What’s love got to do with it? The soundtrack to Tina’s life

As we know from today´s point of view, Tina Turner was in the middle of her career when the biographical movie “What´s Love Got To Do With It” – named after her signature song and USA #1 hit – was released in 1993. The movie was based upon the book from 1986 “I, Tina” which she co-wrote with the music journalist Kurt Loder and which featured many interviews with contemporary witnesses like band/family members, music colleagues, and Tina Turner herself. Maybe it was even not clear to herself that there would be new albums and tours until the year 2009 which makes the release of a bio pic only reasonable if you consider her age in 1993 when she was 53. But there were still at least 15 years to come – full of appearances and releases. Because of the heavy ammunition she fired at the world – an album incl. re-recordings and completely new material, the release of several songs from that album incl. the usual marketing appearances, the movie itself and then even a US tour plus some festival appearances in Europe and Australia – the year 1993 will always be a year to remember.

Commercial success

The album was released June 15, 1993 by Parlophone in Europe and Virgin in North America. It turned out to be a huge commercial success – despite the fact that it contained mainly material already dating back 20 years and more. Or maybe not “despite” but “because of”? It went to number 1 in countries like The Netherlands and the UK (June 19, 1993 – June 25, 1993) and was a Top 10 hit in many other countries around the globe and proved ow enduring her old material was.

Single releases from the album

Throughout the year 1993, the record companies Parlophone and Virgin released four CD-/LP-singles with “I Don´t Wanna Fight” being released as a teaser for the album which was released over a month later and “Proud Mary” being released in the USA alone.

1. “I Don’t Wanna Fight”, (April 23, 1993)
2. “Disco Inferno” (July 12, 1993)
3. “Why Must We Wait Until Tonight” (September 16, 1993)
4. “Proud Mary” (November 19, 1993)

While “I Don´t Wanna Fight” and “Why Must We Wait Until Tonight” were brand-new recordings, Tina Turner even released the disco classic “Disco Inferno” and her all-time signature song “Proud Mary” as CD-/LP-singles. With covering “Disco Inferno” she continued her strategy to select hits which were recorded by other artists and include them in her own catalog. But even for 1993, it was a bit daring to throw this hit from the late 1970s on the market. Nevertheless, incl. the two electro-style mixes with samples of samba-music it turned out to be danceable once again.

Tracks

It was already mentioned in the introduction that “What´s Love Go To Do With It” was by far no all-new album but supported the bio pic of the same name. Tina Turner and her team had two choices: either they could have released a Best-Of album which would have been a boring “Simply The Best 2” or they could produce the major hits again which were featured in the movie with new instrumentation and – of course – new vocals. As the original material might not have met with the requirements of modern Hollywood productions as far as the sound quality was concerned it turned out be a much better strategy to record 8 hits from the Ike & Tina years again, add the late 70s number “Disco Inferno” from her first solo years and include the mega-hit “What´s Love Got To Do With It” from the Private Dancer-album and a slightly changed new version of “I Might Have Been Queen”. The 3 brand-new songs can then be seen as bonus material for the album with “I Don´t Wanna Fight” being a very suitable song for message of the movie.

Releases

There are two different releases of the “What´s Love Got To Do With It”-album: While Parlophone in Europe released a 14-track album, Virgin did not include the songs “Tina´s Wish” and “Shake A Tail Feather”. Quite astonishing as “Tina´s Wish” really demonstrates what Tina Turner can do with her voice and how outstanding such an approach – nearly bloodcurdling screams from a young woman – must have been 25 years ago.

Apart from the different track lists, there aren’t many differences in the various releases. But – one has to add that specific detail – the album was released on CD, LP and even audio cassette. While the front cover shows Tina Turner, the back cover is reserved for four stills from the movie plus the basic movie info and a very condensed track listing.

The booklets contain beautiful photos with Tina Turner either in the studio or on the beach walking and standing in the breakwater. Two top photographers were responsible for these shots: Herb Ritts and Peter Lindbergh. They collaborated with her on other occasions as well so that it is no wonder that photos from these sessions are very popular among fans. In the consecutive year, a calendar was released including only photos from 1993 and these sessions.

The 1993-TT-logo turned out to be a long-term logo for Tina Turner and her fans as the circle with the two perforated and offset Ts looks very nice for a necklace.

To sum up, Tina Turner proved in 1993 that using modern sound equipment can turn old gems again into hits and that many of her recordings are indeed timeless and survivors themselves.