This was 1989. NKOTB, Milli Vanilli, and Paula Abdul. When "Don't
Wanna Fall In Love" was hot, almost all the focus the press gave her
was on her fashion sense. Every single article and interview on her
included (and probably began with) a quizzical description of what she
was wearing and of course, that damned nose-chain. When KEYBOARD
magazine did a cover profile of her, the magazine's obnoxious readership
(and I say this as a keyboard player - we can be insufferable) wrote
letters mocking her appearance.

4 or 5 years later, in the dark grunge-industrial pierced-and-tattooed
alterna-90's, she wouldn't have looked out of place at all.

Unfortunately, her label didn't seem to know what to do with the album
she released in '93, HERE NOT THERE, which was way better than her debut,
in my book. That album highlighted another problem of hers: half of it was
gothic alterna-rockish-pop,

"Mona Lisa Smiles"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9rCpV71Tyk

...and the other half was catchy new-jack-swing-ish pop with IN-YOUR-FACE
hooks:

"Perfect Love"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz6BQUPsQJ8

"Calling"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zk_EU5efnQ

An extremely scizophrenic album. The video for "Do Whatcha Do"
manifested the problem: the fans who would respond to her looks and
the gothy imagery of the video wouldn't like the song, and her R&B
fans who would like the song (and they WOULD like the song) wouldn't
care for the video:

"Do Whatcha Do"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G829RrNLfs

Definitely one of my ahead-of-their-time, should've-been-a-MUCH-bigger-
star artists.