Lionel Richie/Backstreet Boys Duet
Falls Apart, But May Live Again
Source: Yahoo
(2/1/01, 6 p.m. ET) - Lionel Richie's forthcoming Island/Def Jam Records album, Renaissance, will be released on March 20 without his highly anticipated duet with the Backstreet Boys on "Cinderella." That track will still appear on the album-but minus the vocals of the pop quintet.
Richie recently told LAUNCH why the "Cinderella" collaboration didn't work out as planned. "We had the right idea, but we had the wrong timing," he explained. Richie noted that his release of Renaissance would have overlapped the Backstreet Boys' release of Black & Blue, making the release of the "Cinderella" duet as a single impossible.
"We were going to go with 'Cinderella.' The Backstreet Boys--the marriage was perfect--we met each other over in Bremen, Germany," he continued, " and they said, 'Let's do this record.' We put them on the record in Houston, we were all ready to go, and because of the delay of bringing the song to America for the first time, we said, 'OK, let's delay it for about a month.' It was just long enough for the Backstreet Boys to figure out that they're going to put their album out at the same time that this album's gonna be out. So of course now it's not a single possibility with them on it because their album is out now, which I totally understand."
Richie added that "Cinderella" may eventually find its way onto a live album, and if so, the race to find a suitable release date for the track will begin again. "It's going to be on the album without Backstreet, and then when I do my television special or 'Lionel Richie Live' somewhere, the Backstreet Boys will show up and it will mean everything in the world," he added. "We'll release that live version...and here we go off to the races again."
Renaissance contains production and songwriting contributions by Walter Afanasieff, Rodney Jerkins, Brian Rawling, Mark Taylor, and others. The album is Richie's sixth solo effort since leaving the Commodores in 1981.
-- Jason Gelman, New York, and Janine Coveney