The ‘Best Kept Secret’ Behind Your Favorite ‘80s Songs + WTF Is Gwen Stefani Doing

Hey WNVM-ers,

How is it already December?!

Between the holidays and world events, you might be searching for something life-affirming to stream right now. So Fawnia’s here with her thoughts on the new documentary, The World According to Allee Willis, now available on VOD. You may not recognize the name, but you will definitely recognize the prolific songwriter’s work, which spans from writing The Pointer Sisters hit “Neutron Dance” to winning a Tony for the Broadway revival of “The Color Purple” to much, much more. So come for the nostalgia — Willis was close friends with Pee Wee Herman and directed Debbie Harry and Heart videos — and stay for the heartfelt inspiration. (Fawnia and Cheryl may have cried.)

Plus, in news You Oughta Know, this new Gwen Stefani project is a real head-scratcher, a tour of Todd and Margo’s Christmas Vacation house, and a nepo baby debut that Fawnia could not stop ❤️-ing on Instagram.

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What Have I Done to Deserve This

Well, this prolific songwriter and dreamer extraordinaire has done more than a lot — including penning that Pet Shop Boys earworm — as chronicled in the new documentary, The World According to Allee Willis.

By Fawnia

Allee Willis and Paul Reubens at the Grammy Awards. (Photo: Courtesy of the Estate of Allee Willis and Magnolia Pictures)

“She’s damn near written half my memories,” says Questlove, while introducing the titular subject of The World According to Allee Willis, in a video clip from his radio show.

I don’t completely agree with The Roots drummer/multihyphenate’s calculations, though. After watching (and somewhat weeping through) the documentary, I realized that Willis, who passed away of a heart attack on Christmas Eve 2019, wrote pretty much all the memories spanning my entire life — even leading up to yesterday. (I watch a lot of “Friends” reruns, remember? Willis reluctantly wrote the theme song, performed by The Rembrandts, just to get out of her publishing contract.)

She accurately responds to Questlove, “I’m the world’s best kept secret.” Seriously, how did I not know Willis’ name all this time?!

After kick-starting her songwriting career in the ‘70s, while working a desk job at Columbia Records in New York City, Willis moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams in the music industry. She credits Patti LaBelle, featured in the doc, for her big break in 1978. “All of her songs told stories,” says The Godmother of Soul. Then came “September” with Earth, Wind & Fire, who would become Willis’ longtime collaborators. The trailblazing Willis quickly became sought after for churning out joyful, catchy hooks and melodies, and conceiving the most evocative lyrics. “Back in the day, there weren’t very many lady songwriters,” says LaBelle.

Willis and Maurice White, founder and co-lead singer of Earth, Wind & Fire. Photo: Courtesy of the Estate of Allee Willis and Magnolia Pictures)

Over her award-winning songwriting career — just one of her many endeavors, btw — Willis delivered seminal hits, school dance songs, and post-breakup bops of the ‘80s and ‘90s. I remember grooving out to “Neutron Dance” by The Pointer Sisters, Lauren Wood’s “Fallen” from The Pretty Woman soundtrack, and “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” by Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield on my Walkman (and still on Spotify). The nonstop Willis would expand into art directing music videos for friend Debbie Harry, The Cars, and Heart. Willis even made a brief cameo lip syncing the raucous chorus of Robbie Nevil’s “Wot’s It To Ya?” video in 1986. With her boisterous energy, distinctive fashion sense, and asymmetrical hair, she made a strong impression on me even back then — I always wondered who she was! (More than three decades later, pop singer Ava Max would present her lopsided look dubbed “The Max Cut.”)

Mystery finally solved, thanks to this moving documentary that was essentially 70 years in the making. Since her childhood in 1950s Detroit, Willis meticulously documented and filmed her life — and never stopped.

“In Allee’s audio diaries, she talks about wanting the film to be ‘her final art piece — someone putting together the trail she left behind,’” says the documentary’s director Alexis Manya Spraic, who mutual friend Paul Reubens [a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman] brought onto the project. “But she also worried about ‘losing her nerve and destroying everything before she dies.’”

Spraic combed through six storage units and 10,000 hours of footage to chronicle Willis’ stunning accomplishments. Her narrative arc also explores Willis’ lifelong journey of self-acceptance to embrace her sexuality and identity. Willis’ exuberant-sounding songs, often contrasting with haunting lyrics, also reflect her strained relationship with father, who relentlessly pressured her to conform to society’s gender norms, and rebuked her relationships and ongoing collaborations with Black artists and friends.

