I want to alter my opinion of Vanity, at least as far as her "Skin On Skin" LP goes. I think it is far superior to the Vanity 6 LP. I just listened to "Skin On Skin" for the first time and, with the exception of "Manhunt," I like every song on the album, including the re-mixes of "Under The Influence," and "Animals." Although, she wasn't the greatest vocalist, Motown put out a good effort with this album and made some highly listenable and danceable songs... I like it a lot and will play it more than once. What do you on the org think? (I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I never listened to Vanity before, so excuse the ignorance).


[Edited 3/29/10 22:59pm]

a few selected tracks from the album...

"Skin On Skin" (title track)


"Confidential"


"Ouch"


"Under The Influence"

Vanity's 'Skin On Skin' album is much better than 'Wild Animal' (a messy,chaotic album with very poor lyrics and vocals).This time around,her singing is a little better and she's singing real songs."Under The Influence" is her finest single as a solo artist.It's a sexy song.

Is the Skin on Skin special edition an official release? I used to have this album on cassette when it came out 24 years ago. I would like to hear it again digitally.

What's on the special edition version that isn't on the regular album?


Anyway, I like most of the songs. I actually like "Manhunt" and think it could have been a good pop single I didn't like "Animals" at all and her vocals on it are kinda poor, though the beat is good.

It's too bad she parted ways with Motown in 1986 (just a few months after the album was released) so the album didn't have much of a chance to make an impact. "Under the Influence" did pretty well on the charts, and I think they should have released a different follow-up single instead of "Animals".
"Romantic Voyage", "Manhunt", or "Confidential" would have done better on the radio IMO.

i like this album. it's more consistent than Wild Animal (even though i like that one too.)

"Skin on Skin" is great! Vanity's vocals aren't half bad & i dig the lyrics.
"Under the Influence" is definitely her best single. it's so infectious.

There is no offical "special edition" - it IS a bootleg of copyrighted officially released material so - in that way - it is worse than a boot of a concert or unreleased material. I am surprised it is allowed to by here in writing - unless the rules only apply to Prince music.

I agree,"Animals" was a poor choice for the second single.It's nothing more than a "Let's Go Crazy" rip-off,with weak vocals and lousy lyrics.I would have chosen "Confidential" as the second single.

poetcorner61 said:

Where did you get this version from?

mimi2 said:

Tracks: 1. Under the Influence (4:49) 2. Manhunt (3:59) 3. Romantic Voyage (4:40) 4. Confidential (4:16) 5. Animals (4:38) 6. Skin on Skin (4:02) 7. Gun Shy (3:32) 8. Ouch (4:08) 9. In the Jungle (5:14) 10. Under the Influence - Early Morning Mix (5:44) 11. Animals - Extended (5:25) 12. Under the Influence - Late night mix (5:44) 13. Animals - Dub Version (4:36) 14. Under the Influence - Mid-Day Mix (6:27)


So basically,it's just the regular album with some bonus remixes tacked onto it.

SoulAlive said:

ok thanks SoulAlive

and I agree with what you said about "Animals"

Hope you didn't pay money for that.

Great album though.

I would have chosen Skin On Skin as a second single. Animals is my least favourite song on the album so I wouldn't have put it out as a single. Madonna's backing singer Donna Delory does back up vocals on this album.

I see that "Animals" isn't getting alot of love It's such a lousy song.I knew that it wouldn't catch on.

I love 'Animals'

You have to get into it, it's cheesy and silly, but it works! There's some single-worthy tracks on there though, Confidential is super-commercial, maybe Vanity didn't have the voice to carry it though.

Does anyone know if she did any promotional videos for this album? And also, why on earth did Vanity quit Motown after making this album--so I heard?!

poetcorner61 said:

She did one video for the first single "Under The Influence" (posted above).Not sure why she left Motown soon thereafter,but I know that this album didn't do very well.Maybe she was dropped from the roster?

SoulAlive said:

I don't know if she was dropped or if she chose to leave. All I know is she came out with the album in 1986, released the singles "Under the Influence" and "Animals", left Motown, and before the year was over had signed with A&M Records.

mimi2 said:

Did she ever release any albums with A&M? Excuse the ignorance but I really didn't know much about her until recently...

poetcorner61 said:

No,she never released any albums on A&M.She did,however,record two songs for the 'Action Jackson' soundtrack,released in 1988.

In late 1988,there was talk of a new studio album 'Cherry Bomb',produced by Jam and Lewis,Tony LeMans and others.It never materialized.

NouveauDance said:

Cheesy 80s song of the day: "Animals" by Vanity (1986)


Vanity TV interview and performance of "Animals"

SoulAlive said:

Thanks! Nice to see these for the first time! If she ever does magically have her autobio for sale--I would like to read it! Hope her religious persuasions don't preclude her from writing about those very interesting days in the 1980s! We shall see... Meanwhile, on the P front, some interesting things (maybe!) happening!

I like both her albums. I listen to them quite often. I think she has a lot of talent. Her vocals really arent that bad. If she took some voice lessons and worked on it she could have a really good singing voice.

I absolutely love Romantic Voyage. That has to be one of my favoprite songs ever. Very pretty and very well done.

I will always be a fan of Denise

Sorry i thought both of her solo albums were garbage.
Under the Influence was cool and the duet she did
with Morris Mechanical Emotion was cool but the rest
of her music was a disaster. Under the Influence
seemed to be a take on Billy Ocean's Caribbean Queen.
I actually dug the tracks on Action Jackson a lot
better than her solo albums. Jesse should of handled the production on
her music from the get go.
[Edited 4/4/10 20:31pm]
[Edited 4/4/10 20:33pm]

phunkdaddy said:

"Wild Animal' is atrocious.I was shocked when I bought it in 1984.I thought it was gonna be a sexy,funky,kickass solo album.There was so much hype surrounding its release.I bought that album,took it home,put it on the turntable and always fell asleep The lyrics are terrible,the vocals are embarassingly bad,and you can't take the songs seriously."Mechanical Emotion" is as good as it gets.

'Skin On Skin' was an improvement but I agree with you...the two tracks on the 'Action Jackson' are better than most of the stuff on her two solo albums.It seems that Jesse Johnson was the perfect producer for her.