Wildest Dreams: The Reality Behind Tina Turner’s Ninth Album

Wildest Dreams followed five months later, on 22 April 1996. As Turner’s first all-new collection of music in seven years, it suggested that age was no limitation to the then 56-year-old singer with over three decades’ worth of hitmaking behind her. Released a month ahead of the album, single Whatever You Want would go on to open the Wildest Dreams tour – 255 shows staged from April 1966 through to August 1997 – taking its place in a setlist that also included her cover of trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy. Performed as the first encore number of the night, the song also found Die Hard star Bruce Willis joining Turner on stage for her Paris shows of May 1996.

The Wildest Dreams album itself featured no shortage of collaborators, with the title track alone being cut in two different ways, with two very different guest singers. Spanish actor/singer Antonio Banderas appeared on a European release of the song, while a US version featured soul singer Barry White’s inimitable deep vocals. Elsewhere on the album, On Silent Wings included guest vocals from Sting, while Pet Shop Boys scored a production credit for Confidential, a song penned by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe specifically for Turner.

A cult-like following

Though coming at a time when Turner’s studio work rate began to slow, Wildest Dreams solidified her self-made mark in music history. It may have stalled at No.61 in the US, but the album inspired an almost cult-like following overseas, where it went double-platinum in the UK and sat comfortably in the Top 5 across Europe. Though leaning towards Turner’s patented rock and soul style, the album found her just as comfortable with 90s pop-R&B production and, a quarter century after its release, remains proof that she consistently delivered some of the most iconic performances on record.

Having received the Guinness World Record for selling more concert tickets than any solo performer, and standing as one of the best-selling female artists in history (200 million records and counting), Turner need never record another note. And yet her reign as The Queen Of Rock’n’Roll continues, with a stage musical based on her life (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical), and memoirs (including 2020’s Happiness Becomes You, which she describes as “a very personal book that focuses on the core themes of my life: hope, happiness, and faith”) only adding to the realms she has conquered. With a new documentary, TINA, offering an emotional farewell to her fans, it seems Turner’s wildest dreams have all but come true.

Find out which Wildest Dreams songs made the cut in our best Tina Turner songs.