Point of No Return Part 2

Summary

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Hit Parade | Point of No Return Part 2

Host: Chris Molanphy
Date: July 29, 2022
Podcast Theme: The Rise and Fall of Freestyle Music on the Pop Charts

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Episode Overview

This episode, hosted by chart analyst Chris Molanphy, explores the ascent of freestyle music—a post-disco, Latin-influenced dance genre—to the top of the pop charts in the late 1980s, and its eventual decline as a mainstream force. Molanphy traces how acts like Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Exposé, and Stevie B brought freestyle to national prominence, how the genre shifted toward balladry to sustain its popularity, and how new dance-pop hybrids and New Jack Swing replaced freestyle as the dominant sound. The episode also celebrates Freestyle’s enduring appeal for nostalgic audiences and its place in the pantheon of dance music history.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Freestyle Breakthrough: Top 10 and Number 1 Hits

• Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s Success
  • Their track “All Cried Out”—a ballad—helped them cross over to the pop charts, peaking at No. 8 ([01:40]).
    • "The third single from their self-titled debut album was a heartbroken piano ballad called 'All Cried Out.' ...It showed ...how sonically versatile they were, but also that they were willing to move away from freestyle to scale the charts." —Chris Molanphy ([01:40])
  • “Head to Toe” (1987) becomes the first pure freestyle song to reach No. 1 on the Hot 100 ([03:56]).
    • "'Head To Toe' is really more of a hybrid... a Motown pastiche with freestyle flavoring." ([03:56])
  • The follow-up, “Lost in Emotion,” also hits No. 1, leaning even more toward 1960s Motown than freestyle ([05:41]).
• Exposé’s Chart Domination
  • Seven straight Top 10 singles between 1987 and 1989, all written and produced by Louis A. Martineé ([14:49]).
  • "Let Me Be the One" reached No. 7 the week of Halloween 1987 ([16:12]).
• Freestyle’s Reach Among Other Pop Acts
  • Taylor Dayne’s “Tell It To My Heart” ([12:20]), Debbie Gibson’s “Only in My Dreams” ([13:17]), and Madonna’s “Who’s That Girl” ([06:44]) blur the boundaries between pop, freestyle, and dance.

2. Freestyle’s Geographic and Cultural Outposts

• Miami: The epicenter for “pure” freestyle, with local acts like Company B (“Fascinated”) and Will to Power making noise first on dance radio before breaking nationally ([09:01]).
• New York: Freestyle emerges through club scenes and is incubated by producers like Louis Martineé and acts like Exposé and Debbie Gibson ([14:13]).

3. Freestyle Goes International

• Pet Shop Boys Collaboration
  • UK acts like Pet Shop Boys tap into the Miami freestyle sound, collaborating with Martineé for the single “Domino Dancing” (1988) ([17:00]).
    • “Domino Dancing was Pet Shop Boys’ Freestyle club magnum opus… it did better in clubs than it did on pop radio.” ([18:40])
• Other British Artists
  • Duran Duran incorporates freestyle and house elements ([19:56]).
  • Samantha Fox works with Full Force on “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)” ([20:59]), scoring high-charting freestyle-influenced hits.

4. Freestyle Ballads Dominate the Charts

• The Crossover Formula
  • As radio embraced slower songs, acts increasingly released freestyle ballads to achieve higher chart positions ([24:00]).
    • Exposé’s “Seasons Change” (their only No. 1) is cited as the defining freestyle ballad ([22:07]).
    • Will to Power and Sweet Sensation also leverage ballads—rather than club jams—to reach No. 1 ([26:05], [27:44]).
    • "If the Bee Gees' 'How Deep Is Your Love' can be called a disco ballad... 'Seasons Change' affirmed that there was such a thing as a freestyle ballad." —Chris Molanphy ([22:13])

5. Changing Tides: New Jack Swing and Other Competition

• Emergence of New Jack Swing
  • Late ‘80s/early ‘90s, acts like Keith Sweat and Bobby Brown usher in a new, more R&B/hip-hop-driven dance sound, eclipsing freestyle ([28:55]).
    • “New Jack Swing … began to emerge in 1987 and ‘88 in tracks by such hit makers as Keith Sweat and Bobby Brown.” ([28:55])
• Freestyle Acts Adapt or Fade
  • Artists like Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam shift styles toward R&B, away from freestyle ([29:28], [30:44]).
  • Stevie B and Timmy T score No. 1 hits with slow ballads, but these successes signal the end rather than a new beginning for the genre ([33:32], [34:00]).

