I might have overrated the source album for this song (A Woman & A Man) when it first came out in 1996, but can you blame me…? Belinda – the second cutest Go-Go (because Jane Wiedlin will always have my heart) – hadn’t put out an album in three years, and her previous outing…Real…hadn’t been the most consistent of her solo works; in fact, it was such a commercial bomb that it ended up being her one and only release on Virgin.
A Woman & A Man was such a creative success, however, that it was easy to get swept up in it and…cough, cough…put it in your top 10 of the year; unfortunately, while the best tracks were released as singles in both the UK and Australia, the album came out in the States on Miles Copeland’s label, Ark 21, and died a quick death…so much so that, if we were fortunate enouh to get any singles in the US, I have absolutely no idea what they were! If we had, however, my picks would’ve been a tie between “Always Breaking My Heart,” written by Per Gessle from Roxette (who proves here that he can write a power pop song that can kick your ass), and this one.
“California” features Brian Wilson on very obvious (and very perfect) doo-wop styled backing vocals, as well as one of the great opening couplets of all time: “I remember I was in the tanning salon / When I heard that River Phoenix was gone.” I once read the track described as a cross between “California Dreaming” and X’s “Los Angeles,” and that’s not a bad comparison. Check it out; it’s on iTunes, or you can sample it via RealAudio here.
