Musical Monday - Truly by Lionel Richie

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: November 27, 1982 through December 4, 1982.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: December 4, 1982 through December 11, 1982.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

Throughout the 1970s, Lionel Richie was a member of the Commodores, a band that produced both funky dance music and sugar-sweet ballads. In large part, the syrupy ballads were written by Lionel Richie, and are among the most recognizable songs the group recorded.

Tensions within the band, in part between the members who wanted to make more songs like Brick House and Lionel, who wanted to make more songs like Three Times a Lady, led to Richie leaving the group in 1982 and embarking on a solo career in which he pushed treacly ballad after treacly ballad to the top reaches of the music charts. Without Richie, the Commodores mostly faded from relevance, although they did have a brief resurgence a couple of years later.

Truly is fairly representative of Richie's solo work. It is all smoothness and sentiment, without even the mild edge of a song like Sail On. This sort of sappiness was incredibly commercially and critically successful, and over the next couple of years, Richie garnered numerous top ten hits, a couple of Grammy Awards, and an Academy Award for his music. Treacle covered in syrup sells.

Previous Musical Monday: Gloria by Laura Branigan

Subsequent Musical Monday: Beat Surrender by the Jam

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Mickey by Toni Basil

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Gloria by Laura Branigan

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Maneater by Hall and Oates

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

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