Songoftheday 4/11/20 - Times are hard, my spirit's weak, ev'rything seems to be goin' wrong the outlook's bleak...
from the album Louder Than Words (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #39 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 1
Today's song of the day comes from pop/soul singer/songwriter Lionel Richie, who was taking an extended break after his third solo album after leaving the Commodores, Dancing On The Ceiling, popping up in the summer of 1992 with a hits collection that spun off a top-40 pop hit with "Do It To Me". By the time Richie returned with a new studio album, ten years had passed by with the singer moving from Motown to Mercury Records. His next set Louder Than Words was released in 1996, with lead single "Don't Wanna Lose You" co-written and produced by the Flyte Tyme team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. You would've never guessed the ten years went by, with his style not strayed too far from the 80s, especially with the by-the-books Harris/Lewis ballad...
"Don't Wanna Lose You" became Lionel's 16th and so far most recent top-40 pop hit in May of 1996. The song was big at the "easy listening" formats, placing on both the Adult Contemporary (#5) and Adult Top-40 (#30) radio charts. The song also climbed to #17 on their R&B chart as well. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in Canada (#13), the UK (#17), the Netherlands (#28), Switzerland (#32), and Austria (#34). His follow-up, "Ordinary Girl" (written with Babyface), went to #9 at Adult Contemporary and #76 at R&B, but only managed to "bubble under" the pop Hot 100 at #103. A third release, "Still In Love", scored Lionel a third top-ten AC hit at #10, and was a minor hit in the UK at #66. The Louder Than Words album did make the top-40, but a much more reserved position at #28.
Lionel released a second album with Mercury, Time, in 1998. But while lead single "Time" rose to #7 at Adult Contemporary, mainstream and R&B radio left him behind (although Lionel did return to the top-40 in the UK with "Closest Thing To Heaven" reaching #26. The album was an evolution in sound for Lionel, but only making the bottom quarter of the Top 200 Albums chart (#152) left Lionel leaving Mercury for Island Records. There he started the millenium with his Renaissance album in 2000. It was a tad more successful here, with single "Angel" reaching #4 on Billboard's Dance chart, #32 at Adult Contemporary, and #70 on the pop Hot 100, but it was much more successful internationally. That song went to #18 in the UK, one of four singles from the record that made the top-40. That album was clearly patterned on Cher's comeback Believe album, but with a bit softer sounds, and it did get him back on the top half of the albums chart at #62. That was followed in 2004 with the Just For You album, with the title track again a club hit with its remix at #6, while the original got to #14 at AC and #92 on the pop chart, while in the UK it did pretty decently at #20. Two years later, Richie returned with Coming Home, his third disc with Island, which spun off his most recent Hot 100 hit in the urban-tinged "I Call It Love" (#62), which also made the top ten on both the Dance (#9) and Adult Contemporary (#10) lists, and is his most recent top-40 R&B hit at #19. His Just Go album, his last studio set on Island, contains his most recent club hit with "Just Go" (#18) which also just missed the AC top ten at #11. However in Britain he remained a sales powerhouse, with most of his albums reaching the top ten, culminating in a historically successful stint at the Glastonbury Festival in 2015. Most recently, besides being a judge on the revamp of American Idol, Lionel signed with Mercury Nashville to record one of his biggest successes in the Tuskegee album in 2012, where he re-recorded his biggest hits in country music style with other stars of the genre. The album returned him to #1 in American, while his reworking of his 1981 duet "Endless Love" with Shania Twain, climbed to #12 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart.
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Here's Lionel appearing on the American Music Awards in 1996...
and on Top of the Pops in the UK the same year...
Up tomorrow: A band out of nirvana is pretty large.
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