Following 1985's

Bobby Brown felt he was in the possition for a solo career and MCA were more than willing to oblige. Even though part of his assumed popularity was that he was going to have a bit of a teen heart throb image,Bobby Brown had other ideas in mind. A funk fan with a love of a great groove,one of the things Brown set out to do in his solo career was distance himself emmediatly from some of the mild bubblegum pop tendencies New Edition had very early on in the game and begin to focus more on the music he wanted to do. At the same time,do it in a way that would nurture his talent in a more mature fashion. And funk as a genre is actually not a bad way to do that.

Even with the presense of the Philly style ballads "Girlfriend" and "Love Obsession",both of which by the way are excellent slow jams this album is devoted primarily to uptempo music. And the focus is on funk of many shades. On "Girl Next Door" and "Baby I Wanna Tell You Something" Cameo's Larry Blackman's produces with the band providing the music. Even though this was 1986 and during their 'Word Up' period Cameo produced these songs very much in the vein of their early 80's music,with big fat bass and guitar lines that match Brown's more aggressive vocal approach. On "You Ain't Been Love Right","Spending Time" and "Seventeen",a tale of a street girl gaining independence on her own are sleeker dance-funk but no less on the one. The title track is a funk monster,filled with a call and response vocal between two different Browns;Bobby and samples of James. It's a winning combintation and my favorite on an album full of favorites.

The only trouble this album had is that it just wasn't a huge commercial success. And it certainly didn't provide any opportunity for the type of pop cross over Bobby Brown was probably looking for. On the better end of things it served it's purpose brilliantly,and that was to separate the music of Bobby Brown from that of his former group New Edition. Luckily the future would be kinder to him than expected. During 1986 through 1988,there were massive changes taking place within the dance,R&B and rock worlds. The style was moving away from the electronic effects based style that defined the earlier part of the decade toward more organic rhythms that used,if any,electronics in more a supporting manner than a defining one. This would mean that the near future would offer more commercial success as a reward for people like Bobby Brown when they were really looking to get their groove on.

Bobby Brown was voted out of New Edition in December of 1985 (shortly after the release of their third album, All For Love) because they were tired of his uncompromising and rebellious attitude. Although it was clear that none of the members from New Edition were thrilled about performing bubble gum pop songs, Bobby was openly against it and took matters into his own hands from extending his solo spots to slightly sexually suggestive dances moves on stage concerts. I guess being fired from New Edition was the best for Bobby being that MCA promised him a solo deal of which he promptly signed and spent much of 1986 working on his first solo project with many producers such as Robert Brookins, Paul Jackson, Jr., Larry White, and Cameo's Larry Blackmon. It gave him the freedom that he was deprived of growing up singing "Candy Girl" and Cool It Now" and taking promo pictures of rocking colorful clothes that did'nt fit his personality. The Larry White produced tender ballad, "Girlfriend" was his first R&B #1 single, but it only peaked at #57 on the pop charts. The next single was the Larry Blackmon produced, "The Girl Next Door" just missed the top 30 on the R&B charts in early 1987 and the music video even featured him dressing and acting like Blackmon. Other album highlights are the Blackmon produced, "Baby, I Wanna Tell You Something" and Robert Brookins penned, "Seventeen" (the latter is a story of a teenage mother who was forced to drop out of school to care for her young child). It was clear that this album's intention was to create a straight up R&B album with moderate Hip-Hop elements (e.g. the title track and "Baby, I Wanna Tell You Something") because Bobby wanted to steer clear from the pop songs New Edition were recording at that time. Many of the songs do sound like generic 80s action movie soundtrack music which were not satisfying fillers, but I believe that the King of Stage was just a warm up album for Bobby and the Don't Be Cruel album would change his career in the next year and a half.

Bobby Brown's departure from New Edition downgraded the quintet to a quartet. This 1986 solo debut of his spawned the Top 10 smooth smash GIRLFRIEND and later the Top 20 hit THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. New Edition continued as a quintet though,with Johnny Gill succeeding Brown. I always thought GIRLFRIEND was a beautiful slow love jam. Also,in '86,NE released their fourth album,UNDER THE BLUE MOON,filled with "oldies-but-goodies" covers. Brown rose to superstardom two years later with his second album DON'T BE CRUEL,a Grammy-winner. He also made headlines in publications like Star,National Enquirer,The Globe and National Examiner when he took the Grammy-winning diva Whitney Houston to be his lawfully wedded wife in 1992. The other songs are excellent.