Debbie Gibson vs Taylor Dayne vs Tiffany

Who’s your fave?

  • Total voters
    10
VoR

VoR

Take it or leave it
Joined
Feb 3, 2004
Messages
135,268
Location
The Cinema
I’ve been celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ with some B-tier 80s popstrels.

All had US #1s, while only Tiff reached the summit here.

This video is a fun summation of their US careers. Poor Taylor’s signature hit got caught in peak Debbie/Tiff dominance, but she had the last laugh with a longer run of success overall.

 
Taylor was/is pretty much a decade older than the teen queens, in fact Martika is probably a closer association to Deb and Tiff but I do get the connection. All three were heralded as Madonna’s supposed successor.

Debbie’s ‘Out Of The Blue’ and Taylor’s ‘Tell It To My Heart’ were genuinely good pop albums. Their second albums were good efforts too.

Back in the day:

1 Taylor
2 Debbie
3 Tiffany

However, in the non fame years Tiffany’s material is by far the best. I do like that Debbie and Tiffany are proper besties these days.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: VoR
I’m quite fascinated by Debbie. So preternaturally talented at the time, writing all her own hits, producing her two #1s, you’d think she’d go on to write really interesting stuff. But she seems to have gotten stuck in that brief moment when she was a pop princess and never really evolved beyond it, wheras Tiff actually did exhibit some growth as an artist into the 00s.

Taylor made that foghorn of a voice go a long way. I have a real soft spot for Heart of Stone and its ludicrous key changes.,
 
It’s unfair that Heart Of Stone was the one to break that Taylor Top 10 streak by peaking at #12.

Debbie’s book ended up in my Xmas pile last year. There is some quite interesting record label stuff in it, she talks about all the albums which pleased the music nerd in me.

The 4th album had been pretty much written as a dance record but the label rejected it, kept a couple of songs and sent her away to rewrite and co-write to order in line with what sound they wanted. She talks about cringeworthy meetings with middle aged male record execs telling her as a young woman what to write. After that a spiralling loss of audience, budget and confidence followed.

Also she should have shed momager Diane much earlier, ended up costing her a fortune.
 
Last edited:
I did buy the 12" picture disc of Only In My Dreams though, so I'd possibly choose Debbie although I think Tell It To My Heart towers over anything else any of them did.

I think Tiffany's voice is actively unpleasant. The thought of avoiding her made the decision not to see Kim Wilde next year easier :D
 
Last edited:
Top ten of all three:

1. Only In My Dreams
2. Tell It To My Heart
3. Original Sin
4. Electric Youth
5. I’ll Be Your Shelter
6. Shake Your Love
7. Prove Your Love
8. Heart of Stone
9. I Think We’re Alone Now
10. All This Time
 
Tiffany is my favorite, I love her first album but can appreciate the others had more longevity. though I can see why the others are more appealing to many.

Top Ten Overall:

1. Love Will Lead You Back
2. Promises Made
3. I Think We’re Alone Now
4. Losin’ Myself
5. Could’ve Been
6. Only In My Dreams
7. Tell It to My Heart
8. Radio Romance
9. Feelings of Forever
10. Can’t Stop a Heartbeat
 
Is Love Will Lead You Back particularly well remembered in the USA? It's hard to judge here, as it tanked at #69.

Taylor's UK chart positions were generally odd. Two big hits out the gate with Tell It To My Heart and Prove Your Love, then everything missed the top 40 until album 3 when she randomly had another decent little run with Can't Get Enough and I'll Wait.
 
I’ve grown to like “All This Time” but it was a weirdly mature single for her at that time at 17. They went with “Radio Romance” first in Europe but not sure there was anything that would’ve sustained her momentum based on her trajectory.
 
I could be completely wrong as I might’ve been too young to remember clearly but I’ve a feeling Taylor didn’t set foot in the UK to promote the second album. Maybe she was on MTV or something but nobody I knew had it.
 
VoR said:
Is Love Will Lead You Back particularly well remembered in the USA? It's hard to judge here, as it tanked at #69.

