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Alexander O’Neal VibeZ

Thirty-four tracks from a Minneapolis singer who was nearly in Prince's band, and instead became the voice of the city's other great production team.

The industry held me hostage over drugs': Alexander O'Neal claims his three-decade cocaine addiction has damaged his career Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3166968/Alexander-O-Neal-believes-three-decade-cocaine-habit-damaged ...

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Alexander O'Neal

Alexander O'Neal is a fixture of the Minneapolis story from an unusual angle. He was the original lead singer of Flyte Tyme, the band that — after he left — became The Time under Prince's direction with Morris Day out front.

What he did instead was reunite with the two Flyte Tyme members who became Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and make a run of albums for Tabu Records that are among the best productions either party ever managed.

His voice is the distinguishing thing: a big, slightly hoarse baritone with real force behind it, which gave Jam and Lewis's meticulous, synthetic arrangements something rough to push against. He was also enormous in Britain, considerably more so than at home.

What to listen for

"If You Were Here Tonight" appears twice here and is the best ballad of his career — a record where he does almost nothing for two minutes and then opens up completely.

"Criticize" is the signature uptempo record and one of the finest Jam and Lewis productions: listen to how much of that arrangement is silence.

"Fake" is the hardest thing here, and "Hearsay" gives its name to the album that is the peak of the partnership.

"Saturday Love" with Cherrelle is the duet everyone knows, and their three recordings together — including "Never Knew Love Like This" and "Everything I Miss At Home" — are the best of that specific format in the eighties.

"The Lovers" and "Sunshine" are the deep cuts, and "All True Man" is the later title track.

The spoken interludes threaded through the Hearsay material are worth keeping in sequence — the album was built as a party with conversations between tracks, which was an ambitious thing to attempt.

Go deeper

Hearsay (1987) is the essential album and one of the best-produced records of the decade.

For the wider Minneapolis story: The Time, Cherrelle, The S.O.S. Band and Janet Jackson's Control — all Jam and Lewis, all within a few years, and between them they defined a decade of R&B production.

Listening note: the productions are meticulous and synthetic; the voice is rough and pushes hard. That mismatch is the whole appeal, and it is why these records work where technically smoother singers over the same arrangements sound merely tidy. He gives the machinery something to fight.

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