#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: May 12, 1984 through May 19, 1984.
#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: May 12, 1984 through May 19, 1984.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: March 24, 1984 through April 28, 1984.Lionel Richie was the master of Dad pop in the 1980s. Hello is pretty much Dad pop distilled to its purest essence. A soft-rock ballad in which the singer pines for a woman he has apparently never directly spoken with, this song's narrator is pathetic in ways that would not be equaled until James Blunt's You're Beautiful. After leaving the Commodores, Richie more or less settled into producing commercially successful albeit mostly forgettable songs for the entire decade.
The thing about this song is that while the song is bland and fairly boring, the video is creepy as hell. Apparently, Richie decided to not only be the king of Dad pop, but also the king of Dad stalking. The entire video depicts Riche as a teacher who is apparently smitten with an attractive blind student in his class. He spends the entire video silently stalking her, looming creepily behind her in several scenes, calling her house in the middle of the night, and generally behaving like the villain in the first half of a horror movie. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that the blind student has sculpted a bust of Richie that somehow looks a little bit like him. This video is genuinely weird and off-putting. It certainly made me reevaluate Richie's character given that he didn't look at this concept and say "no way in hell".
Previous Musical Monday: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper
Subsequent Musical Monday: Footloose by Kenny Loggins
Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins
Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denice Williams
Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) by Phil Collins
Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Let's Hear It for the Boy by Denice Williams
Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: 99 Luftballoons by Nena
Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: The Reflex by Duran Duran
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
Lionel Richie 1980s Project Musical Monday Home
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