In defense of Lionel Richie's ALL NIGHT LONG

[remicks]

On the 80's worst songs thread ....Lionel Richie suffered a serious thrashing ....sometimes deservedly so ...... but for me... ALL NIGHT LONG needs to be seperated from the rest of his 80's output ;-)8-)


.....And so , now .... for the defense of :

8-)*** Lionel Richie's ALL NIGHT LONG*** 8-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mixmachine

Nothing would get me more in a bad mood than when someone asked me to play "All nite long", this song turns off all my bottons to this day, what a stinker, all his music after the Commodores was some of the worse formulaic pop drivel ever

Videoskooter : " Quote:
All night long" was 1 of the main reasons for me to stay out of clubs BITD. I simply can't enjoy Dance records like that. After 1981-1982 the ffunn was over for me! Debarge's "Rhythm of the night" was another one that made me just mad!

Get behind me Lionel ..I'll defend you !!!!!:grin::grin:


Sorry to have to disagree .... but ALL NIGHT LONG was TRULY one of the last great disco records ! Opposite Videoskooter ....this is one that maybe kept me in the clubs a couple of months longer .... a wonderful wind down , life is good , morning music song ....

Imagine this ... late in 1983 a disco record with real instruments .... featuring actual strings and horns ! !! A disco record that was neither 130+ BPMs of high pitched franticness .... nor a lower BPMer laden with hippity hoppityness ....! It wasn't techno , nor over dubbed, not make-up artsy , nor snappy pop , nor mod rock ....:roll:8-)

A feel good breezy song sounding tropical and far away ... a get up & boogie themed song , it was explicitly a celebration of the joy of partying : .... all -night- long!!! 8-)8-)..........
................yes, it was just ghastly !! :razz::razz:

Creatively Caribbean flavored percussions ... happy party crowd sounds ( what was the last disco song to bother with that?;-) ) , ( & did I mention the real strings ;-)) ... and last but not least....

...... those sexy breathy back up girls cooing wantonly " all night ... all night " 8)


Must mention the 12" version commercially provided .... a wonderful extendecd disco version that included a remarkable instrumental "B" side.....which more prominently featured the girls cooing ..."all night ..all night " that beautiful instrumental B side .... always a DJ's wish come true ....

It is typical of all artists to have inspired moments when they break through and rise above their rest : This happened in 1983 for Lionel Richie .


The result :

The last great disco hurrah from Motown :
..... Lionel Richie's richly produced : ALL NIGHT LONG.

8-)8-)8-)8-)

******

[QUINNY]

Have to AGREE with ya, Remicks.

I could have done withnthe 12" copy, but never saw a copy and didn't know it existed BITD. Otherwise I would have been very eager to get hold of it. I made up my own edit, in the end, which was sent (behind my back) to Motown in the U.K. For whatever reason it was dedcided against using it, but apparently it was a fine line decision!

It used to keep my dance floor more than happy AT PEAK TIME, as did the album version and the 45 before that.

[Nano]

You're right remicks. This is a great track that suffered from being severely overplayed. The other thing is, with this album Lionel gave up funk music, and this was his first non-funk dance hit. This fact may have caused many funk fans being pissed. Sadly, he would hurriedly lose the afro beats too, doing techno crap like "Dancing on the ceiling" and ballads by the numbers.

OK, I backed you up on this, now go listen to a few Van Morrison albums to understand his "la la la" secret code :)

[keefelc]

Remicks, I also agree with you! One of my favorite songs to hear booming on Trocadero's fab sound system in the morning hours. Never failed to give me a boost of energy to keep going for another couple of hours. Remember the Troc DJs would frequently mix the instrumental with the vocal version, or just play the instrumental, to keep the song fresh?

I had forgotten how good the song sounds on a good sound system until I heard it a few years ago when I was watching the water show in front of the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Started having a flashback to the Troc days right there in the Vegas heat!! :-P

[markydefad]

I liked it too!!! I don't get what people don't like about this one---the Caribbean flavor adds to make this one of his better solo records. The music video was overplayed being one of MTVs early hits (remember when they played videos 24/7???)-so maybe the primitive, cheapo, cheapo quality of the video rankles some folks??? Now I can't stand a lot of the rest of his solo stuff; (Exceptions: "You Are" & "Love Will Find A Way" are two other faves.):-):-):-)

But don't get me started on the Oscar-winning (!!!):oops::oops::oops: "Say You, Say Me", say what??? say hack for hire.:razz::razz::razz:

[nrgbeat]

Since we're on the topic of defending songs, what's wrong with "Together Forever" by Rick Astley? I'll admit the SAW sound became formulaic after a while, but I enjoyed this song when it came out.

