Maybe you don’t want your dreams to come true.

Christopher Cross went from unknown journeyman to the biggest star in the land seemingly overnight and it killed his career. Who can put up with all that attention?

See Alanis Morissette for example. Sure, she’d tried to make it as a teenybopper years earlier under a different moniker, but “Jagged Little Pill” was so good and so successful it ended her career. After all, how could you follow that up? Suddenly the whole world is watching and you become inhibited, you can’t do what came so easily just a year or two before.

RIDE LIKE THE WIND

He was so average-looking, they wouldn’t even put him on the cover of his own album. But this track took off like a shot and went right up the chart and was ubiquitous.

Sure it was derivative, sure it sounded like the Doobies with Michael McDonald, who was so prominently featured in the background vocals, but the track had a certain haunting elan. Unlike today’s hits, the singer wasn’t singing his song in your face, rather despite having such a mainstream sound, it felt like a peek into the private world of a loner. And so many of us music aficionados are loners.

It is the night
My body’s weak
I’m on the run
No time for sleep

You were immediately entranced. Listeners don’t give you much time, you’ve got to grab them quick. And these introductory lyrics did so.

But it was the second verse that seals the deal…

I was born the son of a lawless man
Always spoke my mind with a gun in my hand
Lived nine lives
Gunned down ten
Gonna ride like the wind

There’s just a bit more instrumentation, and the vocal is more free, less studied, you can feel the air blowing through your hair.

The girls got it first. The boys grudgingly acknowledged it. But “Ride Like The Wind” was a hit we all ultimately embraced.

SAILING

It’s not far down to paradise

By this time Jimmy Buffett’s hit single run was just about done, Kenny Chesney was on the brink of adolescence, suddenly Christopher Cross was the bearer of aquatic dreams.

We all want to do this, get away, that’s the fantasy. For some it’s the mountains, for some it’s the sea, but it’s always the same…it’s about being free.

“Sailing” was completely unexpected after “Ride Like The Wind.” It was most certainly the same guy, but it sounded completely different. This guy had range.

“Sailing” went all the way to number one.

The unsung hero is Rob Meurer, who plays the keyboard solo which knits the track together. He’s a subtle feature on “Ride Like The Wind” too. It’s always been about stars, but once upon a time the supporting players not only made a difference, they could earn a living doing so.

NEVER BE THE SAME

Sure, it’s lightweight and derivative, but there’s no denying its catchiness. This one only went to number fifteen, but it was sometime about now that I took the plunge and purchased the LP. Because something with this many hits was not only a good value proposition, it was evidence of talent.

And unlike today’s “stars,” Christopher Cross wrote all these songs. Quite an amazing feat.

SAY YOU’LL BE MINE

Now another death knell for Cross’s career was the fact that he crossed over. At first “Ride Like The Wind” was featured on FM, it was highly spun on album radio. But by this time he was considered too lightweight and he lived in the netherworld of Top Forty radio, which is the kiss of the death, because you live and die by the hit.

Come on, four hits off your debut LP? Before the MTV onslaught, when LPs were still cheap and flew out of the store? Christopher Cross was truly riding like the wind.

ARTHUR’S THEME

When you’re hot, everybody wants you, you get caught up in the machine, and you might have a hit, but it also might doom your career.

“Arthur’s Theme” was cowritten by Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager and Peter Allen, along with Cross, and it sounded like it. This was back when “pop” still had a stink. MOR was a no-man’s land no one wanted to live in. This was long before Trent Reznor was scoring films, when it came to Hollywood, they wanted no risks.

The song is listenable, but it’s saccharine.

Yup, just too sweet.

THINK OF LAURA

This was not supposed to be a hit. Probably because the establishment had decided that Cross was done. He’d had hits, but he had no hard core fans. Sure, he won the big four Grammys all in one year, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best New Artist, but this was at a point long before Mike Greene came in and modernized the institution and made Grammys meaningful. And once again, if you’re embraced by the mainstream…you’re in trouble.

But at the time soap operas were peaking, “General Hospital” was huge, Luke and Laura were the key couple and Laura was missing. It was a big story, the Kardashians of its day.

Cross didn’t write the song for the show, that’s positively a twenty first century paradigm, but they picked it up and it became a hit.

And I love it.

Think of Laura…

The sound of the track is just incredible, Cross’s vocals matched with the changes. He sounds just like Carl Wilson here, and that’s the highest compliment I can pay.

ALL RIGHT

This too, like “Think Of Laura,” was on Christopher Cross’s second album, and Wikipedia will tell you it was a hit, but it was such a limp rendition of the sound established on the first album that it was easy to dismiss, it got radio airplay, but it didn’t have huge cultural impact.

But I will admit it has a catchy chorus.

And there you have it. Cross continued to record, but no one cared. He seems to have been completely forgotten.

But Christopher Cross wrote and sang and played guitar on all these hits and if he repeated this feat today he’d be bigger than Katy Perry.

But we expected all that back then. We only trusted you if you wrote your own material. And we’d never heard of auto-tune. Sure, we wanted to know who you slept with, but the gossip was more about movie stars, musical acts were seen as the real talent.

These tracks are a time capsule of the early eighties, before MTV took the nation by storm and broke so many cultural limit testers from the U.K.

And most think that’s a good thing. And I’ll agree.

But I’ll also say that Christopher Cross was one talented man who broke the bank once upon a time, and for that he should be remembered.

P.S. I want to also single out the production work of Michael Omartian, you need someone to pull it all together, to steer the ship, and Omartian sailed it all the way home.

Rhinofy-Christopher Cross Primer

How dumb can you be?

Excoriate Perez Hilton, come down on 4chan, but what I want to know is why these celebrities have nude photos on their phones to begin with?

Maybe I grew up in the dark ages, when you had to go to the porn shop to buy European magazines to see naked ladies, when it was a breakthrough when “Penthouse” printed pictures of women below the waist. But despite being aged, a veritable antique, I’m fully aware that if you don’t want anybody to know anything, don’t put it on the Internet!

No, let me restate that. If you’re going to do anything illicit, do it alone, in the bathroom, in the dark.

Is it any wonder the public is interested in nude photos of celebrities? Isn’t that what they’re selling? There aren’t that many unattractive actors and actresses in America. No, you won the gene derby, you worked on your craft and you made it. Congratulations! But do you have to be so dumb?

I mean exactly why do you need to take nude photos of yourself to begin with? When did that become the highest form of art? Ain’t that America, where sex is taboo, but you flaunt your naked body nonetheless. I mean which way do we want it, European style, with naked boobies on the beach, or buttoned-up puritanical?

Oh, of course I feel sorry for Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton and the rest of the cadre whose names I don’t recognize. But it really makes me wonder if they live in the real world. Are they so busy flying private and staying at the Four Seasons that they don’t know what’s going on?

There’s a camera in every store..

There’s a camera in the taxi.

There’s a black box in your car.

And I believe we should definitely be debating privacy. But when I can go online and see a list of everywhere I’ve ever lived, the residence of my ex-wife, even the assets owned by my long deceased dad, I don’t enter anything in a field that I don’t want everybody to know.

Kind of like addresses… Want to buy something illicit on the Internet? Don’t ship it to your home. That data is there…FOREVER! Kind of like Jennifer Lawrence’s nude pics.

We’ve had leaked sex tapes, we’ve been living in this Internet era for nearly two decades, and suddenly we’ve got actresses stunned that their data isn’t safe?

You never got your phone stolen? You’ve never lent it to another to take a picture? If you’re famous, no one’s ever snapped a photo of you without asking first? Hell, this has happened to me, and my fame can fit in a thimble compared to that of Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton.

That’s the society we live in.

As for iCloud… Read this story:

“The Police Tool That Pervs Use to Steal Nude Pics From Apple’s iCloud”

Furthermore, Google keeps your search history. So when you’re at home, surfing porn, know that you are not alone, big brother is watching.

So what are we gonna do about this?

SELF-POLICE!

This was a crisis on Facebook a few years back. Drunken pics of college students went on their permanent record and prevented them from getting jobs. Did we beat up the corporations for using this data? Hell, we couldn’t even get Facebook to give an adequate response. No, we educated ourselves and stopped posting that information. A big activity became scrubbing photos from Facebook the night after a party. Everybody woke up.

Why can’t the actresses involved in this scandal wake up?

