"Gold" by LIONEL RICHIE/COMMODORES – Commodores Band and Solo Album Tracks from August 1974 to October 2000 on Motown Records (April 2006 UK Universal/Hip-O Select/Motown 2CD Anthology with Suha Gur Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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Cheap as chips and twice as cheerful - this is one of those Universal "Gold" 2CD sets that offers a lot of good Soul music for frankly zero outlay. Cleverly splitting Lionel Richie's hugely successful solo career with his earlier days fronting The Commodores hit machine (most tunes penned by him anyway) - you get a nice slice of both worlds. Here are the penny lovers and the all-night-long details...

UK released April 2006 - "Gold" by LIONEL RICHIE and THE COMMODORES on Universal/Hip-O Select/Motown 0602498879603 (Barcode 602498879603) is split between LIONEL RICHIE solo material and his career before that with THE COMMODORES and it breaks down as follows:

Disc 1 (79:13 minutes):
1. All Night Long (All Night)
2. Penny Lover
3. Say You, Say Me
4. My Destiny
5. Running With The Night
6. Dancing On The Ceiling
7. Love Oh Love
8. Ballerina Girl
9. My Love
10. Love Will Conquer All
11. Do It To Me
12. Cinderella
13. Angel
14. Don't Wanna Lose You
15. Sweet Love - COMMODORES
16. Oh No - COMMODORES
Track 9 is from his debut solo LP "Lionel Richie", November 1982
Tracks 1, 2 and 5 are from his 2nd solo LP "Can't Slow Down", October 1983
Tracks 3, 6, 8 and 10 are from his 3rd solo LP "Dancing On The Ceiling", August 1986 - track 3 also appeared in the "White Nights" film soundtrack
Tracks 4, 7 and 11 are from his 4th solo LP "Back To Front", May 1992
Track 14 is from his 5th solo LP "Louder Than Words", April 1996
Tracks 12 and 13 are his 7th solo LP "Renaissance", October 2000
Track 15 is from The Commodores album "Movin' On", November 1975
Track 16 is from The Commodores album "In The Pocket", July 1981

Disc 2 (79:37 minutes):
1. Hello - LIONEL RICHIE
2. Endless Love - LIONEL RICHIE with DIANA ROSS
3. Three Times A Lady - COMMODORES
4. Sail On - COMMODORES
5. Stuck On You  - LIONEL RICHIE
6. You Are - LIONEL RICHIE
7. Truly - LIONEL RICHIE
8. Easy - COMMODORES
9. Still - COMMODORES
10. Just To Be Close To You - COMMODORES
11. Lady (You Bring Me Up) - COMMODORES
12. Machine Gun - COMMODORES
13. Brick House - COMMODORES
14. Too Hot Ta Trot - COMMODORES
15. Zoom - COMMODORES
16. Jesus Is Love - COMMODORES
Tracks 1 and 5 are from his 2nd solo LP "Can't Slow Down", October 1983
Track 2 is from the "Endless Love" Original Soundtrack LP, July 1981
Track 3 is from the Commodores album "Natural High", May 1978
Tracks 4 and 9 are from the Commodores album "Midnight Magic", August 1979
Tracks 6 and 7 are from his debut album "Lionel Richie", November 1982
Tracks 8, 13 and 15 are from the Commodores album "Commodores", April 1977
Track 10 is from the Commodores album "Hot On The Tracks", July 1976
Track 11 is from the Commodores album "In The Pocket", July 1981
Track 12 is from the Commodores album, "Machine Gun", August 1974
Track 14 is from the album "Commodores Live!", November 1977
Track 16 is from the album "Heroes", June 1980

The 16-page booklet features short but informative liner notes by STEVEN IVORY, colour photos from the album sessions and track-by-track credits. But the big news here is the SUHA GUR remasters lifting every track out of their former muddiness - great sound quality throughout.

His monster second album "Can't Slow Down" (which dominated the summer of 1983) gets five of its eight tracks represented here - with the genuinely lovely "Penny Lover" and the fabulous arrangements of "All Night Long (All Night)" sticking out. "Dancing On The Ceiling" (another number 1 album) bags four. Some of it - like "Don't Wanna Lose You", "Endless Love" or even "Hello" - is awful schmaltz for sure - but then you get the unbelievably sexy groove of "Do It To Me" - a song so slinky it practically slides off of itself. And that knack for hooky commercialism that seems so effortless to Richie crops up again and again in tunes like the love song "You Are" (from the 1st album), the Spanish dancer "Cinderella" and the mid-tempo smoocher "Stuck On You".

And not to be outdone - amongst the Commodores hits are the Disco boogie of "Machine Gun" (big hairdos ahoy), the mid-tempo sway of "Zoom" and that trio of beautiful ballads "Still", "Three Times A Lady" and "Easy" (superb guitar solo). It ends on a gospel-ballad "Jesus Is Love" where he pleads, "father help your children..." which could of course come over as uber-cheesy and yet the loveliness of the melody pulls it off.

"My friends say I'm a dreamer...it takes a fool in love to know what I'm feeling..." our Lionel sings on "Do It To Me". And while you may not want to sculpt his likeness in your blind-girl's art studio...give this Soulful dreamer a go...you'll find yourself liking his soppy tunes more than you care to admit...