Princess – Say I’m Your No. 1 (Germany 12″) (1985)

Burning The Ground Exclusive

“Say I’m Your No. 1”: How Princess Launched a Pop Revolution in 1985

The song that put Stock Aitken Waterman on the map — and gave British soul a new queen.

Some songs simply exist, and then some songs arrive — songs that feel, from the very first beat, like they were always meant to be. “Say I’m Your No. 1” by Princess is firmly in the second category. Released in the summer of 1985 as the lead single ahead of her self-titled debut album, it didn’t just introduce the world to a remarkable new voice. It quietly announced the arrival of one of pop music’s most consequential production teams, and helped reshape what British R&B and dance-pop could sound like.

Who Was Princess?

Born Desiree Heslop in Birmingham, England, Princess was a young British soul singer with a voice that belied her age — warm, assured, and capable of stretching from a tender whisper to a full-throated, emotionally charged belt. Before her solo career took off, she had been singing backing vocals, honing her craft in relative obscurity. But when she stepped in front of the microphone for “Say I’m Your No. 1,” it became immediately clear that obscurity was never going to be her permanent address.

She brought a sincerity to her delivery that was unusual in the increasingly glossy pop landscape of mid-1980s Britain. While so much of the era’s pop was cool and detached, Princess sang like she meant it — like the emotional stakes in every lyric were real and urgent.

The SAW Blueprint — Before Anyone Knew It Existed

“Say I’m Your No. 1” was written and produced by the trio of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman — collectively known as Stock Aitken Waterman, or simply SAW. In 1985, they were still largely unknown quantities. That was about to change dramatically.

The production on the track is a masterclass in sophisticated pop craftsmanship. Lush synthesizers, a sleek, pulsing rhythm track, and shimmering electronic textures create a soundscape that feels both warmly soulful and crisply modern. Unlike some of the more mechanical dance productions of the time, there’s an organic quality to it — a sense of breathing, of space. The arrangement lets Princess’s voice live at the centre of the record, elevated rather than buried.

What SAW achieved here foreshadowed everything they would go on to do with acts like Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue, and Bananarama — but with an R&B polish that distinguished this early work. There’s a sophistication and restraint in the production of “Say I’m Your No. 1” that the more factory-line pop hits of their later years would sometimes trade for sheer velocity. Here, they were still showing off.

The Song Itself

At its heart, “Say I’m Your No. 1” is a love song about the need for affirmation — the deeply human desire to know, without doubt, that you are the most important person to someone. The lyric is direct without being simplistic, romantic without being saccharine.

The chorus is an undeniable earworm: melodically memorable, emotionally resonant, and built for both the dancefloor and the bedroom. It has the quality that only the best pop songs possess — the sense that it could have been playing somewhere your whole life, even the first time you hear it.

The song builds beautifully, too. It doesn’t just explode out of the gate; it draws you in, lets the verses establish intimacy, and then opens up into something bigger and more euphoric. Princess earns that release through performance rather than relying on the production to do the work for her.

Chart Success and Cultural Impact

“Say I’m Your No. 1” was a significant commercial hit in the United Kingdom, reaching a peak of number seven on the UK Singles Chart, spending four weeks in the top ten and twelve weeks on the chart in total. It was a statement of arrival — proof that a young Black British woman with a powerful voice and the right song could cut through in a pop landscape that wasn’t always generous with that kind of space.

The song’s reach extended well beyond Britain. It climbed into the top ten in Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, and West Germany. It was, in the truest sense, an international hit.

Making Waves in the United States

The American story of the single is a revealing one. The song didn’t storm the Billboard Hot 100 — in 1985, a British soul record from an unknown singer on an independent label had a steep climb ahead of it in the US mainstream market. But where it did land was significant: in the United States, it reached number 20 on Billboard’s Hot Black Singles chart. That placing tells you something important about where the record found its audience — not on pop radio, but in the soul and R&B world, among listeners with exacting taste and a sharp ear for the real thing. Breaking into that chart as a British artist, with a record produced by a team that was still finding its feet, was no small achievement.

It also hinted at something SAW would increasingly lean into: the American R&B and dance influence that underpinned their best early work. Princess didn’t just make a record that charted in the US — she made one that was embraced by the community whose music had inspired it in the first place.