The last time I checked I had a body. Not that I’m proud of it. But I’m not taking naked photos of it and sending it to my girlfriend, because then they’d exist. On my phone, in the cloud, on my computer. If someone wanted to blackmail or humiliate me…

And I’m not demanding my girlfriend send me these photos either. I can get enough of her live.

Come on, Snapchat is all the rage because it evaporates, however imperfectly, and famous people get a pass for taking permanent photos and being astounded they leaked? THAT’S HOW THE INTERNET WORKS!

Perez Hilton has proven he’s got no morals. He’s a product of the Internet era, where personal fame is everything. Your brand trumps your talent and if you cross the line you apologize.

But if we stopped clicking on the links, he’d go out of business.

But we can’t help ourselves. Because we’re animals, human beings, with curiosity and desire. We love gossip because it’s about us, people. We’re evaluating others’ fashion choices and word choices and love choices all the time, frequently modeling ourselves after them.

Furthermore, the Internet is filled with nobodies posting their own naked photos in an effort to get famous. Just Google your favorite predilection, photos and videos will come right up.

But no, the famous are inviolate.

Anthony Weiner resigns from Congress because he doesn’t understand Internet privacy and makes poor choices but Hollywood is immune?

Hogwash.

SALES ARE DEAD

The fact that news outlets trumpet them is testimony to their ignorance, not the stats’ relevance. It’s almost like it’s the year 2000 all over again, when the public knew what was going on but the media did not. Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? Bob Dylan famously sang that about a “Time” reporter, but at this point it’s the acts that are ignorant. They continue to believe in old paradigms that are now history. Tchotchkes generate revenue. It’s called merch. Your CD/vinyl is a souvenir, see it that way.

KATE BUSH

If she’d put out a new album, the hype would already be history. But whether consciously or unconsciously, by doing dozens of live shows she’s keeping her story alive, and in today’s world it’s all about making the story last.

Forget the ridiculous hype about multiple albums flowing back into the chart after the gigs began. Those sales are anemic and irrelevant. Today it’s all about whether anybody is listening to your music. By generating heat, Kate Bush has not only reignited the passionate, she’s caused those previously not in the know to pay attention. And hopefully they’ll check her material out. The barrier to streaming entry is very low, it’s just a click away, just a click away, and your goal is to get someone to make that click and hopefully become infected.

BUDWEISER MADE IN AMERICA IN L.A.

Its only reason to exist is cash. The lineup made no sense, the site had no shade and once you actually put the sponsor in the name you’re no different from Playboy Jazz, and everything involved in that is fading. Boobies are free on the Internet, the festival is small and irrelevant, and jazz is something believers trumpet and everyone else ignores.

RELEASE

We know whether your album is good in a day, if not an hour. We anticipate the work of the superstars, the rest of the acts are just grist for the mill. Unfortunately, everything is equally hyped and therefore almost all of it is ignored. In other words, just because the newspaper writes about your new album, that does not mean anybody will listen to it. You’re now your own hypester. Your biggest asset is your mailing list, yes, e-mail still counts. You want to know who your fans are and how to reach them and you shouldn’t worry whether the media covers your release at all, that’s old school thinking, purely twentieth century, when music was scarce and buying an album was an expensive proposition that you pondered a long time.

HITS

When there’s too much noise, you up your game. You now have to shoot for the stratosphere or play to the niches, there is no middle class. And if you’re shooting for the stratosphere you’ve got to be perfect. Which is why the labels employ Max Martin, because he’s got experience and can do it better than anyone. Don’t lament the game, understand it. Know that you won’t have a hit unless it’s as catchy as Max’s work. Good is not good enough.

COUNTRY IS THE NEW ROCK

If you think rock is dead, you haven’t listened to country music, which may feature a banjo or a fiddle, but really sounds like nothing so much as Skynyrd and the rest of the seventies icons. But it’s not totally retro. There are electronic elements and rap and it’s all very exciting. Country is taking over America, it’s not just a red state thing.

