Sheena's 2nd album released in November of 1981. It came out just months after her US debut. It contains the Top 40 singles "You Could Have Been With Me" and "When He Shines". Both tracks were big Adult Contemporary chart hits in early 1982. The album went gold shortly after it's release. I have a fondness for "You Could Have Been With Me". It is unquestionably my favorite Sheena ballad. I like the album cover too.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 44 | March 7, 2019 10:04 PM |
I love the title track. I hate the video because of her atrocious hair style.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 1 | November 16, 2017 2:16 PM |
Released in late 1981, the album peaked at #47 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums, spending a whole year on the chart, eventually certified Gold by the RIAA, and also peaked at UK #33 (Certified Silver). The biggest hit from the album was "You Could Have Been with Me" (US #15, UK #54). In the UK, the lead single, "Just Another Broken Heart" peaked at #33, while a third single "A Little Tenderness" failed to chart in early 1982. In the US, a track from her first album was included; "When He Shines", which was released as a single and peaked at #30.
You Could Have Been With Me became a Top Ten album in Japan, the use of the track "A Little Tenderness" in a television advertising campaign for Noevir Cosmetics boosting the album to a #3 peak, and also Sweden (#2) and Norway (#7).
A CD reissue in 2000 added the track "For Your Eyes Only" (US #4, UK #8), one of Easton's most successful chart singles.
On Feb 23, 2013, Edsel Records (UK) reissued Easton's "You Could Have Been with Me" & "Madness, Money and Music" in 2 compact discs packages remastered with bonus tracks.
On November 24, 2014 the album was included in an Original Album Series box set in the UK with all of her first 5 albums with EMI through Warner Music Group, who now owns the rights to all of EMI's back catalogs.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | November 16, 2017 2:20 PM |
I forgot about this song, thanks for posting it OP. She's got a beautiful voice!
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | November 16, 2017 2:23 PM |
Looking hooker-ish on the album cover's flip side.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 4 | November 16, 2017 2:24 PM |
Cum spend the night inside my sugar walls.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | November 16, 2017 2:45 PM |
Eh. She's no Melissa Manchester.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | November 16, 2017 3:41 PM |
B O R I N G!
That covers her and her career.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | November 16, 2017 3:58 PM |
Hey... hey... hey... Favorite part of the song.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | November 17, 2017 4:19 AM |
“Is he a man or a paper tiger?
When you need him will he run or stand beside ya?”
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | November 19, 2017 1:42 PM |
Long lost Easton song... not bad lol
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 12 | November 19, 2017 1:43 PM |
I liked Sheena Easton and her look throughout the 80s.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | February 24, 2019 10:59 AM |
Her Sugar Walls drove Tipper Gore crazy.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | February 24, 2019 11:07 AM |
Saw her perform in Malibu last month. She was adorable, self deprecating and sounded wonderful. She is also surprisingly versatile. Sang just about everything except Sugar Walls - which she did reference jokingly. She was excellent recently in 42nd Street in the West End revival.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | February 24, 2019 12:32 PM |
I am seeing her in concert with Taylor Dayne later this year.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | February 26, 2019 11:47 AM |
[quote]I am seeing her in concert with Taylor Dayne later this year.
Did you buy the tickets or did Taylor? I'm surprised she'd want to go to a Sheena concert!
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | February 26, 2019 9:40 PM |
I hear that Sheena and Taylor are friends.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | March 3, 2019 12:07 PM |
Sheena was spectacular at being unremarkable.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | March 3, 2019 12:14 PM |
I always find it odd when an artist has the kind of drop off that Sheena had. She scored her first hit in 1980, and throughout the eighties had 14 top 40 hits. She had one last hit record in 1991 (What Comes Naturally reached No. 19), and then... nothing. She continued to release singles in the 90s and 00s, but had absolutely zero chart success.
Her sound started as pure pop (Morning Train) and ballads (For Your Eyes Only), but by the mid- to late-80s, with her collaborations with Prince, her sound had evolved (U Got the Look, The Lover In Me). So why the sudden and drastic drop-off in hit records? Did the quality change? Was she not getting promotion by her record company? I realize the Seattle/grunge sound became popular in the early 90s, but there were other artists scoring hit records with dance/pop sounds like Sheena was recording.
I just find it odd when careers just seem to fall off so drastically when the artist is still recording and putting out new material.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | March 3, 2019 12:41 PM |
you'll have to ask Jesus the answer to that one r21.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | March 3, 2019 12:45 PM |
Gosh, I haven't thought about 'You could've been with me' since the last time I heard it, which was probably 1982. It seemed to play all the time on the radio back then, but I don't think I've heard it played once since then, unlike some other songs of that era.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | March 3, 2019 1:09 PM |
Singers like Sheena, Olivia and even Debbie Gibson, Tina Turner just went out of style toward the early 90s. Music changed as it does. Madonna and Whitney navigated the changing tastes but not many 80s pop divas did.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | March 3, 2019 2:56 PM |
Loved this album and the one that followed - “Madness, Money and Music”! Both albums had material that was better suited to Sheena than the Prince stuff.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | March 3, 2019 3:23 PM |
[quote]Singers like Sheena, Olivia and even Debbie Gibson, Tina Turner just went out of style toward the early 90s. Music changed as it does.
Olivia took time off to have her child, then when preparing to tour in the late 80s for her new album, she got the breast cancer diagnosis. She released only two albums in the 90s and never really toured to support them, so I think the family and health issues really impacted her.
