Eldergays, why did Kim Carnes' career go straight down the shitter?

Welcome to the unfair world of the One Hit Wonder

Did she not know how to make a pro blush?

I vaguely recall she had some minor chart success outside of that big hit, but she (like Juice Newton) basically was forgotten after the early 80s. That probably had more to do with pop music/top 40 shifting away from the more "adult contemporary" and rock sound of the 70s toward synth-pop by the mid-80s, especially for female artists. Madonna and many dance music artists were more of the taste du jour.

But Kim Carnes was very synth pop, R3. Her albums are as ‘80s sounding as it gets.

I think she just didn’t have as much edge visually as Madonna or Cyndi or Pat. She wasn’t particularly sexy or glamorous.

This question and Carnes are constantly being resurrected on here. Jesus F.C. She was a one-hit wonder.

Gay guys are just so obsessive.

Voice sounded blown out -- like she gargled with straight scotch and smoked J. W. Raleighs unfiltered.

R3 Bette Davis Eyes was synth pop

She wasn’t a one hit wonder she had 2 other songs reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and had other singles reach the Billboard Hot 100 top 40.

If you say she’s a one hit wonder you’re a moron

R1 is it true ignorance is bliss?

All the boys think she’s a spy.

R7 true! I am not familiar enough with her other material to say if that song was atypical for her sound, but I think it was? I am thinking of "Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer" kind of stuff.

She couldn't sing?

R11 stupid

R12 same

I hope r11 and r12 aren’t as ugly as they are stupid lol

Hush I get those girls only listen to Madonna and Beyoncé.

She sounded off-key to me.

I love Bette Davis eyes but have no idea what else she’s done

R16 don’t listen to it. Go finger bang yourself

Well that escalated quickly r18

Oh great, the annual thread on this. 👎☹️

Obviously r17. And it would be really hard to find out. Just say fuck it and post stupid shit showing how stupid you are. It’s the DL way.

Kim's ace in the hole was she got the steady revenue from songwriting credits / she didn't have to play the County Fair circuit into her 60s...

It lasted as long as it should’ve.

She should have sung "Bette Davis Eyes" as a trio with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams for a Ricola commercial.

^^Why don’t you do that in your mind?

^^^ I do.

I still love her cover of Smokey robinsons “more love” Smokey did too, as he wrote “being with you” for Kim but Smokey’s producer told him this was a smash record and advised him to keep it. “Being with you” ended up being his biggest solo hit but was held back from number one by “Bette Davis eyes”.

Christopher Cross in 1980 and the Knack in 1979 had a similar trajectory. Smash album and song and in the case of cross and carnes Grammy awards but after that one big year they petered out

Who is the eldergay who keeps posting these ridiculous threads ?

At least they had a hit, and probably made a bundle.

T27. You wrote ‘peter’ tee hee

Her follow up, Sammy Davis Eye flopped.

Unless you might be in line to inherit what is left of her 'fortune' (doubt that) I don't get why you even care. How stupid are you, OP?

Her next song, Joan Crawford Pussy, flopped hard

Kim's songwriting in her big house in Nashville. She's fine. She sends her love.

She’ll expose ya!

Is she still alive?

Crazy in the Night

Are you r35?

I wasn’t 60 in the early 80s

^^I wasnt either you stupid shithole

R5 Glad you bumped this thread, JFC

Hey lick the shit out of my ass while I spin my Kim Carnes playlist!!

No but Kim Carnes sure was

Bette Davis' Eyes is a terrible song. It came on during a mix I was playing today and I almost wanted to slit my wrists-- it was that bad.

There was an ignorant mofo who referred to her as when we from we are the world. It thought it was her only output. I laughed at how it exposed its stupidity. It’s lauded on the DL.

R43 you should have done it

avec Babs

The Brandon Flowers cover is superior

Voyeur

Kim and her husband were part of David Cassidy’s back up band in the early 70s and Cassidy was such a big star at the time, that they were asked to write a monthly column in one of the teen magazines chronicling their time in the band and they stayed fiends with him.

Wynonna did a good job duetting with Kenny Rogers on “don’t fall in love with a dreamer”, but Kim’s voice worked better because you heard the sadness, weariness and resignation in her voice.

Sorry here’s the link to the Kenny and wynonna duet.

I've always loved this song.

I loved her bop “Black Velvet”.

She’ll take a tumble on you.

She’s precocious

Does it make you remember...

She sang a duet of "Ring of Fire" with Jeff Bridges for the flop movie The Contender.

And she got two words in at "We Are the World," before Cyndi Lauper yanked away her microphone.

