Track-By-Track: O/B #06
"Lots of runway, room to spare.
Trouble due to pilot error."
Is this one of the best transport-as-metaphor-for-sex songs in music? There have been hundreds. Rihanna knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it ('Shut Up And Drive'). Jane Wiedlin revelled in starry-eyed passivity ('Rush Hour'). Grace left little to the imagination ('Pull Up To The Bumper'). The list goes on and on.
But what's so brilliant about Stephanie Mills' entry is the tragicomedy of it all – rather than being the very picture of virility, her special flying man is unfortunately beset with technical difficulties. Stephanie has a sort of seen-it-all-before world-weariness about her man's inability to perform, and she's not going to drop him just yet. Her innuendo is sympathetic rather than intended to mock: at one point she even sings "I'd like to make your landing safe".
What pulls it all off of course is Stephanie's astounding voice. In 'Put Your Body In It', her vocal can seem like mere ornamentation for that insanely huge groove; on 'Pilot Error' it's unquestionably the main event, front and centre in the mix and dominant despite frequent interruptions from an aeroplane taking off.
One final mention of the music video (below), in which Stephanie, surrounded by the lazy racial and gender stereotypes common back then, utterly shines. She simply eats up every last bit of the camera. A lesson in star power.
Stephanie Mills - Pilot Error (Casablanca, 1983)
(Discogs)
Note: this is an entry in the Track-By-Track series for my mix for O/B.
Track-By-Track is a series that looks back at records you will have heard in my mixes, one by one in the order they were played. Who made them, and when? How did I come across them? And what do they make me feel?