Sheena Easton was one of the biggest female pop stars of the 80s. She won two Grammys, had an album go platinum in the US (A Private Heaven), and even recorded a James Bond theme ("For Your Eyes Only"). And many of her songs still slap. "Telefone" has gated reverb to rival any 80s song, and the production on "Strut" sounds pretty fresh even today.
Even though she never had a monster hit ("Morning Train" was her sole #1), Easton put up chart numbers that were similar to or better than her female contemporaries. She had a whopping 20 songs chart on the Billboard Hot 100, and 7 of those went top 10. Compare that to Debbie Gibson (11, 5), Belinda Carlisle (9, 4) or Paula Abdul (15, 8). But while those artists have managed to stick around, Sheena Easton has largely faded from the popular consciousness.
You can see this just from r/popheads search results. Debbie Gibson has 11 posts. Belinda Carlisle has 18 posts. Paula Abdul has 36 posts. But when you search for Sheena Easton, you get a whole 1 (!) post and it's not even about her.
But people who listened to radio in the 80s definitely remember Sheena Easton. She still has over a million monthly Spotify listeners, so it doesn't look like her fans ever really stopped listening to her. I discovered her music when an older Lyft driver was playing one of her songs in the car, and I think he actually tried to change it to something else when I got in before I was like "no, I actually like this song-- it's pretty cool". And when I mentioned her to my parents they were like "oh yeah, Sheena Easton! Haven't heard her stuff in a while-- I used to like some of her songs.". But I had never heard anyone say a word about Sheena Easton up until that point. And I wasn't alone-- none of my friends had ever heard of her either.
Anyway, I just wanted to know if anyone else thinks this is weird. Is it just that no individual work of hers was quite iconic enough to be remembered in the same way? Did her music just not age as well? Or is there some better explanation out there?
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