Songoftheday 5/25/16 - Talk about the love you're missin', maybe then it's true when they say love is blind...

"The Lover In Me" - Sheena Easton
from the album The Lover In Me (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's song of the day comes from Scottish singer Sheena Easton, who had been one of the biggest female pop stars of the first half of the 80s, with eleven top-40 hits in America to her name. However, as the rise of dance-pop sirens like Madonna came on board, she was trying to keep up with the times with varying results. After her 1985 album's "Do It For Love" missed the top-10, and her (excellent) contribution to the Brat Pack movie ...about last night's "So Far, So Good" just missed the top-40 by a couple notches, record company reorganization troubles nixed the release of her 1987 album No Sound But A Heart, one that would include another collaboration with Prince, "Eternity" (her duet with him on his classic Sign O' The Times set, "U Got The Look", did reach #2 on the singles chart). She also had a recurring role on Miami Vice, which did keep her name in the public eye.

In 1988, Easton would change labels to MCA, during which time she, like former Eagle Glenn Frey, had started to shill for Bally's Gyms (the gym you'd go to before shopping in the mall). With two more collaborations with "The Purple One", it was the team of Babyface and L.A. Reid (Pebbles, Karyn White) that dominated her The Lover In Me album, and the evolution to soul/dance pop fit her well. The title track became the first single, and gave Sheena her highest-charting solo hit since her breakthough "Morning Train" way back in 1981...

"The Lover In Me" reached the runner-up spot on the American pop chart in March of 1989. The song also climbed to #5 on Billboard's R&B chart, while it also crossed over to their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list at #43. The 12" extended remix from Louis Silas, Jr. also went to #2 on the Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the song made the top-40 in the Netherlands (#11), Ireland (#12), New Zealand (#12), Belgium (#15), Canada (#17), and her native Britain (#15).

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Here's the 12" remix that made the #2 spot on the dance chart...

...and lastly, Sheena performing the song live on TV flawlessly in 1988...

Up tomorrow: A former cheerleader is ascending.