I feel I undermarked this.
The 90's US One-Hit Wonders Rate: WINNER REVEALED - Goodbye, farewell and amen
- Thread starter Ironheade
- Start date
I didn't remember this song, so I gave it another listen. I stand by my score.
I feel I overmarked this. I literally cannot remember this
he/him
That damn sample, it's so hypnotizing! I knew nothing about this band so it's shocking to find out the rest of their output doesn't follow that sound and the title of their next single.
Oh and completely forgot it was ever a part of Cable Guy. Agreed it's one of the more underrated comedies of all time. It was always on HBO one summer as a kid so I have watched it like 20 times. So many memorable lines I still repeat to this day like "Stephen! I made you scramby eggs!", "Oh Billy!", and "the porno password is" scenes come to mind first.
Oh and completely forgot it was ever a part of Cable Guy. Agreed it's one of the more underrated comedies of all time. It was always on HBO one summer as a kid so I have watched it like 20 times. So many memorable lines I still repeat to this day like "Stephen! I made you scramby eggs!", "Oh Billy!", and "the porno password is" scenes come to mind first.
she/her
Every time I think we've kicked out all these guys there's another one I've forgotten about.
Me at losing a trip hop song but finding out the rest of the band's work isn't trip hop.
she/her
I just noticed one of my 1s is out. Good.
You know, I'm pretty surprised that this next one didn't go earlier.
Guess you lot are stuck inside of Mobile, then?
42. WALKING IN MEMPHIS
Average score: 6.082
Highest scores: 3 x 10 (@berserkboi , @unnameable , @GimmeWork )
Lowest scores: 1 x 0 (@DJHazey )
Chart positions: #13 Hot 100, #42 Radio Songs, #12 Adult Contemporary, #7 Mainstream Rock, #74 Hot Country Songs
Year-End Hot 100: N/A
Who? Oh yeah, them...
So, how 'bout those Grammys, huh? Oh, we all love to complain about the results, but we just know, as with all such things, that we'll be back next year, confident that they'll get it right this time. One area where they seem to have a particular amount of trouble, though, is with the perennially cursed winners of Best New Artist. Somehow, these benighted souls always end up with a higher-than-average chance of being a flash in the pan or just plain not living up to the expectations placed on them from that. Ask Milli Vanilli, or poor old Alessia Cara for a more recent example. So here's one example where the curse struck hard: Marc Cohn, the piano man who came back from Memphis one day with a little tune in his head...
Oh, my sweet summer child...
Marc Cohn is another one of those artists where there's very little to really tell about his backstory. He's from a Jewish family, born and raised in the Cleveland area, and attended Oberlin and UCLA while developing his musical skills and playing in coffee houses in the best singer-songwriter tradition. He ended up moving to New York, forming a cover band that played at Caroline Kennedy's wedding (!), and playing on a concept album consisting of rock arrangements of songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express (I don't think there are enough !'s in the world... and yeah, don't listen to any of that, not even the ones Marc performs, it's all horrible). Anyway, he eventually found more stable employment as a backup musician for bigger artists around New York. One of his jobs was as a session pianist on Tracy Chapman's second album Crossroads, which is a gloomier and less melodic set than her debut, and thus perhaps a little underrated, though it did yield two of her classics, “All That You Have Is Your Soul” and the Nelson Mandela tribute “Freedom Now”, so it is nevertheless worthwhile – this is now the Tracy Chapman thread... ahem, sorry. Anyway, the producers heard a demo with just his vocals and piano, and realized that they might have a talent worth nurturing on their hands. Working with Chapman's producer David Kershenbaum, and later with roots-music staple producer John Leventhal, he put out his self-titled solo debut album in 1991. And all of a sudden, he had a hit on his hands.
Hey, where's Paul Simon?
The decade was a forward-thinking one, you might have said; one that swept away all the old paradigms of what mainstream music looked like. But this man, he was a classicist, and he knew how to respect his forebears. In “Walking in Memphis”, Marc Cohn pays tribute to Elvis, Al Green, and W.C. Handy, while referring to a real trip he took to Memphis. (Too bad Three 6 Mafia didn't exist yet, or he could have added them in.) Even Muriel was a real person!
And as you've probably realized from reading Marc's backstory, it is not quite the Christian-influenced number some of you might have thought:
So what do I think?
Time to get away from the songs I like going too early, because issa 6. “Walking in Memphis” isn't a song that has anything wrong with it, in particular – everything is present and correct, quite good even, but it just leaves me cold for the most part. And for a while, I was damned if I could figure out why. The piano riff is simple (no black keys!), but it's pretty enough, and makes for a easily memorable hook to lead you into the song. The gospel-style backing vocals give the song a good lift whenever they enter, helping to bring the song to a decent climactic swell at the end; Marc Cohn offers up a strong lead vocal too, a solid raspy white-soul baritone, and the syncopated vocal lines and occasional drop into a sprechgesang sort of delivery give “Walking in Memphis” a vaguely conversational feel that fits in well with its narrative about finding salvation in the ordinary. The lyrics are all fine too, with a good eye for detail. So what's the problem? It's that it's all very tasteful and classy, yes, but it's also a wee bit dull. The production's just too polished and slick, there's no real form of bite to it anywhere, and the melodies are only just catchy enough to avoid becoming outright tasteful background music. As well as that, it also lacks a bit on the emotion, with Marc's singing, fine as it is, also sounding severely devoid of genuine feeling, instead leaning hard on a facsimile of it. These factors, together, pretty much kill it, and ensure that “Walking in Memphis” pretty much ends up as wallpaper when it could have been something so much more striking. But if you like guys who sound like a less interesting Bruce Hornsby, well, here you go.
Where Are They Now?™
Within a year of his first big hit single, Marc Cohn had scooped up a Grammy for Best New Artist. (He was also up for Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal with “Walking in Memphis”, but lost the former to Natalie Cole's rendition of “Unforgettable” and the latter to Michael Bolton's rendition of “When a Man Loves a Woman”, which just goes to show that Nirvana couldn't come along quickly enough to sweep all that crap away, if you ask me.) He was in a class with Boyz II Men, one of the biggest artists of the coming decade, and Seal, who would also snag himself a number one within a few years; those factors alone would make him one of the more emblematic picks when the conversation turns to the Grammys screwing it up again. Then again, C+C Music Factory were also up for the award that year, and so were Color Me Badd. So the Grammys definitely could have made a worse choice... But if you think about it, it's not an odd pick by any means. He's a sensitive singer-songwriter with a piano, who makes tasteful easy-listening music with mildly-smarter-than-average lyrics that is deeply indebted to the 70's pop tradition. Hell, it would have been more of a surprise if the Grammys didn't give him the award, based on those factors. Besides... they weren't to know how his commercial fortunes would go in the coming years.
It looks EXACTLY like something that would win a bunch of Grammys, no?
Marc released two more singles from his debut album. They were both piano ballads not too far removed from “Walking in Memphis”, and both managed to chart, though not very high: “Silver Thunderbird”, a tribute to his deceased father and the car he'd owned in Marc's childhood, made #63 on the Hot 100 and just missed the Top 20 on Mainstream Rock, while the love song “True Companion” got to #80 and got a fair bit of play on adult-contemporary radio (#24 on the AC chart, to #12 for “Walking in Memphis”). So, really, it could have gone worse, but unfortunately for Marc, I don't think he had any place in the mainstream of the next decade. He made very polished MOR music, and it made for an uneasy mixture with his lyrics, which tended more towards the introspective and personal in the vein of his 70's predecessors. That's not an obvious career-killer by any means – after all, the 70's singer-songwriters like James Taylor and Carly Simon were just as easy-listening, and the critics still appreciated their lyrical abilities in spite of it. The thing is, adult alternative was just about to sweep away the AC ballads and soft rock that had typified so much of the previous two decades, either of which probably would have suited him better; even the mum-pop radio stations were to demand something with a little more grit, something that didn't wear its softly-softly core on its sleeve quite so blatantly.
