With card #107, the 1991 MusiCards set transitions into its "rap and R&B" subset. We leave the "pop" section and its lime green tops and hot pink bottoms for this new color combo of (darker) green and blue. This part of the checklist is relatively short at just 40 cards-- with a healthy percentage of those belonging to MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice-- then it's nothing but "rock" (and classic rock concert posters) to close out the first series before cycling through the genre subsets again in series 2.
Al B. Sure! is the stage name of Albert Joseph Brown III, and yeah, the exclamation point is part of it, which can make it awkward to write about the guy, lol. He's got a pair of cards in this set for us to check out today, plus a "Series 2 exclusive" variation to round things out.
That's pretty impressive that he got to work with the great Quincy Jones as a young artist just starting out. I don't recall hearing "Secret Garden" back in the day and it doesn't do much for me listening today, but I've always liked Al's early hit (I Can Tell You How I Feel About You) "Nite and Day".
Al B. Sure! - "Nite and Day"
Here's the next card, a shot of Mr. Sure! taking off his jacket.
His specialty of the "sexy slow jam" genre isn't really in my wheelhouse, but I can dig his more upbeat tunes. "Off on Your Own (Girl)" is another solid track from his debut album.
Turns out I've listened to Al B. Sure! many times without even realizing it, as I've owned the David Bowie album Black Tie White Noise since its release year of 1993 and hadn't put together (or forgot) that Al B. was the other featured vocalist on the title track.
David Bowie (feat. Al B. Sure!) - "Black Tie White Noise"
Bowie's lone MusiCard is in the UK edition, by the way.
Yep, there's a variation of card #108.
The Super Stars logo bounces down to the opposite corner. I don't think photo composition issues were the catalyst for the variation this time, so let's check out the back and see if we can figure out why Pro Set was compelled to tweak this card and put out a revised version in series 2.
Ok, did you catch it? The original series 1 card has a typo in the name of the second album.
Error: Private Times...and the Whole 91 Corrected: Private Times...and the Whole 9!
There's an exclamation mark causing trouble again. You'll also notice a new copyright under the back photo. Andre Harrell seems to have been the head of the label that signed Al. I wonder if Andre was the guy who called up his Pro Set contact person and chewed him out over the "Whole 91" screw up.
Al B. Sure!'s latest album is 2009's Honey I'm Home, and he's since spent time hosting a nationally syndicated radio show called Love and R&B. He's dealt with serious health problems in recent years, including a coma and a liver transplant. Let's hope he's recovering well. Here's the link to his Wikipedia entry for further reading. His entry currently makes no mention of Karyn White (seen on the blog recently at card #104), though her entry does still list Al B. Sure! as her life partner since 2012. For the sake of 1991 MusiCards romantic mojo, I hope they're still together.
CUSTOM CORNER
When you think of popular Al's in the music industry, especially those with punctuation in their stage names, there's another guy who might also come to mind. Yeah, let's go ahead and make a custom for "Weird Al" Yankovic.
This would have been a fun card to pull out of a pack in 1991. Weird Al definitely could've gotten a MusiCard based on his
popularity at the time, but it didn't shake out that way, likely due to
licensing issues. I like how he seems to be attempting to contort into the design here.
I even whipped up a back for this one.
As a kid, I had a loose tape (no cover) of the first Weird Al album that got passed on to me by a friend, and I later bought UHF
on cassette not long after that came out. I loved that dumb movie and even saw it
on the big screen.
Weird Al - Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies
I think those are the only Weird Al albums I had
back in the pre-mp3 days, so I wasn't exactly a superfan or anything,
but I generally got a kick out of his stuff and liked seeing him pop up
on MTV or wherever. His ridiculous pseudo-biopic from 2022 starring
Daniel Radcliffe is pretty great too.
Here's an "update" variation using a more recent photo. He's been consistently doing his thing for decades, putting out music and playing live. Keep on being weird, Al!
That'll do it for this time. Thanks for reading and just let me know in the comments if you've got anything to say about either Al featured in this post, such as your favorite songs or notable memories you've got.
We've got a few cards to hit today. In a first for the blog, we'll be jumping order a little bit because of a hiccup in the 1991 MusiCards checklist. (We're skipping unrelated #89 and will backtrack to it next post.) Plus-- unrelated to the checklist order misstep?-- there's an error variation mixed in with this group of cards, so heads up.
