Monday, May 18, 2009

Two Of Hearts

At Women, the soundtrack is usually ipod playlists, a mix of Sparklehorse and Band of Horses.

After hours, anything goes. Lately, all I listen to is freestyle music.

Stacey Q has been on my mind a lot recently. Her look set her apart from other freestyle artists - her hair was bigger, her clothes brighter, and her accessories more baroque. Stacey was a California girl, who began studying classical ballet at 5 years old. Her entertainment background included being a cast member at Disneyland and performing as a showgirl & riding elephants for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus



How did she end up having a top 5 hit, performing freestyle music, a predominantly urban genre of music?

Where did her look come from?

According to programmer Keith Walsh :
“this impossibly stylish former Ringling Bros. elephant girl and veteran of the Disney Main Street parade possessed star qualities perfectly compatible with electronic music, a genre Stacey also adored. She was enamored with the obscure Japanese band The Plastics and The B-52's, and simply could not get over David Bowie. As a student of style, Swain could literally turn rags into a fashion statement. On one occasion she went to the renaissance fair in Agoura, California dressed simply in two
large pieces of soft leather she bought from a shop in Anaheim."


I would love to see what Stacey Q looks like today.

It was announced on April 16, 2009, that the title of the new Stacey Q album will be "Color Me Cinnamon." It will be released this summer by Hydra Productions. The first single will be "Trip."

Wikipedia Background info:

"Two of Hearts" is a song by artist Stacey Q, from her debut album Better Than Heaven.
The song was one of the highest-selling singles of 1986 (at over a million copies), reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single also did well in the Hot Dance Music / Club Play list, landing at #4, and was a top 10 hit in Australia where it reached #7 on the ARIA chart. It also made the top 60 for the Hot R&B / Hip Hop Play list. Stacey Q performed the song on the television show The Facts of Life, in character as "Cinnamon," a rival of Tootie's.

The song was played on the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in the "The Gang Gets Whacked Part II" episode when Dennis becomes a male prostitute.

The music video was featured in Beavis & Butt-head, in which the duo mistake it for a telethon.


Stacey Swain was born on November 30, 1958 in Fullerton, California. She is the youngest of three children.

She is best known for her 1986 hit single "Two of Hearts". On one occasion she went to the renaissance fair in Agoura dressed simply in two large pieces of soft leather she bought from a shop in Anaheim.

Swain's first guest appearance on The Facts of Life was an episode titled "Off-Broadway Baby", first airing on November 1, 1986. The episode was set in New York City, where Tootie applies for the lead singing part in a Broadway musical, using "Two of Hearts" as her audition song. She is befriended by Cinnamon (played by Swain), a talented but "kind of ditzy" aspiring singer competing for the same role. When Tootie discovers Cinnamon is also auditioning with "Two of Hearts", she tries to talk her out of the competition, in the process causing Cinnamon to miss her audition entirely. By the episode finale, Tootie allows Cinnamon to audition in her place, and Cinnamon goes on to win the part ahead of Tootie. Swain performed "Two of Hearts" in character in the episode.



This is the most sincere form of Metafiction I have seen in quite a while: Superstar Stacey Q, performing as a struggling actress, lip synching to her own hit song.

It's very Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn.