“Are You Ever Gonna Love Me”
Holly Dunn
Written by Holly Dunn, Tom Shapiro, and Chris Waters
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
August 11, 1989
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
August 26, 1989
When MTM Records folded, Holly Dunn was the label’s crown jewel, having won major awards and scored an unbroken string of hits since she broke through with “Daddy’s Hands.” Warner Bros. Nashville scooped her up from the roster, and sent her into the studio to record her fourth studio album, The Blue Rose of Texas.
That album would only produce two singles. The second, “There Goes My Heart Again,” was more in line with the muscular traditional country that was emerging. It was even co-written by future nineties superstar Joe Diffie. It went top five.
Lead single “Are You Ever Gonna Love Me” is the lesser of the two singles, and I surmise that it benefitted greatly from a heavy label push as Dunn’s debut release for Warner Bros. It’s still a good record, mind you, and I won’t ding a single for sounding too much like late eighties country when we’re covering the late eighties! But it doesn’t have the vitality of “There Goes My Heart Again” or her next No. 1 single, “You Really Had Me Going.”
Dunn is in fine voice, and the driving Bo Diddley beat has an acoustic flair that reminds me of Guitar Town-era Steve Earle. She was always a solid songwriter, so I’m surprised to write that what holds this song back is a very weak melody and chorus. I do think a more driving production could have masked that better, because it would’ve coaxed a more aggressive vocal from Dunn, who sounds too timid while delivering the titular line.
We’ve reached the chronological point of this feature where we’re running out of calendar. Only Keith Whitley has two No. 1 singles before the end of the decade, and the second one was already covered in our nineties feature because it topped the Billboard chart after the new year.
Dunn’s final No. 1 single is also covered in that feature.
“Are You Ever Gonna Love Me” gets a B.
Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties
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Except for “Daddy’s Hands”, I’ve always found Holly Dunn’s songbook to be lacking in charisma. She’s a fine vocalist and nearly all of her hits were perfectly pleasant, but there was just something missing for me with her material compared to her contemporaries. “Are You Gonna Love Me?” perfectly encapsulates my ho-hum feelings more than her other chart-toppers. I wouldn’t change the station if it came on but given the caliber of songs out there at the time, it doesn’t seem worthy of being a #1. As you said, follow-ups “There Goes My Heart Again” and “You Really Had Me Going” were both considerable upgrades.
Grade: C+
You Really Had Me Going is her finest moment in my opinion, but she had several singles before that that were pretty great (Daddy’s Hands, Only When I Love). Great, underrated vocalist.
I loved the indie single she did, “I am Who I am,” which has an added poignancy now that we know more about her personal life.
Yes, I remember that album; I actually listened to it recently and it’s better than I remembered it being. Love and Life and All the Stages was the title I believe.
So when this site is done with the 80s will there be a column on the 70s?
I believe Kevin has said that the ’00s are next followed by the 70’s.
I don’t remember this song but I really like it. I wish Holly’s career had lasted longer than it did. I always enjoyed female singers more than males, probably because I have a high voice for a guy.
Only When I Love is my favorite Dunn song but this is nice.
I believe Kevin has said that the ’00s are next followed by the 70’s.
Well I will say she was a pretty good album artist atleast I thought “Cornerstone”, “Blue Rose of Texas” and ” Across the Rio Grande” were all really good albums.
This sounds like a list Pam Tillis single. Add some muscle to the production and some brassiness to the vocals and voila!
One can see the impact several of the younger late ’80s’ stars had on the next generation of female singers.
Performances like this are sufficiently good to invite me to dive deeper dive into their albums, and to consider their significance behind just the radio presence I first experienced them as.