I did, in fact, listen to Can’t Slow Down again.
But the truth is, I didn’t need to.
The moment the first notes played, it was less about sound and more about memory.
Because there are albums that remind you of a time,
and then there are albums that are the time.
This one didn’t gently carry me back.
It yanked me past the clock, past the calendar, into that unmistakable, synth-saturated moment called the mid-80s, when emotion was worn loud and love songs had teeth.
There’s a song on this album called “Hello.”
And yes, Adele has a version by that name.
A beautiful one. A powerful one.
But this one is mine.
And if I show you an image and say it comes from the video “Hello”, and you say that’s not in Adele’s video?
I will question our friendship.
Because there are things rooted so deeply in your coming-of-age soundtrack that they become more than a preference—they become part of your cultural fingerprint.
And this album, “Can’t Slow Down,” is precisely that.
Yes, the songs were hits.
Big ones.
Songs you couldn’t escape on the radio or cassette decks.
Songs that filled up living rooms during cleaning day, family road trips, school dances, and Sunday evenings when the sunlight started slipping through the curtains just right.
But they were more than that.
They were messages.
Love letters.
Reassurances and pleas.
They were melodies that believed in emotion without apology.
This was the era before irony became cool, when men could sing about heartbreak without covering it up with jokes or detachment.
Lionel Richie didn’t sing to impress you—he sang like he needed you to understand.
What I remembered when I hit play wasn’t just the lyrics or the beat.
It was the emotional tone.
The warmth.
The earnestness.
The cinematic drama that lives in songs like “Penny Lover” and “Stuck on You.”
The way “All Night Long” somehow made up an African-sounding chant with such conviction, we all just went with it, laughing, dancing, never stopping to question the lyrics because the rhythm was the language.
It was the soundtrack to a specific kind of Black joy—joy that knew pain but didn’t center it.
Joy that was layered. Smooth.
Polished but deeply human.
Listening now, I understand why this album is among the 100 greatest albums of all time.
Not just because of the production.
Not just because of the hits.
But because it meant something.
And it still does.
This album lives in the part of my memory that refuses to fade—where music and memory blur, where emotions return in stereo.
It’s the kind of album that made the world stop for a second so you could feel.
And that’s rare.
That’s sacred.
So no, I didn’t need to listen to it again.
But I’m glad I did.
Because some records don’t just belong in music history.
They belong to us.
To who we were.
To who we needed to be at the time.
And that makes them timeless.
By Kyle J. Hayes
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