“She left a lot of raw and unfiltered material behind concerning those internal struggles. I think she wanted her story told with both sides of the coin, but had not figured out how to balance both in her lifetime,” says Spraic. “Even her closest friends said she was the most positive person that they had ever met. It was hard for her to share her darker feelings and impulses unless she could find a way to package them in humor or song lyrics, so she largely didn’t.”

Willis with Cyndi Lauper, circa early 1990s. (Photo: Courtesy of the Estate of Allee Willis and Magnolia Pictures)

Originally, I went into the documentary for the sweet, sweet nostalgia. After all, Gen X luminaries like the late, beloved Reubens, Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, Brenda Russell (“Piano in the Dark” is iconic), Cyndi Lauper, and “Sex and the City” creator Michael Patrick King share heartfelt testimonials and memories. (Omg, fun fact: “Better Things” co-creator/writer and star Pamela Adlon — who was just in the “The Bear”-esque episode of “Elsbeth” — was Willis’ art assistant in the ‘80s!)

But what I appreciated even more: As the documentary recounted Willis’ tenacious and continuous drive for creative expression — and her pain and challenges spurring it all — I felt much-needed inspiration and even hope. Because I'm currently struggling in this dying field we call journalism, and the thought of carving out a new path — and at this stage in life — feels especially daunting. At one point, home video catches a frustrated, 40-year-old Willis in a “completely stalled state.”

“Allee was very good at being that beacon of self-acceptance and individuality — she made it look easy. And she truly did manifest that with her persona and inspire a lot of people just by showcasing her unique artistic sensibility and being bold about being herself,” says Spraic. “But underneath she struggled with a lot of the same things most people do, like self-doubt and an inability to know or appreciate her own self-worth.”

What Willis does next kind of blew my mind, and confirmed that it's never too late, if you work hard/want it badly enough. I don’t want to spoil the thrill of discovery for you — especially if you’re like me and tragically not apprised of Willis’ jaw-dropping feats and conquests. All I will say is: Imagine a reality in which Sarah Paulson plays Willis in a The Social Network-esque movie that’s directed by the eternally natty Paul Feig, who’s also in the doc.

Willis on the set she designed for MTV's ‘Just Say Julie.’ (Photo: Courtesy of the Estate of Allee Willis and Magnolia Pictures)

You’ll also probably gasp when you realize Willis was the brilliant mind behind some of your warm and fuzzy childhood (or even recent) experience. Like, tiny spoiler, Willis organically expanded into production design, and constructed provocatively playful sets, like on (not Downtown) Julie Brown’s MTV show, “Just Say Julie.” (Remember how the host would drop snarky commentary over videos like Whitesnake's “Here I Go Again” and Madonna’s “Cherish?”) Also, confirmed, as Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fans already know: David Foster is a villain.

Plus, Willis’ expressive personal style, filled with bold colors and prints, and exaggerated silhouettes, just gave me LIFE and further validated how she was so before her time in a myriad of ways. Of course, the basics didn’t get it back then. Cue the infuriating clip of some talk show host — a man, of course — condescendingly inquiring of an absolutely on-point Willis, “You wake up in the morning and you ask yourself, ‘Do I want to wear something flamboyant?’” Yeah, asshole, some of us do! Unsurprisingly, Willis also custom-designed a lot of her outfits herself.

After her passing, Willis’ life partner, Prudence Fenton, an award-winning multi-hyphenate, photographed and documented Willis’ entire wardrobe, and saved important and sentimental pieces. Many pieces will be auctioned off to fund The Willis Wonderland Foundation, which supports emerging artists. “Allee loved to collect things that were ‘well-loved,’ and she would not have wanted it all hiding away in a closet gathering dust when it could be worn and appreciated,” says Spraic.

Willis in her home recording studio. (Photo: Maryanne Bilham/ Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

Willis’ distinctive self-expression also comes through in her “Miami Vice”-meets-”Pee Wee’s Playhouse”-meets-Wallpaper* house in the Valley. The documentary is worth watching just to see how Willis remodeled and decorated her William Kesling-designed Deco house, which was built as an MGM party pad in 1937. Fittingly, Willis continued the house’s history with her own legendary, and often themed, bashes convening “all the beautiful freaks in the ‘80s” — also as shown through footage of revelers, like Carrie Fisher, Kim Cattrall, and Timothy Leary.

