The catalog

Start with the one everybody knows. In 1987, Michael Jackson released “Man in the Mirror” — written by Glen Ballard with Siedah Garrett. Then came the run: he co-wrote and produced Wilson Phillips’ debut — “Hold On” — and in 1995 he sat down with a young Alanis Morissette and co-wrote and produced “Jagged Little Pill”: 33 million copies, four Grammys including Album of the Year. “You Oughta Know.” “Hand in My Pocket.” “Ironic.”

All told: six Grammys, more than 300 songs, records that have sold over 150 million copies. Aretha Franklin sang his songs. Barbra Streisand. Aerosmith, Van Halen, No Doubt, Annie Lennox, George Strait, Katy Perry. In 2023 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

The soap thread

Here’s the part that lands in my world. In 1984, Ballard wrote a song called “All I Need” with Clif Magness and David Pack — and produced it with Magness. A young actor named Jack Wagner — Frisco Jones on “General Hospital” — recorded it, and it went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1985, and No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart.

A soap star took a Glen Ballard song to the top of the charts. That’s not a footnote in this story — it’s the bridge. My Soap Songs series closes with “All I Need,” and Jack Wagner gets his own Soap World feature this December. Ballard is the end nobody talks about. Until now.

The stage

Writers like Ballard don’t stay in one room. He wrote the music and lyrics for “Ghost the Musical” (2011) and, with Alan Silvestri, “Back to the Future: The Musical” — 17 new songs, seven Olivier nominations, Best New Musical, from Manchester to the West End to Broadway. For Netflix’s “The Eddy,” he wrote a whole jazz club’s worth of original songs and executive-produced the series alongside Damien Chazelle.

Uncovered

So why, at 73, step out front? Ballard started as a kid in Natchez, Mississippi, playing piano and writing songs, in a band by fourth grade, with a solo album out while he was still in college. The voice on “Uncovered” isn’t a producer showing off. It’s the kid from Natchez, fifty years later, still at the piano.

He talks about songwriting the way craftsmen talk: show up every day, protect the spark, let the song tell the truth. On “Uncovered,” the songs finally get to tell it in his voice. The hits were never the whole story. They were his songs first.

Album artwork — “Uncovered” (2026)
Press photo via @glen.ballard
Team photo by Erik Melvin

45 years, one address

Michael Damian walked into Genoa City on June 24, 1981, to play Danny Romalotti — a stint that was only supposed to last the summer. Forty-five years later, he is still there, still Danny, still singing. The first job became the address.

The music was never a side gig. In 1989 his cover of “Rock On” went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. He is a Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, actor, film director and producer — the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat cast album carried the nomination. But the through-line is the soap: the fans who watched Danny in the eighties are the ones still showing up in 2026. Damian says it himself — on the Pod Scum podcast, he talked about fans telling him they watched Danny with their mothers and grandmothers: he has been, in his words, “in your living room since 1981.”

The soap became the stage

Danny doesn’t just work at the club — he runs it. He bought 50% of The Shadow Room from Noah and took over the room, and on the episode that aired August 18, 2026, he sang “All I Need Is You” to Cricket — Christine — in front of Lauren and Michael. The song is from Damian’s own new album, Mixed Emotions. The show didn’t book a guest performer. It handed its own character his own new record.

It wasn’t the first time, either. “Let Me Into Your Heart” got its own on-air moment — stripped down to acoustic piano, played when the power went out at the bachelor and bachelorette parties. Damian has said he works with the show to weave his songs into Danny’s performances, and the Shadow Room gives him what Genoa City hasn’t really had for him since Gina’s: a place where the singing and the story live in the same room.

The chart noticed

The album is Mixed Emotions, out August 17, 2026, on Weir Brothers Entertainment through Virgin Music Group, produced by Larry and Tom Weir — the brothers behind “Rock On” in 1989. The title track is the single — and in the October 18 Mediabase rolling chart report, it jumped 54 spots, from No. 143 to No. 89 on the U.S. Top 40. A soap star’s new single, on the pop chart, in 2026.

