Cultural Reset. By definition, a cultural reset is the addition of or change of something in pop culture so revolutionary that it shifts the way the public perceives someone or something. We live in a time where every mediocre single and album is deemed a cultural reset, diluting the true impact of the ones that can and do happen. A reset like the one that happened 40 years ago this year - where the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll reclaimed her throne, redefined the word pop star, and proved to the world that there was a singular Tina Turner - the release of Private Dancer. That, my friends, is a cultural reset.
To understand the importance and subsequent impact of Private Dancer, you must become acutely aware of the woman behind the music, Miss Anna Mae Bullock. Born in Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939, she began her life already littered with tragedy. Her mother left to flee the abuse perpetrated by her father, abandoning her children. Her father would remarry and send the kids to live with their grandmother - Tina would later recounting that she believed she was never loved by her parents, nor wanted. Bullock would begin to perform in clubs in St. Louis after graduating high school, where in 1956 she would meet guitarist Ike Turner. She was denied the ability to sing for his band, Kings of Rhythm, because she was a woman and the band didn’t welcome most women into their group. Bullock, a few weeks later, got on stage during their intermission, singing
a B.B. King ballad to prove Turner wrong, and was subsequently a feature vocalist in the band from then on out. She made her first appearance on Kings 1958 single, Boxtop, credited as ‘Little Ann’. In 1960, Sue Records president Juggy Murray suggested Ike Turner make Bullock “the star of the show”, as he was so blown away by her voice from a demo only recorded by accident. This is when Ike would “rename” Bullock, crafting the stage persona “Tina Turner”, inspired by comic book characters Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and Nyoka the Jungle Girl. He would trademark the name he gave her, as so if she left he could replace her with another Tina Turner. The show was named the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, featuring the Kings of Rhythm as the band and the Ikettes as background singers, which would tour religiously throughout the 1960s. It was during the late 1960s the group would hit their mainstream stride with multiple hits produced by Phil Spector such as
River Deep, Mountain High. It was during this time Tina Turner began to emerge as the world would come to know her. The revealing dresses, the fast dance moves, the powerhouse voice. She became the first black artist and first female artist on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 1967 [her first on ten appearances on the cover of the publication]. The influence of Tina was beginning to emerge on pop culture already: Cher adopting her sensual form of dress, Mick Jagger attempting to replicate her dancing, Janis Joplin and James Brown attending her shows. During the fall of 1969, the revue opened for The Rolling Stones on their US tour, along with a slew of tv show appearances that only propelled Tina further into the realm of stardom she was destined for. 1970 brought their biggest hit, a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary. The duo would continue until 1976, where the bubble would burst for the public and one of music's most famous marriages.
Since the beginning of their romantic relationship, back in 1960, Ike had been physically abusive toward Tina, abusing her so badly that she attempted to take her own life in 1968 due to his abusive behavior. It wasn’t until one final fight in 1976 Turner would leave with only 36 cents to her name and a credit card. She would file for divorce shortly after, given custody of her kids, the alimony and child support she asked for, her furs, cars, jewels, and her stage name. The divorce, however, did not go well with Turner being sued by promoters for the canceled shows, requiring her and her kids to live off food stamps as she played small clubs to make money. Due to the time period, Ike was left better off after the divorce despite the open secret of the abuse Turner suffered during her time with him. Ike still had a career after the divorce, while never as successful without Tina, he never had to live off food stamps while rebuilding a career. The heartbreaking part of the whole ordeal lies within the fact that the historic star was maligned by higher ups while her abuser remained protected. No one saw Ike and Tina Turner to see Ike Turner, yet she was treated like a glorified
sideman with one of the only things to her name still being the name her abuser gave her to help her claw back to the top. She still released albums, though they never did well, misogynic rambles saying she couldn’t do it without Ike haunting the release of each. By 1983, she had a minor single in Ball of Confusion but was at risk from being dropped from Columbia records. In her 2021 documentary, Tina, she spoke of the racial slurs used against her by former higher ups, examplingly the blatant racial and misogynistic issues that still plagued her despite the fact she was the Tina Turner, queen of rock and roll with a laundry list of famous friends quick to not only a credit their careers to her, but rally behind her as the public and music industry at large turned their back on her.
