Before he became a pop/rock heavyweight during the late '80s (and an adult contemporary balladeer throughout the following two decades), Richard Marx sang on commercials and performed as a backing vocalist for Lionel Richie,Whitney Houston, and Julio Iglesias. The Chicago native also delved into professional songwriting, penning tunes for Kenny Rogers and the St. Elmo's Fire soundtrack before landing a solo contract with EMI Records. Featuring production from David Cole, who later launched C+C Music Factory, Marx's self-titled debut was released in 1987 and catapulted the artist to the top of the Billboard charts. "Don't Mean Nothing" and "Should've Known Better" were slick, radio-ready singles that emphasized guitar riffs and power chords, but Marx's real strength lay with ballads like "Endless Summer Nights" and "Hold On To The Nights." By the time Repeat Offender arrived in 1989, Marx had already established his presence on the charts; nevertheless, the album helped make him a genuine star, with "Right Here Waiting" marking his third consecutive number one hit in America. Another song, "Angelia," was Marx's record-breaking seventh consecutive single to crack the Top Five.
With the release of Rush Street in 1991, Richard Marx's commercial fortunes started to slip as mainstream tastes shifted away from the slick, well-constructed songs that were his forte. Despite the Top Ten hit single "Now and Forever," 1994's Paid Vacation fell from the charts quickly, and Marx entered a period of seclusion, eventually returning in the spring of 1997 with an adult contemporary album titled Flesh & Bone. The following year saw him performing a duet with Donna Lewis on a contribution to the Anastasia soundtrack, and Days in Avalon was quietly issued in fall 2000. While the album fared modestly well in the adult contemporary market, Marx found more success as a producer and songwriter for other artists. He penned the Top Ten hit "This I Promise You" for *NSYNC and co-wrote "Dance with My Father," which won a Grammy, for Luther Vandross; other projects included writing material for 98°, SHeDAISY, and Josh Groban. He then returned to his solo career several years later, issuing My Own Best Enemy in 2004 and Duo, a collaboration with Vertical Horizon's Matt Scannell, in 2008.
Decision: With 9 top 10 hits, and 3 #1s, Richard Marx is a Pop Music Hall Of Famer.
Michael Bolton
Singer/songwriter Michael Bolton had an extensive (though not very successful) career under his real name, Michael Bolotin, before emerging in the mid-'80s as a major soft rock balladeer. He first turned up on RCA Records in the mid-'70s, singing cover tunes and his own blue-eyed soul songs in a gruff, Joe Cocker-like voice. Neither record buyers nor critics were much interested by the result. He then became the lead singer of Blackjack, a heavy metal band that made two albums for Polydor before splitting up in the early '80s. Looking to relaunch his career, he changed his name to Michael Bolton and signed to Columbia Records as a solo artist in 1983.
The self-titled Michael Bolton was released in April 1983 and made the Top 100 best-sellers, as did its lead single, "Fools Game." At the same time, "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," a ballad Bolton had co-written with Doug James, became a Top 40 hit for Laura Branigan. Nevertheless, Bolton's second album for the Columbia label, 1985's Everybody's Crazy, was a commercial flop. He finally broke into the mainstream with his third release,The Hunger, which appeared in September 1987. On this album, Bolton abandoned the hard rock sound of his previous records and concentrated on blue-eyed soul singing, both on his own songs ("That's What Love Is All About") and on covers like Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." Those two singles became his first Top 40 hits.
Soul Provider, released in July 1989, turned Bolton into a certified superstar. Featuring songs co-written with hitmakers like Dianne Warren and Desmond Child, it reached the Top Ten, sold four million copies, and spawned five Top 40 singles, including Bolton's number one version of "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," as well as the Top Ten hits "How Can We Be Lovers" and "When I'm Back on My Feet Again." "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" also won Bolton a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Time, Love & Tenderness, released in April 1991, was even more successful, hitting number one, selling six million copies, and featuring four Top 40 hits, including a chart-topping cover of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" and the Top Ten hits "Love Is a Wonderful Thing" (later the subject of a successful plagiarism suit brought against Bolton by the Isley Brothers) and "Time, Love and Tenderness." The album sold over eight million copies in America alone. Worldwide, it sold twice as much.