Despite the ire it gets from some, I have always loved "Bette Davis Eyes"—something about that song is just perfect to me, and it might be her vocals. I don't know for sure. I have tried to find some explanation for Kim's blow-out voice but it strangely seems she's never addressed it (or I just didn't research hard enough). She sounds rougher than Courtney Love fresh off two consecutive packs of Marlboro Lights, which is really saying something. I think she made it work, though, at least for what she was doing. The extended mix of "Bette Davis Eyes" is a regular jam for me.

You make my heart beat faster and that’s all that matters

This collab with Nile Rogers is a guilty pleasure and the disco + old Hollywood video is pure joy. One of those dance songs that make me feel gay.

I love that song, r56. Seems like it should have been a natural 80s power ballad hit but it predated Total Eclipse of the Heart and Heart's mid-80s comeback so maybe listeners weren't ready for a 5 minute pop music melodrama yet

She's great

The original Bette Davis Eyes by Jackie DeShannon.

She reminds me of Camilla a bit.

I think one's impression of her as a one-hit wonder or as someone who had a big smash and a number of more modest hits may depend on age. I remember a lot of airplay for More Love, Invisible Hands, Crazy in the Night, What About Me? (the trio with Kenny Rogers and James Ingram...all three were part of the USA for Africa lineup around that time).

She and Bonnie Tyler were both often referred to as "the female Rod Stewart" around that time, for their raspy sound.

I’ve always thought she was the most underrated artist of the ‘80s.

She didn’t have the voice of Barbra Streisand or Whitney Houston, she didn’t have the image of Debbie Harry or Madonna, but she knew how to make great synth pop!

If MTV couldn't find Kim a broader following....it wasn't meant to be. They promoted her endlessly.

Kim has been in every cut out section that ever existed.

a note

She couldn’t sing, that voice was horrible.

I wonder how Ian McShane got involved in this very-80s music video!

R71 I love that song from her Cafe Racers album.

Pop music is a young person's game, and in 1981, when Kim Carnes's struck gold with "Bette Davis Eyes," she was already 36, and had a short shelf life. Exposure on MTV highlighted the fact that she was older, and not terribly "hip" compared to her early '80s peers Pat Benatar, Debbie Harry, Kim Wilde, Banarama, or Annabella from Bow Wow Wow, who were all more visually appealing.

She’ll unease you.

Say...

Annabella from Bow Wow Wow was UGLY

Kim was attractive

Her voice?! Did she gargle with razors?

She and Bonnie Tyler went to the same vocal coach.

Bonnie’s voice got scratchier because she had nodules taken off her throat. Bette Davis jokingly asked Kim when they first met “did you swallow a safety pin dear”.

Kim was in her thirties when she hit it big, and she looked quite a bit older than she was. I’m sure that played a factor. She still was fairly successful though for most of the ‘80s. She ended up transitioning into behind-the-scenes songwriting in the ‘90s when she moved to Nashville.

She couldn't sing and looked like a cashier at KMart.

R8, "she had 2 other songs reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and had other singles reach the Billboard Hot 100 top 40."

Whoa! Slow down there Berry Gordy, we can't keep up with those figures!

This album cover artwork/design is SO 80s — like a Patrick Nagel print come to life!

^^She won a Grammy award for Ill Be Here Where The Heart Is which first appeared on the Flashdance soundtrack then months later on Cafe Racers

She'll expose you When she snows you

Can't we have a synth pop revival?

Who could handle that voice for a full album?

Melissa Etheridge, Kim Carnes, Bonnie Tyler and Rod Stewart should form a support group. All of their voices are tired and tedious before the end of ONE song. They have approximately a one octave range with zero resonance and clarity of tone. Get a lozenge. Stop "singing" Please.

R88 Also Sia. My sister played her christmas album one year and I was done with that voice after a few songs.

Tie r87 up and make him listen to Macy Gray

[quote]Melissa Etheridge, Kim Carnes, Bonnie Tyler and Rod Stewart

Don’t forget us

Me too.

[quote]Eldergays, why did Kim Carnes' career go straight down the shitter?

Because "throat-cancer freak voice" didn't work with anything else.

She attempted a '90s comeback, but audiences were outraged by "Geena Davis Thighs".

WHEN WE.

[quote] Melissa Etheridge, Kim Carnes, Bonnie Tyler and Rod Stewart should form a support group.

Don't forget me.

[quote] "Geena Davis Thighs".

and "Barbra Streisand's Nose"

A female friend of mine used to strip at a gentleman's club in North Hollywood. Her favorite song to dance to was Carnes' "One Kiss."

