Simon Rushworth
Vixen – Cryin’ (Tripp/Paris) b/w Desperate (Miku/Santos/Kuehnemund) 1988
The all-girl hair metal band’s biggest hit on both sides of the Atlantic, pop rocker Cryin’ crashed the Top 40 in the US and the UK.
At a time when the men looked more like women it was only the obviously feminine band name and flashes of bronzed cleavage which gave the game away as far as these four ladies from Minnesota were concerned. Even so, certain critics suggested the pretty boys of Poison were still sexier than these four foxes at the forefront of the LA glam scene.
Jostling for position with Lita Ford, Joan Jett, Heart’s Wilson sisters and, possibly, Cher, Vixen were the kinda made for MTV girl band label bosses were looking for as an alternative to the scores of heavily made-up men dominating posters and screens worldwide.
And there’s no doubt their self-titled debut hit the mark with the excellent Edge Of A Broken Heart preceding this uptempo ballad. With rushonrock fave Richard Marx lending his considerable keyboard skills to an impressive record (the man himself actually gains a songwriting credit on EOABH) the only surprise is that it never made a bigger dent on the Billboard charts.
Boasting enough former members to populate a small country, Vixen are still going strong – or at least going – with founder member Jan Kuehnemund at the helm. The rest of the original band split five years ago after a brief comeback and a lack of commercial success. Shame.