LIONEL RICHIE DISPENSES THE LOVE TO ALL MANKIND

It's not a total obscurity but relatively forgotten now, it twas a new song especially recorded for LIONEL RICHIE's 1992 greatest hits compilation BACK TO FRONT, and the more I listen to it the more I am starting to regard it as my defining 'gospel pop' anthem.

Lionel Richie was probably on most occasions a bit of a convoluted soul cop-out, a meek and unconvincing imitation of something vaguely inspired by MARVIN GAYE or CURTIS MAYFIELD, but LOVE OH LOVE, as I more recently discovered after not skipping to track 4 like I had always done for years when playing the album, is just a magnificent epic gospel fueled ballad.

On the same scale as what LOU GRAMM pulled off for the 1984 FOREIGNER masterpiece I WANT TO KNOW WHAT LOVE IS. If only all the extremists and militants in the world could listen to this song and depart from their evil ways to embrace love and mercy.