Soulfunkjazz’s Blog

Color Of Success (1985)
Here’s Morris Day solo, with zoot suit and cane, but not quite on target. Color of Success reveals a strong talent still coming into focus, but it’s largely the same synth-dominated funk that primed the Time, Prince’s erstwhile opening act. In order to attract a crossover audience, however, Day has cut back the humor, cleaned up the lyrics and mostly replaced drums with drum machine. The result is a lighter, smoother sound that doesn’t stick with you, except for the visceral guitar solos and the pleasures of Day’s intimate baritone. Nonetheless, Day’s talent for creating moods and nuances shows through. Less buoyant than its predecessors, this album communicates a poignant, restless loneliness, and the wailing, minor-key hooks of the title song effectively complement Day’s reedy, melancholy voice.
Although Success is tinged with the subtle, emotive colorations that intensified the Time’s “Gigolos Get Lonely Too,” these songs would have been better if Day had loosened up. When he was Prince’s protégé, his message was style, but now he’s at the stage where he’s expected to move on to substance. Here he’s sticking to very tight forms: whenever any richness of texture develops or there’s an interesting musical exchange – for example, the blistering guitar passage by Tony Berg in “The Oak Tree” – it’s truncated or left dangling. The only cut on which Day approaches the vocal excitement of his soul-singer heritage is “Don’t Wait for Me,” in which his doo-wop vocal dips over a drag-step instrumental. (Day’s jivey insouciance surfaces when he sings, “I’m a bad influence on the word love.”) He should sing more than his customary one ballad per album; this vivid performance suggests that inside Day there’s a frustrated crooner trying to get out. (Rollingstone)
Tracks:
1. Color Of Success
2. The Character
3. The Oak Tree
4. Love Sign
5. Don’t Wait For Me
6. Love / Addiction
**Listen**