[Retro Bunker] Samantha Fox

Samantha Fox got big at right about the time I hit puberty, so, um, yes. Why is it that the 1980s were so freaking awful? Seriously, if I had grown up in the 70s I would have had to deal with KISS and disco, but I’d also have had original, non-performing-with-Mick-Jagger Bowie, The Band… and maybe I’m just clueless and can’t remember any of their 70s equivalents beyond 10CC (which might have technically been an 80s band) and the Bay City Rollers, but it just seems like there was much, much less stupid in that decade than the next one. Oh well. You remember the decade you grew up in, not the decade you wanted to grow up in.

Anyhoo, Samantha Fox, in retrospect, was very much a product of the 80s. Here is a link to VH1′s collection of her songs. There are only 6 but I think those are around 5.9 more than you’ll actually want to listen to. I will run a quick breakdown of the three I remember:

http://www.vh1classic.com/view/artist/7585/55101/Samantha_Fox/I_Only_Wanna_Be_With_You/index.jhtml

Touch Me (I Want To Feel Your Body): Samantha Fox’s first US single was your standard concert video. Actually, I remember not realizing that Fox was from England until I saw an interview some time after this video came out. Watch it now. I promise you this woman looks like Gretchen Wilson’s younger sister. We are talking full-on redneck. For example, the one-glove look that was probably inspired by Michael Jackson but which looks like she just found one glove in the morning before the concert and just said “aww screw it. Nobody’s going to notice and besides I need to get started on teasing my hair. After all it is already 10am and the concert starts at 8.” Or perhaps the hairspray she used melted the glove off. It’s from her microphone hand so that is a possibility.

Another example I want to cite her is the butt-cut jeans. I realize these were oh so popular in the mid 80s and yes, I do remember the look, but it still looks like she ripped them jumping a fence or something and, what the heck, they were her last clean pair. I had a pair of pants like that that I used when I was doing my laundry when I lived in Kirkland in the mid-90s. I am not, unfortunately, built like Samantha Fox. Also, the laundry place was around a mile down the road from where I lived and was in what passes for downtown. People did comment but somehow I think that the “hey sexy I can see your butt” was a remark that was done sarcastically. In any case, my point is that not all men can pull off looks popularized by svelte 20 year olds.

Naughty Girls Need Love Too: This told the story of a “naughty” girl, which by the way the video is shot is apparently a girl who dyes some of her hair pink and dances in front of black people. Apparently, naughty girlism is an affliction that affects many, including the entire roster of the Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader squad. It’s okay, parents: the black people she dances in front of are dancers. You know what that means. Please do not treat these naughty girls like pink-haired animals for, as this song shall prove to you, they need love too. And they sure are not going to get that love from the dancers. Even Britney Spears could only get love from one of them for like 14 hours.

(Side note: can you believe that’s her real name? No, seriously. Even the wikis, which by the way got good infos, remark that her mom’s name was Carole Fox and her dad’s name was Patrick. It’s like having a pastry chef named Mr. Baker or a priest named Rev. Gropeson. I mean, there’s coincidence and there’s just plain weird.)

The thing that I absolutely adore about this song is the really, really horrible rapping. It’s just plain fantastic and I take back everything bad that I said about the 1980s. Whoever wrote this song – and I have my doubts that it was Samantha Fox herself – apparently listened to Rapture by Blondie and said, “you know what? While I enjoy this enlightening story about a person who goes and eats cars and then gets bored with that and eats guitars instead, I think we can do her one better. Let us slow down the rapping and perhaps intersperse her lines with some guy just saying ‘Samantha Fox’ over and over again.” When the lyricist heard Fox speak these words for the first time, he must have been overjoyed beyond belief because, as it turns out, not only is she English (see earlier in this post), she is from whichever part of England you are from when you speak in a thick Cockney accent. Eliza Doolittle rapping. The greatest idea since Jesus Christ.

And when I was 12 or 13, I considered this FREAKING AWESOME. I bet everybody else considered it hardcore as well. I have a good source that tells me that originally NWA was going to include a Samantha Fox rap battle song on Strait Outta Compton but in the end chose not to because they knew in their hearts that a rap battle with Samantha Fox was a rap battle they would never, ever win.

I Only Want To Be With You: The conceit of this video is that Samantha Fox wants to be with a whole bunch of guys. Kinky! Actually, I have to admit that I find that aspect sort of refreshing. In a world where so, so many music videos by the very sort of hip hop artists who deign to engage in rap fisticuffs with the likes of Samantha Fox feature them being, shall we say, very popular with the ladies, it’s kind of nice in a way to see a lady who is, shall we say, very popular with the mans making her rounds. I’m pretty sure the whole video is meant to be humorous, although I’m about positive that it’s not meant to be so in the way it actually is. That 80s hall of crazy painted objects, for instance. I would like to know if that set was the inspiration for Beetlejuice. And I’m not sure at all what’s going on with the trash cans. Is there one man with the power of teleportation, or four different men? I know I shouldn’t spend so much time (3 hours so far tonight) thinking about this, but it vexes the soul.

In conclusion: Samantha Fox = hot. Me = embarrassed by my retro crush. Me = still thinks she’s hot (and by the way, she’s still only 43 years old).