[paul]

Well, I'll be Quinny here and break up this little love fest. I should first say I loved Lionel's music with the Commodore's. With that solid background the garbage he put out, yeah including ANL was a major disappointment. It was the kinda music that belonged in an elevator, your mall, or weddings. No self respecting club I went to at the time dared play ANL or the rest of that crap. If I wanted Caribbean style disco, Denroy Morgan and Billy Ocean for example did much better songs and were heard in the clubs I went to :-)

[eddie]

Its funny you mention this because I was just talking to someone else about how terrible the outtakes were for Can't Slow Down Deluxe Edition. On several of the demos, he is off key and on a couple of tracks he forgets the words.
There was only 1 decent unreleased track and the most of the rest was utter garbage.
"All night long" was average in my opinion. I could also do without the fake accent. It didn't give much credibility to the track. As someone else mentioned "Love will find away" was an ultimate classic as is "Nothing else matters" featuring Toots Thielmans from his Louder than words Lp.

[Mixmachine]

Originally Posted by remicks

A feel good breezy song sounding tropical and far away ... a get up & boogie themed song , it was explicitly a celebration of the joy of partying : .... all -night- long!!! 8-)8-)..........
................yes, it was just ghastly !! :razz::razz:


8-)8-)8-)8-)

******

Originally Posted by remicks

Somehow I'm having a hard time picturing this :-o.....where in the world was this club where this was happening ?!!!!!

*****

:razz::razz::razz:


I found it interesting that you knock down a truly “Disco” monster club hit number like “Zodiacs”, a hit specifically written for the Dance floor by seasoned and proven “Disco” writing team of Moroder/Bellote and yet you embrace a quasi- Disco wannabe dumb down number clearly crafted for pop Radio with MOR appeal and maximum profit in mind.HMMmmmmmm:cry:

Can’t you spot a pop musical money making rouse when you hear one???:-?

With all the "Morning music " out there they played this dud at the Troc????:oops::-o:p:p




[JOKE]Aren’t you guys supposed to be the musically enlightened ones ???? (joke) :p :roll::p the ones always at the vanguard of obscure "unique and exclusive" one of the kind off the wall never heard before ever ever disco music and now "All night long" is in your fave list ?????:???::roll::razz::razz: [JOKE]



:p:p:p



I’ll bet Lionel Ritchie himself knew he was writing a lame POP song geared for the musically challenged middle of the road masses, after all, his first Album marked his desire to conquer the POP world and enhance his pocketbook (nothing wrong with that!) similar to what Kool and the Gang did around the same time.

But don’t get me wrong, I give all the credit in the world to writers/performers that are able to produce massive hits like this (they just wont sell me any!!!), even if you are aiming for the musically challenged masses controlled by Corporations' Marketing Department one still needs to be extremely gifted to be able to craft a multi-million seller (Popcrafters ?) let along a string of them, For that He gets my admiration and deserves all the financial reward he's received.(AS long as is not from my pocket book)


Lionel’s forte was in his Ballads (which I also always found syrupy/sappy and lame ) after all he didn’t write any of the best Commodores Funk/R&B/Dance numbers anyways, and his attempt to make dance music like “All night long” and worse “Dancing in the ceiling” carried the same level of MOR pop lameness that his ballads did, after a few initial spins of “All night long” it was all over for me and many DJs I knew, sure, by this time in the Disco era to keep our job we had to play what the Radio controlled punters wanted, but this doesn’t change the fact that this song was disposable money making lightweight that had an expired shelf life date stamped on it the moment it left the factory.

[Videoskooter]

Originally Posted by Mixmachine

I found it interesting that you knock down a truly “Disco” monster club hit number like “Zodiacs”, a hit specifically written for the Dance floor by seasoned and proven “Disco” writing team of Moroder/Bellote and yet you embrace a quasi- Disco wannabe dumb down number clearly crafted for pop Radio with MOR appeal and maximum profit in mind.[/size]

Belgium teams up with the mighty Miami on this one :-D I don't understand how people can even think of considering this ALN as D.I.S.C.O. :o IMHO, it is clearly not, just like the Miami Sound Machine ain't Disco and just like Debarge ain't Disco and....ehmmm....no I don't want to spend my precious time on SAW anymore

Richie was making POP at that time! And yes, I do like "Say you say me" and "Hello", even if those songs don't match up with his legendary Commodores' outputs. ALN, was a bummer and I admit only 1 thing: "Dancing on a ceiling" was even WORSE! But then....came Whitney Houston's "I wanna dance with somebody" and I realised: It's over now, finished, kaputtski! From 1982 till 1987 I really hated the Clubs as this junk was all over the floors. The Chicago and Detroit House didn't make it to our dancefloors and you know what???

Belgians came up with New Beat as a reaction to the bollocks that was poisoning the floors back then. It really was a reaction to the poppies that had ruined the joy of dancing.

