TOP 40 DEBUT: January 26, 1980
PEAK POSITION: #25 (February 23, 1980)
The Commodores did funk. The Commodores also did ballads. Even at the early stages of their career, the Alabama sextet always played both, and during their glory years, they hit that balance about as well as any unit around, finding the bridge between two vastly different genres with vastly different audiences. But the Commodores could only maintain their high-wire act for so long. With 1979’s Midnight Magic, they fell off completely; the now-forgotten “Wonderland” was that album’s third single, third straight Top 40 hit—and third straight slow jam. By 1980, the Commodores were no longer a funk band playing ballads. To the public, they were now a ballad band that dabbled in funk.
There’s a persistent, if false, narrative surrounding the Commodores’ run of commercial success: namely, that Lionel Richie singlehandedly neutered the group, turning a sizzling soul unit into a faceless band of balladeers. In reality, the sextet always had a soft streak—at least from their second album on. The Commodores might’ve made their initial splash with “Machine Gun,” a clavinet-driven instrumental that hit #22 pop and #7 R&B in 1974. (That percolating groove is now better known as the unofficial theme to Boogie Nights. It’s a 10.) But just one year later, an unabashedly beautiful love song titled “This Is Your Life”—written and sung by Richie—got released as the second single from the group’s second effort, Caught In The Act. It reached #13 R&B; Top 40 radio ignored it. It would be one of the last times a Lionel-led ballad failed to connect with the mainstream during the next eleven years.
In the spring of 1976, “Sweet Love”—another Richie slow jam, and arguably one of the best he ever wrote—took the Commodores all the way to #5, becoming their first true pop crossover. (It’s a 9.) Seven months later, “Just To Be Close To You” (#7, and a 6) nearly repeated the same trick. The group hadn’t lost their knack for easygoing funk—evidenced by the follow-up single, “Fancy Dancer,” or future De La Soul sample “Girl, I Think The World About You”—as much as they’d found a way to translate that same spirit into their softer numbers. By 1977’s Commodores, the sextet somehow managed to release their most straightforward ballad and their nastiest rump shaker, back-to-back, and crack the Top 5 both times. (The one-two combo of “Easy” and “Brick House” peaked at #4 and #5, respectively. They’re both 10s.) The Commodores were now in an enviable spot, capable of servicing both halves of their audience without upsetting either. And then “Three Times A Lady” happened.
The song that finally took the Commodores to #1 is many things: a soft-rock staple, a multi-format crossover smash (also topping Billboard’s R&B and Adult Contemporary charts), and the bedrock for one of Eddie Murphy’s greatest Saturday Night Live skits. What it’s not is a “true” Commodores track. “Three Times A Lady” isn’t particularly soulful, and it sure as hell ain’t funky. “Three Times A Lady” is a borderline country waltz slathered in sentimental gloop, a well-written, if cloying, composition that sidelines Richie’s bandmates in favor of gentle strings and tinkling piano. (It’s a 5, solely for craft.)
Not surprisingly, a white-bread love song allowed the group to tap into an older (and whiter) audience for the first time, but that success came at a price. “Three Times A Lady” was not remotely indicative of how the Commodores sounded on the rest of 1978’s Natural High—but large chunks of their original fanbase didn’t know that. Motown tried to pivot by releasing one of the album’s many up-tempo numbers, the fantastically soaring “Flying High,” as a follow-up, only to watch it underachieve at both Top 40 and R&B stations. And thus a narrative was born: With just a single chart-topping ballad, Lionel Richie “ruined” the Commodores.
Look, I’m clearly no fan of “Three Times A Lady,” but one song by itself didn’t wreck the septet’s reputation. Achieving that level of damage required an entire album’s worth of singles. And that's what the Commodores delivered at the close of the decade. Midnight Magic arrived in stores on May 1979, nine months after a well-timed hits compilation, with a chance to clear the slate and reassert the group’s funk credentials. So to introduce the album, what did Motown chose? Yet another ballad.
“Sail On” returned the group to the Top 5, but its overt country flavor—from Richie’s affected twang to the pedal steel overdubs of Nashville session man Red Rhodes—did little to soothe the fears of the Commodores’ core R&B base. At least “Sail On” had a gorgeous melody and an absolutely magnificent outro. (It's an 8.) The second single, “Still,” had neither. Nor did it possess any memorable hook, or discernible tension, or sense of forward momentum. “Still” is a big fat melted marshmallow of a song that, naturally, shot straight to #1. (It’s a 2.) Over the eternity of its six long minutes, you can practically hear the worst aspects of Richie’s lightweight solo career consolidating in real time.
Three week after “Still” topped the Hot 100, pomp-rockers Styx ascended to #1 with their own sentimental effort, “Babe.” Both acts spent the Seventies building up devoted followings, and both had achieved their greatest chart triumphs—and angered those same followings—with softer fare spearheaded by their respective lead singers. So it’s interesting to compare the two groups’ drastically different reactions to very similar personality crises. As detailed in an earlier entry, Styx’s immediate response to “Babe” was to briefly fire the guy who wrote it, then force their label to release a weirder, less commercial single as a follow-up. Meanwhile, the Commodores stared down the barrel of two back-to-back ballads and retaliated—with Ballad #3.
“Wonderland” isn’t as solid as “Sail On,” nor as lackluster as “Still.” But it certainly sounds more like the Commodores of old than either of the previous singles, probably because the track was composed not by Richie, but rather keyboardist Milan Williams (the man behind “Machine Gun”). Williams didn’t write for an easy-listening audience; he wrote soul songs. And at least stylistically, “Wonderland” makes that distinction obvious. The groove mimics the smooth swing of “Easy”; the horn section struts with confidence. Bassist Ronald LaPread sneaks some nice funk licks into the margins, and Richie toughens his vocals accordingly. Everything seems designed to recapture the spirit of the Commodores’ earlier, funkier slow jams. Too bad Williams forgot to pen a tune strong enough to close the deal.
“Wonderland” is a whole bunch of atmosphere in search of a memorable melody. The long version’s sci-fi opening and protracted build-up—you can practically picture the aliens landing in the middle of some cornfield in Tuskegee, Alabama—promise a payoff that never arrives; instead, we get a few nicely low-key verses on the way to a chorus so boring, Williams should’ve called it “Still (Part 2).” The single edit basically acknowledges as much, chopping out the entire second refrain but keeping the weirder—and better—synth interlude that follows. (When your own label is chopping choruses in favor of the instrumental bits, you know you’ve written a dud chorus.) “Wonderland” eventually redeems itself with a great, loose, freewheeling funk jam in the closing moments, but it’s too little, too late. The Commodores came to play. Milan Williams let them down.
While not exactly a failure, the third single from Midnight Magic still missed the Top 20 on both the pop and R&B charts, something that had only happened to the Commodores once since ‘74. More worryingly, “Wonderland” also ended the group’s streak of Top 10 ballads going back to 1975. The previous six? All written solely by Richie. That fact was not lost on the Commodores’ resident hitmaker, who was starting to realize his songs could reach an audience far beyond the purview of even his band’s own following. Before the end of 1980, another Richie composition would hit #1—without a single Commodore participating.
GRADE: 5/10
12”ERS: The “Long Version” of “Wonderland” that appeared on a white-label 7” (as well as the actual Midnight Magic album) found some airplay on R&B stations, particularly during the late-night shift. If you want that missing second chorus, or just extra spaceship noises, this is your jam.