Released: 1994
Few images bring me back to my childhood like that album cover. This is the first Barry White LP I was ever acquainted with. Granted it was a CD, but whatever. My parents had it, they played it, I loved it.
Never fear, dear reader. My nostalgia won’t color my assessment of this, the greatest piece of music ever made!
But seriously, The Icon Is Love was the well-earned middle age platinum Barry White deserved. And not just platinum… double platinum!
Spending a whopping 58 weeks on the R&B albums chart, The Icon Is Love would be the best selling LP of White’s career as it gave him his first #1 R&B album since 1978; and his first top 20 pop album, first #1 R&B single, and first top 20 pop single since 1977.
A lot of this success was thanks to White getting some outside production help from the likes of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis plus Gerald Levert and Chuckii Booker. But White was still heavily involved co-writing all but one song and serving as co-producer on all but two songs.
Honestly, though, I think the biggest thing going in White’s favor was that contemporary music by 1994 had finally let go of the cluttery percussion that dominated pop and R&B sounds from around 1983 to 1991. Some musicians could flourish with that (Prince, Cameo, etc), but most couldn’t, IMO.
Plus reassessment of 70s music had begun and people were like, “Well, disco wasn’t all that bad,” so artists associated with it (like White) were no longer pariahs. Nor was their sound. Lastly, many Black musicians like D’Angelo, Tony Toni Tone, and Maxwell were beginning to plant the seeds of what would become neo-soul.
Thus the stars aligned to give White his big artistic and commercial comeback since he could simultaneously be more of his natural musical self and the wider world once again appreciated what it was he offered.
The Great Stuff
The best song on the album was the big hit, “Practice What You Preach” (#1 R&B, #18 pop, #20 UK). It has a classic spoken intro from White, who spends the whole song in an interesting dilemma. There’s an apple of his eye who keeps telling him all the ways she can please. White is fed up with the teasing and essentially tells her to put up or shut up. Y’know, practice what you preach.
The impending embrace of neo-soul can be felt on “I Only Want To Be With You” as well as “Come On”. These harbingers of the revitalized soul movement that would break through fully in 1995 are excellent music. And neither could have existed in 1990. What a difference a few years makes.
The final highlight is “The Time Is Right”, which is good New Jack Swing. The type that combined elements of Prince’s Minneapolis funk with hip-hop beats and synthesized bass not the type that drew too much on cheap synth keyboards and drum loops.
The Good Stuff
“Sexy Undercover” also mines New Jack Swing while also invoking a little more soul. There’s even a loving homage to White’s 70s sound when he belts “can’t get enough of your love, babe”.
The semi-title-track “Love Is The Icon” is a good respite from all the romantic and sex songs. It’s about love in the broader sense and who better to tells us about that ole BW. And he tells us about it. White doesn’t sing on this track. He speaks throughout it while the backing vocalists actually do the singing.
Okay, enough of the hand-holding feel goodness. It’s back to the sexiness with “There It Is” and “Baby’s Home”. Given the song titles, you can imagine what White is singing about.
The Meh Stuff
This album ain’t all peaches and cream. There are two woeful songs to conclude things. “Don’t You Want to Know” is incredibly boring. Meanwhile, “Whatever We Had, We Had” isn’t offensive except for the fact that it’s too damn long. Together they add 18 minutes of runtime to this album.
*grumbles*
ALBUM GRADE: B
“Love is the Icon” sounds like the perfect album closer and that’s precisely how this album should have ended instead of with the two meh songs that actually close things out.
If my will be done, this album garners a B+. Oh well. Gotta grade what I got and it’s a B because of the two songs at the end of the album. But they are at the end of the album. That means you can easily ignore them and listen to this as the B+ it rightfully deserves to be.
Song Scores
Practice What You Preach: 8.5/10
There It Is: 7/10
I Only Want to Be with You: 8/10
The Time Is Right: 8/10
Baby’s Home: 7/10
Come On: 8.5/10
Love Is The Icon: 7.5/10
Sexy Undercover: 7.5/10
Don't You Want to Know: 3/10
Whatever We Had, We Had: 4/10