But that is only half the chart story, and it is the half everybody printed. There is a second chart, National Radio Hits, and that one counts something else alongside the spins: fan votes. The week of November 4, 2026, “Mixed Emotions” sat at No. 15 on that chart — 3,506 spins, plus the votes of the people who had been asked to request it. The difference between No. 89 and No. 15 is not a promotion department. It is the fans. In October, Damian had asked them to do it the old way: call the station, request the song, vote it up. His wife Janeen co-directed the title track’s video, and the living room answered.

The rollout started on the anniversary: “Rock On ’26,” a new version of his 1989 No. 1 with John Waite, arrived June 3, 2026 — 37 years to the day after the original topped the Hot 100 — and became the No. 2 most-added record at Top 40 radio that week. The album cover was photographed on top of Mulholland Highway. A Radio Mix of the title track followed on October 25.

The drummer was a soap star too

Then there’s the garnish. Damian’s longtime friend John Stamos stopped by Studio City Sound while the album was being made — and stayed to play drums on “Seasons in the Sun,” a track credit named in Damian’s own posts and in no press story anywhere. “Look who stopped by @studiocitysound! My longtime pal @johnstamos… and yes, I got him to play drums on my new album!” Damian posted on May 29, 2026. Stamos played Blackie Parrish on General Hospital from 1982 to 1984 — a GH rocker keeping time for a Y&R rocker, forty years later.

And one more credit the album coverage keeps in a separate drawer. In the fall of 2025, The Wrong Paris — produced by Michael Damian, directed by Janeen — was the No. 1 movie on Netflix in 53 countries. Eleven months later its producer was back on a soap stage, singing. Hollywood careers are supposed to move in one direction. His moved home — and then asked the living room for a favor. The living room answered.

That’s the whole story, really. He never left the show, he never stopped making records, and he never lost the people who were there for both. The audience didn’t come back to Michael Damian. They never went anywhere. (And keep an eye on January — the Stamos story gets its own week.)

Young portrait: @therealmichaeldamian
On set: @therealmichaeldamian
Today: @therealmichaeldamian
Reporting: TV Insider, SoapHub, The Soap Scene, Loggins Promotion, NewMusicWeekly, Qobuz, National Radio Hits, Pod Scum (Ep. #442)

Breaking — October 17

Who is Jude? Wil Traval debuted on General Hospital as “Jude” — no name in the credits, no backstory. But Steve Burton’s podcast leak says it’s a recast: a legacy character in a new face. Is Jude really Jerry Jacks? Read the full story ↗

Last week

Cady McClain returns to Beyond the Gates as Pamela Curtis — and to a generation of soap fans, she’ll always be Dixie Cooney.

See the post on Instagram ↗

Soap Songs — Week 1

“Baby, Come to Me” almost slipped away.

Patti Austin and James Ingram released it in the spring of ’82 — it peaked at #73 and faded in a month.

Then General Hospital made it Luke and Holly’s love theme. Viewers blew up ABC’s phone lines asking what that song was. Warner Bros. re-released it that fall, and by February ’83 it was #1 — knocking Toto’s “Africa” off the top of the Hot 100 and holding it for two weeks.

The record behind the story: written by Rod Temperton of Heatwave, produced by Quincy Jones, with Michael McDonald on background vocals. When the song hit number one, James Ingram came by the General Hospital set to celebrate.

Daytime TV took a quiet record and made it a hit.

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Soap Songs — Week 2

“Think of Laura” was never meant for TV.

Christopher Cross wrote it in 1982 to comfort his girlfriend, Paige, after her close friend Laura Carter — an 18-year-old Denison University student — was killed by a stray bullet in Columbus, Ohio.

Then General Hospital started slipping tiny pieces of it into scenes whenever Luke Spencer was thinking about Laura, missing and presumed gone. Cross later said they never used enough of it to need a license — “just a little for a ghosting effect.”

The record behind the story: from Cross’s 1983 album Another Page, written by Cross and produced by Michael Omartian. It peaked at #9 on the Hot 100 in February 1984 and spent four weeks at #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart — his fourth and final Top 10 hit.

Daytime TV took a private goodbye and turned it into a hit.

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