“There’s No Stopping Your Heart”
Marie Osmond
Written by Michael Bonagura and Craig Karp
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
February 22, 1986
If “What’s a Memory Like You” made the positive case for manufacturing a hit, “There’s No Stopping Your Heart” is the perfect counterpoint.
Whereas yesterday’s John Schneider hit had its finger on the pulse of where country music was going, today’s Marie Osmond’s hit is hopelessly stuck in the past, recycling off brand country pop beats that simply aren’t up to the higher musical standards that contemporary artists were reaching.
The lyrics are generic and Osmond’s performance is colorless, a reminder that she wasn’t any more country than her brother was rock and roll. This is a performance best suited for the dinner theater circuit of a tourist town in decline.
What a dud.
“There’s No Stopping Your Heart” gets a D.
Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties
Previous: John Schneider, “What’s a Memory Like You (Doing in a Love Like This)” |
Next: Alabama, “She and I”
I don’t know that Marie could have really ever escaped the shadow that she and her brother cast over 70’s culture, however much she tried by going to Music City in the 80’s. Arguably the most country thing she ever really did was from that time period, her big pop/country crossover hit of 1973, “Paper Roses”–and even that is kind of tainted when you realize who actually had the hit with it first, back in 1960.
I sadly have to admit that I love this song! It is out of place in 1986 for sure as better songs were starting to chart more freqently. For what it is it makes me sing along and brings a smile to my face instantly . I’d give it a B for sure
She’s gone country, here she comes.
This song would would fall flat in any decade.
There is no part even of the wide-armed and welcoming ’80s where it would feel at home or fit in.
Osmond gets almost every sonic reference, influence, trend, and touchpoint wrong.
It’s the worst of somebody playing at trying to pass as country while trying to say something you think the country audience will want to hear or relate to.
Pure posturing.
This is another example of what I imagine – or fear – casual country fans think all ’80s country sounds like.
Which is a shame, because few chart toppers blow as badly as this.
Performances like this is why traditionalists and gate keepers get their hackles up over pop stars invading Nashville and reaching the top of the charts with their efforts.
At least she looks like an ’80s country star.
I have never heard this song in my life and I forgot it as soon as I listened to it – but the video is sort of iconic. It’s like if Joseph Kahn directed Taylor’s Wildest Dreams video in 1986 with a cereal commercial budget.
Cereal commercial budget!!!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the comment from our BlueSky thread that she’s styled like the Cesar Romero version of The Joker from the 1966 “Batman” TV series.
In my 15 + years of researching country music I have never stumbled upon this song. Talk about a forgotten hit lol.