Never Knew Love Like This

"Never Knew Love Like This" — Alexander O'Neal Featuring Cherrelle

Minneapolis Soul and Its Global Reach

The Minneapolis sound of the 1980s was one of the most distinctive regional developments in American popular music, centered on producers and musicians working under and around the influence of Prince and the creative infrastructure he had built in that city. Alexander O'Neal was one of the major voices to emerge from that ecosystem: a deep-voiced soul singer with enormous range and an ability to locate the specific emotional register that separated an ordinary R&B record from one that genuinely moved its audience. His partnership with producer Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the duo who had worked with Janet Jackson and would become two of the defining producers of 1980s pop, placed his recordings within one of the most precisely engineered sonic frameworks of the decade.

The Duet Format and Cherrelle's Contribution

Cherrelle, born Carolyn Ann Smith, had also worked extensively with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis at their Flyte Tyme Productions operation, and her voice provided an ideal counterpoint to O'Neal's deeper, more expansive delivery. The two had previously collaborated, and by the time "Never Knew Love Like This" was recorded, they had developed a natural chemistry in the studio that the recording captured with considerable effectiveness. The interplay between their voices, a call-and-response dynamic rooted in gospel and soul traditions, gave the track an energy that solo vocal recordings of the period generally could not replicate. Two voices expressing the same feeling from different but complementary positions created a sense of love as something genuinely shared rather than observed from the outside.

The Album and Its Commercial Context

"Never Knew Love Like This" appeared on Alexander O'Neal's second studio album, Hearsay, released in 1987. The album was a substantial commercial success in both the United States and, particularly, the United Kingdom, where O'Neal had built an especially devoted following. British audiences of the late 1980s were deeply receptive to the sophisticated R&B production coming out of Minneapolis, and Jam and Lewis records found strong chart positions across the Atlantic with a consistency that their American performance sometimes did not fully reflect.

The single's chart performance on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States told a story of gradual accumulation. The track debuted at position 82 on January 23, 1988, climbed steadily through the 70s, 60s, and 50s across subsequent weeks, and eventually reached its peak position of 28 on April 2, 1988, after 14 weeks on the chart. That kind of steady ascent reflected radio promotion building momentum across multiple urban and R&B formats before crossing over to broader pop play.

Jam and Lewis at the Peak of Their Powers

The production on "Never Knew Love Like This" was characteristic of what Jam and Lewis were creating in their most prolific period. The sonic architecture they built around O'Neal and Cherrelle used synthesizers, programmed rhythms, and layered keyboard textures in ways that sounded simultaneously futuristic and emotionally warm, a combination that was technically demanding and aesthetically distinctive. Their productions from this era have a specific quality that is immediately identifiable: a kind of lustrous density, with multiple sonic elements that reward careful listening without overwhelming the vocal performances at the center.

The fourteen-week chart run and the peak of 28 placed the recording among the more successful crossover achievements in O'Neal's American catalog.

The Transatlantic Dimension

The British response to Alexander O'Neal's recordings in the late 1980s was a cultural phenomenon worth examining on its own terms. The UK had developed a long-standing and intense relationship with American soul and R&B, dating back to the 1960s when British audiences often embraced Black American music more openly than American mainstream radio did at the time. By the late 1980s, that appetite had matured into a sophisticated market for the kind of polished, emotionally direct soul that Jam and Lewis productions delivered. O'Neal's Hearsay album and its singles performed remarkably well across the Atlantic, and the duets with Cherrelle received sustained airplay that extended their commercial life considerably beyond what the American chart data alone would suggest. "Never Knew Love Like This" found its fullest commercial expression in this transatlantic context, reaching listeners who brought their own deep knowledge of and affection for the soul tradition to their reception of the recording. The 14 weeks on the American Hot 100 and the peak of 28 were strong by domestic standards; the British performance elevated the recording to a different level of international recognition entirely. Press play and hear two of the finest R&B voices of the 1980s at work within a production framework that was quietly setting the terms for what soul music would sound like across the following decade.

"Never Knew Love Like This" — Alexander O'Neal Featuring Cherrelle's singular moment on the 1980s charts.