SOMEDAY, YOU MAY have the good fortune to meet Lionel Richie for dinner. Richie appeared in a spot for TD Ameritrade, playing a version of Lionel Richie who won’t be baited into speaking the words “all night long,” dramatizing his own refusal to go full William Shatner.) Richie, the “Idol” gig is another opportunity to do what he’s become adept at - trading on millennial pop culture’s ironic fascination with his pleading 1983 hit “Hello” without letting himself become the joke. Richie can speak with the authority of a man who started out in the age of Motown and has survived into the age of the meme.įor Mr. All three judges have sold a lot of records, but only Mr. Perry and the country dreamboat Luke Bryan at the judges’ table beginning on March 11 - the show may have found an ideal counterweight for Ms. Between takes on a recent Friday, her unamplified laugh rang through the room like the cry of some exotic bird.īut in Mr.

But most had one thing in common: They did not know what to do with their hands while receiving compliments from Lionel Richie.īased solely on 21st-century record sales, the biggest star on this season’s “American Idol” judges’ panel is the pop titan Katy Perry, whose qualifications for the position include an ardent fan base and a willingness to be outsized and unpredictable on television. LOS ANGELES - The “American Idol” hopefuls singing for their survival on the stage of a Hollywood nightclub next door to the Museum of Death were, as usual, a diverse bunch - gender-wise, looks-wise and otherwise.

Lionel richie all night long