Jheri Curl Fridays has run for a few years on three different sites, so it’s inevitable that an artist or group would be covered multiple times, and there are very few artists from that era more worthy of repeated coverage than Shalamar. The trio created some of the best music of the early ’80s, and were also ahead of the curve in terms of video.
1982’s “I Don’t Wanna Be The Last To Know” is a little-heralded gem from their hit album Friends. ’90s/early Oughts babies may recognize the musical bed as the basis of Blaque‘s 2000 hit “Bring It All To Me.” The song’s lyrics perfectly capture the uncertainty of a relationship, and Howard Hewett and Jody Watley give an excellent reading.
The video is…weird. Actually, if you’ve seen the video for their previous single, “A Night To Remember,” you figured out the basic synopsis. It’s just turned into a bizarre period setting, and…nothing else I can say could do it justice, so just watch and scratch your head.
The ’80s…so charming…so weird.
Amazingly, I didn’t know this video even existed until a week or so ago. Oh, the wonders of the internet.
Buy Shalamar’s Friends CD on Amazon.