For a visual aid, here's this Pop portion of the (mostly alphabetical) checklist with my added notations:
84Nelson 85New Edition 86.1Maxi Priest (Yes, this card should be #86.) 86.2The Party (Whoops, no; while this card is numbered #86 on the back, that's an error. A later variation of the card corrects the number to 90. This makes it tricky to sort a master set of 1991 MusiCards; Like, do you sort this card in at #86 or #90?) 87The Party (Their 1st card out of 3) 88The Party (Their 2nd card out of 3) 89Poco (Hey, why the heck did they pop Poco in the middle of The Party's run? Weird!) 90The Party (Yes, there is only one MusiCard #90 and it is in fact The Party's 3rd card, though it's "out of order" in the checklist, and that same card also has an error variation that mistakenly has the wrong number [#86] on the back but is otherwise the same as the only card that's actually numbered #90 on the back [though that card probably should have been #89, but Poco snuck in at #89 instead for some reason].) 91Lionel Richie 92 Lionel Richie
Does that all make sense? Or did I just make it more confusing than it needs to be? One thing that's clear is that whoever it was at Pro Set's creative department whose job it was to order the individual cards into number was in over their head! It's like they had a good checklist in a box of index cards, but the fool tripped on the way to the design department and those index cards that were in logical order got shuffled around just enough to the point where if anyone bothers to actually take a good look at the checklist, they'll inevitably come to the conclusion that whomever it was at Pro Set's creative department whose job it was to order the individual cards into number was in over their head.
Ok, enough smack talk about the MusiCards production team's checklist guy. (I wonder if it was the same guy who thought it'd be a good idea to have an odd shaped photo area in the design, and not allow for any flexibility such as swapping around the design elements any further than the choice between vertical and horizontal, or by mercifully allowing any part of the photo poking over those odd-shaped borders. I can't help but feel like they shot themselves in the foot. Maybe I'm just being cocky, but I'd love to take a time machine back to 1990 when these cards were being designed and use my pocket phone/camera/computer to convince them that I'm a magician from the future or whatever so they'll let me run the MusiCards project, and I'm not saying that I'd for-sure lead the team to heights warranting a follow-up set... but damn it, I'd at least run a tighter ship with the order of my checklist!)
(And this is not even the worst of the checklist order's several blunders! That honor has got to go to the one random hair metal band smack dab within the R&B-and-Rap portion of the set.. but we'll worry about that down the road at card #114.)
We'll hit that fake #86 in a moment, but for now here's MusiCard #87:
Funny thing, this card gave me a minor "mind blown" moment because I have never heard of the group called The Party other than vaguely knowing they're in the 1991 MusiCard set. But it turns out I've been searching eBay for the person on the left's autograph every day for the past year!
Reading the back, I was like.. "Wait a minute, (first person mentioned) Deedee Magno [Hall] is a voice actor on a favorite animated show of mine, Steven Universe." Then I looked it up, and yep. it's the same person. What a trip: Pearl, the Crystal Gem, appears in the 1991 MusiCards set! Wow. I won't blather on too much here, but I talked more about my Steven Universe stuff in an underperforming post on Baseball Card Breakdown last year. I've since snagged a few more autographs I'd been targeting from that set (chiefly Amethyst, Garnett, and Lion), but Pearl (Deedee) is still a need.
But back to her days as a fledgeling musician, here's card #88:
Per the outfits, this pic is from the same photoshoot as the previous card. I can't really tell if Pro Set manufactured that blurry column on the left to artificially make the photo work better with the design or if there was actually a thing there during the shoot.
The back photo here is the same as that of the previous card, cropt differently. And I still don't have much of an idea what this group's music sounds like, but hey, the quintet's members are all featured on the only album they had released at that point. Good for them. lol
Skipping #89 here because it's a different act, as previously mentioned, but then here's The Party back for more (in the same clothes) at #90:
Either they rocked trademark outfits a lot back then or else they really got a lot of mileage out of this photoshoot. All their photos in this post-- front and back-- all feature the other lady (Tiffini Hale) in the same distinctive hat, and there seems to be a big red jacket that a couple of the guys take turns in.
Of course I had to check out some tunes from these guys, and lo and behold there's yet another shot from this photoshoot on their Spotify homepage:
The above (apparently reversed) image wasn't used on a MusiCard, but it's very similar to the front of card #87.
Anyways, card #90 is technically the rarest card you'd need to find if you wanted to put together a full set of series 1 MusiCards (since the correctly numbered card wasn't actually included in series 1 packs). But since The Party don't have much of a mainstream following today, there isn't really any premium on the card's typical price, far as I can tell. If it was like Tom Petty, Ozzy Osbourne, or somebody else popular, a scarce variation like that might've been a bigger deal.
Oh, ok.. now we get some context. Turns out, these young performers were cast members on a late-80s Mickey Mouse Club reboot that were then thrown together as a musical act by a marketing department or something, Monkees-style, and the name The Party ("Positive Attitude Reflects Today's Youth") was the winning entry from a contest to name them.
The Party - "In My Dreams" (a Dokken cover) ...the most successful of their few singles to chart.
That powerful Disney influence behind the scenes likely played a part in them being granted 3 cards in this set. Wikipedia also tells me they cranked out a CD per year for four years, 1990-1993, before splitting, later regrouping in the mid 2010s and are still occasionally active, doing a handful of live performances in 2023. Sadly, however, Tiffini wasn't involved in the reunion, as she battled schizophrenia for years before a cardiac arrest lead to her death in 2021.
VARIATION ALERT
Here's the same front again, but it's the error card, numbered 86 on the back:
Same card other than the number in the corner.
The Party toured as openers with Taylor Dayne and then Vanilla Ice back when that meant something, and that helps give you an idea what to expect with their music. Honestly, I couldn't get through any of their songs I tried to check out while drafting this post. In their defense, I'm clearly not their target demographic. I don't recall ever hearing their stuff back then-- like, when I was in their demographic-- so there's no sentimental attachment for me either. Regardless, it's been interesting learning the group's backstory, and again, the Steven Universe connection was a trip for me to discover.
CUSTOM CORNER
This is already a longer post for the blog, but I wanted to squeeze in a custom, too.
The Party might not be my speed, but World Party on the other hand is a band I really like. I was heartbroken hearing that frontman Karl Wallinger passed away just a couple months ago at age 66. The band had been inactive for nearly a decade, and he had dealt with serious medical issues dating back to a brain aneurysm in early 2001, but fans hoped that the songs he had been tinkering on for the past several years would wind up as a World Party comeback album soon, but alas. Perhaps Karl's estate will be able to work up a posthumous farewell album from the new material he left behind.
After making a name for himself helping out in The Waterboys in the mid 80s (see the tremendous "Whole of the Moon"), Wallinger spread his wings as World Party in 1986, scoring a minor hit with "Ship of Fools" off their debut, Private Revolution. I remember catching the video for "Put the Message in the Box" from their second album, Goodbye Jumbo, a couple times on MTV circa 1990, but it was hearing "Way Down Now" on the radio a couple years after the fact that really caught my attention.
World Party - "Way Down Now"
Those minor hits in the late 80s and 1990 would seem to make World Party a strong candidate for inclusion in the 1991 MusiCards set, but nope.. not even in the UK edition. Bummer.
1993's Bang! was another banger, and I dug the cut "Is It Like Today?" enough to pick up the CD after hearing it on the radio a few times (and it's still an all-time favorite of mine). Egyptology (1997) made less of a splash, but included the song "She's the One", which went on to be covered by Robbie Williams, going all the way to #1 on the British pop charts. (Robbie was a dick who sometimes falsely claimed to have written the song himself, but the royalties helped a lot when Karl was recovering from the aneurysm, unable to work.) Dumbing Up (2000) ended up as World Party's final studio album, though fans got a nice treat in 2012 with Arkeology, a big collection (5 discs) of unreleased songs, live stuff, and covers (including some tight Beatles renditions). It really sucks that we lost him too early.
World Party - "Is It Like Today?"
💔
That'll do it for this post. Please let me know in the comments if you've got any thoughts to share regarding either parties covered here today. Thanks!
INXS slots in at #55 in the 1991 MusiCards set. It's a strange posed shot of the Aussie boys each doing their own thing while gathered together in an empty room. Looks kinda like the guy in white is all, "Hey guys, check out this new riff I came up with." Meanwhile Michael Hutchence is all, "Yeah, sounds good, Tim, but I gotta check out this fascinating camera over here."
