Once again, I really appreciate your musical knowledge, Trent. As a British guy born in 1983 I grew up listening to Billy Ocean and in retrospect…HE WAS COMPETITION FOR EVERYONE!!!

His songwriting and production were on par with Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Luther Vandross and Terence Trent D’Arby. He borrowed musical ideas from the aforementioned, (compare Ocean’s “Suddenly” and “Caribbean Queen” with Richie’s “Hello” and MJ’s “Billie Jean”). He did the main track (When the Going Gets Tough) for the Jewel of the Nile film and had Danny De Vito, Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in the video as backing singers! His video for “Get Out of My Dreams” with animation was very innovative for the time and the producer, Robert “Mutt” Lange (Shania Twaine’s Come On Over, and Lady Gaga’s You & I) is a SUPERB producer on par with Quincy Jones. The 12″ of “Out of My Dreams” is AMAZING!!!

His voice is amazing, it’s a shame he didn’t continue the success into the 90′s but he flew the flag for both Britain and the Caribbean simutaneously even scoring #1′s on both sides of the Atlantic.