We’ve been thinking about Lionel Richie all wrong

“I always used to tease Michael and Prince and Whitney,” says Lionel Richie. “WE DIDN’T KNOW,” SAYS RICHIE, “that life was as rough as it was.” In a suite at the Beverly Hills’ Peninsula hotel, a photographer rearranges furniture. The next decade, Jackson and then Lionel Richie won the prestigious album of the year Grammys for “Thriller” and “Can’t Slow Down,” respectively. With the exception of his first album, 1982’s shimmering and still-resonant “Lionel Richie,” and his most recent, the exclamation point that is his 2012 country duets album, “Tuskegee,” Richie’s other eight solo studio albums can seem postscript to “Can’t Slow Down.” The album went on to sell more than 20 million copies and featured five Top 10 singles: “Penny Lover,” “All Night Long,” “Stuck on You,” “Running With the Night” and “Hello,” as well as the mesmerizing midtempo “Love Will Find a Way,” co-created with Greg Phillinganes. To those who say that Richie “sold out” or that he’s “gushy” or, like folks said about him when I was in my teens, that he is “soft” — I say Lionel’s a rebel.