0250. Tina Turner
Private Dancer
It starts by planting itself firmly in the musical dark ages - the eighties-sound of I Might Have Been Queen makes me wholeheartedly nervous, but the nerves settle as What's Love Got To Do With It eases in and takes command. It's a good song, probably the best on the album, and one of the two (along with the title track, Private Dancer) that ensured that this would be Tina's comeback after the divorce from Ike and a struggling solo career.
She's got a good voice and she's got a big production machine and when it comes together it really comes together. The weakness though, is the covers - all the material where she's doing the first recording (or in some instances managing to get the first release) of a song are good, but when there's already a version out there she makes a mess and gets some aversion from over here. Even when they're kind of original like Help, it's sadly not so great.
As the album was released in nineteen eighty-four it had to include a song with the title - you guessed it - 1984. Originally sung by Bowie back in 'seventy-four, Tina turns it into such a slaughter that I have a hard time hearing what she's singing. Not a good way to end an album.
