Obsessions and Devices

Thing I love tonight: the original version of Obsession by Michael Des Barres and Holly Knight, from the soundtrack of a really bad 1983 movie called A Night in Heaven. Most of you, if you know it at all, know the much more popular Animotion version, which actually cracked the Billboard Top Ten, but I always liked the original much better.

Thing I vaguely knew at the time: Holly Knight was also the lead singer of Spider, who recorded one of my all-time favorite pop songs, New Romance in 1980.

Things I didn’t know: Holly Knight was also in Device, a short-lived mid-1980s band whose biggest hit was “Hanging on a Heart Attack,” the vinyl version of which I just happened to digitize on the same day as “Obsession” above. In addition, Holly Knight wrote, or co-wrote, such diverse songs as “Never” by Heart, Better Be Good to Me by Tina Turner, and Love Is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar.

Reason you should care: None, really. I was just bored.