“[Willis] never wasted an opportunity to tell people who she was — from the way she dressed and styled herself, to the cars she drove, to every object curated in her house,” says Spraic. “And now people have entire influencer careers around doing just that.”

Willis continues to inspire, thanks to the documentary and the legacy — or legacies — she left behind. As Willis, who spent decades fearful of the stage, said in her successful 2010s one-woman show, “If you have a weakness, turn it into a hook.”

We are two Gen X journalists who analyze all the '80s and '90s nostalgia in current pop culture, fashion, and beauty. Read more stories like this one here!

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You Oughta Know

• Following in the designer heel-clad footsteps of fashion-y nepo babies before her — like Lily Collins, Ava Philippe, and Margaret Qualley — Apple Martin officially launched into society last weekend at the ultra-fancy Le Bal des Débutantes in Paris. The 20-year-old spawn of Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay’s Chris Martin debuted in a custom Valentino gown by new creative director, Alessandro Michele — formerly of Gucci and friend of Harry Styles and Jared Leto — and graced her escort with what appears to be a fairly savage-looking eye roll. Vogue breathlessly describes Martin’s gown, which took 750 hours to make, as “a strapless bleu ciel evening dress fashioned in six dégradé tiers of silk plissé chiffon, cinched at the waist with a black silk bow.” Mom Gwynnie called first dibs on a sheer, dotted black gown from the Valentino Spring 2025 collection, and dad and brother Moses wore bespoke tuxes by Michele. Speaking of icons of icons, 13-year-old Harper Beckham seems to take after her fashionable parents, Posh and Becks, too. I just love that family! – FSH, on the nepo baby beat [Vogue; L’Officiel]

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• I tried for five minutes to come up with a clever pun to introduce this tidbit, but I think it’s most effective to just say it: Gwen Stefani is the new spokesperson for the Catholic pay-to-pray app, Hallow. Yep, the former No Doubt lead singer is talking up Jesus and his pals all over her social media to get us to swipe right for God. (Mark Wahlberg, JD Vance, and Peter Thiel are all investors in the app, per the NYT.) No word on whether she had to apologize to the pope for wearing a nun’s habit in the “Wind It Up” video. (She also has a new album out, full of love songs about her husband, Blake Shelton, which is tanking.) -CW [News.au]

• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is a top three holiday film. (Don’t argue with me about this.) Released in 1989, it’s also a delightful time capsule of height-of-the-greed-decade fashion … and home decor. The Griswolds’ yuppie neighbors, Todd and Margo (hilariously played by a pre- “Seinfeld” Julia Louis-Dreyfus), have a starkly modern house that is a ridiculous juxtaposition to the lead family’s traditional Americana. People staff writer and vintage design/thrifting enthusiast Victoria Chamlee tracked down the production designer from the movie to find out how the house came to be and how it’s decorated. I won’t spoil it, but the house was repurposed from the set of another huge ‘80s hit. -CW [What’s Left]

  

• As a palette cleanser for last week’s controversial Band Aid anniversary, I’m a bit misty to report that Wham’s “Last Christmas” turns 40 this week also. It went up against “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in 1984 and took the number two spot at the time, a fact that annoyed George Michael, even though he was in Band Aid. I always think about him this time of year, since he died on Christmas, in 2016. I highly recommend reading the biography George Michael: A Life (2023) by James Gavin. It’s incredibly rich and moving and really helped me understand him beyond the tight jeans and signature vocals.-CW

• Baby tees are back. Again. Actually they have been for quite a while, but now it’s official since the NYT says it is so. I think this is the third time in my lifetime this trend has come around. I definitely wore them in the ‘80s, but they were looser and we (at least in the Midwest) called them “half shirts.” I skipped the Y2K iteration and will be sitting this one out, too. “It’s quite versatile, and can be very flattering,” said someone in the piece who obviously works for Big Baby Tee. -CW [New York Times]

• Is there anything more calming than yacht rock? I cannot wait to see the new documentary — I’m sorry, I mean DOCKumentary — about the genre, now streaming on Max. Related: Kenny Loggins follows me on Twitter/X, and it is my greatest social media coup. Hey, Kenny, I’m on Bluesky now. (So is Fawnia.) -CW [HBO]

• Former ‘90s talk show host Ricki Lake has a cannabis collaboration with Stone Road Farms and it is called “Ricki Lake and Bake.” We must tip our hats. -CW [Us]

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