| No Frills | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Bette Midler |
| Cover: | NoFrills.jpg |
| Released: | August 1, 1983 |
| Recorded: | 1983 |
| Genre: | Rock, new wave |
| Length: | 38:08 |
| Label: | Atlantic |
| Producer: | Chuck Plotkin |
| Prev Title: | The Best of Bette |
| Prev Year: | 1981 |
| Next Title: | Mud Will Be Flung Tonight |
| Next Year: | 1985 |
No Frills is the sixth studio album by American singer Bette Midler, released on Atlantic Records in 1983. No Frills was Midler's first studio album in four years, following the movies The Rose, Divine Madness! and Jinxed!. The rock and new wave influenced album was produced by Chuck Plotkin, best known for his work with Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, and included three single releases; the ballad "All I Need to Know", a cover of Marshall Crenshaw's "You're My Favorite Waste of Time" and Midler's take on the Rolling Stones song "Beast of Burden".
While No Frills became Midler's second lowest-charting album in the US, peaking at #60 on Billboard (her 1979 disco album Thighs and Whispers #65), it became her best-selling studio album to date in both Continental Europe and Scandinavia; in West Germany it reached #15, in the Netherlands #10, in Norway #2 and in Sweden No Frills hit #1, outselling the Rose soundtrack.
"Beast of Burden" was a Top 10 single in many parts of Europe. The promo video for the song, made during the early MTV era, featured Mick Jagger in a cameo role playing Midler's boyfriend. The soundtrack to the video including the spoken dialogue (with Midler famously telling Jagger "Just stay long enough to hear me sing your song. I sing it better than anybody." Jagger replies: "Well almost anybody....") was released on the B-side of the 12" single in Europe. In September 1984 the video was nominated for three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Female Video, Best Choreography, and Best Stage Performance Video.
Midler originally intended to include a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac" on the album instead of "Beast of Burden", but was blocked from releasing it by Springsteen himself, who said it wasn't a "girl's song". She hastily recorded the Rolling Stones cover to fill its place. However, she performed "Pink Cadillac" on her 1983 tour to promote the album.
When Midler's greatest hits compilation Experience the Divine was released in 1993, only one song from No Frills was included, "Only In Miami", an album track never released as a single in either the US or Europe. A second edition of the compilation with a revised track list, released in 1996, added both "Beast of Burden" and "Favorite Waste of Time".
No Frills was released on CD for the first time in 1983. A remastered version of the album was released by Atlantic Records/Warner Music in 1995.
Side A
Side B
Studios