6. Freestyle’s Decline and Enduring Legacy

• Billboard Discontinues the Crossover 30 Chart (End of 1990)
  • “Its success has influenced the Hot 100 chart to such a great extent that a separate radio chart to break out dance titles ... is no longer necessary.” (Billboard editor, quoted at [36:06])
• Final Top 10 Freestyle Hits and Genre Fade
  • Corina’s “Temptation” in 1991 is perhaps the last pure freestyle track to crack the Top 10 ([37:10]).
  • The rise of house, New Jack Swing, and later Euro-dance leaves freestyle as a relic of the '80s ([37:11]).
• Freestyle’s 21st Century Echoes
  • Occasional references or interpolations in hits by Nina Sky (“Move Ya Body” [2004]) and Black Eyed Peas feat. Maluma (“Feel the Beat” [2020]) ([39:50], [40:36]).
  • Pitbull revives Stevie B’s “Spring Love” in an EDM-flavored version ([41:01]).
  • Canadian pop singer Kiesza releases new material in a deliberate freestyle style ([41:36]).
  • “But that's what freestyle mostly is. Vintage.” —Chris Molanphy ([42:00])
• Freestyle Nostalgia Boom
  • Since the 2010s, legacy acts (Expose, Lisa Lisa, Stevie B, etc.) tour to enthusiastic crowds of Gen Xers ([42:46]).
    • "They're still shouting for audiences to dance like they're in a club in 1987, and they're still taking them to the point of no return." ([44:00])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Freestyle’s Hybrid Nature:
  • “Full Force were using the tools of freestyle even when they weren’t sounding like freestyle.” —Narrator ([05:41])
• On the Impact of Ballads:
  • “Tempo was not necessary, strictly speaking, for a hit to be affiliated with Freestyle. But what was a bit ominous was that… radio programmers seemed to prefer freestyle ballads over its dance jams.” —Chris Molanphy ([24:00])
• On Billboard Ending the Crossover Chart:
  • "The top 40 dance hybrid format is highly successful in a large number of markets... but its success has influenced the Hot 100 chart to such a great extent that a separate radio chart is no longer necessary." —Billboard editor, quoted by Chris Molanphy ([36:01])
• Freestyle as a Vintage Nostalgia Phenomenon:
  • “Freestyle, with its impassioned lyrics and irresistible synthesized beats, will always be a source of happy memories.” —Chris Molanphy ([42:20])

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Important Timestamps

• 01:40–03:56 — Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s rise, “All Cried Out,” and “Head To Toe” as freestyle’s breakthrough.
• 05:41–06:38 — Freestyle becomes ubiquitous in mainstream pop.
• 09:01–10:40 — Miami’s pure freestyle scene (Company B, Will To Power, Stevie B).
• 12:20–14:13 — Freestyle as a gateway for new pop acts (Taylor Dayne, Debbie Gibson).
• 17:00–19:56 — Pet Shop Boys and British acts’ embrace of freestyle sound.
• 22:03–24:00 — Exposé’s “Seasons Change” and the turn to freestyle ballads.
• 28:55–30:56 — Competition from New Jack Swing, genre shift begins.
• 33:30–35:00 — Stevie B’s “Because I Love You” marks the genre’s commercial peak and decline.
• 36:01–37:10 — Billboard ends Crossover Chart; freestyle’s national moment is over.
• 39:50–42:46 — Modern echoes, interpolations, and freestyle’s legacy as nostalgia.
• 43:36–44:04 — Exposé's enduring live act, legacy tours.

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Episode Conclusion

Chris Molanphy closes with a meditation on how genres like freestyle capture a moment, then fade or transform—but continue to create joy for listeners decades later. Freestyle’s time at the top may have been short, but its legacy in dance pop endures for fans and on the nostalgia circuit.

Transcript

[Chris Melanphy]

You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.