I not only have Kim Carnes’ Mistaken Identity album, but also her Cafe Racers and Barking at Airplanes album.

Her albums are just synth pop masterpieces, time capsules of the ‘80s. And even though she has a raspy voice, she knows how to use it effectively to add feeling and soul and emotion to her songs.

It’s like she’s a raspy Karen Carpenter here.

Nothing about her voice resembles Karen Carpenter. Notice how limited Kim Carnes is. She can't hold a note (sustain) or even move from note to note without jumping to the next one and hitting it over the head. No legato, no dynamics, no range & next to no singing ability at all.

Karen Carpenter could sing. Quite beautifully. With a beautiful rich tone, full breath control and lovely musical sensibility.

She didn't need to chop her notes into to raspy spat out pieces like the execrable Kim Carnes. Carnes makes Marianne Faithfull sound like a genius singer. Which Faithful kind of was, within her limitations.

She had an album called Barking at airplanes?

I thought she grew up in the south, but she was born and raised in LA. One of her sons is gay and she’s very supportive of him. He’s the little boy in the invisible hands video and you can hear him at the beginning of her crazy in the night song.

R103 Okay but is he hot? That’s the important thing.

She had moderate success after 'Bette Davis Eyes' in the 80s - she was the only artist ever to have a solo, a duet, and a trio recording on the Hot 100 on the same week (I believe it was in January, 1985). She also had her song "I'll Be Here Where The Heart Is" on the 'Flashdance' original motion picture soundtrack album, which was one of the best-selling albums of the 1980s. The album itself won a Grammy for "Best Soundtrack for a Motion Picture or Television" which means Carnes got a Gramm as well - since she was a songwriter.

Her other 80s albums weren't bad - especially 'Cafe Racers' and 'Barking at Airplanes'.

I think he’s cute but I have a thing for a sexy front gap.

I think he’s pretty hot too.

If he’s a top he’s kind of hot.

I didn’t realize her son was Ryan Carnes, the gay gardener, from “Desperate Housewives!!”

Here she i live in 2021 for a Doernbecher's fundraising event. She still sounds pretty good to me for being almost 80 years old. I am not certain, but it appears she may have had plastic surgery based on those cheeks, but she (oddly) never seemed to have gone the botox route for all those wrinkles (which were already very prominent even in her mid-30s). Definitely a fair-skinned California girl who spent too much time in the sun.

Carnes also did some acting in the 60s. I was watching “The Patty Duke Show” on TubiTV, and Patty and Cathy were vying for a hunky handyman, played by a young James Brolin. The kicker was that he turned out to be married, and his wife was played by Kim Carnes.

Carnes self-released an album in the early 2000s called Chasin' Wild Trains. "One Beat At A Time" was the first single and it's one of my favorites.

She was always in need of a hot oil treatment.

R113 You mean those weren’t straw wigs?

R111 I liked her in the first Halloween also. She looked totally cute when Michael butchered her while wearing the bedsheets she just got fucked in.

Her classic 1981 video for Bette Davis Eyes is one of my all-time faves.

The follow up, Bette Davis’ Dilated Asshole, never went any place.

[quote] The follow up, Bette Davis’ Dilated Asshole, never went any place.

It went all the way to the Whales of August in Maine.

People forget that, long before Bette Davis Eyes, Kim had landed songwriting credits on all kinds of albums, including some by Barbra Streisand. It’s not as if it was ever going to matter hugely if the public were too stupid to buy her albums in sufficient quantity (which it turned out they were). I don’t think Kim will ever have to cheapen herself with autograph conventions or an OnlyFans account.

She released five albums of very basic-sounding adult contemporary rock going far back into the 70s. Many of the albums had singles released off of them that probably charted somewhere. Her first album in 1971 was titled Rest On Me.

The shift in sound and look in 1981 for “Betty Davis Eyes” (and its accompanying album Mistaken Identity) to a sort of new wave sound, with flashy videos, was a very obvious attempt to revamp her image. But the song was a huge hit, and it totally worked! She just continued with that formula all through the 80s, awkward or not.

Her second album in 1975 (self titled). Very basic 70s adult contemporary rock sound. She would release three more like this until Mistaken Identity in 1981.

Her best was Does It Make You Remember?

Kim Carnes, Juice Newton, Laura Branigan, Belinda Carlisle, Pat Benatar, Cyndi Lauper, all had no more Top 40 hits after the 80s ended. (In the US anyway) Jody Watley and, inexplicably, Sheena Easton, were able to scrape up one or two more into the early 90s.

Oh, and Irene Cara.

Don’t forget Anne Murray’s attempt to go New Wave in the 80s!

