"Ballerina Girl" by Lionel Richie

Top 10 Alert!

Song#:  2960
Date:  12/06/1986
Debut:  76
Peak:  7
Weeks:  18
Genre:  Pop, Adult Contemporary, R&B



Pop Bits:  Richie's album Dancing on the Ceiling had already produced three Top 10 hits and he kept the ball rolling with this fourth single. It would do well at Pop becoming his thirteenth consecutive Top 10 while reaching #5 at R&B. The news was even better at AC where the song became his eleventh #1. It remained in the top spot for four weeks. Unfortunately, the song would prove to be his last Pop Top 10 and his last AC #1.

ReduxReview:  Richie aims for the heartstrings here and for many folks he hit the mark. I wasn't one of them. The sap practically dripped off of this one. Boil that sap down and you'll end up with a vat of saccharine. Don't get me wrong - I definitely enjoy a bit of sap every now and then, but I didn't care for what Richie was serving up here. I especially disliked the ending. It just kind of...stops. The tune sounds unfinished to me. It's a bit of a slight song too for a single, but AC radio played the hell out of it so it became a crossover hit. This one really did show that Richie had little left in the tank. Indeed it would be his final Pop Top 10. Not a great one to go out on.

ReduxRating:  4/10

Trivia:  Richie wrote this song for his daughter Nicole. She would have been around 4 or 5 years old at the time and he wrote the song after seeing Nicole in her ballet classes. At the time, Nicole was not actually Richie's daughter. She began living with Richie and his first wife Brenda when she was 3. Her real parents, Karen Moss and Pete Escovedo (Sheila E's brother), let Nicole live with the Richies because they could not take care of her. The Richies would then fully adopt Nicole when she was nine. Of course, Nicole went on to be a reality TV star on The Simple Life with her childhood best friend Paris Hilton.

_________________________________________________________________________________