Easy to choose? Lionel Richie’s greatest songs

Lionel Richie circa 1983. Photograph: Bonnie Schiffman Photography/Getty Images

20. Commodores – Let’s Do It Right (1975)

Bizarre as it now seems, the most obvious influence on Richie’s early songs for Commodores was Sly Stone. You can hear the inspiration from the Family Stone in 1974’s There’s a Song in My Heart, while the next year’s charming Let’s Do It Right carries a hint of Everybody Is a Star in its DNA.

19. Love Will Conquer All (1986)

Another huge hit, Dancing on the Ceiling from 1986 was nevertheless a less assured album than its predecessor. The title track is no All Night Long and Ballerina Girl is the point where Richie finally gets too MOR to defend. But the album has its moments, including Love Will Conquer All’s supremely assured, super-slick pop-R&B.

18. Up All Night (2006)

Richie’s later albums are a decidedly mixed bag – be warned you have to put in the hours while hunting for the gold. But Up All Night, from 2006’s Coming Home, is great, eschewing Richie’s quiet storm comfort zone for stammering, up-tempo 00s R&B, through which his voice glides with impressive ease.

17. Commodores – Too Hot ta Trot (1977)

Unlike many of their peers, Commodores didn’t plunge into disco. Too Hot ta Trot turned up on the soundtrack to the disco movie Thank God It’s Friday, but it applies their own method of getting bodies moving. There is a distinct whiff of Stone’s Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) in the mix.

16. Say You, Say Me (1985)

Richie was commissioned to write a theme for White Nights on the condition it shared the movie’s title. Instead, he submitted Say You, Say Me, a smart move that uncoupled the song from the film in the public imagination. For something apparently recorded in his living room, it’s impressively epic, complete with a dramatic tempo change.

15. Commodores – Sail On (1979)

The intro to Sail On suggests a band trying a bit too hard to replicate the success of Three Times a Lady, but the song is better than that. It has a gorgeous, sighing melody with – for the first, but not the last, time in Richie’s oeuvre – the noticeable influence of country amid the strings, horns and pattering congas.

14. Can’t Slow Down (1983)

Running With the Night was the hit, but Can’t Slow Down’s best up-tempo offering was the title track’s jittery electronic funk. It was influenced by Michael Jackson’s Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, but is noticeably more unruffled in its vocal delivery, projecting Richie as a man who never breaks a sweat, even at his most urgent.

13. Commodores – Free (1975)

In Commodores, Richie mostly wrote and sang the slow numbers, leaving the funk material to the drummer, Walter Orange. Mostly, but not always: 1975’s Movin’ On opens with two horn-powered Richie co-writes, of which Free, with its rock-influenced chorus, is the pick.

12. Deep River Woman (1986)

If the 10m-selling Can’t Slow Down was Richie’s answer to Thriller, its follow-up, Dancing on the Ceiling, was Richie’s take on Bad, designed to emulate Jackson’s genre-busting success. But Richie went about it differently, as shown by Deep River Woman, which eschews courting a rock audience in favour of collaborating with the country institution Alabama.

11. Commodores – Sweet Love (1975)

Sweet Love was Richie’s first hit ballad – No 5 in the US Billboard chart – but it was a noticeably different kind of ballad from the super-slick songs that ultimately made him a superstar. Orchestrated, but driven by electric guitar, its gospel-influenced style is noticeably – and appealingly – tougher and rougher round the edges.

10. Hello (1983)

Try to detach Hello (released as a single in 1984, a few months after it debuted on Can’t Slow Down) from its video, with Richie’s hammy acting, its questionable plotline – is it 100% ethical for a teacher to be romantically pursuing a blind student? – and, indeed, its inadvertently hilarious grand reveal. A tough call, for sure, but stick with it: a nailed-on ballad lurks behind it.

9. Commodores – Fancy Dancer (1976)

If you want an impressive co-sign, Fancy Dancer was subsequently covered (but never officially released) by Prince. You can see why he might have been drawn to it: written by Richie and the bassist Ronald LaPread, it’s less celebrated than Brick House, but just as funky, in a low-slung way.

8. Stuck on You (1984)

His 2012 album with the Nashville superstars Tuskegee made Richie’s affinity with country music explicit, although it had been an undercurrent in his music for years. You don’t have to squint hard to picture Stuck on You as a straight country ballad; indeed, the Tuskegee version (with Darius Rucker) simply adds pedal steel to the arrangement.

7. Commodores – Zoom (1977)

Overshadowed by the presence of Easy and Brick House on the same, eponymous album, Zoom is nevertheless fantastic: a product of a time when Richie’s ballads were still rooted in soul music. It features a muted but powerful orchestral arrangement, with a hint of syncopation about the rhythm track and blissful harmonies.

6. Endless Love (1981)

The duet version, with Diana Ross, was a huge hit, but head instead to Richie’s original demo – appended to the reissue of his 1982 eponymous debut solo album – which strips the song of its blockbusting movie-theme qualities, revealing something more intimate, tender and affecting at its centre.

5. Commodores – Lady (You Bring Me Up) (1981)

Richie’s last big hit with Commodores was released almost simultaneously with Endless Love, the single that marked the start of his solo career. They couldn’t be more different: Lady is sophisticated, string-laden, post-disco boogie, fabulous enough to make you wish Richie had incorporated at least a hint of this style in his solo career.

4. Commodores – Brick House (1977)

Perhaps Brick House shouldn’t be on this list – Richie neither sang nor wrote Commodores’ most celebrated funk hit – but let’s bend the rules, because a) he made a pretty good fist of performing it solo on his 2007 live album and b) Commodores’ version is amazing: a lascivious order to dance.

3. Commodores – Three Times a Lady (1978)

That Commodores’ first No 1 was a waltz, which Richie initially intended to submit to Frank Sinatra, tells you a lot about how far from their roots the band had travelled, but no matter: millions of singles were shifted and Richie’s future direction was mapped out.

2. All Night Long (All Night) (1983)

The biggest-selling and best single from Can’t Slow Down was a rare diversion from the lovestruck end-of-the-night slow dance soundtracks that were its primary currency. You would struggle to describe it as funk or soul music, but there is something irresistible about its combination of mood-setting, dusk-falling atmosphere and monster chorus.

1. Commodores – Easy (1977)

There are diehard R&B fans who will tell you that Richie was the ruination of Commodores, his pop leanings and focus on ballads gradually dragging a tough funk band irrevocably towards the middle of the road. Their gradual shift in focus – and Richie’s role in it – is inarguable, but when his melodic powers were at full force, it scarcely mattered. Easy is a fantastic song, smooth local-radio staple or not. It’s beautifully written, the melody and the loping rhythm perfectly capturing the lyric’s peculiar emotional cocktail – blithe indifference with a twist of guilt and regret.