And you may like it or hate it but New Beat brought back the clubfeel in our countries' joints. Top 40 crap was kicked out and replaced by the long, heavy, mysterious beats. And soon after that, House finally was mixed in, together with good old-fashioned and vintage Disco.

To each his own but I'm bloody serious about the fact that the major part of the 80's S.U.C.K.E.D!

For those who are not familiar with the Belgian Beat, look on this site and listen to the samples:

http://www.brainwashed.com/vvm/micro/benelux/index.htm

[keefelc]

It had everything to do with the DJs creating a mood! Music to welcome in a new day after partying, well, all night long. Many of us loved the morning sets because a talented DJ knew how to surprise us with all types of songs, even the "pop" tunes, thus keeping their sets fresh, maybe even innovative! :p

[Spellbound]

The middle and latter part of the 1980's really SUCKED big time. The only reason I have fond memories of the 1980's is because I was really really young and had no real concept of time so I was listening to FUNKYTOWN, ALL AMERICAN GIRLS, NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE, STAR CRUISER, SORCERER, EVERBODY DANCE etc... in 1984, 1985, 1986 and had no idea it was not the music of the current times.

It wasnt until the late 1980's when I started to realize the current dance music being released was complete trash and the stuff I was listening to was almost 10 years old.

[Disco Funk]

I remember really hating All Night Long when it first came out. I was more into the Michael Jackson, Culture Club, Human League stuff. I thought Lionel Ritchie was really cheesey, anyway. Then in the 90s I discovered the funk bone of the Commodores, and couldn't believe Lionel was a member of this bad ass group. Machine Gun is still my favorite album by them.

Back to Lionel, now I can tolerate All Night Long, but now I'm thinking I'd like to check out the dance mix and instrumental versions. It might be a lot of fun.

Disco Funk

[Spellbound]

One more thing I forgot to mention during the 1980's there was plenty of 1970's television program reruns being shown and there were still a lot of cars from the 1970's still on the road so I cannot say the 1980's completely SUCKED but looking back on it now that I am older AFTER 1983 IT WAS ALL OVER. :sad:

[remicks]

I love that there is passion about this music!!8-)


and I'm wondering if there will ever be a song that everyone here willl get behind ???

Originally Posted by Mixmachine

:razz::razz::razz:


I found it interesting that you knock down a truly “Disco” monster club hit number like “Zodiacs”, a hit specifically written for the Dance floor by seasoned and proven “Disco” writing team of Moroder/Bellote and yet you embrace a quasi- Disco wannabe dumb down number clearly crafted for pop Radio with MOR appeal and maximum profit in mind.HMMmmmmmm:cry:

I don't believe ZODIACS even cracked the Disco TOP TEN .... so it wasn't exactly a monster of a monster . And I can think of other Moroder/Bellote comps that were stinkers too....as I bet you can also MM. I form an opinion on each and every song individually .... no matter who it's put out by .....even Lionel Richie ......because I know it was hit and miss for everybody.. .....from CHIC to the The Beatles .....to Moroder .
My point about that album is: it could have been so much better ....if only as much effort had been put into the lyrics ....which is definitely something I care about . Call me strange , but hearing a run down of the twelve signs of the Zodiac (twice) just doesn't move me to the dance floor .

I'm realizing that right about here Donna Summer does become more proactive in contributing lyrics to Moroders works .... we start to see her name sharing the writng credits . I'm suspecting she in fact did find it necessary to step in and help thicken the content of the limited eurodisco approach

[JOKE]Aren’t you guys supposed to be the musically enlightened ones ???? (joke) :p :roll::p the ones always at the vanguard of obscure "unique and exclusive" one of the kind off the wall never heard before ever ever disco music and now "All night long" is in your fave list ?????:???::roll::razz::razz: [JOKE]

Well the Troc did have dedicated DJ's who put 100% into bringing to the floor the very best ... whatever the source. They had a crowd that expected/demanded it ...so they therefore delivered . I don't think anyone worried about how rare the music was ...but judging from the negative response here to ALL NIGHT LONG from so many ....it turns out ALL NIGHT LONG was sort of vanguard . Who new ?

I am gratetful that there are others here , Keefelc, Marky, .....from Troc times to confirm some of these long ago memories .....sometimes I wonder .."am I remembering that correctly ? " ....so, such as in this case .... it's nice to get it confirmed that not only did ALL NIGHT LONG get played at The Troc ....it was well received there .....which is the way I remember it ......

Here's another pop hit I eagerly awaited for at the Troc......STAND BACK ... Stevie Nicks .... any thoughts/ comments on that .... anybody ??

NANO : OK, I backed you up on this, now go listen to a few Van Morrison albums to understand his "la la la" secret code

:lol::lol:
.......OK ....I'll gladly review all of Van's disco output , to be found on his albums he put out during the disco era ...... (he wasn't one of those anti-disco, rock establisnment types during those times .... was he ;-) ???)

*****