Remembrance of Videos Past #7: Samantha Fox, "I Wanna Have Some Fun"

In 1989, Samantha Fox had her biggest single in the US charts with "I Wanna Have Some Fun," which made the top ten.

See, I don't hate Nelly Furtado's "Promiscous" or Christina Aguilera's "Dirty" because they are necessarily terrible songs. Rather, Samantha Fox beat them to the punch with the first top ten hip-hop/pop hybrid. Full Force's back-up vocals and production only gets better with age.

This song was everywhere in 1989. MTV and VH-1 played it all day. Radio played it every hour. All the kids in my seventh grade class loved it. Samantha Fox nudie posters were sold alongside Iron Maiden posters in metal magazines like Hit Parader.

When I took my last trip to Egypt (I am Egyptian) at age thirteen in 1989, they had this song on the airplane music itinerary. When I landed and met my cousin Hussain, he and his friend loved Samantha Fox's "Naughty Girls Need Love Too." Egypt, America and England loved Samantha Fox.

Though I would love to be facile and call this a guilty pleasure, truth is it is a great song that was way ahead of its time. Besides being the first hip-pop hit, it was also on Jive Records, the label that would be home to Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears a few years later. Go ahead, try to play this at a backpacker party or a hipster dance party and not see everyone go apeshit.

The video was softcore porn for those who couldn't get Playboy or Showtime. For those who liked women, there was Samantha Fox. Hetero women and gay men could look at the shirtless male or all the other gay dancers in this video. Those who had thug passion could look at Full Force.

Enough writing; I wanna have some fun.



(courtesy of ipodlounger921)