Sadly, the design's misplacement of the Super Stars logo essentially spoils what could have been a fine looking trading card. Poor Andrew Farriss on the left there gets the "blockhead" treatment while the lower right corner cries out its vacancy. Such a shame. (But stay tuned.)
They had a great run, and give credit to the Pro Set writer for ably summing up the band in the space allotted. Seems like most bands in this set didn't really remain relevant in the wake of the Nevermind sea change happening as these cards were on retail shelves, but INXS were still riding their peak to some degree. Bangers still ahead of them here include "Not Enough Time" and "The Gift", both tracks I remember enjoying on the radio and MTV in the early/mid 90s. But Elegantly Wasted (1997) was kind of a dud, and Hutchence tragically hung himself later that year (...which was rumored to be a case of autoerotic asphyxiation gone awry, though that seems to be just gossipy hearsay, with evidence indicating he was doped up and distraught over drama involving access to his young daughter).
INXS - "Not Enough Time"
The card's back photo is similar to the cover for 1990's X (above), sourced from the same photoshoot and utilizing the same outline effect.
That back image was also used on shirts and posters for that tour. By the way, "X" marked 10 years since their 1980 debut album. I thought perhaps it was their tenth studio album, but that distinction would go to Elegantly Wasted.
The last time we saw a variation in this set, its purpose was to correct a typo on the back of a Debbie Gibson card (#43). This time, the back of the variation is untouched, and the only reason for the revamped card is simply because it makes all the sense in the world to kick the logo to the opposite corner to better fit the photograph.
Ah, this variation found only in Series 2 packs is like a breath of fresh air after the constrictive original. I know I'm sounding like a broken record on the matter, but it sure would have benefitted the set had the layout designer(s) simply chosen which corner to put the black box based on how it worked with the photo from the get-go, rather than forcing it to the upper left before fixing a few problematic cards with later variations.
INXS also have a separate card in the second series (#314), plus there's a pair in the UK edition too, so the band is penciled in for a return to the blog eventually. We'll delve into their career more in those future posts. For now, I've got a couple personal anecdotes I wanted to cover here.
INXS - "Never Tear Us Apart"
In a random early memory of mine, I'm a pre-teen in the late 80s riding in a car with some family members in Chicago on the way to my great grandmother's funeral. I haven't really matured into listening to "real music" by this point, but at sometime during the trip I overheard a catchy song on the radio or something. I forget the context, but somehow I work part of the lyric like "two worlds collided" into the conversation and my cool older cousin kinda perked up and asked "INXS?" I just nodded and felt like hotshit for kinda impressing her with my vague familiarity with current hit singles. As an only child, she was as close as I had to an older sibling, and she would go on to help nudge me along my path of musical discovery as I entered my teen years.
I should also mention that-- unless maybe I'm overlooking something?-- pretty sure INXS is the only act in the entire 1991 MusiCards set that I've personally seen perform live in person. Yep, it was June 21st, 2006 at the Embarcadero Marina Park South in San Diego. On lead vocals was the winner from their Rock Star competition reality show, JD Fortune. I had caught most of those episodes (chiefly thanks to Dave Navarro co-hosting, as I was a diehard Jane's Addiction fan at the time), so it was nice having some "bond" with the guy through getting to know him through the show (and the rest of the guys in the band, for that matter), but the experience was still just a step above watching a cover band, hearing all the INXS classics with somebody besides Michael Hutchence singing.
Here's a custom for the latter era of the band. They kept it going as INXS for a few years before finally calling it quits in 2013.
But yeah, it was a fun night at a pleasant outdoor venue. My friend Chris had stumbled into free tickets-- gotta admit I would've never considered actually spending my own money to go to the show, but for free? Sure! My concert-going heyday was the mid 90s through the 00s, but I usually went to alternative/indie rock shows, so there's not much overlap with the MusiCards checklist. While I dug plenty of larger acts of the day-- huge Tom Petty fan, for example-- I just rarely ponied up the dough for large venue concerts. That's still true today, though I have more discretionary income to play with now. I find it hard to pay $100+ for tickets to see somebody play from the rafters when there are several HD video recordings available to watch free on YouTube, ya know? My buddy Doug recently bought a single ticket to see Paul McCartney in Seattle. He's a huge Beatles fan who had never seen him live, so that was monumental for him to pull off. He was texting me video clips while it was happening and it was a vicarious blast. But I don't know if I have a personal equivalent of that where I would pull the whole "Shut up and take my money!" meme to buy a ticket at any cost. That might make a good question prompt for the comments: Is there any musical artist alive today you'd happily buy a $200+ ticket for the opportunity to see perform live if their tour happened to stop at your largest local sports arena?
