Playing the sax does not require inhaling…
Not in the mood for anything nice and rough? Well don’t worry, we’ve got something nice and easy for you today! That’s the way we do Mondays at The Nest. So let’s sift through the easy listening collection and pull out another magnificently mellow masterpiece from that elevator full of jazzy muzak we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy’s totally into long walks on the beach (but not in the rain), while the Sponkies get a crash course on classic FM soft rock. This yacht’s sailing for Hawaii…
At the tender age of 16, while you were probably still popping pimples before your big date at the junior prom… a lad from Hawaii by the name of Glenn Medeiros was winning local talent competitions in 1986 singing his version of a George Benson song. Through a rather fascinating series of events, by the summer of the following year, radios around the world were playing his song for everyone to hear, making Medeiros a pop music star before he was even old enough to vote…
“Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You” was a smash hit for the teen from our 50th state, reaching #12 on the charts (going to #1 in several other countries, including Canada)… and betraying the fact that 35 years later, barely a soul alive remembers this guy or that song ever existed. Yeah this song’s a piece of cheese, but it’s fine cheese that should have aged gracefully rather than grow mold! Medeiros is anonymous even for an 80’s one hit wonder (though he had a duet with Bobby Brown go to #1 in 1990 that I have utterly no knowledge of)… but to prove how big he once was, he did get a rather interesting claim to fame….
The compilation album from hell…
As I noted in my Retro TV Ad post from 2017, “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You” was one of a small handful of songs popular in the late 80’s that got included on the legendarily awful album Smurfin’… which is, you guessed it, pop songs sung in the voices of the Smurfs, who all have tiny blue larynxes full of helium. If you secure all the fine crystal in your house and put on a pair of earmuffs, you can even listen to Glenn Medeiros’ piece of super-schlock turned into an eardrum shattering wreck right here…
Oy… from easy listening to aural torture! Glenn didn’t deserve that anymore than he deserved to completely fade from our collective memories. That’s OK, once his music career dried up, he got into education and is now the principal of a Catholic school back home in Hawaii. I’ll bet you didn’t go to a school where your principal once had a hit song so big that even The Smurfs took notice…
Who’s the slacker now, Principal Strickland?
More great lost hits that won’t give your dog an earache next Monday!
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
Talented kid. Good looking. Went to graduate school at USC. Has a fine career as an educator. Then I find out he named his children Cord and Lyric. Holy F___k. Who does that to their kids? Save your themed names for dogs, cats, and fictional characters in children’s books. Yeah, I’m feeling a bit scratchy myself this morning. But as always great Monday post. You rock as always (and sometimes pop)
Yikes! Only Frank Zappa can get away with that kind of indirect child abuse… and while I like Glenn, he is no Zappa.
Nice song and the Smurf one was funny. I’d never heard this before. 🙂
The DVA strives to keep the memory of unknown songs like this alive! Oh, and the Smurfs too, I guess…
haha 🙂
the voice of the smurf… LOL like the noises from the torture chamber of my dentist hahahaha
There are not enough feet in the world to step on those little blue bastards!
Is that Bill Clinton playing the sexaphone?
Yes, accompanied by an intern on the trombone…
Well I know the song but had no idea this kid was the singer – wonder if his voice changed at his tender age and that was that for his singing career. I always get a big kick out of that photo of Bill Baby on his sax…..er….sex…..er…..sax. Whatever.
Pam
At least this time Bill was doing the blowing. I hear he was Mitzi’s favorite President…. even more than Uncle Sam.
That Mitzi has a thing for blowhards…… 🙂
Hmm, as a haole, I musta missed ole Glenn. He of “ridiculous offspring names” fame, egad, and I thought Zappa took the cake with his kids’ names. Happy Monday.
Haole is a new one on me… I just got an education! At first I thought you misspelled A-hole! 🙂
When you’re a native islander, it just probably is a somewhat sanitized ‘misspelling.’ LOL 😈
Hee hee. Couples skate at the rink tune…
This came right after the grade school skate parties I went to, but it would have fit right in with the record selection of cheesy 80’s songs!
Yeah, I think I might have misremembered. But I swear that I remember kids couple skating to that in middle school skate events which, if I graduated in 1990, probably was off by my reckoning. Ha! People’s memories–both a plague and a benefit to oral historians like me! 😀
The George Benson original is several years older, though I doubt it’s cheesy sappy enough for couples skating….
Yeah, when I listened to this version, that visual memory popped into my head. You know, the glittery disco ball and all!
I’d completely forgotten this song but it must have been in heavy rotation during one of the times I worked somewhere that played pop music all day long because I’ve heard it about a gazillion times. I had no idea who sang it though. I imagined someone…older.
I’m not even gonna click on the Smurfin’ video! I’ve already had an annoying song in my head for the last few days, I don’t want to make it worse by hearing it in Smurf!
While I very much encourage readers to click on the videos and links I provide, I certainly give an exception to Smurf songs. I only included it for masochists or people who enjoy train wrecks…
I do recognise the song. It’s a shame there wasn’t a video of a Smurf and Smurfette walking hand in hand along the beach…
Ugh! Pardon me, I need to clean up a mess I just made on the floor….