That meant that, while an act like Sister Hazel could survive on Triple A formats with some success even after their one hit, Marc could not. “Walk Through the World”, the lead single to his second album The Rainy Season (1993), was a Top 40 hit in the UK and got some more adult contemporary radio play in the US, but it only made the Bubbling Under chart over on the Hot 100, and that was Marc's last taste of commercial success, with none of the albums he released afterwards ever making it to certification. The closest he got to success after “Walking in Memphis” was when Shut Up and Dance borrowed elements of it for their UK #2 dance hit “Raving I'm Raving” in 1992, and Scooter would also have a hit with their cover of that song four years later. Cher also scored a UK #11 hit with her cover of "Walking in Memphis" in 1995... a bit more tasteful, there.
I'm not.
In the coming years, Marc released two more albums of original material: Burning the Daze in 1998, and Join the Parade in 2007, as well as an album of 70's pop covers in 2010 and a collection of demos and rarities in 2016. (For the record, he does a pretty good version of “Wild World”.) Surprisingly enough, he didn't get dropped by Atlantic until after the 2000's, when he would move to Decca. And probably thanks in part to his classicism, he's managed to rack up a rather strong list of collaborators, including some outright legends. On The Rainy Season, he had got guest appearances from David Crosby, Graham Nash and Bonnie Raitt; Burning the Daze added Rosanne Cash to his gang of collaborators. Over the years, Marc would add backing vocals and piano to recordings by Kris Kristofferson (his highly acclaimed Austin Sessions) and Shawn Colvin. He still performs, though not all that regularly. And that's more or less it.
Nevertheless, I would like to bring to your attention one particularly interesting incident in his life and times. In 2005, while Marc Cohn was on a concert tour with Suzanne Vega, he was driving through Denver, when he got carjacked and shot in the head. (By the way, the shooter was caught and imprisoned in short order.) He was taken to hospital, but released after eight hours, having suffered only minor injuries. From, need I remind you, BEING SHOT IN THE HEAD. Even the police spokesman said, at the time, “Frankly, I can't tell you how he survived”. (Their main theory was that his windshield had slowed the bullet down enough that he could survive it.) Well, shit.
Pictured above: what Marc has.
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
Slob on my knob like corn on the cob
DJHazey (0): Yikes. Nothing I can do when the music is literally nothing I would ever listen to by choice.
iheartpoptarts (3): Somebody cover this and give Justin Timberlake a shout-out, it’ll be hilarious. (With a DJ Paul beat, of course.)
Untouchable Ace (6.8): Oh so this Marcaroni was one of the first to make music specifically for singing competitions.
əʊæ (4): keke palmer-shut up, stop moaning.mp3
DominoDancing (5): Opens on a cute piano figure, but then descends into horrible MOR singer-songwriter self-importance and pompousness.
ModeRed (5): Slightly too earnest for me. (Such is the Grammy-winning troubador way.)
Empty Shoebox (4): Is this about some sort of religious experience? I can't relate. His voice irritates me. (Yeah, I kinda catfished you into doing a Jesus-pop rate, I just realized.)
yuuurei (1): Normally I might only find it mildly bland, but it's one of the few instances where hearing it a lot on the radio has made me despise it.
Auntie Beryl (4.4): Worthy, devout tedium. Improved x a gazillion when Shut Up & Dance ran it over in their rave truck. (Eh.)
Ganache (6): Is it wrong that I like the Cher version better? (Eh.)
Hudweiser (6.5): Cher version > this.
chanex (6): I would give it a 4 but there was this dance remix of it that kind of did it for me if I remember correctly and even if it didn't this entire list is so viewed through a nostalgic lens. But not confusing that for the Cher cover which was trash. (I think we are to conclude that this song does not cover well.)