[Narrator/Host]

Welcome back to Hit3, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. Chris I'm Chris Melanphy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One Series. On our last episode we broke down the history of post disco dance music and the rise of freestyle, a hybrid genre that blended rap style, breakbeats, hectic synthesizers and florid lyrics about romantic longing. By 1987 the music had gotten big enough that Billboard magazine created a so called crossover chart to capture the mix of dance, R and B and pop commanding significant portions of the radio dial. Freestyle was the main ingredient in this new chart, but freestyle was about to start topping the big chart, the Hot 100 too. Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam had already tasted mainstream pop success back in late 1986. The third single from their self titled debut album was a heartbroken piano ballad called All Cried Out. Producers Full Force amped up the song's melodrama by turning it into a female male duet. Between Lisa Lisa and and Full Force members Paul Anthony and Lucien bowlegged Lou George All Cried out finally broke Lisa Lisa into the top 10, peaking at number eight. In and of itself, the a dance act recording a ballad wasn't that unusual. Dating to the disco era, acts like Rolls Royce and KC and the Sunshine Band had issued ballads as a tempo change up and of course, as I noted earlier, so did Madonna in 1985 with Crazy for your. But All Cried out bore little resemblance to Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam's freestyle arrangements. Other than some booming syn drums, the song was just a traditional pop ballad, Which showed on the positive side how sonically versatile they were, but also that they were willing to move away from freestyle to scale the charts. Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam's pure pop late 86 success is an important backdrop to what happened in 1987 when they came back with this. Head To Toe is broadly classified as a freestyle song. In fact, when it reached number one on the Hot 100 for the week ending June 20, 1987, it earned a place in history as freestyle's first ever number one pop hit. But Head To Toe is really more of a hybrid, elements of freestyle production and 80s syncopation applied to a song that could have been. I say this with admiration for Motown in the 60s. The members of Full Force who wrote and produced the song openly admitted this was their intention. We consider ourselves musical historians, bow legged Lou George told Fred Bronson in the Billboard Book of Number One hits. We went back to the old Motown days, back to Diana Ross and the Supremes. Just listen to Head To Toe. Of course you hear the full Motown feel, but underneath it you've got some hard driving drums, which is the full force sound, unquote. So if Head to Toe was a Motown pastiche with freestyle flavoring, Lisa Lisa's follow up hit Lost in Emotion was even more Motown, even less freesty.

[Singer/Performer]

Should know.

[Narrator/Host]

Punctuated by xylophone and congas run through synthesizers, Full Force were using the tools of freestyle even when they weren't sounding like freestyle. Lost in Emotion was another smash topping the Hot 100 in October of 87. These two back to back number one singles pushed Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam's sophomore album Spanish Fly into the album charts top 10 and it went platinum practically out of the box. More achievements that no other freestyle act had pulled off to date. Full Force had figured out how to maximize Lisa Lisa's pop potential. Allude to freestyle without creating full on freestyle jams. In a way, this was on trend for 1987.

[Chris Melanphy]

Freestyle was now so ubiquitous it seemed to pervade everything.

[Narrator/Host]

Superstar singles evoked freestyle, such as Madonna's summer number one hit who's that Girl? The title track from her film of the same name. It included Spanish lyrics and Latin freestyle overtones. Madonna's former boyfriend Jelly Bean Benitez was also back in a collaboration with vocalist Elisa Fiorello called who Found who. Light and airy, it was the glossiest track Jelly Bean had ever produced, A sign of his enhanced clout. Who Found who reached number 16 in September 87. Debbie Harry, who'd worked with JellyBean back in 1985 on a remix of one of her club hits, went full high energy and freestyle with the remix of her 1987 Club Chart topper In Love With Love, produced by Stock Aitken and Waterman. And Jelly Bean even got to produce a track on Whitney Houston's much anticipated 1987 sophomore album, Whitney Love Will Save the Day. Houston's only hit to go fully in the direction of freestyle with clattering Latin production, was eventually chosen as the album's fifth single and peaked at number nine on the Hot 100.

[Singer/Performer]

When you're feeling down and up and you've got trouble on your mind Love to say the name when you're feeling full of doubt.

[Narrator/Host]

But these were established stars working in top flight studios in LA or New York, dabbling in freestyle and high energy beats. In Miami, where Latin freestyle had utterly.

[Chris Melanphy]

Taken over the airwaves, they liked the uncut stuff.

[Narrator/Host]

Freestyle in Miami was as close to pure as you could get, recorded cheaply, synthetically, but artfully made for booming from a car or pumping on the dance floor. Take the irresistible Fascinated by the Miami vocal trio Company B, which broke on the crossover 30 chart months before reaching number 21 on the Hot 100. Or the even more direct Dreamin by Miami DJ Bob Rosenberg, who recorded as Will to Power, Dreamin cracked the top 10 on the crossover chart while only reaching number 50 on the Hot 100. Hold that thought, by the way, because Will to Power will be back. Miami freestyle was creating its own galaxy of stars whose hits received only modest national airplay but were spun in big cities at levels comparable to top 40 pop acts. Fort Lauderdale native Stephen Bernard Hill, who.

