No 11's tomorrow as we move into the top ten, but we will wave goodbye to another album. Extras? A Woman and a Man? Live Your Life Error Free? Heaven on Earth (!!)? Stay tuned.
So, which will it be?
Will we wave goodbye to In Too Deep, in a double elimination for AWAAM?
Will we bid adieu to Sun, our last remaining extra?
Or will Heaven fucking crash before we even get to the top ten (I wouldn't put it past some of you)?
I adore all three, so it's bad news for me in any case...
The song leaving at #11 received, perhaps ironically, no 11's, but did rack up six 10's, the most so far, and the most we'll see until #4.
And it...
is...
the...
Comeback singles can be tricky, given that often they aren't done with the same writers and producers that were behind an act during their original rise to fame. In the worst-case scenario, you can wind up with
something that sounds like amateur hour (because it probably is). In the best-case scenario, however, you can give the world a
Scared of the Dark or
Something New: an instant classic on a par with the hits of your glory days. Perhaps most often, you get
something that isn't terrible but is no match for your finer moments.
Things weren't looking terribly good for Sun at first, as it was being tacked on to a budget compilation in Universal's Icon series (the successor to the 20th Century Masters series), which - unlike most of the CD-only series - was also being shoved onto iTunes, retitled "Best of Belinda Carlisle," because God forbid they just keep calling it Icon, I guess. The tracklist also included the infamous Shades of Michelangelo, giving absolutely no one any confidence that the album had been well-thought out (it probably wasn't). I remember gaining a bit of confidence when I learned that Belinda had co-written the thing with Jane, as well as Gabe Lopez, a producer/songwriter I'd never heard of at the time, but who would go on to do the Wilder Shores album with Belinda. Say it with me: dddddddddd.
Anyhow, I was for some reason not impressed with it at the time, but now I recognize it as Belinda's equivalent of Scared of the Dark. It fully deserves to sit beside her 1986-1996 classics - above many of them, I'd say! It's joy. It's euphoria. And most of all... issa bop. It totally deserves its inclusion on every single one of Demon/Edsel's Belinda comps.
"Come on Belinda, you’ve still got a great pop album in there!"
@Hatbar (8) shrieks. YES, SIS, YES. Mother needs to stop dicking around and give us the comeback non-smash we know she can deliver. She said a while back that she'll never make another pop album as she feels she can't match her original run, and well, Goodbye Just Go isn't great, but if it were in the lower half of a new album that had even one song as brilliant as Sun, it would absolutely be a match for Heaven, to say nothing of debut/Real/Woman!
@Hudweiser (8.5) finds it "a worthy comeback single, but she waited too long to follow it up with an album or anything."
Or anything being the operative words there, since frankly this barely even qualifies as a single, and the next things she gave us were Goodbye Just Go (even less single-y) and the reissue campaign with Demon.
@bonnieetclyde (10) praises the "amazing instrumental, great vocals, massive chorus." Great gowns, beautiful gowns, stunning gowns. "Should have been huge." Hahaha. Yeah, that was never going to happen, sadly. "Should have led into a full album. So damn catchy."
A new Carlislbum was clearly on all our minds, as
@CasperFan (10) enthuses, "What a comeback to pop-such a bop, so euphoric and equally as good as her imperial phase. Oh can you imagine if she’d done a complete album with Sun as a template??? But no we got Wilder Bores!!!"
"Am I hearing the slightest bit of autotune on Belinda’s vocals in some spots?"
@Seventeen Days (8.75) asks, before concluding, "It doesn’t matter, because this is a total return-to-form bop and I am loving it." As you should.
@unnameable (10) gives me Miranda Priestly but make her nice, saying, "Ms Carlisle does electropop banger? Surprising and delightful."
And
@pop3blow2 (10) asks the real questions. "If making a song like this when you’re 55 isn’t a life goal for you, are you making the best choices?"
