Fragile Rock

All better!

Thanks to everyone for the get-well-soons and tips for fighting this nasty cold I had. In the end, it took a few gallons of orange juice, a whole box of green tea and seventeen sips of Robitussin to get over it. Meh.

Today's post is brought to you by an oft-overlooked singer from the same era -- and songwriting team, for that matter -- that brought you Control and N.E. Heartbreak. The career of Detroit's Cherrelle will probably be remembered best by her duets with Alexander O'Neal, specifically "Saturday Love" (you know the chorus: "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat-ur-daaaaaaaaaaaay...") Cherrelle had moderate success in the '80s, with all of her LPs released during that time selling at least gold (remember when people sold 500,000 copies of their album?).

Unfortunately, Cherrelle -- whose cousin Pebbles would later create and manage TLC -- never really attained the same amount of success of her peers; some believe it had a little bit to do with her live performances, which some say would've been so much better if only Cherrelle knew how to dance as well as her choreographed counterparts at the time. Others say she's been on a decline since leaving the Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis camp in the early '90s. Being that as it may, she still put out some great music, with her latest album being released in 1999.

This is one of the few records in my stash that I actually didn't buy; I got it from my mama's collection when I first started pillaging record stores around 2001-2002, and even then didn't actually use it until four or so years later when I flipped "Stay With Me" for Dream, Interrupted's "I'm Not Ready". Fragile would sit in my bin until a year or so later, when I decided to blow the dust off of "I Need You Now" to create "Hurt No More", which made its way onto the never-ever-ever-ever released instrumental album, Dream, Extinguished.

But more than making beats, albums like this remind me a lot of my childhood, when life was carefree and R&B music was still actually of quality. Good luck finding any songs these days that don't reference "humps", "grinding", or "poppin' that coochie". Yeesh. Get a room! Fragile isn't very expensive; cop it from your local mom-and-pop or on eBay for a couple of bones. (download)