Tina was still pretty big in the early 90s, but it was her autobiography and then the soundtrack to the movie of her autobiography. "I Don't Wanna Fight" was a hit in 1993, and she was still a huge success in Europe, which was where she moved and mostly toured at that time.
Debbie might be the best comparison of the ones you mention, but she was trying to change her image. She was trying to leave behind the teen-pop, and in the 90s was going after a more adult audience, and the transition wasn't very successful.
It just seems like Sheena's sound wasn't all that different from Madonna, Whitney, Janet, Mariah, but she never could retain her popularity.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | March 3, 2019 3:52 PM |
Sheena did broadway in the early 90s and then a standards album. Her 1995 album My Cherie was more adult contemporary in style than her dance pop stuff that she had mostly been doing. It flopped. She then did 3 albums for Universal that were realeased in Europe, Japan, etc. not released in the US market.
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | March 3, 2019 4:51 PM |
R27 They all continued to work but were no longer top 10 artists. Sheena included.
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | March 4, 2019 1:51 AM |
[quote]They all continued to work but were no longer top 10 artists. Sheena included.
Sometimes it's easy to understand why. For instance, Pat Benatar completely changed her sound after 1989, and did a blues-heavy album. Result: no longer got airplay on Top 40 stations, no longer topped the charts.
And it's not like a Top 10 just *happens*. There's a lot of work involved behind the scenes, whether it's supporting your new release through press and interviews, touring, the marketing and advertising done by the label, etc. Back before internet days, without that push, much of the public (aside from diehard fans) wouldn't know there was a new recording to buy. The Top 40 radio stations didn't play new music until it was certain to be a hit.
So for someone like ONJ, only two singles were released from "Soul Kiss" in 1985 when she had her child (the single Soul Kiss reached the Top 20), and only two singles were released from "The Rumour" in 1988 when she was diagnosed with cancer for the first time (the single The Rumour reached the Top 40). So based on the limited releases and support for those recordings, it was more about ONJ and her record company not making much of an effort to make them hits.
| by Anonymous | reply 30 | March 4, 2019 5:54 AM |
[quote]Sheena was spectacular at being unremarkable.
Considering the number of collaborations he had with her PRINCE certainly didn't seem to think so.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 31 | March 4, 2019 6:32 AM |
[quote]I just find it odd when careers just seem to fall off so drastically when the artist is still recording and putting out new material.
Ultimately, it's about the SONG. Sheena's career had a certain boom and bust pattern. She had huge success with "Morning Train" and FYEO but then went on to record dead on arrival material like Madness, Money and Music which would slow her momentum. Then a year and a half of 4 big hits only to bottom out again in '85 with "Do You", again losing all the momentum she had gained in the previous 2 years. I liked "Do it For Love" but it was not memorable enough to be the main single. It would have been a good 3rd or 4th single release. Anyway, she floundered for a year or so until Prince rescued her with UGTL and she left EMI. In '88 the hair finally got longer and the skirts got shorter and "The Lover in Me" became a huge smash. At this point Sheena was considered one of the hottest, sexiest women on the planet and was poised for even bigger success but AGAIN lost all her forward momentum, this time for good. What Comes Naturally was a decent album but like the previous failures I think it came down to the same old problem. The lead singles were just not STRONG enough,musically.
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | March 4, 2019 7:01 AM |
[quote]So for someone like ONJ, only two singles were released from "Soul Kiss" in 1985 when she had her child (the single Soul Kiss reached the Top 20)...
I remember when that single came out the local morning show played it and the DJs were making fun of it after announcing it as ONJ's new song. And this was on the oldies/adult contemporary station my mom listened to. Olivia was kind of a joke by 1985, or at least a relic of the late 70s/early 80s. The shelf life for pop acts in the top 40 is really short. Sheena lasted longer than many and her career arc seems pretty typical.
| by Anonymous | reply 33 | March 4, 2019 9:02 AM |
Love her but I always hated both "You Could Have Been With Me" and "When He Shines".
| by Anonymous | reply 34 | March 4, 2019 9:31 AM |
Sheena was good for a musical style change with almost every album. This was one of the reasons why I liked her so much when I was a kid and a teen.
| by Anonymous | reply 35 | March 4, 2019 11:13 AM |
What Comes Naturally (1991)
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 36 | March 4, 2019 11:15 AM |
Grunge was the worst. We lost dance hits and supermodels.
| by Anonymous | reply 42 | March 4, 2019 11:38 AM |
This song reminds me Thanksgiving '82.
I had invited a guy I really liked from school to go home with me for Thanksgiving because his family lived across the country. But he said he had to study for finals so he begged off.
That song came on while I was driving down I-55 toward home. Made me sad.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | March 7, 2019 8:53 PM |
ONJ's "The Rumour" was so overplayed in gay dance clubs of the time that to this day I hope I never hear it again.
Back to Sheena, "Telephone Lines" from the album OP discussed also fell into this category. I guess at least a 12" dance single was mixed for it. Many of her singles were pretty, fun and/or catchy but just didn't have the "it" factor that would have made them hits. "Do It For Love" was one of the catchiest songs she or anyone recorded at the time, but it was so lyric heavy no one could possibly sing along and get the words right. But later that year came the massive "Lover In Me" (Babyface) that everyone loved. Nothing she attempted after that ever topped it.
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | March 7, 2019 10:04 PM |
