I Feel for You (album)

Background

After having balanced her two simultaneous careers as a member of the band Rufus and a solo performer during the years 1978 to 1983, which culminated with the release of the final Rufus & Chaka Khan album Stompin' at the Savoy – Live after which the band dissolved, Khan recorded the album that was to make her a pop star with mainstream chart success; 1984's I Feel for You.

The title track, "I Feel for You" was a cover of a 1979 Prince track, featuring Grandmaster Melle Mel on the classic "Ch-ch-ch-chaka-chaka-chaka Khan" rap intro and Stevie Wonder on chromatic harmonica (and also a sample from one of his first hits, "Fingertips") and saw Khan embracing high-tech funk, rap and hip hop and stands as one of her best known songs and her biggest commercial hit, reaching number 3 on the US Pop chart (and becoming the Billboard number 5 best-selling song of the year in. 1985), and topped the US R&B, Dance, and UK singles charts. The song earned her a second Grammy Award in 1985 for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female.

The album reached number 16 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, 4 on the R&B albums chart and 15 in the UK. Additional hit singles were "This Is My Night" (US No. 60, R&B No. 11, Dance No. 1, UK No. 14), "Eye to Eye" (UK No. 16) and the ballad "Through the Fire", which crossed over to the adult contemporary chart (No. 16) and charted at No. 77 in the UK. The I Feel for You album's second ballad, "Stronger Than Before" co-written by Burt Bacharach, Bruce Roberts and Carole Bayer Sager, was released as the fifth single in certain markets.

"I Feel for You", "This Is My Night" and "Eye to Eye" were released as extended 12" remixes in 1984, and other mixes were created for the 1989 remix compilation Life is a Dance - The Remix Project. The 1984 mixes by Arif Mardin and Russ Titelman remain unreleased on CD.

1985 saw two other songs by Khan released on other albums: "(Krush Groove) Can't Stop the Street" from the Krush Groove soundtrack (US R&B No. 18, UK No. 80), and "Own the Night", from the Miami Vice soundtrack (US Pop No. 57, US R&B No. 66).

Critical reception

In a contemporary review of I Feel for You, Billboard deemed it a "fine new work" from Khan, finding her at "the peak of her powers" while covering "sharp techno-pop" and "a gutsy kind of adult contemporary". Don Snowden from The Boston Phoenix wrote that the singer had become "entranced with her electro-boogie wonderland" and even embraced "the latest street beats". He credited producer Arif Mardin for unifying the album with "a glistening metallic edifice of sound, true metal-machine music for life and love in highrise apartments where silk sheets and polished chrome dominate the décor", although he felt the drawback of such densely melodic arrangements was the constraint they placed on Khan's singing, likening the effect to "the desperate air of someone trapped in a penthouse prison of her own device". Robert Christgau was more critical in The Village Voice, accusing Khan of "coasting" on her "splendid" voice while singling out the title track and John Robie's contribution on "My Love Is Alive" for possessing the majority of I Feel for You's "musical interest (as opposed to attraction)". People said apart from the title track's inventive music, the record had a "nondescript nature"; apart from Khan's modicum of feeling on "Through the Fire", "one can listen to this album for a long time and still not feel she is making any impact."

Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson considered I Feel for You a landmark pop and post-disco release, as well as Khan's "most grandly sustained moment of pop craft". According to AllMusic's Alex Henderson, it found Khan successfully adapting to the stylistic changes R&B had undergone since her 1970s music with Rufus, as "horn-powered funk bands, strings-laden Philadelphia soul, and orchestral disco were out of vogue, and the urban contemporary audiences of 1984 were into a more high-tech, heavily electronic style of R&B." Henderson called the record "excellent from start to finish" and exemplary of "the urban contemporary scene of 1984".

Musicians

Production