One person’s view: “Although the groove put out by Rick James is solid, the tinker toy synth production sounded cheap (and sounds even worse now), the chorus was annoying, and the worst part was Murphy. ... His voice is thin and whiny with barely a trace of any style or skill.” – ArnieNuvo @ PopRedux80
The public’s view: 3.26 / 5.00
The U.S. president for most of the 1980s was an aging actor named Ronald Reagan. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He was known more for his communication skills than for his familiarity with the workings of government. Reagan was the most important person in every White House meeting, but also the one who least understood how to do his job. His chief of staff, James Baker, was constantly talking to him like he was 6 years old. “No, Mr. President, you can only veto bills that are passed by Congress. You can’t veto a Doonesbury comic strip that made fun of you. And you were supposed to bomb Libya, not Libby’s! Now who’s going to clean up all of that pumpkin pie filling in Illinois?”
The video for “Party All the Time” takes place in a studio where a famous comedian and actor named Eddie Murphy is recording the song. He gives off the same type of vibe in this setting as President Reagan did in his cabinet sessions. Like Reagan, Murphy is the superstar in the room and all eyes are on him. Also like Reagan, he is out of his element and requires a lot of assistance.
Rick James, who wrote and produced the track, plays the role of chief of staff. He guides Eddie through the process of making a hit single, even giving him such basic instructions as telling him to put his headphones on. Rick occasionally contributes a line of vocals into the mix, and as the song nears its end he seems to realize just how dreadful Eddie’s performance has been. He jumps in with more of his own interjections to salvage the foundering endeavor, just as James Baker did whenever President Reagan proposed investing the Social Security trust fund in Sports Illustrated subscriptions so that every American would get a football-shaped phone.
Eddie Murphy entertained us as the police-car-exhaust-system-vandalizing hero Axel Foley in the Beverly Hills Cop action films. “Party All the Time” requires him to portray a miserable loser. The song’s narrator complains that his woman accepts pricey presents from him while going out and screwing other dudes every single night. He can’t comprehend that she isn’t really his girlfriend – she is just playing him for a fool. This gullibility is inconsistent with the streetwise persona that Murphy cultivated on the movie screen. If Axel Foley’s girlfriend went partying without him, the most expensive gift she could expect would be a banana in her tailpipe. (I should clarify: in her car’s tailpipe.)
The idea behind “Party All the Time” has the potential to be humorous, and Murphy is ordinarily a very funny guy. Unfortunately, he performs the song in a nasal monotone without any levity or emotion whatsoever. He left all of his charisma on a Paramount Pictures backlot and brought none of it into the recording studio. This is as if Ronald Reagan had decided that his folksy amiability gave him an unfair advantage in politics, so he should deemphasize it by hurling feces at the audience during his campaign speeches. Eddie Murphy’s music career felt like a similar message to his fans. “You people expect me to amuse you all day? Instead I’m going to do this. You better duck!”
As we shall see, Murphy might not have been the worst actor-turned-singer to have a pop hit in the 1980s. And “Party All the Time” has a strong enough hook that it retains some appeal regardless of his weaknesses as a vocalist. Mostly, though, it makes me feel bad for Rick James. The guy was always told that his songs were too funk-oriented and too explicit to get played on pop radio or MTV, so he never had a top 10 hit on his own. He scored his biggest single as a producer only by indulging a comedian’s ego trip, helping Murphy briefly become a pop star like a Make-a-Wish kid getting to act out some unrealistic fantasy. Then Rick had to hear both MC Hammer and Ja Rule sample some of his other works – without permission in one case, and without adding anything worthwhile in the other. Hammer and Ja had more commercial success with their adaptations than Rick did with his original recordings.
I don’t know what music Rick James listens to in heaven, but for his sake I hope that the radio stations there haven’t played Nicki Minaj’s reworking of “Super Freak” as “Super Freaky Girl”. Even Ja Rule might be preferable to that. I do have a pretty good idea of what songs are playing in hell. I’ll discuss one of them, or maybe even two, in the next entry.
My rating: 4 / 10
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