Playlisting: R&B '86

Good lord, just *look* at this chart.

[This is a slightly re-tweaked version of a post I published last fall.]

I’ll say it again: good lord, just look at this chart! (Billboard, Hot Black Singles, w/e May 24 1986.)

Here's a playlist of it, on YT since a number of these are missing from Spotify.

I've been kind of obsessed with the R&B of 1986 specifically for a couple of years, since discovering this aircheck and then writing about it (and making an accompanying Spotify playlist, natch, below).

Then, a few weeks ago I heard this May 1986 aircheck of Kiss FM, NYC’s WRKS 98.7FM (RIP), and was so knocked out: it’s one banger after another for an entire hour of mid-day radio. And a lot of these songs are midtempo or ballads, but they still jam,  a la Juicy’s “Sugar Free,” which you likely know as the source material for AZ’s ‘90s hip hop smash “Sugar Hill.” Amazingly, all of the songs contained exist online, so I was able to make this playlist:

In both of these airchecks & playlists is the last R&B #1 of summer ‘86, Billy Ocean’s “Love Zone.” A lot about what I love musically can be summed up by this one song. Really. I had this moment of clarity recently, when I realized that “Love Zone” is basically a mid-‘80s smooth jazz record with R&B vocals. Its bassline thumps absurdly. (You expect that from ‘70s Commodores or P-Funk, but not from Billy Ocean.) And Ocean himself doesn’t overexert, allowing his vocal to just glide atop the track. I don’t love much else in his catalog - “Caribbean Queen” is fine, and “Loverboy” is silly fun, but his ballads tend towards deadly (cf. previous single “There’ll Be Sad Songs,” also an R&B #1, which you can see vaulting up the chart above). “Love Zone,” however, is for the cool in you, and it hits that sweet spot just so.

Among the other gems in this aircheck - mind you, this is just over an hour of radio - are a damn quartet from Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis: 

-Thelma Houston’s “You Used to Hold Me,” electro-funk all the way and her biggest R&B success since ‘76’s iconic #1 “Don’t Leave Me This Way” 

-Patti Austin’s “The Heat of Heat,” a subtly bumping cut which - just like “Hold Me” - peaked at #13 R&B 

-“Will You Satisfy,” an album cut (mainstream formats used to play album cuts!) from Cherrelle’s marvelous sophomore album High Priority

-Another album cut, the ballad “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun),” one of only three tracks from Janet Jackson’s Control not to be released as singles

There’s plenty more Jam & Lewis in the top 20 above, too: hot S.O.S. Band at #2, crisp & clean Alexander O’Neal at #8 (and he’s singing backing vocals on “The Finest,” too), and of course, more Janet. This was a peak moment for the writer/producers.

And there’s not one but two singles from Meli’sa Morgan’s killer 1986 debut, Do Me Baby: the title track, a cover of Prince’s Controversy ballad, which in Morgan’s hands topped the R&B chart for three weeks in February and March; and third single “Fool’s Paradise,” a smart, economical midtempo groover that deserved much better than its #24 R&B peak. (But was brought back via an interpolation from Mary J. Blige on Jay-Z’s early single “Can’t Knock the Hustle.”)

Oh, and did I mention the M-E-T-H-O-D-O-F-L-O-V-E? (#21 R&B! And Kiss is playing the 12”!) 

1986 was arguably the year when the magic of top 40’s early/mid ‘80s run really ebbed, but my gosh, R&B was on fire.