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GRAMMYs

Ginuwine in "Pony"

News
ginuwine-ready-ride

Ginuwine Is Ready To Ride

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Ponies, pool halls and moonwalking in this week's Forgotten Videos
Crystal Larsen
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

Welcome to Forgotten Videos. For some, these videos are forgotten, for others just filed away, and for others still, a totally brand-new discovery. Whichever category you fall into, each week we'll feature a video that's possibly been collecting dust when what it really deserves is a fresh look. Or vice-versa…. We're not here to judge, we just want to take you on a little trip down memory lane. Yep, you'll remember when hair was really that big, when drums were that up front in the mix, when video was young(er) and so were you.

Ginuwine
"Pony"
1996

At first it all makes sense for a song titled "Pony," sort of. R&B Romeo Ginuwine pulls into a cowboy biker bar where he precedes to mimic a side-step moonwalk across the stage (it's no surprise Ginuwine cites the late Michael Jackson as an early influence). But then you start thinking, "What's this urban singer doing in a place like this? And is this 'pony' a horse after all?" We're guessing that Pony is another name for Ginuwine, judging by the lyric, "My saddle's waiting/Come and jump on it." It seems like Ginuwine may have a little more in mind than horseback riding.

But to follow the Romeo theme, all's well that ends well. What looks at the start like something that could end up in a cowboy hats versus doo-rags war, instead ends with a peaceful comingling of the races, even as Ginuwine himself succeeds in attracting a floor full girls who can't help but move and sway to the music.

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"Pony" appears on Ginuwine's debut album, 1996's Ginuwine…The Bachelor. Produced by GRAMMY winner Timbaland, the album peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard 200 and "Pony" shot to No. 1 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Ginuwine followed up with 100% Ginuwine in 1999, which was again produced by Timbaland and flew to No. 5 on the Billboard 200. The album produced three Billboard Hot 100 hits in "None Of Ur Friends Business," "So Anxious" and "What's So Different," and features a cover of Jackson's "She's Out Of My Life." Solidifying himself as one of R&B's lovermen, Ginuwine released The Life in 2001 with songs resembling love letters to the woman in his life such as "Why Did You Go," "Differences" and "Just Because." The album reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and paved the way for 2003's The Senior, which brought out Ginuwine's hip-hop side.

Ginuwine continued to release several albums, including 2005's Back II Da Basics, 2007's I Apologize, 2009's A Man's Thoughts, and his most recent release, 2011's Elgin, all of which charted in the Top 30 on the Billboard 200, and the latter features two tracks written by GRAMMY winner Diane Warren, "How Does Your Heart Forget" and "Break." Though Ginuwine has continued to see success in a career that spans nearly 15 years, "Pony" remains his signature hit.

"I still remember in '94 when I was in front of the mirror practicing ["Pony"]," recalled Ginuwine in an interview in 2009. "I just knew that it was a hit. I was so proud of it and I was just so happy."

Do you have a pony? Got any Forgotten Video recommendations? Leave us a comment.

Last week's Forgotten Video. Click on the "Forgotten Videos" tag below for links to other GRAMMY News stories in this series.

 

Ready For The World's Melvin Riley in "Oh Sheila"

Melvin Riley in Ready For The World's "Oh Sheila"

Feature
Revisit Ready For The World's 'Oh Sheila' remember-ready-world%E2%80%99s-prince-inspired-hit

Remember Ready For The World’s Prince-inspired hit?

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A fresh look at Ready For The World's 1985 hit, "Oh Sheila"
Crystal Larsen
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

Welcome to Forgotten Videos. For some, these videos are forgotten, for others just filed away, and for others still, a totally brand-new discovery. Whichever category you fall into, each week we'll feature a video that's possibly been collecting dust when what it really deserves is a fresh look. Or vice-versa…. We're not here to judge, we just want to take you on a little trip down memory lane. Yep, you'll remember when hair was really that big, when drums were that up front in the mix, when video was young(er) and so were you.

Ready For The World
"Oh Sheila"
1985

The comments on this song's official YouTube page probably say it all. Like this one, for example: "For those that say this song sounds nothing like Prince you are out of your minds :) This song is very Prince influenced. You don't have to be a soundalike to be influenced. It was the hot sound at the time and this isn't the only band that did it. That being said, I love it and Prince."