The single set up her debut album perfectly, establishing Princess as more than a novelty or a one-off. It created genuine anticipation for what came next, and the self-titled album that followed in 1986 delivered on that promise.

Why It Still Matters

Revisiting “Say I’m Your No. 1” today, what strikes you is how good it is — not in a nostalgic, rose-tinted way, but in a fundamental, musical sense. The production holds up. The vocal holds up. The songwriting holds up.

It occupies a specific and interesting place in pop history: it arrived at the intersection of classic soul tradition and the sleek new sounds of mid-1980s British pop, and it synthesized those influences into something that felt entirely its own. It is also a document of SAW before their formula hardened into an assembly line — a glimpse of genuine artistry at work.

For Princess herself, it remains a defining statement. A song that said, loudly and clearly:

I’m here. I’m serious. And yes — I am your No. 1.

SIDE A:
Say I’m Your No. 1 (H.R.H. Mix No.3) 8:58

SIDE B:
Say I’m Your No. 1 (H.R.H. Mix No.2) 9:02

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

Chart Performance – Princess: *Say I’m Your No. 1* (1985)
Chart	Peak Position	Date
US Billboard 12-Inch Singles Sales	#15	1985
US Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play	#15	1985
US Billboard Hot Black Singles	#20	1985
Australia (Kent Music Report)	#8	1985
New Zealand	#2	1985
Switzerland	#2	1985
West Germany	#2	1985
UK Singles	#7	1985
Netherlands (Single Top 100)	#6	1985

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: TELDEC – 6.20495
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 45 RPM, Maxi-Single
Country: Germany
Released: 1985
Genre: Electronic, Funk / Soul
Style: Soul, Synth-pop

CREDITS:

NOTES:
Hammer Music
A PWL Production

Made in Germany – TELDEC Schallplatten GmbH – 2000 Hamburg 20.

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
for BURNING THE GROUND

THE GEAR:
Turntable: Technics SL-1200MK7
Cartridge/Stylus: Ortofon Concorde Music Black
Phono Pre-amp: Pro-Jec Tube Box DS2
Tubes: Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7 ECC83/B759 Gold Pins Vacuum Tube – Matched Pair
Audio Interface: MOTU M4
Turntable Isolation Platform: ISO-Tone™ Turntable Isolation Platform
Platter: Pro Spin Acrylic Mat
Stabilizer: Pro-Ject Record Puck
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Epson Workforce WF-7610 Professional Printer/Scanner

SOFTWARE:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 25 (Recording)
Down Sampling/Dither: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removal: Manual
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!

Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by donating using PayPal. I appreciate your help.

March 6, 2026

Melissa Manchester – You Should Hear How She Talks About You (Australia 12″) (1982)

Burning The Ground Exclusive

NEW 2026 Transfer
NEW Meticulous Audio Restoration

Original post date: September 12, 2013

How Melissa Manchester Reinvented Herself — and Hit the Top Five — with “You Should Hear How She Talks About You”

By the summer of 1982, Melissa Manchester had a decision to make.

A decade into her recording career, she had built a loyal following on the strength of emotionally weighty ballads — “Midnight Blue,” “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” “Through the Eyes of Love.” She was known as a serious songwriter, a vocal powerhouse, a singer’s singer. What she was not known for was a synth-driven, uptempo dance track.

That’s exactly what she released in May of 1982.

“You Should Hear How She Talks About You” — a bright, propulsive pop single from her album Hey Ricky — would become the biggest commercial hit of Manchester’s career, and earn her a Grammy in the process. But it required a conscious reinvention, one Manchester herself was candid about years later.

“It was not the norm for me because I’m basically a troubadour,” she told an interviewer in 2012. “But I cut my hair off, lost lots of weight, glammed up, and ran it up the flagpole — and it worked.”

A Song with a Pedigree

The track was written by Dean Pitchford and Tom Snow, two of the more commercially reliable songwriters working in early-’80s pop. Pitchford had penned the title song for Fame and would go on to write “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” for the Footloose soundtrack. Snow’s catalog included songs recorded by Olivia Newton-John, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, and the Pointer Sisters.

