Shalamar - The Look

From a career standpoint, Shalamar and Prince shared similar chart space around the same time, but that’s where the distinction ends. While Prince began as a master of multi-instrumentalist R&B, Shalamar was the creation of a Soul Train producer. Because of this, Shalamar has had a credibility issue with every subsequent release.
When the line-up incorporated the very real talents of Howard Hewitt and Jody Watley, that credibility problem diminished somewhat. The band continued to post R&B chart hits, but mainstream pop success was not in the equation. To address this, they looked a how Prince began to transition to the pop charts and began incorporating a similar strategy.
That strategy is in full force on the band’s eighth album, The Look, a ten song collection of Xeroxed slow-jams and their most recent foray into tightly wound new wave funk. Using a blueprint that’s blatantly taken from the Purple One’s early 80’s output, Shalamar’s new direction is somewhat refreshing.
The best of the lot are “Dead Giveaway,” The Look’s first single and minor hit, the Jody Whatley showcase “Disappearing Act” and the album’s slick opener “Closer.” But the rest of The Look relies on interchangeable ballads and an ill-advised anthem “No Limits (The Now Club)” which sounded like “now” was really “yesterday” the moment it was released in 1983.
Shalamar did manage to gain some new fans with their new direction-how else do you explain how a white teenage boy from Iowa even acquired a Shalamar album-and it thankfully didn’t alienate the band’s urban hit radio following. The taste of success did prompt Jody Watley to consider bigger sales as a solo artist and even Hewitt left after one more Shalamar album.
That last album, by the way, featured a virtual Prince look-alike in the line-up and contained the band’s biggest hit, “Dancing In The Sheets,” that found an audience thanks to it’s inclusion on Footloose. All of this hints that perhaps the band’s newfound direction that began with The Look may have been the right answer, but it wasn’t enough to save Shalamar from their own disappearing act.

Here's a video from some television program in the early 80's showing Shalamar performing what may be the best song from the album followed by the worst one. The footage features unexaplained cuts to a couple of cigarette boats racing. Perhaps it's another one of those 80's phenonmenons where we needed to have constant reminders of shit we couldn't afford.