[Chris Melanphy]

Recorded simply as Stevie B, became a.

[Narrator/Host]

Club and mix show staple in Miami and New York with tracks like Party youy Body, which didn't even make the Hot 100. Stevie B was slow to break on the national charts, but by early 1988 he was edging closer to the top 40 with tracks like the heavily syncopated, swooningly romantic Spring Love Come Back to me, a number 43 hit. In between these extremes, on the one hand the scrappy, locally famous Stevie B or Company B and on the other the Whitney Houston type megastars, there were newly emerging pop acts with national ambitions who leveraged freestyle as their means of breaking into mainstream fame. Consider Long Island, New York's Taylor Dane. With big hair and a big voice, Dane looked like she was made for the dance floor when she broke in 1987 with Tell it to My Heart, a straight up freestyle record that reached number seven on the Hot 100 in early 88. Dane released only a couple of seconds singles in this freestyle mode before switching to mainstream Balladry with her 1988 single I'll always love you, a number three hit. By her sophomore album, Dane had mostly switched to balladry and adult contemporary. Popular freestyle was her gateway to the mainstream. Or how about this Long island girl from Merrick, New York, one of the 80s top teen queens?

[Chris Melanphy]

Yes, Debbie Gibson, who launched her career.

[Narrator/Host]

With the frothy syncopated pop jam Only In My Dreams. That track broke out on urban top 40 stations, first played alongside the likes of Expose and Stevie B before beginning a long steady 18 week climb to number four on the Hot 100. Again, as with Taylor Dane, Only In My Dreams is essentially a freestyle record produced in this case by Brooklyn based high energy and electro producer Fred Zar. And while Debbie Gibson's future Hits would retain elements of this electro pop sound, such as her 1988 number three hit out of the Blue now with you.

[Singer/Performer]

Out of the blue Love Appear before my eyes with you.

[Narrator/Host]

Gibson's label and managers generally emphasized her all American girl appeal as she began crossing from the New York area to the rest of the country. Debbie did love dance music. In fact, buried on her out of the Blue album was a deep cut, Play the Field, that was produced by one of Miami freestyle's true auteurs.

[Singer/Performer]

Lovin is so real don't just settle down Just let it go.

[Narrator/Host]

Louis A. Martinet, whom I've mentioned in this episode as the producer and mastermind behind Expose, was hitting his stride in 1987 and 88. Martinet was beginning to score higher profile gigs producing rising stars like Debbie Gibson and Vanessa Williams. And as for his flagship act, Expose was positively dominating the charts. Come Go With Me and Point of no Return both reached number five on the Hot 100. And the hits kept coming. In fact, seven straight expose singles from 1987 through 89 would reach the top 10, all written and produced by Louis Martinet. My personal favorite was Expose's fall 1987 smash Let Me Be the One, a dramatic, almost spooky freestyle record with hints of goth rock that happened to reach its peak of number seven the week of Halloween.

[Singer/Performer]

How I Feel.

[Narrator/Host]

It was around this time that Louis Martinet was contacted by a hit making duo from England who'd been admiring him from afar. It made sense that this duo wanted to work with him. By that point they'd been recording tracks indebted to American electro, high energy and freestyle for more than four years.

[Chris Melanphy]

This is the original 1984 version of.

[Narrator/Host]

PET Shop Boys, West End Girls and eventual global smash. This early version was produced by Bobby Orlando, a celebrated high energy innovator who'd produced cutting edge club tracks for such acts as model singer Ronnie Griffith and drag queen Divine. Pet Shop Boys members Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe sought out Bobby Orlando to produce West End Girls while they were visiting New York. And even though they ultimately re recorded the track in London with synth pop producer Stephen Haig, this, by the way, was the version that went to number one in 1986. Even this mainstream version of West End Girls retained a good deal of its urban New York flavor. The same went for other Pet Shop boys hits like 1987's It's a Sin, a number nine hit whose frenetic, feverish keyboards strongly echoed American freestyle. By 1988, Tennant and Low were ready to try the real thing. And they asked Louis Martinet to do for them what he'd done for Expose. And on an artistic level at least, Martinet absolutely delivered, With a chiming keyboard hook that sounded like south beach in Miami, thumping gated drums and an echoing men's chorus. Domino Dancing was Pet Shop Boys Freestyle club magnum opus. Unfortunately for the Boys, it did better in clubs than it did on pop radio. Domino Dancing reached the top five on Billboard's Club Play chart, but only number 18 on the Hot 100, breaking a string of top 10 Pet Shop Boys hits. Nonetheless, the collaboration between the Boys and Martinet affirmed that Latin freestyle had gone worldwide.

