July 8 - How John Stamos’s Cover of Alone (Probably) Lead to Heart’s
Plus Back to the Future: Part II, Speed, Super Nintendo, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
July 8th, 2022 • Issue 107
How John Stamos’s Cover of Alone (Probably) Lead to Heart’s
On July 11th, 1987, Heart’s single Alone hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
I had no idea Heart’s song Alone — one of the top power ballads of all time, a paragon of ‘80s music, and the biggest hit in Heart’s expansive catalog — was a cover.
Let alone a cover of a John Stamos cover.
But that’s jumping ahead.
In 1983, a songwriting and performing duo called i-TEN released an album called Taking a Cold Look. The album was an ‘80s music clinic by two songwriters who “got” the era and who “got” pop music. And while the album itself wasn’t much of a commercial success, other, bigger ‘80s acts plucked song after song from i-TEN’s catalog for covers. (They also brought on the members of i-TEN to write them songs: Like a Virgin, True Colors, Eternal Flame, I’ll Stand by You, So Emotional, and many, many more.)
The third track on i-TEN’s album was Alone. (Listen on YouTube.) It was performed by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly of i-TEN — notably, both dudes. With their version, you get some, though not all, of the power ballad-ness of the song. It’s missing some of the bigger hooks you know from Heart’s Alone.
But the potential for an ‘80s banger is all there. It just needed the right arrangement and right voices powering it.
Which brings us to John Stamos.
In 1984, John Stamos made the leap from soap opera acting to primetime network TV for the first time on a CBS sitcom called Dreams. Dreams was about a (fictional) struggling rock band. It lasted just 12 episodes.
In the show’s 7th episode, which aired in November of 1984, Stamos, along with the late actress and singer Valerie Stevenson, performed a duet of Alone. The entire song (it goes about four minutes, or nearly 20% of the episode). The performance appears to be at an anniversary party for an older couple. (Listen, but definitely watch too, on YouTube.)
Stevenson carries the solo parts of the song (she’s the Ann Wilson). Stamos gets very few solo lines (he’s the Nancy Wilson). But you could easily pick his voice out of a lineup, even if you aren’t well-versed in Jesse and the Rippers’ oeuvre. It’s quite distinct.
The Dreams version is a clear bridge between i-TEN’s more restrained original and Heart’s harder rock, ultra-dramatic cover. Not only does the Dreams version show how much better the song works with a lead female vocalist, it shows the song requires full, un-self-conscious commitment. And it needs to blast the life out of your speakers.
Which is what Heart went for with their cover.
In May of 1987, Heart’s album Bad Animals was released — with Alone as its lead single. (Listen on YouTube.) This is the most powerful version of the song — adding a serious ‘80s rock edge, a better arrangement, and the Wilsons providing the necessary vocals and harmonies.
Alone would be Heart’s biggest hit ever. It was number one for three weeks, beginning this week in 1987, and was number two on the Billboard end-of-year chart for 1987. It was also Heart’s only top five hit in the U.K.
And — it brought the parade of covers of Alone to a screeching halt. Heart slammed the door behind them on Alone, scaring off all comers for decades.
No major artist would take a stab at Alone until one of the few who had the vocal chops to try — Celine Dion in 2007. (Listen on YouTube.) But even Celine couldn’t claim a piece of the Alone pie from Heart. While it’s as technically proficient as any Celine Dion song, her version didn’t evolve Alone and lacked the ‘80s power ballad life-or-death passion. Celine’s Alone never cracked the Billboard top 100 and I had no idea she’d even done it until I was researching this article.
No… the journey of Alone started with its songwriters, passed through John Stamos, and ended at Heart. There's no new chapter to add to the story. It reached its pinnacle 35 years ago today — and stayed there.
Other momentous moments from this week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
July 8th
1990 - West Germany won the World Cup.
1992 - Melrose Place premiered on FOX.
1995 - Better Than Ezra's Good peaked at number 30.
1995 - The first CFL game was played between two U.S. teams.
1995 - TLC’s Waterfalls hit number one.
1996 - Wannabe by the Spice Girls was released in the U.K.
1999 - Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, the final Harry Potter book to get separate U.K. and international release dates, came out in the U.K.
2000 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was released worldwide.
July 9th
1981 - Donkey Kong was released at arcades in Japan.
1982 - TRON hit theaters.
1983 - Irene Cara’s single Flashdance... What a Feeling hit number one.
1992 - Bill Clinton announced Al Gore as his running mate.
1993 - Rookie of the Year and Weekend at Bernie's II hit theaters.
1993 - The series finale aired of A Different World.
1995 - The Grateful Dead played their final show with Jerry Garcia.
1996 - LeAnn Rimes’s debut album, Blue, was released.
1997 - Married with Children aired its series finale.
1999 - American Pie hit theaters.
July 10th
1981 - Escape from New York hit theaters.
1985 - Coca-Cola relented on its New Coke experiment and announced Coke Classic would return.
1989 - The Chicago Bulls hired Phil Jackson as head coach.
1989 - Legendary voice actor Mel Blanc passed away.
1990 - Andrew Dice Clay cried on the Arsenio Hall Show.
1993 - Duice’s one hit, Dazzey Duks, peaked at number 12 on the Billboard charts.
1993 - SWV’s single Weak hit number one.
1995 - Hugh Grant appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to address his prostitution scandal and shifted the power balance in the late night wars for good.
July 11th
1987 - Bo Jackson became a two-sport professional athlete by signing with the L.A. Raiders.
1989 - Bo Jackson won the MVP of MLB’s All-Star Game.
1989 - Mega Man 2 for the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in North America.
1995 - Shaggy’s album Boombastic was released.
1997 - Timbaland and Magoo’s debut single, Up Jumps Da Boogie, was released.
1997 - Notorious B.I.G.’s single Mo Money, Mo Problems was released.
1997 - Contact hit theaters.
July 12th
1979 - The Chicago White Sox held the infamous Disco Demolition Night.
1984 - Geraldine Ferraro became the first female major vice presidential candidate.
1985 - Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome hit theaters.
1990 - The series premiere of Northern Exposure aired.
1990 - Final Fantasy was released for NES.
1991 - Point Break hit theaters nationwide.
1995 - Enrique Iglesias’s debut album was released.
1997 - The series premiere of Oz aired on HBO.
1997 - Meredith Brooks’s one hit, B****, peaked at number two.
1998 - France won the men’s World Cup.
1999 - Walt Disney announced it was going all-in on Go.com.
July 13th
1985 - Live Aid benefit concerts were held in the U.K. and U.S.
1987 - Kylie Minogue’s debut single, Locomotion, was released.
1990 - Ghost hit theaters.
1993 - Randy Johnson and John Kruk did some shtick during the MLB All-Star Game.
July 14th
1989 - When Harry Met Sally hit theaters.
1989 - License to Kill marked Timothy Dalton’s second and final appearance as James Bond.
1993 - Super Mario All-Stars for Super Nintendo was released in Japan.
1999 - The Blair Witch Project opened in limited released.
5 ‘80s and ‘90s trivia facts
Speed could have been a very different movie based on some original casting choices.
Rather than Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, two of the initial top choices would’ve paired Stephen Baldwin and Ellen DeGeneres.
Reese’s Pieces weren’t the first candy of choice in E.T.
The producers initially reached out to M&M’s… who turned them down. Reese’s Pieces jumped in — and saw a 65% increase in sales after the movie came out.
There was a bidding war to be the diaper brand featured in Three Men and a Baby.
Pampers won and paid $50,000 for the product placement. And I guess it’s still paying off because now I’m giving them free publicity for it three decades later.
Back to the Future: Part II shows a real-life serious injury.
A stuntwoman was badly injured during the hoverboard chase scene. She fell 30 feet and was lucky to end up with just broken bones in her face, arm, and hand. And… the take where she fell was the take that made it into the movie.
Mortal Kombat for Sega Genesis outsold Mortal Kombat for Super Nintendo five-to-one.
That’s because the Genesis version included blood. Nintendo censored the blood — which ruined sales.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
Peacock has dropped its Field of Dreams reboot.
The trailer for Clerks III was released this week. It looks probably too meta.
The Magnum P.I. reboot series will now move to NBC after it was canceled by CBS.
Kelsey Grammer says the Frasier reboot on Paramount+ is close: “We’re in the final stages of the final script for the first episode.”
ABC is producing a 30th anniversary special for Beauty and the Beast featuring a mix of live action and animation. It will air on December 15th.
A 1994 Sesame Street blooper of Julia Louis-Dreyfus swearing in front of Elmo went viral this week.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Someone has built an online archive of every single English language Super Nintendo game manual in existence. Even for the most obscure of games (like the one pictured above).
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
A sentiment from @16bitnostalgia on Twitter that rings very true: See-through tech needs to make a comeback.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
Did all the talk earlier in this newsletter of the John Stamos struggling band sitcom Dreams make you curious about Dreams? Sure did for me. Also, I didn’t mention it earlier but it costarred Jami Gertz. And 11 of the 12 episodes are available for free on YouTube. (One episode is missing.)
Have a great week!
-Sam