Maybe this is on my mind because a tour was recently announced with Jane's Addiction opening for Smashing Pumpkins. The current version of both bands is a far cry from their glory days, but I'm debating it. I've seen Jane's several times, but never the Pumpkins (despite being a big fan). Tickets are like $75 and it's at the Moda Center where the Trailblazers play. It's an easy commute for me-- the train passes it on my way to and from work-- but I've never been in the building. I'm sure it won't come anywhere near selling out, so maybe I'll take a look closer to the mid-November date and see if I can score a cheap ticket or two.
Welp, I've probably rambled enough to fill out the post. I'll have to get around to listing out my favorite INXS songs when we eventually get to their Series 2 card. In the meantime, please let me know in the comments if you've got any thoughts or memories to share regarding INXS. I'm also curious about the aforementioned "expensive ticket" question, and-- if you're looking to kill some time-- maybe count up how many acts you've seen live from the 1991 MusiCards checklist. Might be interesting to find out who among our readers here has caught the most. I'm setting the bar pretty low with 1! (And that one barely counts, considering the replacement singer.)
Oh wait, I just found a second artist in the set that I've "sort of" seen live! Back in August '96, fresh out of high school, Doug and I drove up to Big Bear, California for a music festival in the mountains. We were mainly there to see Porno For Pyros and Love & Rockets (who were both great). Lady Miss Kier also performed a set, and she's featured on a MusiCard with Deee-Lite (#268), who had recently broken up at the time. I don't remember much of her set, as we were still milling around the grounds for most of it, but I recall thinking it was cool to see her-- the far-out lady from the fun "Groove Is in the Heart" song/video-- even if her music that afternoon was a bit too "dance rave" for my taste. So yeah, I'd say that plus seeing INXS with a new singer combines for a solid "1" for my Acts-Pictured-on-a-MusiCard-I've-Seen-Live total, or 2 if we're being really generous about it.
Ready for an onslaught of Debbie Gibson cards? By my count, there are 6 different Debbie Gibson cards in the 1991 MusiCards master set: 4 consecutive base cards, plus a variation and a promo card. We'll be taking a look at all of them in this post.
MusiCard #42 features a live photograph of Deborah at the piano, likely performing a ballad such as "Lost In Your Eyes", by the looks of it. It's an interesting shot-- Can you think of another instance where you get 2 angles of the subject from the same moment in time on one trading card?-- but feels like it was taken by a fan in the audience, a bit washed-out and far away.
Oh my, I really like that headshot on the back. Attractive young woman, no doubt! As this blurb reminds us, Debbie Gibson actually wrote her own songs and was a skilled musician, unlike most teenage pop princesses you might be tempted to lump her in with. Gotta respect that!
Debbie Gibson - "Only In My Dreams"
Here's card #43. Apparently she's working out a charley horse in her foot, lol. It almost appears as though Debbie is rocking dreadlocks, which isn't really on-brand for her. But I think it's more of a "bedhead" look. A somewhat weird card.
And there are 2 different versions of this weird card.
Yep, for Series II, the project manager assigned to the MusiCards product at Pro Set at the time decided that white-dread Debbie's sexy foot-fondling was TOO HOT for the kids of '91, and called upon a censored version. Nah, I'm just being silly, of course. I'm not sure why they made a variation that just moves the Super Stars logo box from one corner to another (The photo has been moved slightly too-- compare the white space above her name). But the back reveals why an updated variation of this card was called for. Let's flip them over; Take a look for yourself and see if you can spot it....
Did you catch the mistake? It's at the last line of text.
Yes, this isn't a simple case of "alternate" variations, but rather a good old fashioned "Error vs. Corrected" situation. Debbie's history-making #1 single was titled "Foolish Beat", not "Foolish Heart" as the initial version of the card erroneously states.