According to Pitchford, the conceptual seed came from an unlikely source: the Beatles’ 1963 hit “She Loves You.” The idea was to write a modern-day equivalent — a song where a third party reports to someone that another person is deeply in love with them. Rather than a direct declaration of affection, the emotion arrives as hearsay, observed from the outside.

The song was first recorded by British singer Charlie Dore for her 1981 album Listen! Manchester heard the track and brought it to her sessions for Hey Ricky, produced by the legendary Arif Mardin, whose credits ranged from Aretha Franklin to the Bee Gees.

A Commercial Breakthrough

The gamble paid off in measurable terms. “You Should Hear How She Talks About You” reached number five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in September 1982, becoming Manchester’s highest-charting record. On the Cash Box chart, it spent six weeks at number four. It also reached number ten on the Adult Contemporary chart and number eight on the Dance/Club Play Songs chart.

The success enabled the song to rank at number 18 on the Hot 100’s year-end chart for 1982 — a strong showing in a year dominated by Michael Jackson, Joan Jett, and Olivia Newton-John. Internationally, the track was also a hit in Canada (number five), Australia (number four), and New Zealand (number 20).

It would prove to be Manchester’s commercial ceiling. Her follow-up single, “Nice Girls,” would peak at number 42 in 1983, and she never returned to the Top 40. In that context, “You Should Hear How She Talks About You” stands as a singular moment — a career-defining hit manufactured through deliberate stylistic reinvention.

The Grammy

In February 1983, Manchester won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She bested Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, Juice Newton, and Laura Branigan — among the most commercially dominant female artists of the era. Branigan’s “Gloria” alone had spent 36 weeks on the Hot 100 that year, making the victory a significant one.

Manchester had previously been nominated in the same category for “Don’t Cry Out Loud” in 1979. The 1983 win confirmed she could compete not just artistically but commercially with the biggest names in pop.

The Song Itself

The track is built around a narrative inversion that sets it apart from standard pop love songs. Rather than a declaration between two people, it’s narrated by a third party delivering a message: the woman you’re with talks about you constantly, and in the best possible way. The chorus functions as testimony rather than confession — love confirmed through reputation rather than direct expression.

The production, helmed by Mardin, leans into the early-’80s dance-pop aesthetic without sacrificing the vocal clarity that had always been Manchester’s calling card. The result was a record that felt genuinely of its moment while showcasing the voice that had made her career in the first place.

Looking Back

Manchester’s own ambivalence about the song is telling. She acknowledged stopping it for a period to gain “perspective” before eventually returning to it — the complicated relationship an artist can have with work that succeeds commercially precisely because it is unlike everything else they’ve done.

For a self-described troubadour, a synth-pop hit can feel like borrowed clothes, even when they fit. But the numbers are unambiguous. In a career defined by vocal craftsmanship and emotional weight, “You Should Hear How She Talks About You” demonstrated something else entirely: that Manchester could read a room, adapt her sound, and deliver a genuine pop hit when she chose to.

It worked — all the way to number five.

A Hidden Manchester Original

The B-Side: The single also carries a track worth noting in its own right. “Long Goodbyes,” the B-side, is a non-album ballad written by Manchester herself — a reminder that beneath the reinvented pop exterior of Hey Ricky, the troubadour was still very much present. While A-sides are engineered for radio programmers and chart positions, B-sides often reveal what an artist actually wants to say. That Manchester used that space for an original ballad rather than an album filler speaks to where her instincts lived, even at her commercial peak.

SIDE A:
You Should Hear How She Talks About You (Extended Version) 5:04
Written-By – Dean Pitchford, Tom Snow

SIDE B:
Long Goodbyes (Non-LP Track) 3:00
Written-By – Melissa Manchester

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

Chart Performance – Melissa Manchester: *You Should Hear How She Talks About You* (1982)
Chart	Peak Position	Date
Australia (Kent Music Report)	#4	1982
Canada Top Singles	#5	1982
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)	#20	1982
US Billboard Hot 100	#3	1982
US Billboard Adult Contemporary	#10	1982
US Billboard Dance/Disco Top 80	#8	1982

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Arista – X-12011
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 45RPM, Limited Edition
Country: Australia
Released: 1982
Genre: Electronic, Pop
Style: Synth-pop

CREDITS:

Producer – Arif Mardin

NOTES:
Side A: Adapted from the Arista Album “Hey Ricky”

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
for BURNING THE GROUND

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!

Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by donating using PayPal. I appreciate your help.

March 5, 2026

Sheila E. – Sister Fate (US 12″) (1985)

Burning The Ground Exclusive

Sister Fate: The Song That Dared Sheila E. to Change Everything

1985. The Purple Rain era is still smoldering. And Sheila E. is done being a spectacle.

There’s a moment in the music video for “Sister Fate” — a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flash at the 3:06 mark — where an image of Prince is superimposed over a newspaper headline reading “WHO IS SHEILA E.’S MYSTERY LOVE?” It lasts exactly one second. It’s playful. It’s knowing. And it tells you everything about the tightrope Sheila E. was walking in the summer of 1985: close enough to Prince’s orbit to benefit from its gravity, but determined to step into her own light.

“Sister Fate” was the lead single from Romance 1600, Sheila E.’s second album, released on July 26, 1985. It was more than a song. It was a declaration of intent.

A New Image, a New Album, a New Statement

After the breakout success of The Glamorous Life in 1984, Sheila E. could have easily leaned into the formula: glamour, sequins, the thrill of being Prince’s most dazzling protégé. Instead, she did something counterintuitive. She cut her hair. She wore a long-sleeved blouse and long pants for the Romance 1600 campaign. She showed up as a musician first, a performer second.

“They thought the whole thing about the first album was to sell sex,” she later reflected. “But for the second album… I wanted to be seen as a strong musician.”

“Sister Fate” was the sonic embodiment of that shift. Written, produced, and arranged entirely by Sheila E. herself, the track came together quickly — basic tracks were laid down on January 9, 1985, at Cheshire Sound Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, the night after a show on the Purple Rain Tour. Overdubs followed on January 15th. The whole thing had that charged, live-wire energy of a band at its creative peak, running on tour adrenaline and studio instinct.

The Sound: A Prince-Produced Fever Dream

Musically, “Sister Fate” is a rich, layered piece of mid-80s R&B funk. Prince contributed keyboards — Yamaha DX7, Hammond organ, piano — bass guitar, Linn LM-1 drum machine, and handclaps. Sheila E. brought everything else: lead and backing vocals, drums, Simmons SDS-V electronic pads, congas, cowbells, timbales, shaker, and cymbal. The album version opens with an organ and percussion intro that sets a moody, almost cinematic tone before the track kicks into gear. The single version trims that intro entirely, opting for a more direct punch.

Steph Birnbaum added electric guitars. Eddie M. came in on saxophone. Benny Rietveld played bass on the album intro. The result was a textured, full-band R&B production that showcased Sheila’s percussive mastery while still carrying Prince’s unmistakable fingerprints.

The Video: Cloud Jackets and Hidden Messages

The music video, filmed at Greystone Park & Mansion in Beverly Hills and directed by Prince himself, introduced the world to a new Sheila E. aesthetic. Gone was the ultra-glam of “The Glamorous Life.” In its place: Sheila in a brocaded “cloud jacket,” a deliberate visual echo of Prince’s own “cloud suit” from the “Raspberry Beret” video, which was released around the same time. The two visuals were in conversation — a private joke made public, stitched into the fabric of both their images.

That one-second Prince cameo superimposed over the newspaper headline is the video’s sly centerpiece. It acknowledges the constant speculation about their relationship while refusing to actually answer it. It’s teasing. It’s artful. It’s very Prince.

The Charts: Underperformance That Changed Everything

Commercially, “Sister Fate” fell short of expectations. It reached only number 36 on the Hot Black Singles chart and peaked at number 8 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100, never breaking into the main Hot 100 at all. By the metrics of pop radio, it was a miss.

But that miss had consequences. Because “Sister Fate” underperformed, the album’s second single — “A Love Bizarre,” a sprawling duet featuring Prince — was rush-released to salvage momentum. It worked. “A Love Bizarre” climbed to number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot Dance Club Play chart, becoming one of the defining tracks of the era. In a strange way, the commercial stumble of “Sister Fate” cleared the path for its far more successful successor.

