Consumer Guide Album

Babyface: Tender Lover [Solar, 1989]
Though Teddy Riley got the credit, the streetwise sweets of new jack love man Bobby Brown were mostly this producer's doing, and for his star turn he dispenses with the new jack--comes packaged as the title concept, with no prerogatives and not too many fast ones to spoil the fantasy. I mean, after he gets home from work, fantasy enough in the age of structural unemployment, he promises to cook dinner too. This would have serious attractions as a corrective to the sexist fantasies of hip-hop if there was any reason to think neo-B-boys would listen. But it's my guess they'll just take "Whip Appeal" literally and figure the guy for a bondage freak. B