Taylor's UK chart positions were generally odd. Two big hits out the gate with Tell It To My Heart and Prove Your Love, then everything missed the top 40 until album 3 when she randomly had another decent little run with Can't Get Enough and I'll Wait.
Click to expand...
Not particularly but that whole era of early 90s schmaltz balladry fell out of favor pretty quickly. And for how prolific she was in the Hot 100, I wouldn’t say any of her hits are that remembered aside from maybe Tell It To My Heart.

Its streaming numbers aren’t bad though for tanking in Europe. It’s at 79 million , whereas I’ll Always Love You (US #3) is at only 16 million.
 
A lot of US female pop icons of the 80s/early 90s had similarly spotty success in the UK (see Cyndi and Paula)
 
  • Like
Reactions: VoR
And our very own Sheena Easton! She did incredibly well in the USA considering she didn't really chart at all here between For Your Eyes Only and Lover In Me.

Anyway, I might need to promote Original Sin to my Taylor #1 on reflection. More B-tier pop girlies of the 80s should have had a random Jim Steinman moment.

 
It’s a shame Taylor played at Mar-a-Lago

I like Debbie the most of the 3 personally
 
1. Debbie
2. Taylor
3. Tiffany

Actively liked the first two, never bothered by Tiffany. A bit too naff and schmaltzy overall.

Taylor’s first album is fantastic. Prove Your Love and Don’t Rush Me were worthy successors to Tell It To My Heart. I also adore Original Sin.

Debs went off a cliff after album two, which was also itself too long, but there’s no denying that first rush of hits.
 
Debbie’s The Body Remembers had some good tracks. I think she really never leveled up from her teenage writing is her biggest issue.

She seems super fun on social media and she’s always really great with her fans.
 
BoysForSeles said:
I could be completely wrong as I might’ve been too young to remember clearly but I’ve a feeling Taylor didn’t set foot in the UK to promote the second album. Maybe she was on MTV or something but nobody I knew had it.
Click to expand...

I think I remember a testy sofa interview with one of the TVam men when she released I'll Be Your Shelter. She was asked why she wasn't releasing Love Will Lead You Back when it had gone to number one in the US and she wasn't pleased.
 
In the most unsurprising news that you will ever read on Moopy, I was a MASSIVE fan of all three.

Tiffany's debut album was the first record I ever bought, well my sister bought it for me on cassette. I played it so much it broke after a few months, the tape got somehow twisted at the end of Side One, and the start of I Saw Him Standing There on Side Two never played right after that. I still play that album often till this day.

I was probably a bigger fan of Debbie overall at the time, I got Electric Youth on vinyl in 1989 for Christmas and I still know the words to each song off by heart. She really was very talented for such a young girl.

Taylor I didn't really get into properly until a few years later when her success had died off, I didn't even know she had recorded a second album until about three years after it came out.

Adding in Martika, who was much more close to Debbie and Tiffany in age and genre, I loved her too. Both albums are so good. Looking back, they did try to market her as the 'bad girl' compared to Deb and Tiff, when in real life she was a sweet girl.
 
I bought ‘Out Of The Blue’ with my last remaining French francs on the last day of a school trip to Trouville-sur-Mer. It was between that and Sabrina’s album, for a moment I almost went with Sabrina as her tits on the cover would have scored me some kudos on the coach trip back but stuck with Debbie in the end.

I had ‘Tell It To My Heart’ on vinyl, a present I assume and I only got the follow up albums and both Tiffany’s first two via the much missed Secondspin (without jewel cases of course) when I first had home internet access years after the fact .
 
Joseph said:
Secondspin was a lifesaver so many times back in the day lol
Click to expand...
Indeed. I first had that tv dial up internet and decided to look up whatever happened to a few pop acts and bands I’d liked and had assumed had long given up only to discover they’d still been releasing stuff for years so I was always on there buying stuff to catch up.
 
I don't know anything about Debbie Gibson other than the comically terrible Mega Shark vs movies she was in. Truly abysmal but watchable, one of which also starred Tiffany!
 
Debbie was a proper megastar here for her brief time. I had her posters on my wall and everything.

Tiffany was good but she seemed to fizzzle out a lot faster. I think I having 2 of your biggest hits be covers don’t help.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back
Top Bottom