Yes, Ready For The World were no doubt riding the Prince wave in 1985, just like, oh, say, Roy Orbison rode the Elvis wave or Gerry And The Pacemakers rode the Beatles wave. There's nothing wrong with riding a wave when you do it well.

Ready For The World was a microcosm of '80s R&B, evidenced by the Prince-flavored semi-mechanized funk, dapper suits and Jheri curls wrapped in headbands. But here are some props for RFTW's individuality: In two years they scored three singles that hit the Top 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 without turning to Hollywood-based production Svengalis. The Michigan-bred band wrote and produced their own hits. "Oh Sheila" was the big breakthrough for the group — featuring lead singer Melvin Riley along with John Eaton, Gregory Potts, Gordon Strozier, Willie Triplett, and Gerald Valentine — rising all the way to No. 1 on the Hot 100. They followed the same year with "Digital Display" and in 1986 with the ballad "Love You Down."

The video for "Oh Sheila" is a fairly ordinary performance clip. Later, for "Digital Display," having scored a hit, RFTW was allowed to create a video with a storyline, though apparently not with an exponentially greater budget.

To add a bit more spice to the Prince comparisons, there were rumors (at least according to Wikipedia, which may have started them), that the Sheila in question was Sheila E., a former Prince flame, though Riley says the song's subject was a fictional character.

Also like Prince, who just staged a 21-night Los Angeles stand in April and May primarily at the Forum, Ready For The World is still, well, ready for the world. The band has its own label and is available for bookings at www.readyfortheworld.net. Or, you can watch their videos on your digital display.

GRAMMYs

Content Not Available

Ready For The World - Oh Sheila

Did you think "Oh Sheila" was a Prince song the first 438 times you heard it? Got any Forgotten Video recommendations? Leave us a comment.

Last week's Forgotten Video
 

GRAMMYs

Rockwell in "Somebody's Watching Me"

News
rockwell-still-paranoid

Is Rockwell Still This Paranoid?

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'80s anxiety in this week's Forgotten Videos
Tim McPhate
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

Welcome to Forgotten Videos. Well, for some forgotten, for others just filed away, and for others still, a totally brand-new discovery. Whichever category you fall into, each week we'll feature a video that's possibly been collecting dust when what it really deserves is a fresh look. Or, we'll be giving a fresh look at a video that deserves to be collecting dust. We're not here to judge, we just want to take you on a little trip down memory lane. Yep, you'll remember when hair was really that big, when drums were that up front in the mix, when video was young(er) and so were you.

 

Rockwell f/Michael Jackson

"Somebody's Watching Me"
1984

In 1984 Kennedy Gordy, aka Rockwell, had the year's biggest paranoid-themed hit with this song and video inspired in equal parts by "Thriller" and Psycho, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and scoring a No. 1 R&B hit. If the name sounds familiar, Gordy is the son of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. (though no apparent relation to John F. Kennedy), which, ummm, may have factored in to his landing Michael Jackson to sing the chorus during the King of Pop's hottest streak in the midst of his Thriller success. (For the record, the story has always been that Rockwell signed to Motown without his father's knowledge.) The video raised the not-so-enduring question: Did Gordy always shower with his shorts on? Perhaps the question was quickly moot. By the time of his follow-up single, the talking verse and über-paranoia shtick had already run its course as "Obscene Phone Caller" stalled at No. 35, Rockwell's last charted record. (In the "cryptic but probably not actually interesting" category, we'd love to know if anyone can translate the characters on the newspaper at the video's opening for us.)

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Bring back great memories, or recurring headaches? Got a recommendation? Leave us a comment.

Last week’s Forgotten Video
 

GRAMMYs

Haddaway in "What Is Love"

News
he-haddaway-song

He Haddaway With This Song

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One-hit wonder "What Is Love" in this week's Forgotten Videos
Tim McPhate
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

Welcome to Forgotten Videos. For some, these videos are forgotten, for others just filed away, and for others still, a totally brand-new discovery. Whichever category you fall into, each week we'll feature a video that's possibly been collecting dust when what it really deserves is a fresh look. Or vice-versa…. We're not here to judge, we just want to take you on a little trip down memory lane. Yep, you'll remember when hair was really that big, when drums were that up front in the mix, when video was young(er) and so were you.