Debbie Gibson - "Foolish Beat"
Oh yeah. While "Foolish Beat" didn't ring a bell for me at first (nor did "Foolish Heart" for that matter, unless we're talking about Steve Perry-- great song), after listening to it, I now definitely remember hearing it on the radio a lot back then, though it was never one of my favorites. But still, very impressive that the track made the Gibson the youngest female artist to write, produce, and perform a Billboard Hot 100 number-one single, a feat that I don't believe has been matched or bested yet.
Back to the card back above, notice the second pressing also adds a tiny copyright line under the back photo (which, like the prior card, features a gorgeous headshot of the young pop star), crediting it to 1991 Gibson Productions. This is slightly notable because these cards generally don't tell you what year they're from (the retail boxes and packs don't mention a specific year-- this would appear to be planned as a one-and-done product right from the start). Sometimes folks mistakenly put the cards down as being released in 1992 or "1991-92". It's a bit confusing because it seems there isn't a consensus in the hobby world on what exactly to officially call this set. Should "Super Stars" be written as one word or two? Same question for "Pro Set". Hell, even on this blog, I refer to it by several different names, though I mostly keep it simple with just 1991 MusiCards.
TCDB lists it as 1991 Pro Set SuperStars MusiCards
COMC currently calls it 1991-92 ProSet Super Stars MusiCards
Beckett Marketplace calls it 1991-92 Superstars MusiCards
PSA dates it as 1991, though beyond that isn't always consistent.
See? Nobody can agree what exactly to call it. As for the year, the cards were released in 1991 and I think trying to squeeze "-92" on there like this is a basketball or hockey set is just dumb. Maybe Series 2 was released in early 1992, you suggest? Nope. Just check the "Instant Win" game inserts that came in every pack. The Series 1 contest (Grand Prize: a trip to London) ran from March 1, 1991 through December 31, 1991. The Series 2 contest (Grand Prize: a trip to Australia) ran from September 15, 1991 through October 1, 1992. Perhaps Pro Set tried to "rebrand" the cards as being "1991-92" when selling Series 2 boxes to dealers in late 1991 and early 1992, you know, in an effort to make them seem relevant longer, kinda like how comic books and magazines typically come out weeks before the official date printed on them just to try to extend the window to keep them on retail shelves. But yeah, these cards are from 1991 and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Anyways, sorry for that tangent. I do want to try to look into narrowing down timeframes with the set as we continue on. I'm curious, for example, which album or single or event mentioned was the most recent. It'd be interesting to try figuring out the deadline for the write-ups. If Series 1 was on shelves starting in or around March '91, they must have been finalized for the printers around late '90.. but how late are we talking here?
But back to the card at hand, this is the first error card we've come to in the set so far... well, not counting uncorrected errors. The other "move the logo to the other corner" variations we've seen have not featured a similar typo-correction as far as I can tell. I spent a solid minute comparing the #17 Jimmy Page variations, and the backs seem to be exactly the same. But at least with #43 here, Pro Set actually had a good reason for updating the card: fixing a dumb mistake. (I wonder how they caught it. Do you think Debbie herself complained? "Hey guys, my song was called 'Foolish Beat'! And by the way, that photo is copyrighted by Gibson Productions, 1991. Please make these updates at your earliest convenience.")
I need to quickly mention that as of drafting this post, TCDB lists a 3rd variation for #43: with the logo box moved to the bottom but no changes to the back. I'm 98% sure this is just a mix up caused by the person who originally uploaded the back photo to TCDB in 2013 not realizing they were different on the back so he reuploaded his other scan instead of scanning anew. Hey, I'd love if there were another rare MusiCard for me to track down, so please prove me wrong, but I just don't believe it. Similar to the #15 John Lennon fictional 3rd variation that used to be listed on TCDB when I started this blog but has since been correctly removed because it doesn't actually exist.
Next up..
Here's card #44. I'm going to go on record selecting this one as my favorite of Debbie's several MusiCards. You get a nice clear look at her, without a bad hair day to distract you. A little more of a smile would have been nice, but I'm not the type to make the mistake of telling a woman she should smile more. I hear that she's super cool with her fans and is a generous through-the-mail autograph signer, so I've been meaning to send her a copy of this card to sign one of these days. I think it'd look nice with a signature on it. And sure, I might not be able to name more than 3 or 4 Debbie Gibson songs off the top of my head, but I like her just fine.
