May 20, 2006
STUCK ON YOU:
Baghdad's Lionel Richie Obsession (John Berman, ABC News, 5/19/2006)
Grown Iraqi men get misty-eyed by the mere mention of his name. "I love Lionel Richie," they say....I asked Richie if he knows just how big he is here. He said, "The answer is, I'm huge, huge in the Arab world."...
He thinks it is because of the simple message in his music: Love.
Because Love Will Conquer All. Posted by pjaminet at May 20, 2006 10:03 PM
The male Roberta Flack.
Posted by: ghostcat at May 21, 2006 12:53 AM"He thinks it is because of the simple message in his music: Love."
That may be one of the reasons, but it's not certainly the reason. There are a gazillion pop acts whose music is dominated by "the simple message" of love.
This story would have been far more interesting if it had turned up the actual reasons that Richie is big in the Arab world. Has his record label staged an unusually prominent marketing campaign there? Is there simply a two-decade lag in this region's embrace of any Western pop culture, or maybe of pop music specifically? Was some influential sheik a big Richie fan?
Interesting topic, lame reporting.
Posted by: Dusty at May 21, 2006 8:33 AM