[Chris Melanphy]

Pet Shop Boys weren't the only British act glomming onto freestyle. By 1988, Duran Duran, who'd incorporated dance rhythms into their hits since the beginning of their career, produced a blend of freestyle and house beats on their 1988 number four hit I Don't Want your Love. The aforementioned British model turned singer Samantha Fox went further, working with Full Force, the masterminds behind Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. Fox's blend of pin up looks and insouciant attitude was a good match for freestyle, including her number three hit Naughty.

[Narrator/Host]

Girls Need Love 2. And and just nine months later, her.

[Chris Melanphy]

Number eight hit I wanna have some Fun.

[Narrator/Host]

And in America rising RB singer Pebbles.

[Chris Melanphy]

Tried her hand at sultry freestyle on her number two hit Mercedes Boy do.

[Singer/Performer]

You wanna ride my Mercedes But I am tell me what you gonna.

[Chris Melanphy]

Since Lisa Lisa's pair of pseudo freestyle number ones in 1987, no freestyle act had topped the Hot 100. That would finally change in February 1988 when Expose, the premier Latin girl group.

[Narrator/Host]

Of the genre, went all the way to the top.

[Chris Melanphy]

But the song that went there was atypical for them. Seasons Change was the fourth single from Exposure, Expose's multi platinum debut album, which had already spun off three straight up tempo top 10 hits. At a time when top 40 radio was leaning heavily on adult contemporary balladry a la Taylor Dane, it took a slow song to finally bring Expose to the top. If the Bee Gees How Deep is your Love can be called a disco ballad and Christopher Cross's Sailing a yacht rock ballad, Seasons Change affirmed that there was such a thing as a freestyle ballad. Producer songwriter Louis Martinet used the same production technique and synthesizer sounds as on his dance tracks. Other hits in this micro genre included Brenda K. Star's 1988 freestyle ballad I Still Believe, a number 13 hit.

[Singer/Performer]

In love again, I Had a Dream.

[Chris Melanphy]

In short, tempo was not necessary, strictly speaking, for a hit to be affiliated with Freestyle. But what was a bit ominous was that through 1988 and 89, radio programmers seemed to prefer freestyle ballads over its dance jams. Those slow songs consistently did better on the charts. For example, Puerto Rican singer Wilma Cosme, who recorded as Sapphire, broke on the Hot 100 with her uptempo Latin freestyle hit Boy, I've Been Told. But it could only manage a number 48 peak, whereas a few months later, Sapphire's power ballad Thinking of you went all the way to number 12, by far her biggest hit or remember Will to Power. By 1988, DJ and producer Bob Rosenberg had expanded Will to Power into a trio, including a saxophonist and a female vocalist named Susie Carr. Carr sang lead on the uptempo freestyle jam say It's Gonna Rain. But again, despite the song's popularity in cities like Miami, Will to Power couldn't.

[Narrator/Host]

Crack the national top 40, peaking with.

[Chris Melanphy]

Say it's gonna rain at number 49.

[Narrator/Host]

On the hot 100.

[Chris Melanphy]

But then Rosenberg had a weird brainstorm. A medley of two 70s classic rock staples, Peter Frampton's Baby I Love youe Way and Leonard Skynyrd's Freebird, mashed together into a freebie styled ballad. Susie Carr sang the Baby I Love youe Way part, and Bob Rosenberg himself took Freebird. And this ungainly mashup went all the way to number one. This pattern just kept repeating. Sweet Sensation, the aforementioned trio from the Bronx, only got as high as number 23 with hooked on youn, the hit we played you near the top of our show.

[Narrator/Host]

They did modestly better with Sincerely yours.

[Chris Melanphy]

A number 14 hit that leaned even.

[Narrator/Host]

More in the direction of Latin freestyle.

[Chris Melanphy]

But then, in 1990, Sweet Sensation went all the way to the top with Yes, a ballad, If Wishes Came True, a number one hit that Stereogum Number One's columnist Tom Bryan says could have been a glam metal ballad. It's a big, dramatic nothing. If Wishes Came True was a deliberate attempt to cross over Sweet Sensation with pop programmers.

