Irene Cara – ‘Fame’ (original) (raw)
24 July 1982
The lasting legacy of Fame is a wry smile at the notion of legwarmers. There had been a film two years earlier, but the TV series is what caught the world’s imagination. Not being an avid watcher as a small child—it was a serious drama—I can only speculate at why it was so insanely popular: maybe for its portrayal of New York as a bustling metropolis of hot dog stands, yellow cabs and spontaneous street-corner dancing, or of Americans as being relentlessly confident and ambitious, things we were not.
Strangely, for all of Fame’s cultural omnipresence that year, plus her other huge movie soundtrack hit after that, I don’t remember Irene Cara herself being a massive star at the time. Maybe people assumed the theme from Fame was by the cast of Fame, or it was The Song That Sung Itself.
And as for the song, what exactly is it? I suppose it’s notionally disco-pop, but its big brassy keyboards feel more like a Broadway spectacle, which is probably the idea. Aside from the communal “Fame!” where we all spill out onto the street and hold up traffic, I can’t find a way in to this song; the verses feel hermetically sealed with blandness. Maybe we’re just supposed to be blown away by the spectacle.
Published January 14, 2022October 1, 2024