Debbie Gibson - "Shake Your Love"
"Shake Your Love" is my favorite song of hers. Just a fun, booty-movin' pop song.
Wow, yet again, ProSet puts the more-appealing (IMHO) photo on the back. I wouldn't have minded seeing that fun shot on the front of a card instead of confined to a tiny thumbnail. Way better than the "dreads" photo, right?! Oh well, what's done is done.
The write-up talks about her childhood and is what I imagine is one of the very few trading cards to refer to its subject as "extraordinarily precocious".
Hey, we've now come to the finale of Debbie's run in the checklist. Card #45 here features a heavily makeuped cutie apparently posing with some sort of cycle. Makes me think of Dottie from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. "I'm a loner, Dottie, a rebel." If I hadn't seen this photo before and you asked me to identify the person, I don't think I'd guess it was Debbie Gibson. Cute, though. I probably wouldn't use this card for a TTM autograph attempt due to all the dark area that might hide the ink (in addition to the fact that I don't think it looks much like her).
Haha, ProSet's streak of putting the, um, sultrier photo on the back comes to a screeching halt with this one! Looks like she's on her way to equestrian class or someshit. Say hi to Butterscotch for us, Debbie. What's with that hat? Dude, is she wearing her grampa's jacket? And that crouch doesn't look very comfortable.
The text opts for lists of her releases rather than a narrative blurb. Her days lingering near the top of the charts were starting to wane by the time this set was on shelves ["1991-92"], but she's kept on with her music career over the years. Here's the link to her Wikipedia entry if you wanna read more. Thanks to writing this post, I had a thought I didn't expect I'd ever have: "I want to listen to the new Debbie Gibson album." Yeah, her 10th album The Body Remembers came out just a month ago and I'm checking it out right now. It's some finely-crafted pop! Too bad it seems like she's gotten pigeonholed as a 80s teen star and couldn't quite remain relevant in the pop music scene. It's hard to do, I suppose. Not a lot of Beyonce-type careers for young singers. She went by Deborah for a while, but is back to Debbie now.
"Lost In Your Eyes" stands as her biggest song, so I'd better throw that into the post before we wrap up here. Personally, I'd be fine never hearing that song again.. not that it's bad, just a bit sappy and way overplayed by this point. It's gotten stuck in my head several times over the weekend I've been working on this post.
And back to the card, this one also has a promo version. Here they are side by side...
The difference here is the text in the logo box. The promo version (right) has a more Comic Sans type of font, but they decided on a no-nonsense font for the finished product.
Flipping them over...
The back of the promo is different, as we can see above. The write up was not repeated on a base card, but calls to mind card #42, mentioning her debut single, while the back photo would appear on that dreaded card #43 (see what I did there?). Note the solid colors in the design were swapped. I think they should have kept it the way it was on the promo. The name is easier to read in lime green than hot pink.
There are 11 of these "no-number" promos: 10 artists and 1 header card (which is hard to find-- I'm still looking for the header, but I've got the others). This is the second such promo we've come to so far, the first being #24 Led Zeppelin back in the opening Legends subset. These unnumbered promos should be distinguished from the other promos that are numbered and feature an alternate design, but we'll take a look at those down the line.
She was not featured in the UK edition of the set despite 1989's Electric Youth reaching #8 on the UK charts, so this is a wrap on Debbie for the blog.... unless I end up with a TTM success to show off at some point.
WS1988 Gm1: Debbie Gibson performs national anthem
One fun fact to mention about her, here on this blog whose readers are mostly baseball card collectors, Debbie sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. Seriously?! Yep, the Gibson magic was in full effect on October 15, 1988, with Debbie's strong performance surely setting the stage for Kirk (no relation) to eventually come off the bench and hit his improbable home run off Dennis Eckersley.
Another choice fun fact about Debbie Gibson is that she made her film debut (uncredited) as a little kid playing the "birthday girl" in Ghostbusters in the scene where Rick Moranis' character is overtaken by the demon dog and gets possessed by Vinz Clortho.
Ok, that's enough for this long post. Thanks for reading and please consider yourself invited to comment below with any relevant thoughts to share. The next card on-deck is a "who?" situation for me, so I'm looking forward to digging into an unfamiliar group. Chances are that'll be short, but we'll also hit September's "This Month in 1991" segment, so that'll help fill up the post. Stay tuned.