R3 stupid ass Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes got the new wave treatment

Some video of the Anne Murray TV special at R125

[Quote] ended. (In the US anyway) Jody Watley and, inexplicably, Sheena Easton, were able to scrape up one or two more into the early 90s.

Not inexplicable at all. Sheena Easton’s early 90s musical style was New Jack Swing which was still in vogue.

R113 like Shelley Hack?

R128, I just meant that it is kind of surprising that of those I listed Sheena would have the longest chart run.

Oh, and the hits also dried up for ONJ by 1985, even though she had the biggest song of the 80s.

Sheena Easton had the most charted number of singles on The Billboard Hot 100 behind Madonna. It’s true.

For the decade of the 80s

R130 it’s not surprising to me. I was a kid in the 80s and grew up listening to Sheena Easton. She was a chart mainstay.

I wouldn’t necessarily describe Kim’s early albums as basic. Sailin’, recorded at Muscle Shoals, was not unsophisticated and led to that first Barbra cut (Love Comes From The Most Unexpected Places).

Because she did not have what it takes to make a pro blush.

I like Kim Carnes - Cafe Racers album. Her video for You Make My Heart Beat Faster has a cute guy in it

Btw Kim has ugly feet on the album cover

R136, that was Ian McShane from Deadwood and the DataLounge “classic”, The Last of Shiela, as Raquel Welch’s husband!

’m home sick and bored, so I did a little chart stats digging. Feel free to double check me, if you care that much.

# of 80s Top 40 Hits by female singers

Madonna 19

Pat Benatar 14

Sheena Easton 13 (14 if you count U Got the Look)

Tina Turner 12

Diana Ross 12

Whitney Houston 10

Stevie Nicks 10

Cyndi Lauper 10

Donna Summer 9

Aretha Franklin 9

Kim Carnes 9

Janet Jackson 8

Olivia Newton-John 8

Linda Ronstadt 8

Debbie Gibson 8

Laura Branigan 7

Juice Newton 7

Belinda Carlisle 6

Barbra Streisand 6

Irene Cara 6

Jody Watley 6

Dionne Warwick 6

Taylor Dayne 5

Paula Abdul 5

Tiffany 5

Terri Gibbs 1

Bette Davis Eyes is the only song by Kim Carnes that anybody remembers.

Try this sample of Bette Davis Eyes by Mylo:

I revel in the fact that Kim Carnes had more top 40 billboard hot 100 singles than Janet Jackson.

R139 what about Sylvia and her 1982 country crossover top 40 billboard hot 100 hit "Nobody"?

r139 posts horse shit.

I did some fact checking. In the 1980s Olivia Newton-John had 11 singles that entered into the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. r139 erroneously posted 8.

Olivia Newton-John's Billboard Hot 100 singles that entered the Top 40

1. I Can't Help It (w/ Andy Gibb) #12 1980

2. Magic #1 1980

3. Xanadu #8 1980

4. Suddenly (w/ Cliff Richard) #20 1980

5. Physical #1 1981

6. Make A Move On Me #5 1982

7. Heart Attack #3 1982

8. Tied Up #38 1983

9. Twist of Fate #5 1983

10. Livin'In Desperate Times #31 1984

11. Soul Kiss #20 1985

that was from 1980-1989

You are correct, I was looking at the wrong column!

Olivia Newton-John's Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 singles 1970-1979

1. If Not For You #25 1971

2. Let Me Be There #6 1973

3. If You Love Me (Let Me Know) #5 1974

4. I Honestly Love You #1 1974

5. Have You Never Been Mellow #1 1975

6. Please Mr. Please #3 1975

7. Something Better to Do #13 1975

8. Let It Shine #30 1975

9. Come On Over #23 1976

10. Don't Stop Believin' #33 1976

11. Sam #20 1977

12. You're The One That I Want (w/ John Travolta) #1 1978

13. Hopelessly Devoted to You #3 1978

14. Summer Nights (w/ John Travolta) #5 1978

15. A Little More Love #3 1979

16. Deeper Than The Night #11 1979

I don't want to hear her voice anymore.

Kim Carnes Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 singles from the 80s.

1. Don't Fall In Love With A Dreamer (w/ Kenny Rogers) #4 1980

2. More Love #10 1980

3. Bette Davis Eyes #1 1981

4. Draw of the Cards #28 1981

5. Voyeur #29 1982

6. Does It Make You Remember #36 1982

7. Invisible Hands #40 1983

8. What About Me? (w/ Kenny Rogers and James Ingram) #15 1984

9. Crazy In The Night (Barking At Airplanes) #15 1985