Ad_Forums-Top

Collapse

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Irene Cara

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Irene Cara

    I will be taking a sabbatical to see Fame the Musical at the Bournemouth Pavilion for my birthday next week, travelling the best part of 200 miles, and so I thought that I would start a thread on the woman who was famous for its signature tune - Irene Cara.

    I associate Fame (and Cara herself for that matter) with the early 1980s craze of keep-fit, florescent leggings and legwarmers, and Weight Watchers-alike women who like a Ski yoghurt, a Slim Fast drink, a couple of Ryvita crispbreads for lunch and not much else besides. I have decided to do a bit of "revision" and watch some of the episodes of the TV series online (she played Coco Hernandez in the film version, did she not?), and also of course, the 1982 number one hit (which I found on an old C120 years ago with a bit of Tommy Vance's voice introducing it, so it must have been from the Sunday evening Top 40 back then). Glee and High School musical have been more recent attempts of being what Fame was in around 1982. And we even have The Next Step on the CBBC Channel - and the Kids from Fame for that matter.

    Indeed, I can't help thinking about Irene Cara without thinking about doing regular exercises with Mad Lizzie on TV-am first thing on a mid 1980s morning. Cara's other hit Flashdance… What a Feeling also makes me think of that - in fact, I was almost going to go to Swansea to see the musical based on that song last year on that magical date, which has the title song which as far as I was concerned, and that was also infamous for the "take your pants off / pension" mondegreen. She was very much of her time as a performer of her time, and I think that her novelty status would have worn off after a few years.

    Her music is very "time capsule"-esque, and very much of its time.
    I've everything I need to keep me satisfied
    There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind
    I'm having so much fun
    My lucky number's one
    Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

  • #2
    Re: Irene Cara

    Oddly I was thinking about her just the other day, especially as I couldn't think of any other hits she had apart from Fame & Flashdance.
    The Trickster On The Roof

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Irene Cara

      As I mentioned elsewhere, I saw Fame the Musical at the Pavilion Theatre in Bournemouth, and of course Irene Cara's big hit was sung towards the end - I had the earworm of that song for much of the weekend which I don't mind.

      Fame was also played on Jo Whiley's Radio 2 show on Monday evening (although it isn't mentioned on the Music Played list) - I happened to be listening when tuning in radio stations in my Premier Inn room.
      I've everything I need to keep me satisfied
      There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind
      I'm having so much fun
      My lucky number's one
      Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

      Comment


      • #4
        And now Cara has passed away at the age of 63 - she and Livvy Newton-John were the stalwarts of musical films in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I know that I should have done this in the Obituaries part, but as I started this thread originally...

        One expects Fame or Flashdance to be seen on TV as a tribute...
        I've everything I need to keep me satisfied
        There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind
        I'm having so much fun
        My lucky number's one
        Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

        Comment

        Working...
        X