Bolton won another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, this time for "When a Man Loves a Woman," but he had to put up with abuse from two camps of detractors at the February 1992 ceremony. Just after Bolton had finished performing, pre-rock songwriter Irving Gordon won the Song of the Year award for "Unforgettable" and pointedly attacked songs that "scream, yell, and have a nervous breakdown" and singers who "have a hernia" when they sing. Then, backstage, Bolton faced a hostile press corps of critics unhappy with his tendency to mimic great soul singers like Redding, Ray Charles, and Sledge. Bolton suggested they apply their lips to a certain part of his anatomy. He further responded with Timeless: The Classics in September 1992, an album made up entirely of classic cover songs. It went to number one, sold three million copies, and featured a Top 40 hit in Bolton's version of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody." Bolton's next album of original material, The One Thing, came in November 1993. It hit the Top Ten, sold three million copies, and featured the Top Ten hit "Said I Loved You...But I Lied." Bolton celebrated his decade-long string of hits with a best-of compilation, Greatest Hits 1985-1995, which debuted in the Top Ten. This Is the Time: Christmas Album appeared one year later.
After topping the adult contemporary charts with "Go the Distance," a song he produced and recorded for the Disney film Hercules, Bolton returned in late 1997 with All That Matters, his first album of new material since 1993's The One Thing. Instead of continuing his success, however, it was a surprise flop, failing to generate a hit single and barely cracking the Top 40. It fell out of the charts altogether after 15 weeks. Even so, its lack of success didn't stop Bolton from turning his attention to My Secret Passion, a collection of opera and arias that he released in January 1998. By classical standards, the album was a hit, and the record received a great deal of press and surprisingly good reviews. He supported the two albums with a summer tour co-headlined by Wynonna Judd. Bolton then voluntarily stepped back for almost four years, disappearing from the public eye until the spring of 2002 when he began promoting Only a Woman Like You, his first album for Jive Records.
After a brief sabbatical, he returned with Til the End of Forever, a hybrid album of seven new recordings and a live greatest-hits concert. In 2006, he released Bolton Swings Sinatra, a 12-song tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes that included a duet with fiancée/actress Nicollette Sheridan. One World One Love, an album featuring collaborations with Ne-Yo and Lady Gaga, arrived three years later in the U.K., followed by an American release in 2010. Bolton took part in the 11th season of Dancing with the Stars later that year, having already endeared himself to reality TV fans with 2007's Clash of the Choirs. He also collaborated with comedy troupe the Lonely Island by singing on the hip-hop parody "Jack Sparrow," which debuted as a digital short on Saturday Night Live before appearing on the Lonely Island's second album, Turtleneck & Chain. Keeping the collaborative spirit alive, he released 2011's Gems: The Duets Collection, an album featuring duets with vocalists (Seal, Delta Goodrem), country groups (Rascal Flatts), and instrumentalists (guitarist Orianthi). Two years later, Boltonsaluted the legendary Motown Records with the full-length album Ain't No Mountain High Enough: A Tribute to Hitsville USA.
Decision: Michael Bolton had 16 top 40 hits, 7 top 10s and 2 #1s, which is enough to qualify for the Pop Music HOF.
Expose
Famous for Latin-flavored dance-pop as well as for adult contemporary ballads, the female vocal trio Exposé enjoyed a great deal of commercial success in the '80s and early '90s. Exposé was the creation of Miami-based producer/songwriter Lewis A. Martineé, who assembled the original Exposé lineup in 1984. Although Exposé's best-known lineup included Jeanette Jurado (born November 14, 1965, Pico Rivera, CA), Gioia Bruno (who was born in Bari, Italy, on June 11, 1963, but grew up in New Jersey), and Ann Curless (born October 7, 1964, Albany, NY), none of them were original members of Exposé; the original Exposé lineup consisted of Alé Lorenzo, Sandra Casanas, aka Sandeé, and Laurie Miller, which in 1984 recorded Exposé's Martineé-produced debut single, "Point of No Return," for his Pantera label. Employing Lorenzo on lead vocals and Casanas and Miller on backing vocals, "Point of No Return" was a major club hit and went down in history as a definitive example of Latin freestyle -- a high-tech form of dance-pop that incorporated elements of Afro-Cuban salsa and was also identified with artists like the Cover Girls, Sweet Sensation, Nayobe, and TKA.
