Rick James “Wonderful”
Do we really know when the end has begun — when we’ve started the descent that only ends when it ends? I’d imagine that depressives could recognize the signs. In fact, they might naturally, constantly project them. Optimists, on the other hand, might not see the flares until it’s too late. But even still, I have to imagine that — postmortem — they could trace back the conclusion to what came before. Rick James, however, was most surely a third species, living in that meta-space between genres and cultures and on a constant seesaw of god-like, coke-binge optimism and the morning after, hangover of self-loathing.
It follows that, while optimists and pessimists both eventually realize when the end has begun, I’m not so sure that Rick James could. Otherwise, there is simply no explanation for 1988s “Wonderful” — an album made by an artist depleted of all cogency and weapons, which still believes it can surpass Prince, Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat. It is the sound of a man beginning to die, alone in the studio, unaware that his faculties have begun to fail him. If you heard this music performed by a busker at a suburban mall or an outsider artist in the New York City subway, you might be intrigued, or even impressed. But, soon thereafter, you’d think about what you’d just heard and you’d call the police to investigate — for the safety of the artist and the public.
“Wonderful” was James’ first (and last) album for Reprise Records after a long and storied career with Motown. Years past his prime and deep into the throes of addiction, he was signed on the basis of legacy but stripped of his band and his opulent recording budgets. And so, “Wonderful” sounds cheap — half baked. It only occasionally sounds funky. The two catchy melodies sound accidental. Though he is constantly reaching for Prince, an artist that he both admired and, partially, invented, he never gets close. It’s a bad high. It’s cheap sex. It’s Funk that’s not fun. It’s pornography as imagined by a child’s mind.
And yet, even at forty, and under the worst of conditions, Rick James played most of the instruments (synthesizers) and wrote all of the songs for this sad, death knell of an album. The record opens with the title track, in which he mixes his own vocals so far back that he sounds like Prince covering the score to the “Police Academy” films. It’s jarring — and hard to not brace for concern. It seems like there is simply no one at the wheel. Like the artist got the keys to the studio when they should have been locked up. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine how the record company agreed to release this music commercially.
Perpetually sexual but rarely sexy, James goes for something more tender and “grown up” several times on the album, and to varying effect. On “Judy,” Rick sounds more tired than loving, as he serenades his lover over a weak fart of synth funk. Never known for his poetry, it appears that The Superfreak outsourced the lyrics to a nine year old from the 1960s (I don’t think Judy was an actual name starting in 1970). He half-heartedly tosses out:
Oh Judy, what am I to do
Judy, I'm still in love with you
Judy, you're so sweet and fine, baby
Judy, always on my mind, baby
Judy, you're a part of me
Judy, girl you set me free, baby
He continues to struggle with grown up love on “I Believe in U,” an honestly not terrible, Gospel-infused slow jam. And on “Love’s Fire,”Rick seems to briefly have an actual band behind him, playing a slowed down, funked up version of “ABC” by The Jackson Five. But, once again, he shows us why he should not have been allowed near the pencils and notebooks:
I really love your body, baby
I really love your mind, yeah
And everytime I love you down, baby
That's when I know you're mine
I can feel your
Love's fire
Really burning me up, baby burn me up
Love's fire
Elsewhere, when James tries to get freaky — something he had previously mastered — things go haywire. On “Loosey’s Rap,” a duet with Roxanne Shanté, James sounds undercooked and sad-stoned. Roxanne, on the other hand, sounds huge — like she was shot out of canon. Her voice and charisma, though, are not enough to rescue what is only barely a song. On “Sexual Luv Affair” (as opposed to the very popular asexual variety), he sounds like a children’s entertainer, playing Carribean-inspired Pop while also inviting the ladies to “get their ya ya’s out.” It’s catchy but more so unsettling.
While the freaky and the skanky are expected (and, in fact, welcome), James jumps over both lines on “In the Girl’s Room,” which is both amazingly and predictably about a Peeping Tom and a girl’s locker room. The thesis of the one riff, snooze of a track is that any of us, given the opportunity, would have done the same as Tom. It’s lyrical awfulness matched only by the tepid melody.
To be clear, I am in no way puritanical. My issue with Rick James is not his freakiness. I love at least a dozen of his songs. I appreciate that he was once an extraordinary talent. But, having spent ten tracks earnestly searching for ways to redeem “Wonderful,” I finally gave up on track eleven — "Hot Summer Nights.” The plodding, schmaltzy ballad sounds like a parody of a low rent, off-Broadway duet. It’s the sound of a show closing on opening night. It’s the sound of an “Ishtar” / “Cats” double feature. If ever Rick James knew that the end was beginning, this surely was it.