Bette Midler: No Frills (1983)

The year 1983 can't have been one of the easiest years of Bette Midler's long and distinguished career. She had netted herself the rock film classic "The Rose" in 1979, inspired by the life of Janis Joplin, followed up by the live album and film "Divine Madness", but then "Jinxed!" happened in 1982.

According to a story Bette did with Time in 1987, apparently no film offers were forthcoming after "The Rose". The experience of "Jinxed!" resulted in Bette having a nervous breakdown. The following year she released "No Frills" on Atlantic Records, her label since the debut release of "The Divine Miss M" in 1972. In America, it became her second lowest charting album to date, behind 1979's "Thighs and Whispers" (released the same year as "The Rose" which yielded one of her all time biggest singles).

While it peaked at #60 on the US Billboard 200, and lower still at #71 on Canada Top Albums/CD, it was pretty much a triumph in Europe. Uncle Wiki illuminates with all of the figures. It was Bette's "best-selling album to date in both Continental Europe and Scandinavia". It rose to #15 in West Germany, #10 in the Netherlands, #3 on the Norwegian Albums chart and a whopping #1 in Sweden. Wiki says that in Sweden it even outsold "The Rose" soundtrack. This is certainly nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it begs the question why the album didn't do better elsewhere.

Singles wise, there were three: "All I Need to Know", charting at #77 on the US Billboard Hot 100, "Favorite Waste of Time" reaching #78 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #44 on the Kent Music Report from Australia, and "Beast of Burden", #71 on the Billboard Hot 100, #12 in Australia, #4 in New Zealand (they had the right idea) and somewhere in the top 20 or even the top 10 throughout Europe.

Mick Jagger even appeared in the music video for "Beast of Burden" as Bette's boyfriend (the song is written by Jagger and Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones 1978 LP "Some Girls". Bette had previously covered "You Can't Always Get What You Want" on 1980's "Divine Madness".) In September 1984, the video received three MTV Video Music Awards including Best Female Video, Best Choreography, and Best Stage Performance Video. In the light of that, it's difficult to see this whole thing as Bette's second lowest charting album and actually it's a bit of a comeback from "Jinxed!". As they say, the glass is half empty but the glass is half full. Bette would probably make a clever joke out of that.

The album was produced by Chuck Plotkin who had worked with other luminaries such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, either recording, engineering, mastering or producing. He mixed the Boss's "Darkness on the Edge of Town" LP from 1978. So it doesn't surprise me that Bette had planned a version of Bruce's song "Pink Cadillac". Though Bruce was against it being released, on the grounds that he thought it wasn't a woman's song, Bette still performed it on her tour for "No Frills". "Beast of Burden" takes its place on the album. It would be fascinating to hear "Pink Cadillac" (hint, hint, record companies.)

My encounter with this album began with the 1996 reissue of Bette's "Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits". Included were three songs, the aforementioned "Beast of Burden", "Favorite Waste of Time" and the non-single "Only in Miami" which for years I thought had been taken from the "Some People's Lives" album. Sometimes even now, I still think it would work better there. It doesn't feel like it was recorded about six years before it either.

Though the album was issued on CD in 1983, and remastered for release from Atlantic Records and Warner Music in 1995, I found this CD almost impossible to find for about a year hunting for it. Copies would show up in America (inevitable I guess) and Europe (definitely inevitable considering its success over there), but it was like it was never even issued on Australian shores. This is the frustration that comes with being a collector, especially when you consider that Bette's albums aren't exactly scarce, but eventually depending on the time and place you do get lucky, and that was me.

I held the CD in my triumphant little hands (and that sounds like a line from "Otto Titsling".) I had never even heard the thing on record. None of these other songs were familiar to me. Make no mistake here, I have not been familiar with this album for all that long, but that is changing. Let's have a look at the songs.

"Is it Love"---we begin with what I think could have at least been a minor 80s single, something playing on the radio on the classics stations today as you're driving somewhere for lunch. Why it wasn't, I can only imagine because it was overlooked for some reason. The song is written by Nick Gilder and James McCulloch.

"Favorite Waste of Time"---having been a longtime listener of "Experience the Divine", I'm intimately familiar with this one, and it's always been a neat little classic. Again, this is another one you can imagine playing on the radio, but for some reason it's been overlooked. "Favorite Waste of Time" is written by Marshal Crenshaw. I haven't heard his earlier version.

"All I Need to Know"---this song written by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Tom Snow was originally called "Don't Know Much" and was released by Barry Mann (1980) and Bill Medley (Righteous Brothers) before Bette recorded it. Linda Ronstadt had a hit with it in 1989 as a duet with Aaron Neville. I wish the same had happened with Bette because it belongs in the same company as Bette's later hits.

"Only in Miami"---Max Gronenthal, co-lead singer of the Grand Funk Railroad, provides this song. Again, even listening to it right now, it feels like a song from "Some People's Lives". It's actually my favourite moment from "No Frills". Bette might agree with me here because it was the only song she included on the 1993 "Experience the Divine".

"Heart over Head"---this is another one I can imagine hearing on the radio, and again I don’t know why it wasn’t even released as a single. This one is written by Andy Goldmark, Robin Batteau (he wrote jingles like McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It") and Brock Walsh.

"Let me Drive"---I can almost imagine Rose from "The Rose" singing this, if she was around in the 80s recording albums. It also reminds me a bit of "Leader of the Pack" from "The Divine Miss M" and even something from "Thighs and Whispers". It's written by Greg Prestopino with Matthew Wilder who co-wrote one of my favourite 90s Disney songs "Reflections" from "Mulan".

"My Eye on You"---just see my notes for "Is it Love", "Favorite Waste of Time" etc. It also could have had a neat video.

"Beast of Burden"---this is the big one and actually, sorry Bette and Mick Jagger, the least interesting one on the record for me, but it's Bette and Rolling Stones, come on. Objectively, this is pretty awesome.

"Soda and a Souvenir"---the second last song is written by actress Jessica Harper. I count myself as a fan on the basis of movies like "Phantom of the Paradise", "Suspiria" and "Shock Treatment". She later co-wrote "One More Round" from "Some People's Lives", the opening song and also the B-side on our cassette copy of "From a Distance". This is one of my favourite moments from the B-side. It sounds like it could have been a background song in "Grease".

"Come Back Jimmy Dean"---the album ends on this moving little moment from Bette, which she also co-wrote with Jerry Blatt and Brock Walsh. This brings to mind "The Rose" a bit.

So there you have it. The album deserves another release, and it's not the only Bette album that does (I will get to 2000's "Bette" which was a very, very pleasant surprise). If you can actually get a hold of it, whether it's on vinyl, cassette or CD, then I hope you enjoy it as much as these ears did.

Thank you,

Ryan.