clint Black - the chart topping, award winning (just like Lisa always wanted) "When I Said I Do"; a song Lisa didn't even want to record as she thought Clint's career had gone so well so far and her music career was well not so successful, she felt for sure she'd jinx it, but Clint said he wasn't going to record it with anyone else but her and he would just shelve the song so she finally agreed and she got those awards that she alwasy wanted, not to mention a new legion of fans for her singing as the song is one of the top wedding songs since its release in 1999.
Two years later, the Blacks got together again to record another duet - the much better in my opinion, "Easy For Me To Say"; not quite as big of a hit but still a hit none the less and a very sweet, not sickly sweet just nice, song about loving each other. I've decided it's one of the songs I have dubbed "our songs" with the Leivas.
LISA HARTMAN - TIL MY HEART STOPS (bub48)
Track List: 01. Tempt Me (If You Want To) 02. I Don't Need Love 03. Ooh I'm Satisfied 04. I Can't Get You Out Of My System 05. Tender Kiss 06. The Dress 07. How Many Rivers 08. Imagination 09. 'Til My Heart Stops Beating
Bonus Tracks:10. When I Said I Do (with Clint Black) 11. Easy For Me To Say (with Clint Black)
download LISA HARTMAN - TIL MY HEART STOPS
Other great things to check out:
The video for "I Don't Need Love"
The video for "When I Said I Do" with Clint Black
The video for "Easy For Me To Say" with Clint Black
Labels: Clint Black, Easy For Me To Say, I Don't Need Love, Lisa Hartman, Til My Heart Stops, Videos, When I Said I Do
posted by swivek @ 8:41 AM
1 Comments:
thanks for these explanations! it was the only album I could find a long time ago, I had it in LP.
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