21 September 1989
The least fun of all the Marx Brothers, including Karl, the mullet-wearing Richard had successfully opiated the US masses for a couple of years with his piano-led “adult contemporary” soft rock. This was his first big hit on our side of the Atlantic: a cheesy spectre that haunted Europe.
‘Right Here Waiting’ is yet another dreary, insipid ’80s romantic ballad: long on schmaltz, short on originality. Marx’s raspy voice and fist-of-pure-emotion delivery, not forgetting that mullet, hint at kinship with other soft rock behemoths like Foreigner, so if that’s your thing then go right ahead. As for me, I don’t want to belong to any club that would have Richard Marx as a member.
