Irene Cara--Flashdance...What a Feeling (1983)

     By the early 80's, Irene Cara was flying high. even before getting out of her teenaged years.  (she was born in 1959) She had been on Spanish and English television as a child, had a regular role on the soap opera, "Love of Life", had a major dramatic roll in the TV mini-series, "Roots". By 1980, she had one of the co-staring roles in the movie, "Fame", along with singing the title song and hitting #4 on the charts.
     Paramount Pictures was working on a movie called, "Flashdance" and had asked Giorgio Moroder to write music for it. Irene and Keith Forsey wrote the words to the title track, "Flashdance...What a Feeling", and Moroder first recorded it with Joe Esposio.  However, since the star of the movie was female, Paramount asked him to re-record the song with a female singer and Cara did the version that would be soon known world-wide.
    The song reached #1 in the spring of 1983 and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and a Golden Globe in 1984. Although Cara never reached those heights again, she has remained busy as an actress and singer most recently with her group Hot Carmel.

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Laura Branigan--Gloria (1982)

     Laura Branigan had been singing professionally since the early 70's. First with a group called, "Meadow" which went nowhere, then several other jobs including a stint as a backup singer for one of Leonard Cohen's European tours.
     She was signed to a solo contract in 1979, and it took a couple of years to figure out how to promote her. Her alto voice had a four octave range, and in the grand tradition of record executives, tried her out in several different areas before settling on pop.  
      Her first album consisted of dance pop with a European flair and it's first single, "All Night With Me" was chartworthy, but really didn't sell many records. The second single, "Gloria" was meeting the same fate but dance clubs were beginning to play it all of the time which it kept it around long enough for it to catch fire on the radio. It peaked at #2 which was her highest charting song (although she did have five others in the top 40), and she was nominated for a Grammy as well. It was on the charts for 36 weeks (which at the time was a record for a female performer) , due to it's inclusion on the "Flashdance" soundtrack.

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