[Narrator/Host]

And it worked.

[Chris Melanphy]

But at what cost? The other problem plaguing freestyle toward the end of the 80s was competition in the category of pop. Friendly blends of dance and hip hop, freestyle no longer had the feeling to itself.

[Narrator/Host]

New Jack Swing, a more directly rap.

[Chris Melanphy]

Influenced R B style, which we've discussed in several episodes of Hit Parade, began to emerge in 1987 and 88 in tracks by such hit makers as Keith.

[Narrator/Host]

Sweat and Bobby Brown.

[Chris Melanphy]

So by 1989, when new pop and V crossover acts emerged, they were likelier to Lean toward New Jack swing than freestyle. For example, Karen White probably would have pursued freestyle adjacent beats if she'd broken around 86 or 87 instead breaking through in late 88, Karen White crossover hits like the Way youy Love Me had the swing of New Jack's swing. Even Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, which full force was always trying to cross over with pop audiences, moved almost entirely away from freestyle. Their third album, Straight to the sky, led off with a mid tempo R B track called Little Jackie Wants to Be a Star which only reached number 29.

[Singer/Performer]

A little Jackie, she wants to be a star she caught in the middle.

[Chris Melanphy]

Even when Lisa Lisa returned to dance music on her next album, she sang over hip house beats supplied to her by the producers from CNC Music Factory.

[Singer/Performer]

Way down Dead inside.

[Chris Melanphy]

Mind you, through the end of the 80s, freestyle could still break a new act here and there. From Dino Me by the hand I.

[Singer/Performer]

Will be your man Cause that's the.

[Chris Melanphy]

Way you make me feel To Martika, this feeling so strong inside to George.

[Narrator/Host]

Lamont.

[Chris Melanphy]

All of whom scored top 40 hits in 1989 and 90. But none of these hits went near number one, and the acts that had been devoted to freestyle for years kept evolving away from its syncopated beats and speedy keyboards to score hits. You could see this most clearly with the man who called himself the king of freestyle, Stevie V. By 1989, Stevie B was at last breaking out beyond Miami and New York and making the national top 40 on the regular. The firmly freestyle I Wanna be the one made it to number 32 and its follow up, in my eyes reached number 37. In a bid to broaden his sound on 1990s love and emotion, Stevie B took the tempo down a couple of steps closer to a new jack swing rhythm, and he was rewarded with a number 15 hit. But then Stevie B resorted to the gambit that had worked for Expose and Sweet Sensation. A full on ballad.

[Narrator/Host]

And of course it went all the.

[Chris Melanphy]

Way to the top of the Hot 100.

[Singer/Performer]

Because I love you now do anything.

[Chris Melanphy]

Number one's columnist Tom Bryan calls Because I love you the Postman song. Quote a chintzy slow jam. Freestyle's biggest, blandest crossover hit of all. Unquote. Stevie B's because I love you spent four weeks at number one at the end of 1990, longer than any chart topper by any freestyle act. Stevie B never cracked the pop top 10 again. Even as Stevie B's lugubrious smash topped the chart, freestyle was winding down as a pop force. One more freestyle artisan who managed to cross over before the gates slammed shut was a Fresno, California singer songwriter named Timmy Torres who recorded as Timmy T. And like Stevie B, Timmy T had first cracked the top 40 barely with a relatively up tempo freestyle cut called Time after Time. That only managed a number 40 peak in 1990. But then Timmy T's tender ballad One More Try, One more try, I didn't know how much I loved you, One more try, let me that reached number one in March 1991, the last chart topper in any way associated with freestyle, even though it wasn't really freestyle at all. At the end of 1990, Billboard implicitly signaled the passing of the freestyle moment when they announced the termination of their crossover 30 chart. It had lasted a little less than four years. Quote the top 40 dance hybrid format is highly successful in a large number of markets, the magazine's editor wrote. However, its success has influenced the Hot 100 chart to such a great extent that a separate radio chart to break out dance titles and is no longer necessary. Unquote. Indeed, dance music was huge in the early 90s. New York club singer Corrina managed to reach number six in 1991 with Temptation, possibly the last pure freestyle hit to crack the top 10. But crossover dance hits around this time leaned toward more bass heavy loping club tempos either new jack, swing or pop and B, like Tara Kemp's number seven hit Piece of My Heart.

