THE LEG UP / Stephen M. Deusner

OLDIE OF THE WEEK: TOMMY PAGE

Teenpop done well? Yeah, actually.

Even as new CDs arrive by mail, I’m always compelled to pull out old ones on a whim. Previously I wrote about Team Dresch and Those Bastard Souls, but this week I’m obsessed with someone a bit less reputable: Tommy Page.

His single “I’ll Be Your Everything” was a number-one hit in 1990, but it sounds like crap today. “A Shoulder to Cry On” has weathered the years much more gracefully, even if it remains a towering monument to the power of schmaltz. A new Jersey-born singer in the mode of New Kids on the Block (with whom he toured and recorded), Page recorded the songs in 1988, when he was 18 years old. And he sings it like an 18-year-old, which is part of the reason why it still holds up.

As teary ballads go, “A Shoulder to Cry On” is actually really good—big, direct, simplistic, yet stylish. By far the best part of the song comes right at the moment when the bridge transitions into the final climactic chorus: famed producer Arif Mardin and son Joe have inserted the sound of a revving motorcycle, implying some neo-mod leanings that may or may not actually exist but at fun to think about in a ‘90s teenpop context.

His voice slightly feminine but infused with effortless empathy, Page is harmlessly handsome and hammy here, playing the wiser, older friend to comfort all the teenage girls the song was written and sung for. The adult cynic in me thinks he’s playing sensitive to get into her pants, but I don’t really think Page has ulterior motives here. There is no subtext in “A Shoulder to Cry On,” only text. Besides, the genius of the song is that it plays into listener fantasies, allowing let’s say a young teenage girl to imagine a handsome older boy drying her tears while pledging his undying devotion. That it inspires a kind of playacting means it’s much more active that most of the teenpop created in the nearly twenty years since.

Watch the video and marvel at the fashions: Page’s turtleneck-and-varsity-jacket ensemble is period-accurate, but it’s overshadowed by the model’s floral-print dress, which manages to split the difference between Laura Ashley modest and Frederick’s of Hollywood revealing. 

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington, DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.