THE HIGHWAY

Is the tribal drum of country music. It’s America’s radio station. It’s where chances are taken and acts are broken. This is the biggest story in radio today. Forget Pandora, one program director has taken over a whole format by focusing on the future, not the past. It’s an amazing tale. One of risk-taking and audience consolidation. Clear Channel fans the flames of the media, but it’s the Highway that is the blueprint for tomorrow. We used to go to radio to discover. Radio used to be a community. The Highway provides both. It’s positively twenty first century. We gravitate to one winner. All we need is someone to grab the reins and pull ahead!

And you thought Sirius XM was irrelevant.

ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

What were we doing in Iraq a decade ago anyway? Saddam Hussein may have been a dictator, but he kept the peace. Yup, Bush and Cheney destabilized the region and we continue to pay the price. And we can debate politics all day long but my point is just because you apologized, just because you went to rehab, that does not mean people don’t remember. You’re building your rep every day. People remember they were tricked, they were spammed, that you took the expedient route, that you sold out to a sponsor. What looks like a blip on the radar screen today could haunt you forevermore. Go by your heart, not your wallet. If your heart steers you wrong, we’ll forgive you.

AT&T UNLIMITED DATA

No it’s not. Hit 5 gigs and they’ll throttle you. Furthermore, Sprint’s 4G sucks and T-Mobile’s got little coverage. So the truth is if you want high speed data everywhere you’ve got to pay, through the nose. It sucks, but it’s the truth.

AMAZON

Could be killed by Alibaba, eBay’s threatened too. Amazon may look like Engulf and Devour but the truth is the tide is turning on the company. It’s just not consumer friendly. Who cares if your package comes on time if it’s going to hollow out the world with only Jeff Bezos benefiting. Remember when Microsoft was the behemoth? Nothing is forever, never forget that.

MISTAKES ARE NOT TERMINAL

Facebook had a flawed mobile strategy and then it scrapped it and is now triumphing in the sphere. Don’t dig your hole deeper, pivot!

FAST COMPANY

Buy a subscription. Today. It’s about smart people doing smart things. The writing may not quite be at the level of the “New Yorker,” but there’s no self-satisfied attitude. This is what the music business used to be like. The people profiled in “Fast Company” have big dreams, they want to change the world, and unlike the teen dweebs, they’re neither delusional nor uneducated. Hell, Tory Burch graduated from Penn. Same as it ever was.

PREVIEW ISSUES

How publications sell advertising.

NIKKI STINK

Nikke Finke is the new Mike Ovitz. Powerful and hated she has now gotten her comeuppance. You may not know what I’m talking about, but Google is your friend, and if you’re under thirty you may not know who Mike Ovitz is either. You can’t criticize people for being fat when you are. You can’t be anonymous yet use the Internet to spill your bile. We’re all in it together these days. Yup, you may fly private but you depend on us to be the wind beneath your wings, and we can stop blowing at any time. Really.

Re-I Gotta Try

Most times you write a song and you never know if anyone’s going to “get” it.

When Mike and I wrote “Gotta Try” I thought it was the third best thing we’d written, just behind “This is It” and “What a fool…” We had high hopes. But we both missed the nerve, and it became the one that got away. (I learned the hard way that when you write with McD, you gotta use him on the recording. Not just singing, but also especially playing! He is unique that way.)

But as to songs like “Gotta Try,” the one thing I’ve learned over the years is that the ones who need that kind of lyric will hear it when it’s time. You got it exactly as we intended it. The timing was perfect.
I was really glad to read that. Thank you.

You might be interested to know that that tradition of writing songs that will hopefully matter to someone continues today with myself, Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman, the three of us calling ourselves Blue Sky Riders. If inclined, feel free to check out a song of ours that Georgia sings on our newest CD, (“Finally Home”), called “Little Victories.” (Here is a link to a fan’s video of a live performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tNQcafH_2k
BSR is a fool’s paradise for me, a chapter three that exists for us to get to keep exercising our creativity and hopefully prolong some inkling of sanity.

So thank you again for understanding “Gotta Try” and writing about it. I feel vindicated now. 🙂

Oh…and you should know that Michael’s still writing great songs. Mike is the musical equivalent of dark  chocolate, so the world OD’ed on his stuff in the ’80’s. But miraculously, his voice had that amazing comeback when Motown signed him to make a few cover records. But his own compositions were off limits. Hopefully some day he’ll get back to recording his own stuff before his time is up. I consider him an American Treasure.”

Thank you,
Kenny Loggins