Cover of Private Dancer
Rock music has many survivors. Tina Turner is one of them. She is living proof that a woman can break away from a manipulating wife beater (and musical partner) named Ike Turner to go onto a record-breaking solo career.
Turner’s comeback album, Private Dancer, proves that she is much better than the douchebag that is Ike Turner. Turner is a true survivor. She wastes no time in letting the listener know this fact on I Might Have Been Queen where she declares “I’m a new pair of eyes/ an original mind/ with my senses of old/ and the heart of a giant/ and I’m searching through the wreckage/ for some reconciliation that I might have been queen/ for every sage that falls/ there is an ancient child.” This is essentially Turner declaring that this isn’t the Tina Turner of Ike and Tina Turner, but rather a new and improved Tina.
One of the major highlights is the title track, which showcases Turner’s vocal prowess on the chorus. She also explores the complication of love with What’s Love Got To Do With It – which has since become her signature song. The song later became the title of the 1993 biopic starring Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne.
However, Tina goes all out with Steel Claw, which sounds like an updated version of hers and Ike’s cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival single Proud Mary. It is perhaps the best song on the entire album.
One part of the album, though, falls flat: her version Help by the Beatles. It’s a reinterpretation that doesn’t make any sense.
Bad interpretations aside, it is a good album. A-
