Endless love
The overlooking of Lionel Richie
It took something so very small to overshadow the Grammy-winning, multi-platinum-selling music superstar Lionel Richie. In three short years, his incredible, shrinking daughter Nicole has surpassed the level of pop-culture ubiquity that Lionel achieved with his fantastic hit-making streak in the ’80s. She’s ensured a mention of her in every story that will be written about him until the end of time. Lionel is no longer the only Richie who’s a household name all over the world, but there is a huge difference in how that came about.
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“I had to have a body of work before becoming that famous!” he marveled to Vanity Fair over the summer in an article about Nicole.
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On a recent appearance on “The Tyra Banks Show,” Nicole puzzled over why she was a paparazzi magnet when her entertainment career is just beginning. She didn’t say she didn’t want to be famous, but she definitely didn’t understand why it had already happened. Perhaps she didn’t realize the ascent of her on-again buddy Paris Hilton’s pop-culture rocket-ship — the one that traveled from Page Six socialite to “The Simple Life” reality TV/porn star in the matter of a few months — would carry her, too.
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So while everyone was focused on Nicole, the pressure was off of Lionel. All he had to do was simply create without any expectations of a mega-comeback.
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In September, Lionel released a new album called Coming Home. It has been a decent commercial success so far, but all people could talk about when it came out was how thin his daughter looked in the video for the lead single, “I Call It Love.” So loud is the chatter about her obvious health issues that the comparatively few voices that have praised the album have gotten drowned out.
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But it’s time to shout to the hilltops that Lionel has actually made a darned good record here. It has contemporary credibility — it’s on Def Jam, for Pete’s sake — without putting him light years away from his signature sound. (Don’t worry, he’s still a love singer, and hasn’t become a gangster rapper.) The transition is seamless, even on the moments when he’s trying on new rhythmic ways. He even follows a guitar-led and country-crooned “Reason To Believe” with the island vibes of a reggae-tinged “Stand Down,” and you’re not mad at him for stylistic dabbling. Who else, especially among his contemporaries, could do the same?
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Part of the reason is that this Alabama-born gentleman came knocking on neighboring Georgia for some heat. Lionel came to Atlanta for youthful beats, words and cadences from Jermaine Dupri, Dallas Austin and Sean Garrett (a songwriter who is known in the music industry as “The Pen”). They are among the producers who were smart enough to let Lionel simply do what he does, and his voice’s distinctive tone comes across as healthy and as sweet as it always has been.
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Yep, Lionel’s still got it going on, and we already know he can’t slow down. At this rate, he can still keep making relevant albums without worry of being overexposed. He’ll always be more under the radar than his kid.
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Unfortunately, because we’ve become accustomed to thinking of Lionel in the role as Nicole’s easygoing daddy over the past few years, some of his moves on Coming Home feel a little too saucy at times. It’s a wee bit uncomfortable hearing him get so sexy. But Lionel makes sure to poke fun at himself. On “Up All Night,” a song with much more sensual urgency than his classic jam “All Night Long,” he punctuates the sizzle with, “She wanna keep me up all night/Man, she might kill me!”
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With that kind of lighthearted humor, Lionel can still stick his tongue firmly in someone else’s cheek without too much trouble. Now we’re talkin’ endless love.