You don’t need to be a music reviewer to know that the finger of
\nfame is fickle indeed. (Try saying that five times fast!) An artist
\ncan be topping the charts one day, and pouring milkshakes at the
\nlocal Dog & Suds the next day. One album can top the charts for
\nmonths at a time, the next album will collect the dust of ages in
\nthe “we’ll pay
\nyou<\/i> to take it” bins.<\/p>\n
But there are some artists whose fall from grace I am at a loss
\nto understand. One such artist is Lionel Richie. Granted, he might
\nhave suffered from overexposure at the height of his fame, but
\nthere’s no denying that his music has been quality throughout most
\nof his career. His self-titled debut solo album from 1982 is proof
\nof this – and the surprising thing is that some of the best music
\nnever made it to the airwaves.<\/p>\n
After leaving the Commodores, Richie hit paydirt with a trio of
\nsongs from this album. “My Love” is one that people might not
\nimmediately recall, but as soon as the opening notes drift from the
\nspeakers, the lightbulb will go on. I don’t know if I would call
\nthis one a ballad in the true sense of the word, but it’s a great
\nslow dancing song that has not lost any of its magic after almost
\ntwo decades. Likewise, the ballad “Truly” is one that will bend
\nyour ear – if anything, I’d argue that this one is far too
\nshort.<\/p>\n
But don’t think that Richie doesn’t know how to bring out the
\ngroove. The third single, “You Are,” is yet another song that shows
\nRichie’s mastery of smooth R&B. Building from a soft groove to
\na powerful chorus, it’s no wonder why Richie and this song drew a
\nlot of attention in the early ’80s.<\/p>\n
If you think, however, that
\nLionel Richie<\/i> has only those three good songs on it, you’d
\nbe sorely mistaken. If anything, one listen to this album will show
\nthat Richie was a lot more than the gentle balladeer that we heard
\non the radio. Two cuts in particular, “Wandering Stranger” and
\n“Round And Round”, both are uptempo R&B tracks that lay down a
\nsolid groove – and Richie knows how to work it to near
\nperfection.<\/p>\n
Possibly the best song on the album is a ballad – “Just Put Some
\nLove In Your Heart”. However, I do have a complaint with this track
\n– it’s far too short! Just when Richie has got me locked into the
\ntrack – bam! – the album is over. Then again, maybe Richie knew
\nthat had he drawn out the track, it would have lost a lot of its
\nmomentum.<\/p>\n
After one listen to
\nLionel Richie<\/i>, I found myself wondering why this guy wasn’t
\nstill near the top of the R&B or adult contemporary charts.
\nIt’s not that Richie’s style of love song has fallen out of chic,
\nthough I will admit there tends to be a little more “hardcore”
\nR&B in some of today’s songs. But this album not only proved
\nthat Richie could succeed as a solo artist, but that he was a
\nsinger extraordinaire – and this debut leaves no doubt in my mind
\nthat he’s overdue for a resurgence in popularity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7363],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38907","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-lionel-richie","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38907"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38907"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}