In short, he sounds like an ambitious backup singer. Nor does Luther augment the support system's golden-voiced rep by sharing 'How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye' with Dionne Warwick, who cuts him from here to Sunday. Not counting 'Superstar' and 'Until You Come Back to Me,' which perish in the tragic flood of feeling that finishes this album off, the only songs here that might conceivably survive without their support system are 'I'll Let You Slide,' which Luther lets slip, and the one that donates its title to the venture. But only on 'She Loves Me Back' (set apart by the hard K at the end of the title phrase) do I really love him back myself. His voice is so luxuriant I can understand why fans go all the way with him.

Well, depends on what you mean by love-like any studio habitue Vandross is a sensualist at heart, an aural libertine who revels in sheer sound at the expense of any but the most received sense. But when his touch is just a little off, the great hit single you've just heard (or at least the good one that's sure to follow) seems almost as forgettable as the loser he's singing. So Vandross can attach tropes like 'sugar and spice' and 'she's a super lady' to undistinguished melodies and make me like them. In music as tactful as this, where so much of the meaning is carried on the skip and flow of rhythm and timbre, songwriting doesn't matter all that much.

Luther vandross songs in 1986