Review Summary: Eddie Murphy's third album sees a vast improvement in his vocals and was starting to really find his way, delivering easily his best musical album.
Eddie Murphy was soaring in terms of Hollywood stardom in the early 1990's, with successes in movies like Beverly Hills Cop and various others. He was still kicking it as a comedian, while not on Saturday Night Live anymore as a regular his comedy sets were still earning fantastic reception by the community. His music career stalled a bit at the time, not having released an album since his 1989 sophomore record "So Happy" and along with that not earning the kind of commercial success that his 1986 debut record "How Could It Be" had earned. Eddie Murphy decided to release his third album "Love's Alright" four years later in 1993 in the hopes it would live up to the success of his freshman record. Unfortunately it would backfire on him, as it became a massive commercial failure and that ended up being it for Eddie Murphy then. Fortunately for fans of the legendary comedian Murphy has returned to the microphone, recording his first single in 21 years with Snoop Dogg last year and apparently working on his comeback record titled "9". It is a bit of a shame however that his then-final record got the negative reception it received, as "Love's Alright" shows some well-needed improvements from Eddie's sophomore release and has some pretty cool guest appearances by artists like the late Michael Jackson and Shabba Ranks.
Eddie Murphy has been criticized in the past on his first two records by music critics for his weak, thin vocals with a limited range. Fortunately Murphy realized that and worked on improving that, which results in vocals that weren't flat or off-key. In the opening track "Yeah" it is highlighted, as Murphy has a soulful voice and puts a bunch of feeling into his lyrics. It also features guys like Garth Brooks, Barry White, Babyface, Bon Jovi, and others like Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney saying words like "yes" and "yeah" over and over again throughout the track, which is an ode to positivity. The idea of having multple artists saying these words over and over sounds pretty corny, but during a time when grunge and rap were peaking at its highest it's pretty nice to see an artist offer up so much positive energy into a track. It is definitely a different side of Murphy nobody ever thought would come out, as he's obviously remembered for his sometimes offensive comedic jokes so to see him bring us this is very cool. A nice highlight of the record is the track "Whatsupwitu", the duet with the late Michael Jackson and best remembered for its then-iconic music video which has been listed as the third worst music video of all-time by MTV. The psychedelic, R&B flavor thrown out in this record works very well with Murphy's soulful vocals, especially on this track with Michael Jackson which he puts out a pretty nice feature with him on this track. Another good song was "I Was A King" with reggae artist Shabba Banks, a song about slavery and racism which takes a break from his lighthearted tracks he delivers. There are other standout tracks, like the self-titled track and "Desdamona" that again showcases Murphy's improved vocal sets as well as song structure.
"Love's Alright" had some issues that caused the album to not be as great as it should've been. His covers of Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" and the Beatles' "Good Day Sunshine" were pretty lackluster and shames the original artists big-time. He also reverted a little bit to his old ways, the vocals that of course had his first two records panned massively by critics with his soulful voice traded for his previous flat, off-key tone. He wasn't able to stretch his limited range with those kind of vocal sets, which with these covers of songs hurt the album a little bit. He fronts a bunch of positive songs in the album, which is nice but it would've been pretty interesting to see Murphy doing some songs that would expose a more vulnerable side of him or like he did in "I Was A King", like if he did a ballad or sing about more serious stuff instead of the mid-tempo R&B stuff he did. It would've certainly done Murphy alot more good and earned likely better reception if he had experimented with that instead of sticking with the same psychedelic soul sounds he brings to the table.
"Love's Alright" is easily the best musical record that came out from the legendary comedian. While it had some issues, Eddie Murphy's third album does shine with fantastic tracks in "Yeah" and the MJ duet with "Whatzupwitu". The dreamy, soul, R&B flavors that Murphy incorporates into his music fitted very nicely with his soulful, passionate vocals which he had in a good chunk of the album. To see him put out music that sends out a positive message like with "Whatzupwitu" was a bit of a surprise, but it is also very well done and ended up being a great fit for Murphy. This is a must-buy for Eddie Murphy fans, as this outshines his first two records by a long shot and is up there with "Comedian" as his best album material. It's pretty sad that his third album ended up being irrelevant among the genre of R&B, which wasn't really his fault either since you did have sensations like Mariah Carey taking the industry by storm during the early '90s. His acting career has been a bit quiet the last few years, as well as his comedian career too but it seems now there may just be an answer to that. It has been slightly over 20 years since he put out his last set of music material, but with his latest single with Snoop and a comeback album in the works it will be very cool to see how the insanely funny man from Brooklyn named Eddie Murphy has evolved with his music style and vocals since "Love's Alright".
