Heartbreaker

AMG Review of Heartbreaker

Ron Wynn
All Music Guide

For Heartbreaker, The O'Jays made concessions to changing tastes, adopting drum samples and synthesized backing, and including some new jack swing material. But they wisely didn't tampered with their strength, lush three-part harmonies anchored by the earnest lead vocals of Eddie Levert. This release contains several intense, urgent ballads, many of them written by group members. Outside of Carlton Hunt's raps on "Trouble" and "Can't Let You Go," many numbers aren't much different from the classic material that made them superstars in the '70s; that's both part of the music's charm and something that might trouble fans hoping the group would experiment with the vocal arrangements as well as the production.