The Larger Legacy

Romance 1600 was released on August 26, 1985, on Warner Bros. Records and Paisley Park Records — one of the first albums released on Prince’s newly founded label. Sheila E. became one of the first artists to sign to Paisley Park, cementing a creative partnership that was more than mere proximity to a superstar.

On October 12, 1985, Sheila performed “Sister Fate,” “A Love Bizarre,” and “Holly Rock” on Soul Train. She appeared in the film Krush Groove that same fall. A concert film, Live Romance 1600, captured her band at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco, with Prince and the Revolution making a special appearance.

“Sister Fate” may not have been the hit it was meant to be, but it was something more interesting: a turning point. It was the moment Sheila E. publicly chose artistic identity over commercial formula, even if the charts didn’t reward her for it right away. In that sense, it deserves to be heard not just as a song, but as a statement — a note left for history, signed by a woman who refused to be anyone’s sidekick.

A note on this transfer

This 12″ transfer marks the debut use of the new MOTU M4 Audio Interface — a fitting piece of gear to inaugurate with a record this rich in percussion and texture. You can expect the full warmth and detail of the extended mix to come through with exceptional clarity.

SIDE A:
Sister Fate (Extended Version) 5:48
Organ – Ken Grey
Saxophone – Eddie M (2)

SIDE B:
Save The People 8:30

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

Chart Performance – Shela E.: *Sister Fate* (1985)
Chart	Peak Position	Date
US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs	#36	1985
US Billboard Hot 100	#8 (Bubbling Under Hot 100)	1985
US Billboard Hot Dance Music/ Maxi-Singles Sales	#26	1985
Australia (Kent Report)	#481	1985

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Paisley Park – 0-20359, Warner Bros. Records – 9 20359-0 A
Format: Vinyl, 12″, Maxi-Single, 45 RPM, Allied
Country: US
Released: 1985
Genre: Electronic, Funk / Soul
Style: Synth-pop, Funk, Soul

CREDITS:

Arranged By, Producer, Written-By – Sheila E.
Photography By – Rebecca Blake (2)

NOTES:
“Specially-Priced 2-Cut Maxi Single”

Original version of track A available on the Paisley Park album Romance 1600.

Made in U.S.A.
Printed in U.S.A.

Buy the 12″ at DISCOGS

VINYL TRANSFER & AUDIO RESTORATION:
-DjPaulT
for BURNING THE GROUND

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

**24bit FLAC Only Available For Seven Days!

Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by donating using PayPal. I appreciate your help.

March 4, 2026

New Gear Day: I Chose the MOTU M4 for My Vinyl Transfers

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you who chimed in on my recent post about upgrading my audio interface. I truly appreciate the thoughtful feedback — this is why I love our little audiophile corner of the internet.

After going through all of your suggestions and doing a deep dive into reviews, specs, and user experiences, three brands consistently rose to the top: RME, MOTU, and Focusrite.

I absolutely loved what I saw from RME. There were a couple of models I seriously considered, but they’re just a bit outside my current budget range. That’s not to say I won’t add one to the studio down the road — because let’s be honest, RME gear is kind of the endgame for a lot of us.

My decision ultimately came down to two interfaces: the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 4th Gen and the MOTU M4.

Through my research, the MOTU M4 seemed to have a slight edge for vinyl transfers and long-term driver stability. A few reviews mentioned that Focusrite’s Windows drivers can occasionally be finicky. While many users have zero issues, that small concern mattered to me since reliability is critical when I’m digitizing vinyl — especially rare 12″ mixes for Burning the Ground.

In the end, I chose the MOTU M4 for several reasons:

ESS Sabre32 Ultra DAC
Excellent low-latency performance
Transparent, detailed sound quality
Great input/output connectivity
Competitive price point

For what I need — capturing clean, dynamic transfers from my Technics SL-1200MK7 and Pro-Ject Tube Box DS2 — the M4 checks all the boxes.

I placed the order last night through Amazon, and it’s scheduled for overnight delivery. I’m actually taking today off to set everything up (assuming it arrives on time). You know I won’t be able to resist running a few test transfers immediately.

I’ll report back once I’ve had some hands-on time with it.

See you all very soon.

— Paul