As stated earlier, Cher adopted Tina’s more sensual performance and style and Mick Jagger has stated on numerous occasions that he learned to dance from watching Tina behind a speaker. It was during the first years after her divorce that the leagues of artists she inspired stepped up when no one else was. It was during an October 1981 Saturday Night Live performance that Rod Stewart, hot off his mainstream disco fame, invited Tina as a special guest to perform Hot Legs with him, saying “It’s a great pleasure to bring on someone who has been a big influence on my career” when introducing her on stage, even bringing her out at a few of his shows during the early 80s for renditions of Stay With Me, ones that would put on best-
selling live albums. The Rolling Stones, always staunch supporters of Tina - with her having opened for them in 1966, 1969, and 1972 - invited her to open for them in New Jersey during their 1981 Tattoo You tour, with Mick Jagger even attending her shows when possible at locations across the United States. There was also David Bowie who she recorded Tonight with, and whom Tina accredits her entire career post-divorce too. While Columbia was planning on dropping Tina, their new subdivision EMI was looking forward to signing Bowie. Bowie told the label that he couldn’t make the meeting, that he wanted to go see his favorite singer, Tina Turner [also worth noting that Keith Richards attended the show as well - not enlisted by Bowie to stick it to the EMI heads - simply to support Tina]. The label bought up 60 tickets to the show, gave her one more chance for a hit [which she delivered in the form of a cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together] and then two weeks to record her album. According to Tina, Bowie never told her about what happened with the label, he simply did what he did because it was truly his aim to support her during some of her lowest career moments. The artists that rallied behind her were
who were her contemporaries during the 1960s and 70s but weren’t being considered “nostalgia acts” or viewed as too old for the masses to still connect with. This could have to do with the general racism and misogyny of music at the time, coupled with the ageism that affects women in the public eye at large. At this point, Tina was pushing 40, and to many executives she was too old to be profitable in the rapidly changing 1980s. There was no way, to them, that her sheer talent could ever compete with a 20 year old singing about the same things. And they were about to be very, very wrong.
The album, recorded in four studios across Europe with a star studded list of writers and musicians, was released on May 29th, 1984 entitled Private Dancer. It was, to put it lightly, a mega-hit. It reintroduced Tina Turner to the wider public, making her a main popstar, MTV mainstay, and reclaimed the name that she was given as her own. It was sensual without feeling like it was forced upon her like previous recordings with Ike, it was R&B but not in a purist sense, it was rock and roll, and it was pop. It was the perfect album, accomplishing somehow even more than it was ever set out too.
The album opens with I Might Have Been Queen, an almost autobiographical piece for Tina about her life up to the release of the album. Let the waters rise, I’ve ridden each tide / From the gates of the city where the first born died and I might have been queen / I remember the girl in the fields with no name / She had a love, but the river won’t stop for me, no the river won’t stop for me. References to this lived life that placed Tina in her statesmen place in the rock pantheon, relations to rivers so deep they won’t stop for love. I’m searching through the wreckage for some great recollection that I might have been queen is not a weightless line coming from the woman it does, speaking of the life she had lived after setting the groundwork for so many. I look up to my past, my spirit running free / I look down, I look down, and I’m there in history / I’m a soul survivor. It’s not a light song to open an album with, but somehow within it’s glossy instrumentation the song feels like there was simply no other choice on how to open the piece. It acknowledges Tina’s past, while setting the stage for her future, leading itself into her biggest hit, What’s Love Got To Do With It. The song, in the hands of any other, would never accomplish what it does coming
from Tina. What’s love, but a second hand emotion? / What’s love got to do with it? / Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken? coming from Tina’s raspy voice gives the song a whole other meaning. It’s sang like a warning, like a lecture on love from someone who knows its tricks all too well. It’s only the thrill of boy meeting girl, opposites attract / It’s physical, only logical / You must try to to ignore that it means more than that. And the video? The now iconic silhouette of Tina walking the streets of New York City as the passersby look on in awe? The song is, for good reason, synonymous with her name - it’s quintessential Tina Turner. A scathing ballad sung to you by a woman who knows more than most ever will, warning that love is nothing more than a reaction as opposed to an action. Show Some Respect is Tina going full 80s R&B to great effect. What Private Dancer does wonderfully is showcase the strength of every aspect of Tina Turner. It’s never heavy handed in it’s feminist messaging, it puts Tina on the playing field of every person she sings too. More than ever, she’s the star, and more importantly she’s the strong protagonist at the heart of the songs she sings. I Can’t Stand the Rain is a cover of the 1973 Ann Peebles song with a perfectly synth-y overlay. It’s a bit more experimental than other tracks on the album, taking a naturally understated ballad and making it a fully electronic and soulful in ways that seem impossible to make work, though they do. The lyrics, also, just come through so much more lived in from Tina, especially the last verse of When we were together everything was so grand / I know you’ve got sweet memories / But there’s one sound I just can’t stand, I can’t stand the rain against my window / It just keeps haunting me.
