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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 | 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
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!
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