Woah, this might be the first "metal" card we've come to in the set so far. You could have told me that photo was of RATT or Quiet Riot and I would have believed you. But no, it's apparently Jimmy Page in that getup shredding on a two-headed guitar. I suppose that'd be John Paul Jones lurking in the background on bass.
Yep, for the second card in a row, we've got a variation that reconfigures the design a tad (chiefly, moving the MusiCards logo to the opposite corner). I believe variations such as these were available from "Series 2" packs (These packs also included Series 1 cards mixed in). Series 1 packs were produced in much greater quantity, so the variations (and Series 2 base cards) often carry a premium compared to Series 1 base cards. There are no variations in the Series 2 part of the checklist, by the way.
The next variation in the set isn't until card #43.
That blurb is pretty badass. Jimmy Page is practically a damn wizard!
I don't recall ever hearing of The Firm or The Honeydrippers before this, but I've just now checked them out briefly.
The Firm - "Midnight Moonlight"
Looks like The Firm were active 1984-1986, and also featured singer Paul Rodgers (Free and Bad Company), drummer Chris Slade (Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Uriah Heep, and AC/DC), and bassist Tony Franklin. The track "Midnight Moonlight" was a reworked Zeppelin leftover.
The Honeydrippers were a vintage R&B-inspired band helmed by Robert Plant from 1981-1985, with Page and Jeff Beck sometimes being involved. They've got a nice version of the classic "Sea of Love" that was a big hit for them. Plant was worried people would start considering him a "crooner" so he pulled the plug after only one release: an 18-minute EP.
Skimming Jimmy Page's Wikipedia entry now-- wow, didn't realize he was such an in-demand session musician in the 60s.
That leads us right into the artist I wanted to spotlight on today's Custom Corner: Joe Cocker.
Not long ago, I read that the iconic guitar in the studio version of Joe Cocker's "With A Little Help From My Friends" is played by Jimmy Page, and-- mind blown-- I penciled in Joe as the companion custom for this post.
Joe Cocker - 1991 MusiCards-That-Never-Were custom
Joe Cocker - "With A Little Help From My Friends"
Cocker's reimagining of the Ringo-sung Beatles classic is dynamite! A new generation (myself included) was hit over the head with it thanks to its use as the theme for The Wonder Years, a coming-of-age comedy-drama that ran on ABC from March 15, 1988 until May 12, 1993. I liked the show back then, and watched through it again a few years back.
I touched on The Wonder Years back in a past Baseball Card Breakdown post. I had a lot of fun writing that, and-- along with otherposts where the music I grew up on played a big role-- it could be considered a precursor to this MusiCards blog, helping me realize I really like rambling about not just cards but also music and pop culture stuff.
But back to Joe Cocker... His career began in 1961 under the stage name Vance Arnold (No relation to Kevin Arnold, fictional character). He didn't have much success as a pop singer, so he later dropped the stage name and embraced the gritty voice and spastic on-stage movements he became known for. Later in the 60s, he formed a backing band called The Grease Band. "With a Little Help from My Friends" really put him on the map, reaching #1 in the UK in November 1968.
Other Joe Cocker tunes that've stood the test of time include a cover of Billy Preston's "You Are So Beautiful" (1974) and "Up Where We Belong" (a duet featuring Jennifer Warnes for the soundtrack of the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman, which hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Oscar for Best Original Song and Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo.)
Joe Cocker - "Fire It Up"
Joe Cocker put out 22 studio albums from 1969 through 2012. Gotta admit I think I've only listened to one of them in its entirety, though I've been meaning to dig deeper into his back catalog. I checked out 2012's Fire It Up on a whim back when it was released and was surprised how much I liked it. The tracks "Fire It Up", "Younger", and "Walk Through the World With Me" are especially good. It ended up being his swansong, as he passed away from lung cancer at the end of 2014 at the age of 70.
If you've got any Joe Cocker favorites to recommend (or non-Zeppelin Jimmy Page work), feel free to let me know in the comments below. Page will find himself back on the blog soon, as a stretch of Led Zeppelin cards aren't far off.
But in the more immediate future? Prepare yourselves for a humorous skit:
Who's next? Yes.
Yes? No, not Yes. Who.
I want to know which artist is next. Please reveal them to me. But we've already covered Them.
Then Who? Exactly.
Oh, forget it!