Haddaway
"What Is Love"
1993

Imagine Twilight shot as a '90s music video set to one of that decade's most memorable dance tracks and you have some, admittedly skewed, sense of how Haddaway's big hit "What Is Love" video looked. The dark (though dance-crazed), vampire-themed clip almost defies the bouncy rhythm of the track, as does the song's lyric, recounting the pain of unrequited love. To add to the mash-up of competing themes, the clip looks like it was shot just as music video directors were learning that lightning-fast cuts kept the Ritalin-dosed MTV audience engaged, but were still perfecting the techniques of those cuts. Here, it's rudimentary camera zooms and simply rude timing.

Nevertheless, "What Is Love" climbed to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and would go on to become a lasting artifact of the '90s club scene, with special thanks to its use in a "Saturday Night Live" skit featuring Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan. The skit ultimately morphed into the 1998 film A Night At The Roxbury, which starred the latter two.

As for Haddaway, "What Is Love" proved his only major hit. According to his current website, Haddaway's voice is "unmistakable" and he's sold 28 million records worldwide. He was born Nestor Alexander Haddaway in Trinidad and Tobago, and studied at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he graduated with a doctorate in political science and history. (We're assuming that's two Ph.D.s. That's impressive.) In 1989 Haddaway moved to Cologne, Germany, where he perfected his Kölsch — the local dialect — before meeting producer Tony Hendrik and launching a nearly 20-year recording career, during which he's landed a number of hits in Europe.

Haddaway still performs 120 dates a year, and according to his official bio, he is an "academic, dandy, businessman, sportsman, globetrotter, composer, singer" and, of course, "football fan."

The most recent reincarnation of "What Is Love" came in the form of the backing track for a Diet Pepsi Max Super Bowl commercial in 2008. While the song may not have answered the age-old question in its title, it's offering new generations a second chance to ask.

 

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Do you know what love is? Got any Forgotten Video recommendations? Leave us a comment.

Last week's Forgotten Video

 

 

GRAMMYs

Midnight Star's "Operator"

News
midnight-stars-emergency

Midnight Star's Emergency

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The group's "Operator" remembered in this week's Forgotten Video
Tim McPhate
GRAMMYs
Dec 2, 2014 - 4:06 pm

Welcome to Forgotten Videos. Well, for some forgotten, for others just filed away, and for others still, a totally brand-new discovery. Whichever category you fall into, each week we'll feature a video that's possibly been collecting dust when what it really deserves is a fresh look. Or, we'll be giving a fresh look at a video that deserves to be collecting dust. We're not here to judge, we just want to take you on a little trip down memory lane. Yep, you'll remember when hair was really that big, when drums were that up front in the mix, when video was young(er) and so were you.

Midnight Star
"Operator"
1984

It's been just a few days since the ghosts and goblins were out trick-or-treating, so the timing still feels right for Midnight Star. Incorporating sci-fi instrumentation and elements of funk, the band took their cues from George Clinton's Paliament Funkadelic, telepathing their influence to contemporary artists such as Janelle Monáe. "Operator" was a computer-age dance-floor smash, featuring keyboard blips and bleeps and lyrics suggesting computers and sex make for surprisingly natural bedfellows. Somehow, on this track they prove the point.

With a nonstop groove, vocoder-enhanced vocals, spacey spandex outfits and Tron-inspired graphics, "Operator" climbed the Billboard Hot 100 to No. 18 with a futuristic funk sound that was beginning to define the mid-'80s. But, despite all the adventurous trappings, the song was really a fairly conventional metaphor: a love so hot, it required a 911 call to douse the flames. Actually, there are a few other metaphors in this mixed-metaphor masterpiece, including the idea of operating one's body like (in the words of James Brown) a sex machine, as well as time-honored phone-sex metaphors ("Person-to-person is how it's got to be…We'll get together on the party line").

Formed in 1976 at Kentucky State University, Midnight Star was the creation of brothers Reginald and Vincent Calloway and singer Belinda Lipscomb. From 1983 to 1986, the group landed three Top 10 Billboard R&B albums. In 1988, the Calloway brothers left the group to form Calloway, which scored the No. 2 hit "I Wanna Be Rich," sort of a precursor to Bruno Mars and Travie McCoy's "Billionaire." Among little-known Calloway facts: They introduced Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds' band the Deele to executives at their label Solar, and they owned the world's largest working phone.

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Do you own a vocoder? How about a really large phone? Got a Forgotten Video recommendation? Leave us a comment.

Last week's Forgotten Video

 

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Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy.