Musical Monday - Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: May 28, 1983 through July 2, 1983.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: May, 28, 1983 through July 2, 1983.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

Irene Cara should have been a bigger star. Before singing the title track to the movie Flashdance, she had starred in the movie Fame and sung two of the hits from that soundtrack - the number one hit Fame and the top twenty hit Out Here on My Own. She won a Grammy award, and this song, which she wrote, won an Academy Award. A sitcom was planned as a vehicle for her to star in, and even had a pilot filmed and aired. She was a blazing, incandescent talent and seemed poised to become the kind of huge, international star that would dominate the rest of the 1980s.

But she didn't. She had a couple more movie and television appearances, had a couple of very minor hits, and then her career more or less dwindled away, fading first quickly and then slowly over the next several years. The odd thing is that the movie Flashdance seems like the sort ofm movie Cara should have been in - It is a movie about a group of women working as dancers (but not strippers) in a kind of seedy bar in Pittsburgh. Alex, the main character, works as a welder by day and dances at the bar by night while dreaming of making it big with a professional ballet company. One would think that this part would be perfect for someone with Cara's dance ability, but instead the lead was played by Jennifer Beals, who is a perfectly fine actress, but can't dance at all. In fact, virtually all of Beals' dance routines were done by body doubles, and it is painfully obvious when they are not, becasue Beals looks awkward and unsure of herself.

From what information is available about the movie, Cara wasn't even really considered for the part of Alex. Whether she simply didn't audition for the part, or if her status as a "rising star" made her too expensive, or the studio executives were just too dumb to realize how good she was is unclear. I can only wonder how Cara's career might have been different if she had starred in what amounted to one of the signature movies of the decade.

Previous Musical Monday: Candy Girl by New Edition

Subsequent Musical Monday: Every Breath You Take by the Police

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Every Breath You Take by the Police

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

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