The success of "Point of No Return" led to a contract with Arista Records, which released Exposé's second single, "Exposed to Love" (another Martineé-produced club smash that featured Lorenzo singing lead), in 1985. The following year saw a lot of upheaval in Exposé; Lorenzo, Casanas, and Millerall left the group in 1986 and pursued solo careers (Lorenzo and Casanasstuck with dance-pop, while Miller moved into jazz-influenced cabaret and traditional pop). But despite personnel changes, Exposé's popularity continued to grow. Exposé's third single, "Come Go with Me" (which featured Jurado on lead vocals), was another Latin freestyle club favorite -- and in early 1987, Arista released Exposé's Martineé-produced debut album, Exposure. By that time, Exposé's famous Jurado/Bruno/Curless lineup was in place -- a lineup that continued to perform Latin freestyle but did not perform it exclusively. Neither Arista nor Martineé envisioned Exposé as strictly a club act, and Exposure received considerable attention from radio thanks to major hits ranging from the adult contemporary ballad "Seasons Change" (which reached number one on Billboard's pop singles chart) to the R&B/urban-oriented "Let Me Be the One" (which featured Bruno on lead vocals).
After Exposure sold more than three million copies in the United States alone, Arista released Exposé's Martineé-produced sophomore album of 1989, What You Don't Know, which contained the major hits "When I Looked at Him" (an adult contemporary ballad) and "Tell Me Why." Sadly, Bruno had to leave the group in 1991 after a benign throat tumor rendered her unable to sing; Bruno, who was replaced by Kelly Moneymaker (born June 4, 1970), couldn't speak at all for about three years. Exposé's Jurado/Curless/Moneymaker lineup was heard on the group's self-titled third album, a 1992 release that didn't do as well as Exposé's first two albums but included the hit adult contemporary ballad "I'll Never Get Over You Getting Over Me." Exposé was the first Exposé album that wasn't totally produced by Martineé, and some fans complained that the disc's ballads sounded too much like Wilson Phillips. After being dropped by Arista, Exposé broke up in early 1996. Moneymaker, who married soap opera star Peter Reckell (best known for his portrayal of Bo Brady on NBC-TV's Days of Our Lives) in 1998, recorded as a solo artist -- and Bruno, who fully regained her voice in 1997, spent a few years with the band Wet before providing her solo album, Expose This, for Koch in 2004. Exposé's Jurado/Bruno/Curless lineup was reunited in 2006 and 2007 for an extensive tour of North America.
Decision: Expose had 8 top 10 hits & 1 #1 on the Pop chart. but fall just short of the Pop Music HOF.
Taylor Dayne
Taylor Dayne's first album, also titled Tell It to My Heart and released in early 1988, was a continuation of her dance-pop formula: no matter if the song was an up-tempo number or a ballad, she belted out her vocals over the carefully constructed synthesized backing tracks. The formula led to three more Top Ten singles from her debut: "Prove Your Love," "I'll Always Love You," and the number two "Don't Rush Me"; the album eventually sold over two million copies. Can't Fight Fate, Dayne's second album, was nearly as successful, spawning the hit singles "With Every Beat of My Heart," "I'll Be Your Shelter," and the number one "Love Will Lead You Back," as well as selling over a million copies. However, Dayne's fall out of the Top Ten was nearly as quick as her rise; "Heart of Stone," the fourth single from Can't Fight Fate, stalled at number 12 and only one of the singles ("Can't Get Enough of Your Love") from her third album, Send Me a Lover, cracked the Top 40 and, even then, it only reached number 20. Despite her declining sales, Dayne remained a favorite of many dance music fans, returning in 1998 with Naked Without You. Save a couple of soundtrack appearances -- including a cover version of RuPaul's "Supermodel" for The Lizzie McGuire Movie -- acting kept her away from music for the next few years. Reoccurring roles in the TV series Rescue Me and Cold Case along with a starring role in the Elton John/Tim Rice Broadway musical Aida led to Dayne landing her own VH1 reality series, Remaking: Taylor Dayne. In late 2007 the single "Beautiful" announced the coming of a new album titled Satisfied.
Decision: Taylor Dayne only had 9 top 40 hits, but 7 of them reached the Top 10, and 1 #1 hit. It is close, but she misses the Pop HOF.
Next: 1988 Nominees: Paula Abdul, New Kids On The Block, Bobby Brown, Guns N Roses
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