[Narrator/Host]

Or straight.

[Chris Melanphy]

Up house music like Black Box's number 8 Euro disco hit Everybody, Everybody. By the time robin s scored her top five deep house classic show me love in 1993, A song that, by the way, has been revived in 2022 thanks to Beyonce's interpolating hit Break My Soul, Freestyle was basically off the charts for the rest of the 90s. You could still hear freestyle's echoes in certain club tracks like Lina Santiago's Feel so Good, which edged into the pop top 40 in 1996, Or Angelina's 1996 club hit release Me, Or Lil Susie's can't get you out of my mind, a top 20 club hit in 1997. In the cosmology of pop mini genres, freestyle is tied to a very specific period. Its trebly beats and blippi synthesizers date it firmly as a mid to late 80s phenomenon. And in the 21st century, as bass heavy styles like trap music and reggaeton have taken over the charts, you have to dig pretty deep to find evidence of freestyle's legacy. Sometimes it's just an allusion to a freestyle classic in the body of an otherwise unrelated track. For example, in their 200412 hit move Ya Body, the reggae R B fusion duo Nina sky quote the entire chorus of Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam's can youn Feel the Beat? As a breakdown in the middle of the song. That same Lisa Lisa jam is interpolated on Black Eyed Peas 2020 collaboration with reggaeton superstar Maluma called Feel the Beat. Sonically, it has nothing else to do with freestyle.

[Singer/Performer]

Can you feel the baby within my heart? Can you see my love shine through the dark.

[Chris Melanphy]

In 2013, Cuban American superstar and new king of Miami dance Pitbull brought back Stevie B for a remake of his 1988 freestyle classic Spring Love. In Pitbull's hands, however, the new Spring Love edged closer to modern edm. Not that Stevie B seemed to mind the revival.

[Singer/Performer]

Don't you know I'm the one and.

[Chris Melanphy]

I love you girl I don't care what they say, you know you are my world come back home Amongst modern pop acts, one of the few emulating the sound of what might be called classic freestyle is Canadian electro pop singer Kaiza. Her 2014 hit Hideaway was first issued with house beats, but it was also remixed in a freestyle version. Kaiser clearly isn't giving up on the genre. Her 2022 single Passenger openly imitates the sound of vintage Latin freestyle. But but that's what freestyle mostly is. Vintage. It was a liminal genre that bridged the disco era at a moment when disco was considered uncool and the hip hop and house eras. In so doing, freestyle provided a valuable service to the history of dance music. And for listeners of a certain vintage, there's that word again. Freestyle, with its impassioned lyrics and irresistible synthesized beats, will always be a source of happy memories. Which brings me to the good news for the vintage freestyle acts. They're virtually all still active. Since the mid 2010s, concert promoters have been packaging the likes of Expose, Lisa Lisa, Stevie B, Shannon, Debbie Deb, Pretty Poison and George Le Monde on very successful concert concert tours. All these performers need on stage is a backing track and their voices. Yes, the audiences are largely composed of 40 and 50 somethings who remember their teenage years from the 80s. But they do sing along and especially dance along. By the way, that lineup of Expose.

[Narrator/Host]

That Louis Martinet put together back in.

[Chris Melanphy]

The day when he wasn't happy with the original version of Expose, that trio Jeannette Jurado, Ann Curles and Joya Bruno is still together, still performing three and a half decades later from the stage, they're still shouting for audiences to dance like they're in a club in 1987, and they're still taking them to the.

[Narrator/Host]

Point of no return.

[Chris Melanphy]

I hope you enjoy enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade.

[Producer/Editor]

Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanthe.

[Chris Melanphy]

That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis.

[Producer/Editor]

Kevin also produced the latest installment of our monthly Hit Parade the Bridge shows, which are available exclusively to Slate plus members. In our latest Bridge episode, I talked to Boston Globe and Time magazine critic Maura Johnson Johnston, who's not only A fan of 80s freestyle but has gone deep on why this exuberant music was often so sad. To sign up for Slate plus and hear not only the Bridge but all our shows the day they drop, visit slate.com hitparadeplus Alicia Montgomery is the executive producer and Derek John the supervising narrative producer of Slate Pocket Podcasts. Check out their roster of [e-mail] podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way.

[Chris Melanphy]

Until then, keep on marching on the one.

[Producer/Editor]

I'm Chris Melanfi.