Talented funksters with beautiful ballads? or cheesy mush? I can't really decide

The Commodores were great in the 70s....one of the finest R&B/funk bands of that era.

SoulAlive said:

phunkdaddy said:

I was fortunate to see the Commodores last stint with Lionel in 81. It was a great show they headlined with Maze and Cheryl Lynn opening. That was probably the last time Frankie Beverly opened for anyone. The Commodores nailed the opener Keep On Taking Me Higher in a cloud of smoke and a loud canon cracker.

I wish I could have seen that show! Sounds exciting.

"Zoom" is one of my favorites

being an Earth Wind & Fire fanatic, i always saw The Commodoes as 'competition' and 'the enemy'...but "Zoom", "Just To Be Close To You", "Heaven Knows", "Jesus Is Love" were ALL great classic songs...

I pretty much like all of their 70s albums,but there is something really special about 1978's Natural High album.That one flows really well,from one song to the next.

MotownSubdivision said:

Waiting for the Lionel haters to show up here and whine about how he sucks because he didn't only make funk music his entire career.

any artist that has a career than spans several years is forced to make changes in their sound to remain commercially viable... especially going from a band frontman, to a solo artist...i aint mad at Lionel Ritchie for making music for Kenny Rogers and his audience... his legacy with the Commodores is solidified...and i aint even a fan

phunkdaddy said:

SoulAlive said:

The Commodores were great in the 70s....one of the finest R&B/funk bands of that era.

For sure. I think by the turn of the 80's they were starting to fade in the background as Lionel started getting attention for the lush ballads he wrote. I was fortunate to see the Commodores last stint with Lionel in 81. It was a great show they headlined with Maze and Cheryl Lynn opening. That was probably the last time Frankie Beverly opened for anyone. The Commodores nailed the opener Keep On Taking Me Higher in a cloud of smoke and a loud canon cracker.

Total agreed. He went solo.

^^Mike Nesmith from The Monkees directed the All Night Long video.

RJOrion said:

i aint mad at Lionel Ritchie for making music for Kenny Rogers and his audience...

Kenny recently put out an autobiography and he mentions Lionel several times. One story is about Lionel getting seasick when he went on Kenny's boat and that he got Lionel to go scuba diving, when Lionel had water phobia.

Yeah...I would say that,beginning in 1978 with "Three Times A Lady",the focus seemed to be on Lionel's ballads.Look at their 1979 album Midnight Magic....the two big hits are "Still" and the country-flavored "Sail On".The funk jams were being downplayed at that point.

phunkdaddy said:

I think by the turn of the 80's they were starting to fade in the background as Lionel started getting attention for the lush ballads he wrote.

RJOrion said:

My favorite gospel song of all time

The pop ascension destroyed Lionel Richie too

turned him into an anomoly by 1990

[Edited 11/26/15 13:15pm]

Scorp said:

The pop ascension destroyed Lionel Richie too

turned him into an anomoly by 1990

I like his first two solo albums,but I was done with him when he did that "Dancing On The Ceiling" song That song and video was horrible and embarassing!

SoulAlive said:

SoulAlive said:

"Dancing On The Ceiling" song That song and video was horrible and embarassing!

If it's so embarassing, why is he still performing it today and also re-recorded it? Also, the video came from Fred Astaire

[Edited 11/26/15 16:03pm]

^^ please DON'T post any performances of that awful song!

SoulAlive said:

^^ please DON'T post any performances of that awful song!

I like it. I have the album too.

Ballerina Girl is one of Lionel's worst ballads. Nothing compared to his great ballads like Three Times a Lady, Penny Lover or Hello.

MichaelJackson5 said:

Ballerina Girl is one of Lionel's worst ballads. Nothing compared to his great ballads like Three Times a Lady, Penny Lover or Hello.

I agree,it's way too sappy.I dislike most of the Dancing On The Ceiling album.As a solo artist,Lionel has always done big ballads and 'pop' material but on this album,he went overboard with it.The song "Say You,Say Me" makes me wanna puke.

On the other hand,I love the Can't Slow Down album."Love Will Find A Way" is my favorite Lionel Richie solo song.It's just perfect!

SoulAlive said:

This is starting to become like that Adele thread, where some say her music is boring and don't understand why it sells so much. It seems to me that the songs people in this thread are calling cheesy are some of Lionel's biggest hits. Like I said in the Adele thread soft music like adult contemporary and light rock has always been popular. Look at the popularity of power ballads on Top 40 in the 1980s. Some of the most popular acts have been AC or light rock like Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Richard Marx, Boyz II Men, etc. Some Jeffrey Osborne's solo songs (and George Benson & Al Jarreau) wasn't much different than Lionel's and Billy Ocean was really popular as well. Jeffrey came from a funk band too. George Benson was accused by jazz purists of selling out and so was Phil Collins/Genesis by prog rock fans and Starship by early Jefferson Airplane fans. They don't like We Built This City. Some Isley Brothers fans don't like the Mr. Biggs era songs. Some Beatles fans only like the early stuff and not the later psychedelic records. Interestingly the records the purists gripe about often sold more than the earlier stuff they like. The Dancing On The Ceiling album sold more than any Commodores album.

MickyDolenz said:

This is starting to become like that Adele thread, where some say her music is boring and don't understand why it sells so much. It seems to me that the songs people in this thread are calling cheesy are some of Lionel's biggest hits. Like I said in the Adele thread soft music like adult contemporary and light rock has always been popular. Look at the popularity of power ballads on Top 40 in the 1980s. Some of the most popular acts have been AC or light rock like Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Richard Marx, Boyz II Men, etc. Some Jeffrey Osborne's solo songs (and George Benson & Al Jarreau) wasn't much different than Lionel's and Billy Ocean was really popular as well. Jeffrey came from a funk band too. George Benson was accused by jazz purists of selling out and so was Phil Collins/Genesis by prog rock fans and Starship by early Jefferson Airplane fans. They don't like We Built This City. Some Isley Brothers fans don't like the Mr. Biggs era songs. Some Beatles fans only like the early stuff and not the later psychedelic records. Interestingly the records the purists gripe about often sold more than the earlier stuff they like. The Dancing On The Ceiling album sold more than any Commodores album.

Sales of Dancing on the Ceiling mostly occured in the first month. It, along with MJ's Bad and Boston's Third Stage were the first three albums in Billboard history to sell 3 million copies within the first month.

So that means it only sold another million units after the first month tally. Can't Slow Down was a massive album that sold over 10 million copies in America. The anticipation for it's follow-up, just like with Bad, was enormous.

As for your talk about bands selling out, you oughtta include Heart as their songs in the 80s sounded nothing like the 70s classics like Magic Man or Barricuda.

MichaelJackson5 said: