Happy 35th Anniversary to Alexander O’Neal’s second studio album Hearsay, originally released June 29, 1987.
Morris Day almost missed out. The Time was initially eyeing Alexander O’Neal as its cocky frontman. But one day at a restaurant, O’Neal told band impresario Prince he wasn’t about to sing his little songs unless he got paid good money and would accept nothing less. Without retort, Prince stood and left O’Neal to finish his meal—and his career—alone.
Fans surmised the Alexander Nevermind alias used for Sheena Easton's “Sugar Walls” was a reference to this impasse with O'Neal. Given Prince’s ruthless mockery of Day after he too left The Time, the specious claim is believable. Early ejection from that Minneapolis machine couldn’t slow O’Neal though.
Fortunately, he had friends in Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis who, like so many others, were also fired from The Time. Once free, they came back for their headstrong friend as promised, linking him with Tabu Records honcho Clarence Avant.
“‘Alex. We got these songs. Can you come over and sing ‘em?’” Jam recounted to Questlove Supreme (2017) of O’Neal’s initial demos. “We sent ‘em to Clarence. Clarence said, ‘Who’s this muthafucka??! Man, bring him out here!’ Clarence signed him on the spot.”
An eponymous 1985 LP captured his essence on wax, spinning off five singles, three of which were R&B Top 20 hits (“Innocent,” “If You Were Here Tonight,” and “What’s Missing”). It only hinted at what he was capable of. Elsewhere, Jam & Lewis’ Flyte Tyme Productions was dominating in 1986 with full projects for Human League (Crash) and Janet Jackson (Control) that netted seven #1 singles between them.
While Jam & Lewis’ iron was hot, O’Neal struck a sophomore tour de force with them that would become his pinnacle. A quintessential R&B work in the era between post-boogie and New Jack Swing, Hearsay weaves a day-in-the-life narrative through a concept album that examines love, trust, and heartbreak.
The high-flying “(What Can I Say) To Make You Love Me” opens side-A with its pop-sculpted hook. O’Neal injects a bit of growl here and there, but keeps it light. The rumor mill kicks in after, and O’Neal responds with the plaintive “Hearsay.” This titular midtempo cradles his passionate vocal, but the lyrics border on gaslighting (“It’s nothing but hearsay that’s causing you heartache / Because a lie’s not the truth / Unless you can prove it”). Questionable ethics aside, it rolls smoothly into “The Lovers,” a gracefully elevated soul ballad that builds a romantic aesthetic around his gruff baritenor.
Hearsay is significantly transitional in Jam & Lewis’ discography as well. Comparing choruses, “To Make You Love Me” seems to evolve out of Jackson’s ecstatic pop “When I Think of You,” linking to the addictive refrain of New Edition’s “If It Isn’t Love.” Sonically, “The Lovers” descends from the pillowy feel of Human League’s “Human.” Fans obviously know “Hearsay” recreates “A Broken Heart Can Mend” from O’Neal’s debut, but may not notice how both hearken back to Prince’s Purple Rain outtake “17 Days.”
It’s entirely different when we get to the iconic percolation of “Fake.” While in The Time, Lewis had a particular style of patting his bass that made it both musical and percussive. Prince wanted that exclusively for the band, but couldn’t keep the genie in the bottle. When O’Neal requests, “Can I get some nasty bass?” that’s the muddy funk bottom that squelches back at him (actually played by Jimmy Jam on keyboard).
This irrepressible funk showdown is the intersection of humor, hubris, and hypermasculinity. The shadow of The Time’s “Chili Sauce” passes over as O’Neal quips “It’s gon’ be kinda right!” It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, but “Fake” raises plenty objection (“Your name was Patty, but now it's Kay / Girl, you seem to change it every day / Your hair was long but now it's short… / Whenever I go out with you I find out something new!”).
“Fake” charted #1 and no one was more surprised than Jam & Lewis. “The stupidest record is usually the one [that hits],” Lewis laughs. “We never thought ‘Fake’ was gonna be [a hit]… We loved it, but we didn’t think anybody else was gonna get it.”
The first half of Hearsay‘s interludes follow a gossipy, sandpaper-voiced, female antagonist who enjoys O’Neal’s party but savagely berates its host. “Criticize” rebuts her and any other detractors (“Can't you find something else to talk about? / Is this song the only one you sing? / It makes you look better when you put things down / Who values your opinion?”). Co-penned by O’Neal and Jellybean Johnson, the chorus tilts toward rock with Lisa Keith singing its pleading “don’t just close your mind” hook. O’Neal only has to cosign with indignant adlibs. The combo is magical.
Catchy songcraft notwithstanding, Hearsay wasn’t intended for mainstream audiences. “I never wanted to be a crossover artist… If anything was gonna cross over, it was gonna cross over to me,” O’Neal declared in his Unsung episode (2011).
Alexander O’Neal’s soul music is complex—a touch Baptist, and part “Sexual Healing.” Ever with pomade-slicked hair, O’Neal himself is personified bad boy appeal wrapped up in a responsible banker’s suit. The kind of guy your grandmother warned your mother about but knew she wouldn’t listen. This is the duality that fuels Hearsay.
Not to be confused with the post-disco Stephanie Mills hit of similar title, “Never Knew Love Like This” reunites O’Neal with forever song partner Cherrelle. Though never a romantic item, fans swore they were and her emphatic “Whoo! Yes, Alex!” does little to disprove it. Jam & Lewis hoped to link them musically as Marvin Gaye did with Tammi Terrell. “Never Knew” continues their tradition of vamping in harmony after Cherrelle whispers “let’s sing it together.” Having such chemistry on “Innocent,” “Keep It Inside,” “Baby, Come To Me,” and their classic “Saturday Love,” one’s record would feel incomplete without the other.
The S.O.S. Band’s Sands of Time (1986) featured both on “The Finest,” a smooth R&B #1 with ballroom grandeur. In contrast to S.O.S., O’Neal is more bedroom than ballroom. Jam & Lewis know how to craft a babymaker, and packed the final third of Hearsay with songs for dancing body-to-body.
The greatest of them might be “Sunshine.” As with Force MDs’ “Tender Love” (1985), Jackson’s canoodling “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun),” and O’Neal’s own “If You Were Here Tonight,” Flyte Tyme slow jams beg to be put on repeat and “Sunshine” is no different. Perfectly placed adlibs deliver indulgent peaks throughout its sumptuous six-minutes. It was inescapable on US quiet storm radio.
Like Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1982), virtually every Hearsay track became a single except the last two, and not because they were undeserving. The requisite torch song “Crying Overtime” remains a live show standout. And it gives way to the sexy wind-down “When The Party’s Over.” Jam & Lewis construct a closer here very much in line with The Isley Brothers’ “Between The Sheets.” It’s only missing an extended get-it-on coda.
Listening to Hearsay, there is a train of starry-eyed “I’m a lover not a fighter” songs (“The Lovers,” “Never Knew Love Like This,” “Sunshine,” “To Make You Love Me”). Each of its nine cuts has a preceding interlude, and half of them are musical callbacks to the empyrean chords and angelic vocals of “The Lovers.” One wonders whether The Lovers was once the project’s title until one rumor too many got under O’Neal’s skin and he re-centered his opus around the retaliatory numbers (“Hearsay,” “Criticize,” “Fake”).
In truth, behind the scenes, O’Neal was managing a cocaine addiction that was slowly getting the best of him. “Tabu Records offered me $10,000 front money [for Alexander O’Neal],” he details in his autobiography All True, Man (2017). “By the time of the second album Hearsay, the deal changes. I’m getting around $100,000 front money but now… coke is not occasional. It’s happening big time.”
Despite rehab stints before and after Hearsay, the habit affected O’Neal’s voice and made him difficult to work with. Halfway through sessions for his follow-up All True Man (1991), Jam & Lewis dropped out of the process. The resultant product was competent but lacked the inspiration and commercial punch of its predecessor.
Hearsay reached #2 R&B and #29 Pop with RIAA gold certification in the US. But the UK loves O’Neal even more; it sold triple-platinum there by 1989. (To offer scale, Janet Jackson’s massive janet. in 1993 only reached double-platinum BPI certification.) The campaign continued with a remix disc All Mixed Up (1988) and the holiday collection My Gift to You (1988). The latter featured “Sleigh Ride” which Alise Leslie of R&B Representers regarded as “Fake” but with jingle bells.
Decades later, Hearsay’s influence endures. Johnny Gill’s “Lady Dujour” lifts a bit of “When The Party’s Over.” R&B singer Case covered “Crying Overtime” to close his album. Hearsay’s “gossip girl” gets chopped into a trippy Disclosure house workout on “Lividup.” “Sunshine” has been used once by Jay-Z featuring Babyface in 1997 on the bouncy “Always Be My Sunshine” and again more recently by Tyga on 2019’s “Werkkkk.” Even legend Patti LaBelle couldn’t resist using the “Patti, Patti” chant from “Fake” for her own “When You Talk About Love.”
The impact is evident now, but O’Neal always believed in himself and fought for his due. Whether against racism and poverty in his Natchez, Mississippi hometown, or confronting a disgruntled Prince with little more than immense talent to defend him, he knew if given a shot, he would not miss. Hearsay was an absolute bullseye.
[To learn more about Alexander O’Neal’s Hearsay, enjoy Mark Chappelle discussing the album on the Catch That! podcast with The R&B Representers here.]