Why Was Michael Bolton a Thing?

OP, a lot of us at the time couldn't figure it out either!

He made the fraus wet. Especially songs like Can I Touch You....There?

Yes, fraus went crazy for him and his long hair. Same with Fabio.

They were ugly and so unsexy, but they made the fraus wet and moist.

Give me Richard Tyson circa Two Moon Junction if we're talking hot men with long hair.

He looks and sounds constipated.

Are you looking at your picture OP?

The same reason Kenny G is a thing: boring music for white suburban fraus to listen to as they drive to the chain stores to by plastic crap made in sweatshops in dictatorships.

buy

Because white man with mullet singing R & B.

Or soul, I suppose.

Always loved this In Living Color parody.

What’s a Michael Bolton?

Bolton was really good looking when he was younger. He started losing his hair pretty young and after that it looked very sparse in front and ruined his looks. This is before that.

Here’s another one. Judging from these early pictures, maybe he was a natural brunet and he damaged his hair from stripping it and bleaching it blond.

He’s one of those guys who kept his hair long after it started receding and it looked terrible. Now that it’s clipped short, he actually looks better.

He slightly redeemed himself with Lonely Island.

Look to the fraus

He was a HUGE songwriter before becoming a pop star. Kinda like Katy Perry. Come to think of it, there hasn't been a better example from Bolton to Perry. The singing is secondary, but he had a voice that fit in the weird nexus of pop and metal that happened in the 1990s.

This song is my favorite of his. Co-written with Diane Warren. Sounds a lot like a Bon Jovi song in terms of the production.

David Foster (maybe the biggest producer of the 80's) did this for Bolton which was a minor hit before his mega 1989 album. Love this one too

He was a thing because he was marketed to be a thing. He was entirely unthreatening sexually, making him someone that housewives could fantasize over without much guilt or embarrassment. They could ooo and ahhh over him and not get their panties wet. THAT would have made them guilty.

A total waste of time for all involved.

I used to fantasize about Michael Bolton making love to me. Taking me into his arms, making mad passionate love to me. Throwing me on the bed, taking off my panties, and licking my pussy as his luscious long hair draped over my breasts. Nothing turned me on more seeing his luscious locks down my pussy region, licking me, as he occasionally came up to air to sing some of his famous songs and then he would promptly return to eating out my pussy.

Michael Bolton was so good at eating my pussy, I came.

I said nexus of metal to pop in the 90s, i meant the 80s, where you had metal that was really more pop (such as Motley Crue) and the songwriters bounced between the genres, as did the bands.

BDF for days.

Also "no-talent ass-clown."

He was hung like a horse

- Nicole Sheridan

Bolton worked a lot with Walter Afanasieff, who also worked with Mariah Carey.

That's why 90's pop sounded like 90s pap

[quote] He was a HUGE songwriter before becoming a pop star. Kinda like Katy Perry. Come to think of it, there hasn't been a better example from Bolton to Perry.

Sweetie, what are you talking about? Katy Perry was never a HUGE songwriting star. And if you actually mean Linda Perry, she didn't start writing songs for others until her band broke up, so that comparison is out the window, too.

He always reminded me of Kevin Costner, i sometimes get them confused

I celebrate the guy's entire catalog, R21!

Stealing our song is Not a Wonderful Thing

r26 i was wondering if anybody would get it, bravo!

Does anyone have any VPL pics of him?

I found him kinda attractive for a very brief period when he cut off his hair.

r24 Huge in terms of working within the industry....Maybe established is a better term?

Katy Perry sucks and she's a horrible singer. All she knows how to do is yell her vocals.

He was the male Cher.

He had Joan Osborne's hair before Joan Osborne -- a true pioneer.

I do like this song, he wrote it for Laura Branigan and later covered it himself, both versions were hits.

I never paid any attention to him in the 80’s/90’s, but compared to the garbage that’s on the radio today, I would definitely prefer his music instead.

This one was tolerable.

Michael Bolton is proof, and there are many other examples, that the masses have such bad taste.

Cher's version of this is much better but I do love a late 80s Diane Warren power pop song.

Michael Bolton also wrote and produced Cher's 1987 comeback single "I found someone"

All is forgiven for that alone.

“Uhhh, I think I just pooped in my pants.”

I was once subjected to a Michael Bolton concert in the early 90's. It was torture. Two hours of screaming into giant wind fans to blow his hair up as he moved around the stage. The fraus were lined up in the front rows holding hands as they swayed to his music. I was with people who invited me not to see him but Celine Dion who opened the concert for him, but they decided to stay until it ended. I wanted to put my head inside one of the fans and decapitate myself.

All I hear about are women. You mean to tell me gay men didn’t like him?

Gay men had better taste.

My mom’s boss back in the early ‘90s used to play Michael Bolton and Kenny G. excessively in her office. My mom was ready to go postal on her. She HATED the two of them. She thought it was pretty much sacrilege when he did “Georgia on My Mind”as that was one of her favorite songs.