TEAR DA CLUB UP!!!!
4Roses (7): Dad rock is a choice. (Your choice, specifically?)
Seventeen Days (6.5): This song is a bit overdone, but I still bop every time it comes on. When I went to Memphis, it played intermittently in my head the whole time. Honestly though, I use the Cher cover more than this one nowadays. (CHER LIGHTNING ROUND!)
2014 (6): Cher's version is better but this is cute.
CasuallyCrazed (7.5): Cher does it best. But I can stan for the original too.
Filippa (8): This song is good, but Cher really let it shine.
Andy French (8): I have a lot of memories associated with this, schmaltzy as it may be. Cher's version is also fine. (You know, I shoulda known, this forum being what it is, how often the Cher cover would come up...)
WowWowWowWow (7): On the one hand, if Cher liked it enough to cover it, it must be something special. On the other hand… I like a song that tells a story and all, but this is a four-volume saga. And speaking of sagas… how about Marc cheating on his wife and starting divorce proceedings WHILE SHE WAS IN REHAB?!?! (...Oh yeah, I couldn't find a good place to insert that in the writeup, but... yeah. Dick move, Marc.)
CorgiCorgiCorgi (7): It probably sucks to visit Memphis if you're Marc Cohn because if you walk anywhere you know everybody's gonna bring up this song like they're the first person to ever make that joke. (And now he knows how Rush feel in Bangkok.)
pop3blow2 (8): It's hard to drag this. There’s MOR sincerity that’s obviously left over from the 80s in this song. Very Bruce Hornsby, Billy Joel, et al. Glad Marc Cohn had a hit. Good for that guy! (Yeah, I definitely prefer Bruce for this kind of thing.)
Blond (8.5): I hate the term “guilty pleasure”, but if I had to choose one for myself then this might well be it. I hate the lyrics, I hate the fact that it’s about some kind of religious experience, I know how unforgivably cheesy it is, and yet I can’t help but kind of love it. (Touched by God, touched by Elvis, not much difference really.)
unnameable (10): Stone cold classic. I’m not sure if Cher or the Bar Steward Sons of Val Doonican covered this better.
berserkboi (10): A classic, if Cher does a version too…. (That proves something, I guess.)
Guess you lot are stuck inside of Mobile, then?
42. WALKING IN MEMPHIS
Average score: 6.082
Highest scores: 3 x 10 (@berserkboi , @unnameable , @GimmeWork )
Lowest scores: 1 x 0 (@DJHazey )
Chart positions: #13 Hot 100, #42 Radio Songs, #12 Adult Contemporary, #7 Mainstream Rock, #74 Hot Country Songs
Year-End Hot 100: N/A
Who? Oh yeah, them...
So, how 'bout those Grammys, huh? Oh, we all love to complain about the results, but we just know, as with all such things, that we'll be back next year, confident that they'll get it right this time. One area where they seem to have a particular amount of trouble, though, is with the perennially cursed winners of Best New Artist. Somehow, these benighted souls always end up with a higher-than-average chance of being a flash in the pan or just plain not living up to the expectations placed on them from that. Ask Milli Vanilli, or poor old Alessia Cara for a more recent example. So here's one example where the curse struck hard: Marc Cohn, the piano man who came back from Memphis one day with a little tune in his head...
Oh, my sweet summer child...
Marc Cohn is another one of those artists where there's very little to really tell about his backstory. He's from a Jewish family, born and raised in the Cleveland area, and attended Oberlin and UCLA while developing his musical skills and playing in coffee houses in the best singer-songwriter tradition. He ended up moving to New York, forming a cover band that played at Caroline Kennedy's wedding (!), and playing on a concept album consisting of rock arrangements of songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express (I don't think there are enough !'s in the world... and yeah, don't listen to any of that, not even the ones Marc performs, it's all horrible). Anyway, he eventually found more stable employment as a backup musician for bigger artists around New York. One of his jobs was as a session pianist on Tracy Chapman's second album Crossroads, which is a gloomier and less melodic set than her debut, and thus perhaps a little underrated, though it did yield two of her classics, “All That You Have Is Your Soul” and the Nelson Mandela tribute “Freedom Now”, so it is nevertheless worthwhile – this is now the Tracy Chapman thread... ahem, sorry. Anyway, the producers heard a demo with just his vocals and piano, and realized that they might have a talent worth nurturing on their hands. Working with Chapman's producer David Kershenbaum, and later with roots-music staple producer John Leventhal, he put out his self-titled solo debut album in 1991. And all of a sudden, he had a hit on his hands.