The title track is the next song on the tracklist, and it’s one of the standouts of the lot. A seven minute long song from the perspective of a sex worker who's only in it for the money, looking toward her life in the future. The song was originally written for Dire Straits by frontman Mark Knoflper though they gave up recording the song when it came to adding vocals, with Knoflper stating that he didn’t think the lyrics were suitable for a man. The song was given to Tina and made a hit with her signature vocal stylings. Well, the men come in these places and the men are all the same / You don’t look at their faces and you don’t ask their names / You don’t think of them as human, you don’t think of them at all, you keep your mind on the money and your eyes on the wall. What is interesting about Private Dancer is how honest it seems in it’s depiction of sex work, neither glorifying or villainizing the act. Read from the perspective of the dancer, it gives insight into her choices, how this is the
fastest way to make money and get her the life she dreams of. About halfway through the song, there’s a great instrumental breakdown with a stellar guitar solo from none other than Jeff Beck. How exactly Beck got to be on this record is still a mystery, though he did speak on his adoration of her since his Yardbirds days back in the 1960s, and the honor he found it to be included on her record. In fact, in place of payment all Beck asked for in return for his work was for Tina to sign his guitar, to which she engraved her name into the side of his pink Jackson, one he would use through the decade and be photographed proudly with in 1985. It’s a gritty solo, one that continues the story seamlessly as the song rages on, one of his best in the realm of solos on vocal tracks. What is done the best is how it’s barely noticeable, embedded deep within the layers of the song, even being overpowered by the saxophone, letting Tina remain the star of the show. In the hands of another guitarist some argue it would’ve been better, but I think the simplicity and pulled back nature of what was added remains true to the rest of the album and what it would become at large: letting Tina Turner be the one and only star of her own show. Let’s Stay Together - the Al Green cover - follows the title track. The song was originally released as her second comeback single after Ball of Confusion, and naturally has a Tina Turner touch absent from the original, with her switching around the order of verses. The song was her biggest single before the release of Private Dancer, leaning into the New Wave genre that was popular during the early 1980s, further separating her from the sounds of the past. Better Be Good To Me is a cover of New York based band Spiders’ song originally released in 1981. I’m touched by this show of emotion / Should I be fractured by your lack of devotion? Should I? / You better be good to me, that’s how it’s gotta be now are lyrics that, very similar to What’s Love Got To Do With It, are given such a unique feel when sung by Tina. The song comes across as less of a plea and more of a stance, that her condition is respect, that it’s not an exception, it’s a rule. We stand face to face / You present your case / I know you keep telling me you love me, and I really do wanna believe / Did you think I’d just accept you in blind faith? The song is another cut that would, under most other circumstances, come across as overly heavy handed in it’s feminist messaging if in the hands of anyone else, but with Tina it holds this identity as a genuinely powerful, yet playful, piece about respect from a woman who's lived, loved, and learned. Private Dancer is very clearly helmed by a woman in control, for one of the first times, of her image and career. When it’s teaching about the ways of love, it comes from someone who knows the score, when it’s sexy it’s from a woman who is control of the sensuality not having it forced upon her to sell tickets and records, and when powerful, there’s no one else to accredit that success to than the woman who leads each and every song flawlessly.
