Title - 'Coming Home' (Island)
Artist - Lionel Richie
Lyrically speaking, some of the tracks on 'Coming Home' are mediocre, but I guess this is the acceptable standard in today's R&B. They don't have to be thought-provoking or deep - just make sure the words rhyme, and you're good to go. You expect a lot more from a legendary artist like Richie. Sure, he may be singing so-called R&B again, and I'm sure a lot of folks are happy over that fact alone. He had spent most of his solo career catering to pop audiences and for the most part, had only been a true R&B artist when he was a Commodore. His voice, as always, sounds wonderful here and it's always good to hear something new from him. But Richie is a traditionalist at heart, and he obviously compromised that aspect of himself to make this CD - which boasts R&B heavyweights Jermaine Dupri, Dallas Austin and Raphael Saddiq, only to name a few - only a year or so after he had blasted the genre of contemporary R&B in several interviews for lacking any kind of creativity or originality! Overall, 'Coming Home' is just kind of there. Few tracks stand out to the point where you can remember them enough to want to listen to them again. It's a decent album but one of the weaker albums in his catalogue.
www.IslandRecords.com
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