The 10 Best Mr. Mister Songs of All-Time
Mr. Mister was an American rock band active from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. It’s sometimes called a successor to Pages. That’s because Richard Page and Steve George founded both bands. Specifically, they started Mr. Mister because its predecessor saw poor commercial sales. As such, the band had a more pop-oriented sound for that increased mass appeal. Mr. Mister had one platinum-selling album before fading from prominence. Still, that was enough for the band to make a mark, meaning interested individuals shouldn’t hesitate to check them out.
Here is our opinion of the ten best Mr. Mister songs ever released:
10. “The Border”
“The Border” is one of the four singles from Mr. Mister’s third album, Go On… It shows a powerful longing for something more meaningful. As such, “The Border” is an excellent representative of its release, which was more highminded than its predecessors but similar in other respects. Something that might’ve contributed to Go On…’s poor performance in the late 1980s.
9. “Black/White”
“Black/White” was never chosen as a single. However, it’s undoubtedly one of the strongest songs from the platinum-selling Welcome to the Real World. After all, “Black/White” was the opening track, meaning it bore the heavy responsibility of introducing the rest of the material. It lived up to that role but has remained overshadowed since its release.
8. “Healing Waters”
“Healing Waters” was another single from Go On… It shows the same sentiment as “The Border,” though it expresses that emotion in a more spirituality-infused fashion. Sadly, it seems reasonable to speculate that was one of the reasons “Healing Waters” failed to catch on with listeners. Despite its merits, the song didn’t even make it onto the Billboard Hot 100.
7. “Talk the Talk”
“Talk the Talk” comes from Mr. Mister’s first album, I Wear the Face. It sees the singer coaxing someone he’s interested in, though it’s unclear how his efforts will turn out. The song still holds up well. Something that’s perhaps unsurprising when the band members were already veterans of their art at the time.
6. “Hunters of the Night”
“Hunters of the Night” was the other single from I Wear the Face. Interested individuals should know it’s another song about romance and relationships. Specifically, it presents men as predators and women as prey, a tired comparison even in the mid-1980s. Still, “Hunters of the Night” is better than interested individuals might expect. Due to this, they should give it a listen before forming an opinion.
5. “Something Real (Inside Me/Inside You)”
“Something Real (Inside Me/Inside You)” was the first single from Go On… Moreover, it’s the most successful of the lot, as shown by how it reached the number 29 position on the Billboard Hot 100. That means “Something Real (Inside Me/Inside You)” was the last time Mr. Mister would place on that chart. The song was a respectable follow-up to Welcome to the Real World, though it fell short of that release’s success.
4. “Stand and Deliver”
Mr. Mister’s last single was “Stand and Deliver,” which came from the same album as “Something Real (Inside Me/Inside You).” The song wasn’t popular enough to chart. Even so, it’s notable because it’s the title track for the movie of the same name. For those unfamiliar, Stand and Deliver was about Jaime Escalante, who worked as a teacher in Bolivia and then the United States. The man received widespread attention because he was good at getting his students to excel in mathematics, so much so that his students were suspected of cheating in the first year of changed results. Stand and Deliver has its issues. However, it was received well enough to be selected for the U.S. National Film Registry two decades later.
3. “Is It Love”
“Is It Love” was one of the singles from Welcome to the Real World. It was the third to be released. Amusingly, it was also the third most successful, as shown by its peaking at the number eight position on the Billboard Hot 100. Later, it saw use in the buddy-cop movie Stakeout, which proved popular enough to inspire several works. Only one was a sequel. The other two were Indian movies released in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That might sound strange. If so, interested individuals should know the Indian film industry is divided into several markets differentiated by language. As such, the two Indian movies were in different languages.
2. “Kyrie”
It seems safe to say that Mr. Mister didn’t develop an interest in spirituality between Welcome to the Real World and Go On… Instead, it was there from the start, as shown by “Kyrie” on the former album. The title comes from the Greek for “Lord, have mercy.” We know this because the exact phrase is repeated again and again in the lyrics. Supposedly, the title is meant to emphasize that the singer is insignificant in the context of the broader universe, thus making the song a kind of prayer for Richard Page. Funny enough, most listeners didn’t realize the song’s religious significance, though they liked it enough to make it a chart-topper.
1. “Broken Wings”
“Broken Wings” was the other single from Welcome to the Real World to reach the top of the charts in the United States. Besides that, it also topped the charts in Canada while becoming a Top 10 or Top 20 hit in numerous other countries. As such, it’s no exaggeration to say that “Broken Wings” is the song for Mr. Mister. This is particularly true because it’s the one that saw the band rocket into mainstream recognition, meaning its release was its breakthrough moment.
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