One Hit Wondering – Willa Ford

One Hit Wondering is a series of columns where I listen to the album of a one hit wonder, and find three songs, other than the hit, that people should hear. 

The TRL era gave us a barrage of blonde pop stars – Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore – but in April of 2001 someone just a little bit different came along, and her name was Willa Ford.

In a world of squeaky clean pop princesses (it wouldn’t be until over a year later that Christina gave us “Dirrty”), Willa announced her arrival with the song “I Wanna Be Bad.”

Featuring a guest verse from hip-hop artist Royce da 5’9’’, “I Wanna Be Bad” immediately positioned Willa as the “bad girl” alternative, the one who seemed like she might get you into trouble, but it would be totally worth it.

Personally, hearing Royce da 5’9’’ on the song was a jolt, because I knew of him from his Bad Meets Evil project with Eminem, and I had the “Nuttin’ To Do” / “Scary Movies” maxi single in my collection. When I heard “I Wanna Be Bad” I was like, “Wait … he’s on a pop song???”

Admittedly, in the part of the Venn diagram where people who were watching TRL, and people who knew of Bad Meets Evil overlapped I may not have had a lot of company, but pretty soon everyone would know who Willa Ford, and Royce da 5’9’’ were.

“I Wanna Be Bad” was a TRL mainstay, and the song climbed into the Top 25 of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #22, while also reaching #11 on the Mainstream Top 40, and #4 on the Dance Singles Sales chart.

In July of 2001, three months into the success of “I Wanna Be Bad,” Willa’s full length debut album, Willa Was Here was released on Lava Records/Atlantic.

The journey to get to Willa Was Here started on a different label, and under a completely different performance name.

Willa, whose full name is Amanda Lee Williford, was originally signed to MCA in 1999, and performed under the name Mandah. Her time at the label didn’t last long, but after her brief stint there she was quickly picked up by Atlantic Records.

While changing label homes she also changed her performance name from Mandah to Willa Ford to avoid confusion with Mandy Moore (more on that in a bit!).

Atlantic, in a move that immediately put Willa on par with some gigantic names, placed one of her songs, “Lullaby,” on the soundtrack to Pokémon: The First Movie. The album featured a murderers’ row of pop acts from the era, including Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Emma Bunton (aka Baby Spice), NSYNC, and 98 Degrees, and reached the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, eventually achieving double platinum status.

Willa would then hit the road, opening for the Backstreet Boys on their Into the Millennium tour in 2000, and going on a mall tour for Nautica Kids in 2001.

All this led to Willa Was Here, an album for which she wrote the vast majority of the songs, and was an executive producer.

Also, because it was 2001, a fold out mini poster was included, and it serves as a reminder of why we can never allow the CD format to die.

Something else interesting from the insert is that in the liner notes Willa closes out her thank you’s by writing the following 

“Here’s to the next record, may my life be as much of an emotional rollercoaster as it was during this one so I can keep writing real lyrics and not the cheesy sh*t about butterflies, sunshine and candy.”

The word “candy” seems really specific here since it was the title of Mandy Moore’s debut single back in 1999, and knowing that Willa felt the need to change her stage name to avoid confusion with Mandy Moore this leads me to believe the mention of “candy” may have been an intentional jab.

Yes, it seems there’s a pretty good chance Mandy Moore caught a stray in the thank-yous of Willa Ford’s debut album.

Willa said she wanted to be bad, and she lived up to that!

Unfortunately, her second single, “Did Ya’ Understand That,” couldn’t continue the magic of “I Wanna Be Bad,” although a major factor in that might have been the release date of the song – September 11th, 2001.

Obviously, on that day everything took a backseat to the terrorist attack on New York City. The world stopped, and it was a while before things returned to anything even close to resembling normal.

“Did Ya’ Understand That” never gained any traction, and after including Willa on the MTV: TRL Christmas album, and releasing her “Santa Baby (Gimme, Gimme, Gimme)” as the lead single, the label turned their attention away from Willa, and she began to pursue other endeavors.

In the following years she hosted a variety of MTV reality shows, as well as the first season of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV. She was also a guest doll performer for the Las Vegas shows of The Pussycat Dolls, and in 2006 she competed on the third season of Dancing with the Stars.

Turning her attention to Hollywood, Willa landed a number of films roles from 2007 through 2016, including starring as Anna Nicole Smith in 2007 movie The Anna Nicole Smith Story, and appearing in the 2009 edition of Friday the 13th.

Music was still part of Willa’s life, as she released the occasional song, and performed a handful of times, but her second album – originally titled Porn Poetry, but later renamed Sexysexobsessive – never saw the light of day.

To this day, Willa Was Here is the only album she’s released.

In her personal life, Willa married hockey player Mike Modano in 2007, but they divorced in 2012. In 2015 she married her current husband, former NFL player Ryan Nece, and the two had a son in 2016. Nece’s father is Ronnie Lott, which means Willa Ford’s father-in-law is Ronnie freakin’ Lott, one of the toughest human beings to ever walk the face of the planet!!!

Currently, Willa runs her own interior design company named WFord Interiors.

With this column, my designs are on finding out what we may have been missing by not hearing more songs from Willa Was Here.

While giving the album a spin, something I found interesting is that while there’s plenty of pop fare, there are also some R&B leaning songs that could have positioned her alongside artists like Mya, Brandy, and Monica, rather than Britney, and Christina. Perhaps the label’s blonde ambitions – i.e. TRL airplay – superseded what might have been the best route for Willa’s career.

With that in mind, here are three songs from Willa Was Here, other than “I Wanna Be Bad,” that you should here.

“Ooh Ooh”

 

“Ooh Ooh” was released as a promotional single, but my guess is it was sent to all the wrong people, because the label was probably pitching her as a pop star, when this is clearly an R&B jam.

From the production, to the vocals – note the range she shows at around the 2:30 mark – “Ooh Ooh” is a gem, and absolutely deserves to be heard.

“Tender”

 

One part pop ballad, one part R&B song, “Tender” shows another side of Willa, one that is far less concerned with being bad.

Much like “Ooh Ooh,” “Tender” is another song from Willa Was Here that could’ve easily led to a crossover into the R&B world.

“Prince Charming”

 

“Prince Charming” is pure early 2000’s pop, and that’s what makes it wonderful.

A single girl anthem waiting to happen, with the number of names dropped in “Prince Charming” there could’ve been a heck of a cameo filled video for the song. Sadly, that video never happened, but we can always imagine what could’ve been!

Until next time, here’s to discovering more great music from one hit wonders!