Songoftheday 11/10/13 - A prisoner of your love entangled in your web, hot whispers in the night I'm captured by your spell...

Tina Turner - "Better Be Good To Me"
from the album Private Dancer (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is by Tina Turner, who came back from an abusive marriage and career lull with a cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together", followed by the #1 Grammy-winning "What's Love Got To Do With It" in 1984. For her third release she recorded a song originally written by 80s hitmaker Holly Knight for her band Spider, who had a top-40 hit in 1981 with "New Romance (It's A Mystery)". "Better Be Good To Me" never made the charts for Spider, but you can tell it definitely had potential even then, especially given the hook-laden chops of co-writers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman ("Mickey", "Kiss You All Over")...

Tina's version replicated the arrangement of Spider's with members of the Fixx providing a backdrop as funky as their own top-10 "One Thing Leads To Another" (both produced by Rupert Hine)...

"Better Be Good To Me" became Tina's second top-ten single from Private Dancer in November of 1984, while also climbing to #6 on the R&B chart and #16 on Billboard's dance club play list. The record even made the rock radio chart, peaking at #32. In fact, the song would go on to win the Grammy for best Female rock performance in 1985.  But while the song went to #6 in Canada, it surprisingly missed the top 40 in England, where her "Let's Stay Together" had its first success.

Most importantly, this is the record that totally sold me on the former "Acid Queen". The pop production is flawless, and the kind I could play over and over (rewind button)...

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...and here's Tina playing the Prince's trust in 1986 with an all-star band including Elton John, Eric Clapton, and Howard Jones..

..and again in concert in 1990...

...Finally more live goodness from her in 2009..

Up tomorrow: the Philly blue-eyed soul duo are detached.