Hey, where's Paul Simon?
The decade was a forward-thinking one, you might have said; one that swept away all the old paradigms of what mainstream music looked like. But this man, he was a classicist, and he knew how to respect his forebears. In “Walking in Memphis”, Marc Cohn pays tribute to Elvis, Al Green, and W.C. Handy, while referring to a real trip he took to Memphis. (Too bad Three 6 Mafia didn't exist yet, or he could have added them in.) Even Muriel was a real person!
And as you've probably realized from reading Marc's backstory, it is not quite the Christian-influenced number some of you might have thought:
So what do I think?
Time to get away from the songs I like going too early, because issa 6. “Walking in Memphis” isn't a song that has anything wrong with it, in particular – everything is present and correct, quite good even, but it just leaves me cold for the most part. And for a while, I was damned if I could figure out why. The piano riff is simple (no black keys!), but it's pretty enough, and makes for a easily memorable hook to lead you into the song. The gospel-style backing vocals give the song a good lift whenever they enter, helping to bring the song to a decent climactic swell at the end; Marc Cohn offers up a strong lead vocal too, a solid raspy white-soul baritone, and the syncopated vocal lines and occasional drop into a sprechgesang sort of delivery give “Walking in Memphis” a vaguely conversational feel that fits in well with its narrative about finding salvation in the ordinary. The lyrics are all fine too, with a good eye for detail. So what's the problem? It's that it's all very tasteful and classy, yes, but it's also a wee bit dull. The production's just too polished and slick, there's no real form of bite to it anywhere, and the melodies are only just catchy enough to avoid becoming outright tasteful background music. As well as that, it also lacks a bit on the emotion, with Marc's singing, fine as it is, also sounding severely devoid of genuine feeling, instead leaning hard on a facsimile of it. These factors, together, pretty much kill it, and ensure that “Walking in Memphis” pretty much ends up as wallpaper when it could have been something so much more striking. But if you like guys who sound like a less interesting Bruce Hornsby, well, here you go.
Where Are They Now?™
Within a year of his first big hit single, Marc Cohn had scooped up a Grammy for Best New Artist. (He was also up for Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal with “Walking in Memphis”, but lost the former to Natalie Cole's rendition of “Unforgettable” and the latter to Michael Bolton's rendition of “When a Man Loves a Woman”, which just goes to show that Nirvana couldn't come along quickly enough to sweep all that crap away, if you ask me.) He was in a class with Boyz II Men, one of the biggest artists of the coming decade, and Seal, who would also snag himself a number one within a few years; those factors alone would make him one of the more emblematic picks when the conversation turns to the Grammys screwing it up again. Then again, C+C Music Factory were also up for the award that year, and so were Color Me Badd. So the Grammys definitely could have made a worse choice... But if you think about it, it's not an odd pick by any means. He's a sensitive singer-songwriter with a piano, who makes tasteful easy-listening music with mildly-smarter-than-average lyrics that is deeply indebted to the 70's pop tradition. Hell, it would have been more of a surprise if the Grammys didn't give him the award, based on those factors. Besides... they weren't to know how his commercial fortunes would go in the coming years.
It looks EXACTLY like something that would win a bunch of Grammys, no?
