Debbie Gibson, R.I.P.

Contributed by Kris

Hey now.  Don’t fret.  Debbie Gibson is alive and well.  And thanks to her years as a teen idol (actual job description in her wiki profile) circa ’87- ’90, she is prolly hooked up to a champagne I.V. and is carried from her dining  table (don’t worry; she doesn't consume solids) to her favorite la-z-boy by Chippendales and aspiring “male” “models.” 

Let me backtrack, so I can find my point.  It was last Friday when the synapses began to fire and to send important messages to my brain… “you know I could go for some Electric Youth about now, and maybe Shake Your Love if I have 3 extra minutes.”  Oh, voices in my head, you know me so well.  Time for some DG goodness!

I turned to Pandora in my moment of need, and she came through with Only in My Dreams and Shake Your Love.  OIMD was as amazing as I remembered, but I feel like SYL has not stood the test of time.  Go figure that an ‘80s song has not stayed fresh for 20+ years.  That’s not a knock on our sweet Champagne-filled ahngelz (think “angel” and then gay it up) Debbie; that’s just the wear and tear of time.  After getting this taste of Ms. Gibson, I still had not heard Electric Youth, and I had to have it.  So I turned to the YouTubes.  Now, I have only ever heard the song and had never experienced the amazing choreography and special effects {(there are lazars ya’ll)(also, I’m bracketing here for effect, but this musta been in the early days of the green screen… you hafta see it with your own peepers)}.  We’re about to get deep and have a compare and contrast session between the precious never-been-married Debbie Gibson and the oft-married, Louisiana-proud Britney Spears! 

Okay, so first let’s ask the tough question.  How uncoordinated are those dancers?  Britney clearly beat her minions into better shape than DG.  The ‘80s were all about fresh faces and vests over t-shirts, while the 90’s were clearly about whoring it up in cropped exercise wear and dancing with military precision through your high school hallways.  Apples to oranges really.  That’s not a judgement; it was just a different time ya’ll. 

So as I was watching the masterpiece that is Electric Youth, I realized that for the first 3:30 seconds DG and BS were two sides of the same coin.  They were both cute, sweet girls who liked to sing and dance in groups and make faces at the camera.  It’s endearing really.  I am giving Brit the edge in sex appeal, but only because… you saw the outfit DG “rocked”.  But then at the 3:30 mark of the video, it’s like everything that happened to DG was foreshadowing what would happen to BS in the mid aughts (how wretched is that for a decade?? The aughts, really??).  From 3:30 on, there was chaos and spinning out of control.  If only DG had wandered into public bathrooms barefoot while shaving her head, we could’ve been prepared for Brit’s mid-decade meltdown.  I’m not blaming Debbie.  She’s an artist, and I’m sure she had to cut some stuff out of the video for MTV. 

I encourage you to watch this video a few (dozen) times and be entertained and inspired.  I am thankful that some part of my brain malfunctioned enough to lead me down the rabbit hole that ended up at Debbie Gibson’s gold plated door!