The Great, Great, Tiffany

[Seshmeister]

Yeah...I see your point. I still think it's kinda cool that Tiffany is who she is now, appearance-wise. Then again, I'm not among those currently paying money to see her perform.

It's not actually even a misogynist thing, how many posts are there here about Hagar, Yngwie or Vince Neil et al performing while fat?

Ozzy was getting shit about it in the 80s.

Did anyone say 'he's comfortable with his body' about those guys?

[Nitro Express]

Oddly enough, when Tiffany posed for Playboy maybe 15 + odd years ago, I didn't find the nudes that alluring: possibly too much time - a decade and a half - since her career peak in the late 1980s had passed: Tiffany nude in the early 2000s wasn't anything special. It kinda reeked of desperation on her part more than anything else. Plus, by then she no longer looked fresh and innocent, but rather like she had been around the block a few too many times.

Having said that, as for Tiffany today...well, clearly she likes to eat. However, she's gotta be pushing 50 years old by now. At least she seems comfortable with her body, and isn't going for some bizarre goop-style 0% body fat weight goal...call me strange, but seeing a woman's skeletal system through her skin...bit of a turn off.

Well dude. I think you have it all figured out. Hey maybe you will run into Tiffany and if you get it on, yeah man you will be pounding the real her and not some concoction from a chemical plastic company.

[Kristy]

Ouch!

I guess they both could still have made it today through the TV talent shows and they could at least sing. I don't know about Tiffany but Gibson's personality came across on the Orange Apprentice show as something you wouldn't want day in day out.

Success fuck them up - especially Tiffany. I once read a interview of her where she said she doesn't remember much of '87-88 because she was constantly on the road not knowing what city or what country she was in (by the way, The Ramones pretty much said the same thing in Steven King's book). Then about a year later she is a "has been" with the majority of her fan base moving on to the likes of Nirvana, TLC, Deee-Lite. Britney didn't appear until what 97-98? So when you have that much notoriety only to go from Mach 3 to standing still would take its toll on anyone.

https://www.tiffany.org/info/chronology.html

According to her "chronological page" (yes she has one) it says here:

Nov. 89 Tiffany breaks with manager George Tobin and signs with Dick Scott, the New York-based entertainment manager who also manages New Kids On The Block. She begins work on a new album, representing a major change in style and career direction. In a related matter, MCA filed suit against Tobin claiming contract infringement; this allegedly results from Tobin attempting to sell some unreleased Tiffany songs to another record company after his split with her. There is also a legal case between Tiffany and Tobin over whether she had the right to this split given their contract, but ultimately she gains her freedom but does not have much money left after all these legal wrangles."

Then in April 91 "Tiffany breaks with Dick Scott's management. This begins a dark phase in her life when she is out of money, has no popularity left as a singer, and is a heavy marijuana user for a while. Ultimately, though, she stops the drug use, meets her future husband, and starts a stable family life. She credits her friendship with bodyguard Frank with helping her through this period. (See June, 1999) He also convinces her to become a born-again Christian."

Everything about her career is so fucked up from her mother to bad management to being broke. That whole list reads so sad. She has released 9 albums. I never knew that.

[Nitro Express]

A common story. In the entertainment business you can't see passed three years. New acts sign bad contracts and if they become a hit they make money for the manager and the record company but none for themselves. Usually the dream lifestyle is financed by an advance. If they have a good three year run they usually have no money of their own. Everyone gets burned in the beginning but if you can keep it going and you get smart you can get better management and negotiate better deals. Not everyone can do this so it's back to being a waitress or whatever. So basically most the pop music we heard on the radio was made by slaves. When Prince wrote Slave on his face he pretty much was right. It will end that way until you get smart enough to outsmart the record label.

[Terry]

Well dude. I think you have it all figured out. Hey maybe you will run into Tiffany and if you get it on, yeah man you will be pounding the real her and not some concoction from a chemical plastic company.

Personally, I think excessive, elective plastic/cosmetic surgery ruins a woman's looks...or a man, for that matter. One older woman I know had a very light eye lift, subtle enough to where it wasn't blatantly obvious. Generally? Not something that enhances, from where I sit.

[Terry]

Success fuck them up - especially Tiffany. I once read a interview of her where she said she doesn't remember much of '87-88 because she was constantly on the road not knowing what city or what country she was in (by the way, The Ramones pretty much said the same thing in Steven King's book). Then about a year later she is a "has been" with the majority of her fan base moving on to the likes of Nirvana, TLC, Deee-Lite. Britney didn't appear until what 97-98? So when you have that much notoriety only to go from Mach 3 to standing still would take its toll on anyone.

https://www.tiffany.org/info/chronology.html

According to her "chronological page" (yes she has one) it says here:

Nov. 89 Tiffany breaks with manager George Tobin and signs with Dick Scott, the New York-based entertainment manager who also manages New Kids On The Block. She begins work on a new album, representing a major change in style and career direction. In a related matter, MCA filed suit against Tobin claiming contract infringement; this allegedly results from Tobin attempting to sell some unreleased Tiffany songs to another record company after his split with her. There is also a legal case between Tiffany and Tobin over whether she had the right to this split given their contract, but ultimately she gains her freedom but does not have much money left after all these legal wrangles."

Then in April 91 "Tiffany breaks with Dick Scott's management. This begins a dark phase in her life when she is out of money, has no popularity left as a singer, and is a heavy marijuana user for a while. Ultimately, though, she stops the drug use, meets her future husband, and starts a stable family life. She credits her friendship with bodyguard Frank with helping her through this period. (See June, 1999) He also convinces her to become a born-again Christian."

Everything about her career is so fucked up from her mother to bad management to being broke. That whole list reads so sad. She has released 9 albums. I never knew that.

I had no idea she had released anything beyond...what was the album that had I Think We're Alone Now on it...was that titled simply 'Tiffany'? I also remember Could've Been from that same album, which was a pretty big hit, along with the Beatles cover. I certainly never would have guessed she had released 9 other records in the intervening years between then and today...mostly because one just never heard anything about any of them, or much of anything else she was doing.

But...yeah, she went from total obscurity to this instant sensation in the blink of an eye, and then seemed to drop off the face of the Earth just as quickly. How anyone could not get fucked up by that is beyond me.

[Kristy]

I had no idea she had released anything beyond...what was the album that had I Think We're Alone Now on it...was that titled simply 'Tiffany'? I also remember Could've Been from that same album, which was a pretty big hit, along with the Beatles cover. I certainly never would have guessed she had released 9 other records in the intervening years between then and today...mostly because one just never heard anything about any of them, or much of anything else she was doing.

It all goes back to her producer George Tobin who was really more of an A&R 80's guy who knew how to market Tiffany. To place her on a "mall tour" was a brilliant scheme back then but I guess the problem was mall rats grow up and move on to other things, Tobin seemed to have had no vision beyond malls for her career and when that stopped so did her album sales - or least they never achieved the sells of her first. Tobin did go on to screw her on royalties as did her mother and maybe Tiffany never recovered from both either financially or psychologically. I can see where she got into food, drugs and even surgery to turn back the years or at least her help cope with the fallout. Somehow, she is still alive when so many from the mid-to-late 80's who had instant success lost their god damn minds.


Strange, strange decade the 80's.

[Kristy]

It really was a brilliant scheme

And god damn, she could sing.

[Terry]

It all goes back to her producer George Tobin who was really more of an A&R 80's guy who knew how to market Tiffany. To place her on a "mall tour" was a brilliant scheme back then but I guess the problem was mall rats grow up and move on to other things, Tobin seemed to have had no vision beyond malls for her career and when that stopped so did her album sales - or least they never achieved the sells of her first. Tobin did go on to screw her on royalties as did her mother and maybe Tiffany never recovered from both either financially or psychologically. I can see where she got into food, drugs and even surgery to turn back the years or at least her help cope with the fallout. Somehow, she is still alive when so many from the mid-to-late 80's who had instant success lost their god damn minds.


Strange, strange decade the 80's.

And that's the thing, as you said, in that Tiffany's biggest fans were girls in their mid-teens...and it seemed like her audience literally outgrew her inside of a couple of years.

Yeah, the 1980s were kinda weird. I was in my teens for most of the 1980s, and there's plenty of stuff on a pop culture basis that I didn't care for back then and hasn't gotten any better on a nostalgia basis.

Things I didn't like in the 1980s (partial list):

Miami Vice
Family Ties
Alf
We Are The World
Bon Jovi
Winger
Warrant
Posion
Acid wash jeans
Parachute pants
Back To The Future
Top Gun
E.T.
Oliver North
Nancy Reagan
The Cosby Show (I used to like Cosby's records and the Fat Albert Show as a kid in the 1970s)
Punky Brewster
Cabbage Patch Kids
Q-Bert

[Kristy]

Family Ties was pro-Reagan propaganda. The first Back to the Future was quite good.

[Terry]

Family Ties was pro-Reagan propaganda. The first Back to the Future was quite good.

With the first Back To The Future, I didn't mind the story, or the vast bulk of the casting. I just never took to Michael J. Fox. I flat-out never understood the appeal he had, period. Not in Family Ties. Not in Back To The Future. Not in Casualties Of War. Not in Bright Lights, Big City. Not in The Light Of Day.

I suppose I would say unlike everything else I mentioned, I found him somewhat tolerable in Back To The Future, but every time I've seen that movie I always find myself wishing somebody else had played the lead. Maybe such as Eric Stoltz, who was originally cast for the lead and actually shot some footage on set before he was replaced by Fox.