The first time I heard “I Call it Love,” the new Lionel Richie single, I had no idea who was singing. Apparently, I had the reaction he was looking for.
“The ultimate thing you want to do is catch them off guard,” Richie tells andPOP.
To do this, the R&B legend teamed up with some of the hottest producers in the business — Jermaine Dupri, Raphael Saadiq, Dallas Austin, Sean Garrett and Chuckii Booker — when putting together the tracks for his latest album, “Coming Home,” released last week.
The single was written and produced by Stargate, the hit makers behind Ne-Yo’s “So Sick.” It feels like a song made for 2006, so naturally, I wasn’t expecting the singer to be Richie, who released his first album as part of The Commodores in 1973.
Attempting to make hit records, the producers could have easily tried to make Richie sound like some of the most popular and most played R&B singers of today (Usher, John Legend, etc.) but instead, they just wanted Lionel to be Lionel.
The scenario was somewhat like one that occurred two decades earlier when Richie was working with Diana Ross. Ross’ star was beginning to fade, and the it-girl of the moment was Whitney Houston. Ross told Richie that she wanted to sound more like Houston, but Richie advised her to just be Diana Ross, much like what he heard from today’s producers.
“When they walked into the door, they said, ‘can you bring Lionel Richie to the table, because we can bring exactly what flavour is needed.’ That’s the best marriage in the world,” Richie says. “It was my job to make sure that I didn’t compromise Lionel Richie and I commend them for keeping it so real, where at one point I thought for a minute that I was back in the day.”
Together with the producers, Richie decided that he needed to make music that sounded “believable.” Making music believable in 2006, Richie says, is the same process he took to making music believable in 1975, and is the process that leads to a track’s longevity.
That is why “Hello” and “All Night Long” are still being played on the radio today, while many of today’s new hit songs will be off the play lists forever in a matter of weeks.
“Those are called hit tunes. I’m not into tune writing; I’m into song writing. What you hear is me playing with the writers of today, just like I played with The Commodores, just like I played with David Foster, just like I played with Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson doing ‘We Are the World.’ That’s called a creative play period for writers. I went in and played with Q so you got another hybrid of Lionel Richie. But I kept singing that melody and that’s forever.”
While the album tackles a familiar topic to Richie — namely, love — it also shows a more personal side.
On the track, “I’m Coming Home,” Richie sings, “I can see the things I should have done, could have done/I see so much of my life I let go by.”
The song, he explains, is about the sacrifices he had to make to get to where he is today.
“There is a time in your life when you look over your shoulder and realize, ‘ok, let me add a few things up here. Even though I am Lionel Richie, what were the sacrifices?’
“I’m very happy where I am but you can’t be in two places at the same time. I’m sorry we didn’t have a Commodores farewell show. That’s one of those things where, yes, I made it, but man, it sure would have been great if we had a big Commodores farewell tour. But we didn’t do it. Since then, we’ve been trying to talk about when we would have the reunion tour, but we missed the farewell tour.”
On another track, “Why,” he sings about his daughter, the now uber-famous Nicole Richie: “Now the kids are looking at me like I’m the blame/No longer got their respect for me.”
“In every kind of divorce,” he explains, “especially when you have kids involved, sometimes the parents can be so stupid, and keep the argument amongst themselves, thinking it’s just between the two of them, when actually the kids always think it was their fault. I thought about Nicole when she was going through the divorce between me and Brenda. It was one of those situations where she is trying to manage two grown people.”
Richie was never hesitant to get personal on the album because he hopes by tackling the hard-to-discuss topics, more people will be able to relate to the songs.
“What is so wonderful about getting personal is if you say it truthfully, the whole world is going through the same problem. What people call personal is really group therapy.”
Madonna, Mariah Carey, Beyonce and Robbie Williams are just a few of the superstars planning to record numbers for an upcoming Michael Jackson tribute album, reports the Daily Star. Whitney Houston, Usher and 12-year-old Shaheen Jafargholi of Britain’s Got Talent will also reportedly be featured alongside legends like Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Lionel Richie.
