"Hungry Eyes" is a song performed by American musician Eric Carmen, a former member of the band Raspberries, and was featured in the film Dirty Dancing (1987).[2] The song was recorded at Beachwood Studios in Beachwood, Ohio in 1987. "Hungry Eyes" peaked at #4 on the BillboardHot 100 chart and #3 on the Cash Box Top 100 in 1988. The power ballad[3] was not released commercially in the UK, but it managed to peak at #82 in January 1988, having charted purely on import sales.
Eric Carmen, the performer of "Hungry Eyes", had been the vocalist of the Raspberries. Carmen released his first solo album Eric Carmen, which contained the worldwide hit "All By Myself".
"Hungry Eyes" was his biggest hit and was written in 1984 by John DeNicola and Franke Previte. It was originally recorded by Previte's band, Frankie and The Knockouts for their album Makin' the Point. Jimmy Ienner, the producer of Carmen's band from his early career, The Raspberries, asked him to sing this song for the Dirty Dancing album because he was familiar with Carmen's musical style. Carmen was hesitant to produce a song for another film sound track because he believed that soundtrack music had "horrible deaths", but Carmen recorded a very popular song that can still be heard on radio stations and TV commercials.[6]
Releases[]
The song was released commercially on 7" vinyl in many countries; plus, a 3-track 12" maxi single and 2-track cassette were produced. CD singles were a relatively new format; however, a 2-track Japanese mini CD single was commercially released in 1988.