Marc released two more singles from his debut album. They were both piano ballads not too far removed from “Walking in Memphis”, and both managed to chart, though not very high: “Silver Thunderbird”, a tribute to his deceased father and the car he'd owned in Marc's childhood, made #63 on the Hot 100 and just missed the Top 20 on Mainstream Rock, while the love song “True Companion” got to #80 and got a fair bit of play on adult-contemporary radio (#24 on the AC chart, to #12 for “Walking in Memphis”). So, really, it could have gone worse, but unfortunately for Marc, I don't think he had any place in the mainstream of the next decade. He made very polished MOR music, and it made for an uneasy mixture with his lyrics, which tended more towards the introspective and personal in the vein of his 70's predecessors. That's not an obvious career-killer by any means – after all, the 70's singer-songwriters like James Taylor and Carly Simon were just as easy-listening, and the critics still appreciated their lyrical abilities in spite of it. The thing is, adult alternative was just about to sweep away the AC ballads and soft rock that had typified so much of the previous two decades, either of which probably would have suited him better; even the mum-pop radio stations were to demand something with a little more grit, something that didn't wear its softly-softly core on its sleeve quite so blatantly.
That meant that, while an act like Sister Hazel could survive on Triple A formats with some success even after their one hit, Marc could not. “Walk Through the World”, the lead single to his second album The Rainy Season (1993), was a Top 40 hit in the UK and got some more adult contemporary radio play in the US, but it only made the Bubbling Under chart over on the Hot 100, and that was Marc's last taste of commercial success, with none of the albums he released afterwards ever making it to certification. The closest he got to success after “Walking in Memphis” was when Shut Up and Dance borrowed elements of it for their UK #2 dance hit “Raving I'm Raving” in 1992, and Scooter would also have a hit with their cover of that song four years later. Cher also scored a UK #11 hit with her cover of "Walking in Memphis" in 1995... a bit more tasteful, there.
I'm not.
In the coming years, Marc released two more albums of original material: Burning the Daze in 1998, and Join the Parade in 2007, as well as an album of 70's pop covers in 2010 and a collection of demos and rarities in 2016. (For the record, he does a pretty good version of “Wild World”.) Surprisingly enough, he didn't get dropped by Atlantic until after the 2000's, when he would move to Decca. And probably thanks in part to his classicism, he's managed to rack up a rather strong list of collaborators, including some outright legends. On The Rainy Season, he had got guest appearances from David Crosby, Graham Nash and Bonnie Raitt; Burning the Daze added Rosanne Cash to his gang of collaborators. Over the years, Marc would add backing vocals and piano to recordings by Kris Kristofferson (his highly acclaimed Austin Sessions) and Shawn Colvin. He still performs, though not all that regularly. And that's more or less it.
Nevertheless, I would like to bring to your attention one particularly interesting incident in his life and times. In 2005, while Marc Cohn was on a concert tour with Suzanne Vega, he was driving through Denver, when he got carjacked and shot in the head. (By the way, the shooter was caught and imprisoned in short order.) He was taken to hospital, but released after eight hours, having suffered only minor injuries. From, need I remind you, BEING SHOT IN THE HEAD. Even the police spokesman said, at the time, “Frankly, I can't tell you how he survived”. (Their main theory was that his windshield had slowed the bullet down enough that he could survive it.) Well, shit.
Pictured above: what Marc has.
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
Slob on my knob like corn on the cob
DJHazey (0): Yikes. Nothing I can do when the music is literally nothing I would ever listen to by choice.
iheartpoptarts (3): Somebody cover this and give Justin Timberlake a shout-out, it’ll be hilarious. (With a DJ Paul beat, of course.)
Untouchable Ace (6.8): Oh so this Marcaroni was one of the first to make music specifically for singing competitions.
əʊæ (4): keke palmer-shut up, stop moaning.mp3
DominoDancing (5): Opens on a cute piano figure, but then descends into horrible MOR singer-songwriter self-importance and pompousness.
ModeRed (5): Slightly too earnest for me. (Such is the Grammy-winning troubador way.)
Empty Shoebox (4): Is this about some sort of religious experience? I can't relate. His voice irritates me. (Yeah, I kinda catfished you into doing a Jesus-pop rate, I just realized.)
yuuurei (1): Normally I might only find it mildly bland, but it's one of the few instances where hearing it a lot on the radio has made me despise it.
Auntie Beryl (4.4): Worthy, devout tedium. Improved x a gazillion when Shut Up & Dance ran it over in their rave truck. (Eh.)
Ganache (6): Is it wrong that I like the Cher version better? (Eh.)
Hudweiser (6.5): Cher version > this.
chanex (6): I would give it a 4 but there was this dance remix of it that kind of did it for me if I remember correctly and even if it didn't this entire list is so viewed through a nostalgic lens. But not confusing that for the Cher cover which was trash. (I think we are to conclude that this song does not cover well.)
TEAR DA CLUB UP!!!!
4Roses (7): Dad rock is a choice. (Your choice, specifically?)
Seventeen Days (6.5): This song is a bit overdone, but I still bop every time it comes on. When I went to Memphis, it played intermittently in my head the whole time. Honestly though, I use the Cher cover more than this one nowadays. (CHER LIGHTNING ROUND!)
2014 (6): Cher's version is better but this is cute.
CasuallyCrazed (7.5): Cher does it best. But I can stan for the original too.
Filippa (8): This song is good, but Cher really let it shine.
Andy French (8): I have a lot of memories associated with this, schmaltzy as it may be. Cher's version is also fine. (You know, I shoulda known, this forum being what it is, how often the Cher cover would come up...)
WowWowWowWow (7): On the one hand, if Cher liked it enough to cover it, it must be something special. On the other hand… I like a song that tells a story and all, but this is a four-volume saga. And speaking of sagas… how about Marc cheating on his wife and starting divorce proceedings WHILE SHE WAS IN REHAB?!?! (...Oh yeah, I couldn't find a good place to insert that in the writeup, but... yeah. Dick move, Marc.)
CorgiCorgiCorgi (7): It probably sucks to visit Memphis if you're Marc Cohn because if you walk anywhere you know everybody's gonna bring up this song like they're the first person to ever make that joke. (And now he knows how Rush feel in Bangkok.)
pop3blow2 (8): It's hard to drag this. There’s MOR sincerity that’s obviously left over from the 80s in this song. Very Bruce Hornsby, Billy Joel, et al. Glad Marc Cohn had a hit. Good for that guy! (Yeah, I definitely prefer Bruce for this kind of thing.)
Blond (8.5): I hate the term “guilty pleasure”, but if I had to choose one for myself then this might well be it. I hate the lyrics, I hate the fact that it’s about some kind of religious experience, I know how unforgivably cheesy it is, and yet I can’t help but kind of love it. (Touched by God, touched by Elvis, not much difference really.)
unnameable (10): Stone cold classic. I’m not sure if Cher or the Bar Steward Sons of Val Doonican covered this better.
berserkboi (10): A classic, if Cher does a version too…. (That proves something, I guess.)
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wait, what!? Wow, ain't that some shit. I'm not so happy he had a hit, now.
Sidenote, the department store I worked at in the 00s played Walking in Memphis almost everyday. The days they didn't play it on said satellite muzak channel, they played his other 'hit' True Companion. Dude was getting that pop recurrents coin...
he/him
This C+C Music Factory slander shall not stand! Talk about things that make you go HMMM!!! *sings in Martha Wash but lipsynched by someone else*
Same. I literally forgot this song was still in here until this elimination.
sidenote: I don't think you give zeros very often, so you must really hate this song. A zero is pretty harsh, but made me chuckle none-the-less when reading the elim scores.
she/her
Hehe, I was so not expecting the "pimp" in question to be Marc Cohn of all people.
I am SCREAMING at 90% of the commentary referencing the Cher cover. But yeah, maybe the being shot in the head thing was kind of karma getting him for what he did to his wife.
