Album: Animal Magic
Year: 1985
It will probably not surprise anybody when I confess that I’ve never been a big fan of U.K.-based blue-eyed dude soul singers. So you’re not ever going to find anything from Spandau Ballet, Simply Red, Style Council, Sam Smith etc. in this project. I know that all of these folks can sing and stuff, but it’s just not my scene.
Then, on the other hand, there is “Forbidden Fruit,” which is one of my favorite songs from the 1980s. "Forbidden Fruit" features all of the things I dislike about the genre: overstuffed string-filled production, too-smooth guitars, tons of backing vocalists and a lead singer who knows exactly how good he sounds and can’t get enough of it.
But that horn line. Right? Oh. My. God. That horn line, slowly unfolding out towards heaven, where Otis Redding probably heard it and thought “damn, dawg, why didn’t I come up with that?”
If it was just that horn line, dayenu, but then there is this utterly gorgeous and perfect chorus,
Do you know what I saw today?
A man blow himself away, over youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!
In the mid-1980s, I probably sang that in my car and/or wrote it in my journal approximately 574,365,985,854 times as I skidded myself through various crushes and relationships.
“Forbidden Fruit” music video
My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist: