Lionel Richie Definitive Collection CD

The first pressings of THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION included a bonus disc featuring rare tracks.
Personnel includes: Lionel Richie (vocals); Diana Ross, Enrique Igelesias (vocals); Russ DeSalvo (guitar, synthesizer); Adam Philips, Cheili Minucci (guitar); Shane Keister (piano); Eric Kupper (keyboards); John Reade (bass); Patrick Carroll (electric bass, programming); Richie Jones (programming); Commodores.
Producers include: Lionel Richie, James Anthony Carmichael, Commodores, Mark Taylor, Ric Wake, Stewart Levine.
Compilation producers: Harry Weinger, Jeff Moskow.
Includes liner notes by Steven Ivory.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION, though not as thorough as the excellent two-disc set GOLD (released a year prior), is a handy overview of the Commodores' career, beginning with 1974's "Machine Gun" and concluding with 1985's "Nightshift." The only Top Ten R&B hits not included here are "Sail On," and a couple of later '80s cuts, so all the big funk jams ("Too Hot ta Trot," "Brick House," "Lady [You Bring Me Up],") and ballads ("Zoom," "Easy," "Three Times a Lady") are indeed included. This set also scores a little extra by including one of the band's best album cuts, 1976's "Girl, I Think the World About You," which has been left off at least 90-percent of all Commodores comps.
It's hard to believe, but prior to the 2003 release of The Definitive Collection, there wasn't a proper hits collection in Lionel Richie's catalog. A decade earlier, Motown dipped their toe in the water with the jumbled Back to Front, which tried desperately to camouflage its nature as a comp with three new songs, which, at 14 tracks, hurt the hit quotient dramatically. This, however, gets it almost all right. Spanning 20 tracks (only two of which are new, tacked onto the end; while not especially memorable, neither is bad), this collection has nearly all the big hits from his solo recordings (the Top Ten "Love Will Conquer All" is notably absent, but that's the only chart-topper not here), along with five Commodores ballads that showcase Richie the balladeer at a peak: "Just to Be Close to You," "Easy," "Three Times a Lady," "Still," "Sail On." Since these were the first tracks to showcase Lionel Richie as a talent separate from the Commodores, their presence is welcome on a collection of his solo hits, and they indeed make this a fuller experience, since this now has all of Richie's soft rock hits in one place. Taken together, it's a formidable body of work, making a clear case for him as one of the preeminent soft rock craftsmen of the early '80s. True, the collection might have benefited slightly from a chronological track listing, but by jumping between albums, and between Commodores and solo material, the consistency of his records becomes evident. Few of his peers created singles as memorable as "Easy," the infectious "All Night Long (All Night)," "Truly," the sweetly melancholic "Hello," the insistent, gently ominous "Running with the Night," "Just to Be Close to You," and the ebullient "You Are," as delightful as 45s came in the early days of the Reagan Administration. Not everything here quite reaches those standards -- admittedly, those are the hits upon which his reputation lay, plus they're the best that soft pop got in the '80s -- but the rest is all well-crafted and easily enjoyable, proving that Lionel Richie is a singular adult contemporary talent. He may be sappy, but he's got skills. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The Definitive Collection, though not as thorough as the excellent two-disc set Gold (released a year prior), is a handy overview of the Commodores' career, beginning with 1974's "Machine Gun" and concluding with 1985's "Nightshift." The only Top Ten R&B hits not included here are "Sail On," and a couple later ('80s) cuts, so all the big funk jams ("Too Hot ta Trot," "Brick House," "Lady [You Bring Me Up],") and ballads ("Zoom," "Easy," "Three Times a Lady") are indeed inclu