Kim Carnes Racing Ahead Two Years After 'Eyes' (1983)

LOS ANGELES - It's not easy to follow up the record of the year, especially when that record spends nine weeks at No. 1, as Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes" did two years ago. But Carnes has moved ahead anyway, with the albums "Voyeur" and the new "Cafe Racers".

"I've been asked if I regret having a record that huge," Carnes says. "Of course not - are you crazy? It was fantastic to have something that big, and I wouldn't take any of it back. But when you do all of a sudden have that kind of success, you become a giant target, and I was."

One lasting benefit of the huge popularity of "Bette Davis Eyes" is that it broke Carnes internationally. "'Bette' and the 'Mistaken Identity' album were No. 1 in just about every country, including countries you've never heard of," Carnes says. "I'm real lucky to have picked up that market, because they're really loyal."

Carnes' "Cafe Racers" album was produced by Keith Olsen, marking a break from Val Garay, who produced her last two albums. "At first I planned to go in again with Val," Carnes says, "but the Motels' album (which Garay also produced) ran a lot longer than they expected.

"In the meantime I had cut 'I'll Be There Were The Heart Is' with Keith for the 'Flashdance' soundtrack, and that worked out real well. So we got together to discuss the concept thand then went ahead with it. We both wanted to try and get as many live vocals as possible and not get too slick."

Carnes notes that the new album is different in many ways from the last one. "Some people have said 'Voyeur' was too dark. This album is real up and not dark at all. Each one is different."

The 'Voyeur' album is unique in that it was written to be a full-length video. When was that plan scuttled? "A day before I was supposed to go over to England for a month to shoot it," Carnes says, still disappointed. "Russell Mulcahy was going to direct it. They had sets built, and I had already rented a house in England for the month.

"It was one problem after another. There were a lot of legal, contractual problems. If you're going to do a full-length video, there should be a lot of preparation, and there hadn't been. I didn't want to go over to England and wing it. It was too important to have it be right."

It was especially important to Carnes that it be right because the "Bette Davis Eyes" video had been so widely praised. "That's the first video Russell (Mulcahy) did over here," Carnes remembers, "and nobody had seen anything like it. Now two years later there are some incredible ones out. It's come a long way. But I think ways have to be found to make them not all look alike. There are a lot of real mediocre ones too."

Overall, though, Carnes thinks video has aided her songwriting. "It can help make the lyrics a lot more visual," she says. "But it's not for every song. It doesn't apply to real personal ballads. On this album, 'Hanging On by a Thread' wasn't written to be a video. That's just a from-the-heart song."

Carnes plans to return to the studio in late February so she can get back on a spring release schedule, which would allow her to tour in the summer. She last toured in 1981.

Paul Grein, Billboard, December 17, 1983, p. 37.