Luther Vandross I'd Rather (2002)

[bjordan]

This is one of the best singles on his 2001 self titled album. It topped the urban AC charts for eight weeks (from April 13, 2002-June 1, 2002) and hit No. 1 on the 2002 urban AC year end chart. KJLH Los Angeles was one of the first stations to jump on this out of box and it eventually hit No. 1 on the stations playlist. Love It or Hate It? I LOVE IT. R.I.P. Luther Vandross (April 16, 1951-July 1, 2005).

[Deleted]

Fantastic song! I'm a huge Luther fan, though. His ballads slay me.

[Deleted]

This album was a fairly successful comeback for him, but I thought his last couple of albums were weak. Actually I think his last great album was Power of Love in 1991. I love all of his albums up to that point. After that, it was mostly a single here and there. This song was nice, but not even close to being one of my favorites by him. Back in 2002, I mostly played the Metro dance remix. It sounds terribly dated now though.

"I'd Rather" peaked at #83 on the Hot 100 and #40 R&B. It experienced its greatest success at Adult Contemporary, going to #17, and giving him his biggest hit there since "Endless Love" 8 years earlier.



Metro Mix

[bjordan]

I hear it every now and then on KJLH Los Angeles but they play "Take You Out" as a recurrent more than I'd Rather in recent times.

[esoteric76]

This is another one of Shep Crawford's amazing ballads.

Not surprising, the Mike Rizzo remixes were gorgeous. Shep's ballads do really well as dance mixes. (see Tamia, Deborah Cox, Blu Cantrell, etc...)

Great vocal.

[🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲]

I know this song! I hear my dad listening to this sometimes. It's a very nice song. Love it.

[divasummer]

This may be my favorite Luther ballad.
It’s beautiful and now that I know it’s produced by Shep Crawford from this thread. It makes sense because I like a lot of his ballads.
I still stick this on throwback or ballad mixes.
The dance mix was also really good to this as well.
I think our local Top 40 station may have played this for a second because I remember being on a mission to hear it again.
Great song!!

[bjordan]

Dec 6, 2023 19:18:24 GMT -5 divasummer said:

This may be my favorite Luther ballad.
It’s beautiful and now that I know it’s produced by Shep Crawford from this thread. It makes sense because I like a lot of his ballads.
I still stick this on throwback or ballad mixes.
The dance mix was also really good to this as well.
I think our local Top 40 station may have played this for a second because I remember being on a mission to hear it again.
Great song!!

This will always be my favorite song Luther song as well. I was only 8 years old about to turn 9 in the summer of 2002 when this song current and I recall hearing it on KJLH Los Angeles during that time.