Steel Claw follows Better Be Good To Me and latches back to the hard rocking side of Tina. The lyrics go into a societal see-saw, in the song's own words, speaking of the greed and workism that were beginning to define the decade. I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong / But it really doesn’t matter when you’re lying in the gutter is a line that exemplifies the song pretty perfectly as if it's a blunt recollection of the disgusting nature overtaking the world at the time. The politicians have forgotten this place except for flying visits and black Mercedes at election time / They cross the line and everybody runs to watch the pantomime / If they could see what’s going on around here / So many people hanging on the edge crying out for revolution, retribution is scathing, especially hearing the bridge that follows Sometimes I think I’m going crazy / Sometimes I do a line, makes me laugh, makes me want a joy ride on the high tide / Sometimes I’m contemplating suicide / Meanwhile Eddy’s on the West Coast now / He’s making out with some sweet señorita up in ‘Frisco. It’s sung tongue and cheek, paired with another Beck solo before the bridge [though he hides less in this outing, with Tina adding his name to the end of the chorus before the solo], and defines the decade better than most songs would be able to without knowing the end yet. Pivoting from societal consciousness and critique of the wealth gap, a piano ballad rendition of Beatles classic Help! begins, and showcases everything that gets lost in the Beatles rendition of Lennon’s lyrics. The original song is no shallow moment, the story of Lennon’s plea for help being whisked into an upbeat pop song, music video, and film is exemplary of near everything that plagued the man’s life at the time, but it’s with the stripped back version found here that the lyrics finally shine. The opening lines sting uniquely from Tina’s
broken vocals. When I was much younger, so much younger than today / I never needed anybody’s help in any way but now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured / Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors. Followed by the next verse, with the first lines being And now my life has changed in oh so many ways / My independence seems to vanish in the haze adds a different meaning to the originally written meaning of the marketization and dehumanization of Lennon to the that of what happened to Tina, the same in many aspects. The song is tinged with a gospel feeling, almost like a pledge from Tina that those days are over for her, while paying tribute to Lennon and how those days are for him. It’s a shockingly slow moment on an upbeat record, but necessary to mark the end of the pain suffered. The album closes with a Bowie cover, fittingly titled 1984. Originally recorded for Bowie’s 1974 classic Diamond Dogs, inspired by the George Orwell novel of the same name. Tina’s rendition swaps Bowie’s jangly piano opening for a hard driving synth, and his soft, other worldly, removed narration singing on the song for her signature commanding, strong vocals. Come see, remember me? / In 1984, who could ask for more? is reinventive in it’s new context, the one sung from a pioneer finally coming back to her status on the throne after struggling through the river from I May Have Been Queen, she has, in this time, come into her title.
Private Dancer is a lot of things: one of the greatest pop albums of all time, one of the leaders of genuine pop-rock, and most importantly the return of the crown to the undisputed queen of rock and roll. For every rockstar, there is a trace back to Tina Turner. A pillar of strength and resilience, when the world tried to keep her down it was her sheer talent and determination that placed her right back where she rightfully belonged. She never had an easy route to her success, yet the societal and personal roadblocks just couldn’t keep her from becoming a star, two times over. It’s not every woman who gets to take back her narrative, her life, her career, her name, but thanks to Tina Turner it’s become possible for there to be survivors who can see themselves at the other end of the tunnel. It was before her monumental success in the 1980s that she said her dream was to sell out a stadium like the Rolling Stones, to have her impact be felt by thousands of people at once. She accomplished this, paving the way once again for women in entertainment. And people went to see Tina Turner, to see a performer at the top of her game and one of the most talented singers of all time. For many, no one thought about the name emblazed in lights behind the powerhouse before them, the pain and suffering the name brought upon the woman who now was the singular owner of it. She never had to earn her name, she had to divorce it from its origin. Who remembered Ike Turner anyways? Who invited Ike Turner to their shows, saw him perform, or even thought twice about him before or after the divorce? No one. They always remembered Tina, though - her talent, her style, her power, her influence on them as artists and people. It’s not often an artist could get Mick Jagger to say something genuine, to say “She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her”, or Beyonce to accredit the title of Queen to another. Influence finds itself in many avenues, as does strength.
Around this time last year, Tina passed away, shortly before the anniversey of the album that would become her musical legacy. During this time, people talked about and revered her for the icon she was, putting a spotlight back on to the woman who deserved it more than anyone else. It was during this time that What's Love Got To Do With It would top charts again, that Tina-mania would set in around the world as we collectively mourned and celebrated one of the strongest women of all time, whose impact is still felt in so many different ways. Tina was once asked what she stood for, to which she responded “You asked me if I ever stood up for anything. Yeah, I stood up for my life.” She was the embodiment of womanhood and the power that it entails, that even in the most trying of times she was a beacon of hope for all those who feared they could never prosper again. Private Dancer proved to those who discredited her that there was never a reason to doubt her. Tina Turner was one of the most important, influential, talented, and strongest musicians of all time. Her power came not only from her voice and stage presence but her ability to persevere through some of the worst in the public eye, never missing a step. A once in a lifetime talent, a once in a lifetime star, a once in a lifetime woman. And it’s because of Private Dancer and all its glory that we were able to see one of the greatest rock stars of all time shine like she always deserved too.
Comments