Top 7 Lionel Richie Songs of the '80s

As a consummate pop star of the 80s, Lionel Richie famously stacked up 13 consecutive Top 10 hits, a remarkable feat indeed. However, his propensity for pop singles inevitably meant the three albums he released contained little else in terms of commercial or critical appeal, assuming, of course, that all of the hits were actually good. And that’s a hefty assumption. That’s why I’ve chosen to select just over half of Richie’s signature tunes for my best-of list. Wheat from the chaff, they say.

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1. “Endless Love”This overwrought karaoke classic served as the primary catalyst for Richie’s unsurprising departure from the Commodores, after his duet with Diana Ross hit No. 1 on the pop charts in the summer of 1981 and stayed there for nine weeks. Best sung or lip-synched by the brave and self-assured with maximum facial contortions and gesticulation, the ballad boasts a memorable, gentle verse that explodes (if adult contemporary pop can do that) with a positively sublime bridge. Must stop now. Verklempt.

2. “My Love”I must confess I heard this one the other day on the radio, listened intently all the way through, and felt significantly better than I had just before during my drive home from work. OK, so maybe it wasn’t so much the song, but I choose to believe it was. Richie had a knack for taking all the darkness out of romance, and a love ballad has rarely been this effervescent and sunny before or since. At the same time, the tune never devolves into a cheesefest; it’s just a highly pleasant listen.

3. “You Are”Although Richie eliminated almost all soul/R&B aspects of his sound (what few there ever were) after he left the Commodores and embarked on his successful solo career, he manages to find a nifty groove on this song nevertheless. As usual, the singer amps things up perhaps a bit too far for the chorus, but in the verses and bridge Richie has probably never been more subtle and emotionally commanding. It’s a sumptuous and delicate performance, and I’ve always liked it, dammit. Are you satisfied?

4. “Stuck on You”Richie reveals a little eclecticism with this song, and though it’s not his only flirtation with country music, it is his best. The tune’s success also stems from its almost clinical laid-back approach to the love ballad. Once again, Richie walks a dangerously thin line by downplaying passion’s tempest in favor of a lived-in, tamed version of love. But somehow he invests the song with sufficient feeling anyway and handles his most important task effectively, to make his performance convincing.

5. “Running with the Night”While Richie the balladeer was never at his best on up-tempo numbers, this one is most definitely the lesser of three evils and far less embarrassing than either “All Night Long” or, especially, “Dancing on the Ceiling”. Luckily, on this tolerable selection, Richie refrains from attempting either a forced Latin/Caribbean vibe as he does on “All Night Long” or engage in abject silliness involving ceilings. Instead, he delivers a solid, if somewhat vanilla, mainstream pop/rock tune.

6. “Ballerina Girl”So I’ll cut through the suspense right now and confess that I’m leaving “Hello” off this lost, for the sake of my sanity if not for any remaining shreds of dignity. In the resulting void I submit this lesser-known but still somehow compelling ballad that perfectly captures Richie’s extreme romanticism, which borders on pathological here. Nonetheless, his composer’s gift for melody shines through as usual and results in a slow-dance special that epitomizes “easy listening.”

7. “Say You, Say Me”Back when his show still contained the phrase “late night” in its title, David Letterman employed this tune to great effect for a comedy bit. Richie’s music has always teetered right on the edge of unintentional comedy, but his melodic gifts cannot be stopped; they can't even be contained. As always, it’s best not to puzzle too much over the meaning of the lyrics or search for interesting layers. Even so, this latter-day Richie hit from the '80s captured something substantial about the decade.

Ten Best Eric Clapton Songs - Download MP3 Free

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Layla

The opening riff simply tears through your senses. Layla was definitely Eric at his best. His short stint with Derek and the Dominos generated only one album, but it is arguably one of the most dazzling, shining works in his catalog. This song says it with such force and conveys painfully powerful emotions-a rather fitting cry of frustration from his famously unrequited love affair with his best friend George Harrison's then-wife Patti Boyd, for whom he wrote the song. Yet even in the stripped-down, mellowed version that he put out in 1994's Unplugged, Eric breathes new life into the song and rekindles old passions that have long been put to rest.