Now Huey Lewis was a different story. She lusted after that man.

He looks like an old lesbian now.

He gave white fraus a "safe" version of black music. And he was styled as a historical romance book cover model (wild hair, billowing white blouse open to the navel)

Now that people mentioned both Bolton and Kenny G, I realized they are not the same person.

This thread has made me listen to When I'm Back On My Feet Again. Diane Warren said it was one of her most personal songs, about the death of her father.

It's very overblown and nowhere near as good as Because You Loved Me.

he seemed sincere and non-threateningly sexy to the millions of fraus who bought his albums

He is definitely high on the list of Things I Don't Get at All.

He was handsome despite the awful hair.

Men with long, flowing, blond manes of hair really got the fraus' motor running in the '90s, for some reason.

Is he still with Paige Mathison from Knots Landing?

You can just call me Mike.

r54 ROFL love that pic!

Much like his hair

and all that big crunch permed hair from the 1980s and 90s...

it seems incomprehensible now

What is a Dionne Warwick?

WTF was the "Can I Touch You There?" song about? Were all the middle-aged fat white frauen pleasuring themselves fantasizing about Bolton stroking their lady parts down there?

Bolton was THE frau panty creamer of the late 80s and early 90s. He was part of the putrid 'adult contemporary' genre that was really big at that time, also known as Lite FM or "secretary music." Gloria Estefan was another one who was really big in that genre, as well as Rod Stewart. Awful, boring frau music but it was extremely popular.

Real name: Michael Bolotin. Russian Jewish on both sides.

Well at least he gave the illusion of a real man crooning love songs. Now all we have is Sam Smith, Sam Mendes and Ed Sheeran. Pansies. The black artists are manlier but then they take it to the other extreme with constant MeToo scandal. And I don't even want to address the KPoop crowd.

Bring back men in blouses

Shit music.

His vocals were good, but his lyrics and songwriting shit. I mean, he was a good singer. But his songs sucked ass.

His music was absolute shit but he had a huge run of hits for several years. I couldn't change the station fast enough when one of his abortions came on the radio. There was a lot of crap music in that time period that only appealed to fraus.

Middle-aged fraus were truly Michael Bolton's only fanbase, nobody else could stand him and thought he was a total joke. He was widely mocked. It was a lot like what happened with Clay Aiken many years later.

He was sued for plagiarizing this

What a bizarre hooked nose he has. I suppose the hair was to distract from that?

I recall asking this question to my straight white married female co-workers at the time, and the general consensus was that he was good music to play while having a candlelit bath by yourself, feeling sensual and all.

I also agree with what another poster seems to be hinting at above - he's non-threatening R&B...which in a way might seem a bit ignorant to the immense world of black R&B.

He is NOT rnb, more like easy listening

He fucked like Adam Duritz fucked he had a lot starlets. Ashley Judd is the only one I can remember

[quote] His vocals were good, but his lyrics and songwriting shit. I mean, he was a good singer. But his songs sucked ass.

Thanks for elaborating because I didn't quite get what you meant in your first sentence.

[QUOTE] His vocals were good, but his lyrics and songwriting shit. I mean, he was a good singer. But his songs sucked ass.

This is the exact opposite of what everyone else has been saying. 😂

Michael Bolton's songs sound odd because he's really not a adult contemporary/R&B ballad singer. He's a hard rock/heavy metal singer, was the frontman of a few bands and made several rock albums throughout the 70s and early 80s before he "sold out" to become a pop singer. He found it more profitable to be the male Celine/Whitney after years of struggling in the AOR genre.

Not too surprising, I really loved his early rock material and rock/metal music fits his voice much better.

With his band Blackjack

He made my mother's ladymuff wet. I used to make fun of her- that shit would blast in my house when I was 11-12 years old in the late eighties and I would run away screaming.

Its so funny as I recently downloaded Steel Bars and You Wouldn't Know Love and rocked out in my car. Good shit!

And I disagree with the poster above- Bolton's version of YWKL is far better than Cher's- especially the band.

Another awesome Blackjack song. Kanye West even sampled this song.

His singing sounded like he was grunting and groaning his way through a massive shit.

I always got him confused with Kenny G

R5 Today I learned Michael Bolton and Kenny G are not the same guy.

So much light being shed. Had no idea he started out doing heavy metal and then reinvented himself.

[quote]He was part of the putrid 'adult contemporary' genre that was really big at that time, also known as Lite FM or "secretary music." Gloria Estefan was another one who was really big in that genre, as well as Rod Stewart.

Gloria Estefan is also deserving of a "Why Was XXX a Thing?" thread.

I'm a total AORhead so I loved most of his pretty bland music. It has all the songwriters I like in the genre, as well as a lot of the same studio musicians. Didn't care after he went total pop, but "Steel Bars", a late(ish) song, is really damn good and has made most of my roadtrip playlists since 1991.