Bellbottom Blues

This is another classic from Eric's period with the Dominos. It's a mellow track, yet the intensity of feeling that he conveys here clearly rivals that of Layla, or of any great blues player for the matter. He sings of an unrequited love, and a searing sadness fathoms the track, climaxing with some soaring string bending and guitar wailing. That simple, haunting riff just rings in your ears and finds its way to your heart. Blues purists may resent the rock-tinged feel of the song, but no doubt Eric is one fine bluesman who can convey oceans of emotion. This song alone is enough to attest to that.

Crossroads

This was the track that merited him the famous graffiti that said "Clapton is God". His years at Cream were some of his best which, combined with the genius of Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, saw unprecedented experimentation with jazz progressions as no rock trio had ever attempted. Crossroads is a completely new take on the Robert Johnson blues standard, complete with those guitar pyrotechnics and extended improvisations that propelled Clapton to god-like cult-worship status in London's 1960s music scene.

Badge

Another selection from his years with Cream, Badge was co-written with George Harrison. The two had met some years earlier and from there grew one of the greatest friendships in contemporary music history, even withstanding Clapton's aching affair with Harrison's first wife Patti Boyd. Although more of a pop track than Eric's blues-purist preferences, Badge has become a standard in Eric's concert repertoires, perhaps as a fond tribute to George. Every performance of this song sees Eric bringing something different into it, and his solos have only grown more expressive with age, like something nearing perfection after 40 years in the making.

Have You Ever Loved A Woman

This is one of Eric's signature songs, way back from his Derek and the Dominos period. A Chicago-blues style tune infused with some excellent and heavy improvisations, Have You Ever Loved A Woman is legendary Clapton material. Here, he conveys painful and lucid oceans of emotion, again in reference to his unrequited love affair with Patti, pining the realization that "…she belongs to your very best friend." Whoever says that Clapton doesn't have the soul of a bluesman should have a listen to this track, and that would settle the argument once and for all.

Old Love

Written with renowned bluesman and his good friend Robert Cray, Old Love is a powerfully moving ballad that staged Eric's comeback as a bluesman in the late eighties. Shedding the experimental-mostly pop-material which he fumbled and languished in for the most part of the 70's and 80's, the arrival of this song shatters any doubts about him having outlived his glory days and reminds us mere mortals, who might already have forgotten, why Clapton is, indeed, god.

Cocaine

This J.J. Cale classic has been immortalized, thanks to Clapton's ingenious guitar playing. Who could ever mistake that opening phrase for something less worthy? It's not nearly as searing as his work with Cream or the Dominos, but Cocaine is nevertheless a good place to start when exploring Clapton's catalogue as a solo artist. Electrifying riffs rightly impact the audience of the pulsating highs and disarming perils of…cocaine.

I Shot The Sheriff

This piece of Bob Marley legacy became Eric's first number one in the U.S. He first got a taste of Marley when a session guitarist played an album during a recording session. Turned out that Eric couldn't get enough of it and ended up jamming to I Shot the Sheriff an entire day! Shortly after the release of his chart-topping cover version, Eric got a call from Bob himself and he shares that "I kept asking him if it was a true story - did he really shoot the sheriff? What was it all about? He wouldn't really commit himself. He said that some parts of it were true, but he wasn't going to say which parts."

Wonderful Tonight
This may be Eric's most overplayed standard, blaring through afternoon ‘rewind' radio programs just about everywhere. Even non-Clapton fans will have probably heard this song at one time. But discounting this fact - -let's face it - -this is about Eric's most tender, poignant ballad and the anthem of many a hopeless romantic. He wrote this song while waiting for Patti - -his future wife - -dress up for a party they were going to. Here is simply a beautiful song for a beautiful lady that inspired some of Eric's most creative moments in his four-decade long career.

Tears In Heaven

Where has that electric guitar-clad rock god gone? Eric dons an acoustic for this number, and shows the world that he can do music like his heroes before him have done - -stripped down, unamplified fingerpicking that draws from a very sincere, moving well of feeling. His performance of this song in 1994's Unplugged was his greatest success story since his downward spiral into drug addiction and his subsequent rehabilitation. Behind his triumph though, was an aching tragedy. Eric originally penned this song for his son Conor, then 4 years old, who died after falling off the balcony of his Italian lover Lori Del Santo's condominium unit in New York. This is Eric unplugged, as if mellowed out with age and a trove of experiences - -fragile, tender, yet intensely reflective.