"Somehow, the albums from 1988, my high school graduation year, have held up very well and still get some radio airplay! Al B Sure is one of them! Although he had to compete with Keith Sweat and Bobby Brown for R&B male artist chart dominance, his album was a superb effort all throughout! The sexy Nite and Day still sounds fabulous! The new jack sounds of Off on Your Own Girl, which he won a Soul Train Music Award for, still are funky! His remake of Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly is still fabulous. And songs like Naturally Mine and If I'm Not Your Lover are still nicely done! The high point of this album is the musicianship of Al B. Sure and Kyle West who produced most of the songs. Their construction of the songs and melodies are very masterful. And Teddy Riley produced one song, but nobody noticed it even when his group Guy was a major hit in '88. Sure couldn't match this success on his later albums, but this is a fine debut by him, one of the '80s best R&B albums!"
OOOH THIS MAN IS SO!!!!!!!!!!!!
im_so_fly20 | AUSTELL, GA. | 11/12/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"MAN,,, I HAD TO SIT DOWN AND TAKE SOME TIME OUT OF MY BUSY DAY AND WRITE A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT "IN EFFECT MODE",,,,,BEING THAT I AM TWENTY YEARS OLD AND I WAS ONLY FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN THIS ALBUM WAS RELEASED,,,,I REMEMBER IT LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY WHEN I FIRST HEARD THE SONG "OOH! THIS LOVE IS SO",,, I WAS IN LOVE WITH IT AND STILL AM,,, THIS IS THE MOST UNDER RATED AND OVERLOOKED SONG EVER,,, IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND SEXY,,, I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS ALBUM ,, FROM BEGINNING TO END, IT IS INCREDIBLE... KEEP IN MIND THAT I MAY BE YOUNG ,BUT I KNOW WHAT GREAT MUSIC IS,,, SEE IM NOT INTO RAP. ITS ALL ABOUT THE 80'S AND 70'S R&B MUSIC IN MY CD PLAYER,,, NO OTHER GENRE OF MUSIC CAN TOUCH IT,,,, AND IS IT JUST ME OR DID GOOD QUALITY MUSIC DIE? OLD SCHOOL PLAYAS LIKE MR.SURE ,CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS, NEW EDITION,TROOP, AND GUY AND SO ON AND SO FORTH,, CAN NOT BE TOUCHED BY THESE BUBBLEGUMS WE HAVE OUT NOW!!!!!!!! WHAT HAPPENED EVERYONE???????? BUT TO CLOSE THIS OUT ,, "IN EFFECT MODE" IS A CLASSIC MASTERPIECE AND MY FAVORITE TRACKS ARE.....
1. "OOH! THIS LOVE IS SO"--- THIS IS THE MOST SEXY AND DYNAMIC SONG ON THE ALBUM AND ONE OF THE BEST AND SEXIEST SONGS OF ALL TIME... PLEASE LISTEN TO IT AND YOU'LL FALL IN IN LOVE WITH IT LIKE I DID.... {TIMELESS CLASSIC}.
2."NATURALLY MINE"--- THIS IS ALSO ANOTHER GREAT UNDER RATED SONG,,,THAT IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND WELL WRITTEN. BEAUTIFUL , BEAUTIFUL LOVE SONG ..... {ANOTHER TIMELESS CLASSIC}.
3."NITE AND DAY"--- I LOVE THIS ONE TOO,, THEY PLAYED IT A LITTLE TOO MUCH IN THE LATE 80'S AND THE EARLY 90'S,, BUT IT IS STILL A BEAUTIFUL SONG...
4."OFF ON YOUR OWN (GIRL)"---NICE UPTEMPO TRACK AND LYRICS, I LOVE THE RAP AND EVERY THING ABOUT THIS TRACK....
5."KILLING ME SOFTLY"-- GREAT,,, REMAKE {TIMELESS CLASSIC}
ALL IN ALL, I LOVE THE OTHER SONGS BUT THESE ARE MY JAMS.. ESPECIALLY "OOH THIS LOVE IS SO",,, I CANT SAY ENOUGH ABOUT THIS ONE THOUGH . BUT THIS ALBUM IS A CLASSIC AND AL B. SURE IS SO , SO TALENTED... HE AND THE NEW JACK SWING ERA WILL SURELY BE MISSED.
AL B. SURE IS ONE OF OUR BEST ARTISTS OF THE 80'S ASIDE FROM HIS GOOD LOOKS HE SURE IS TALENTED,, AND CAN SING THE MESS OUT OF "OOH THIS LOVE IS SO" AND "NATURALLY MINE" HE WILL ALWAYS HOLD A PLACE IN OUR HEARTS "MUSICALLY"......
"
Back to the 90's
L. Payton | Las Vegas | 01/09/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"i am a huge fan of al b. sure. he takes me back to my college days and i still had the album! so i wanted to upgrade the album to a cd so that i could burn all his great hits from this album to my ipod.
eventhough in the 90's there were great bands and artists who used keyboards as the instrumental part of their deal, al b. sure was one of the few that was GREAT. such hits as "ooh this love is so.." and "naturally mine" take you back to your youthful days when music was great unlike the music of the current generation.
check it out!"
One of the definitive statements of New-Jack Swing
Glen Zimmerman | West Bumblefuch, USA | 10/22/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"One of the biggest hit albums of 1988, and still better than anything he did after it, Al B. Sure! (born Al Brown on 6-4-68) was a silky-smooth vocalist who sent many a young girl into dreamland with the mega-hit "Nite And Day." Hard as it may be to believe, I never knew that Al B. Sure! was the artist responsible for the great song "Off On Your Own (Girl)," something that I only discovered accidentally when I bought the album in 2005 (the first time I ever bought the album in it's entirety). I was buying it mainly so I could take the disc and record "Nite And Day" to my computer. Now, as great as "Nite And Day" was, "Off On Your Own (Girl) is definitely my favorite Al B. Sure! song. It's instantly recognizable, but not nearly as played-out as "Nite And Day.""
Smooth jams
Glen Zimmerman | 12/05/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"In effect mode, yo, what can I say? Me and my homies use to go into New York City on Friday nights when we was 17 and we had a cassette of this baby on the blaster. Talk about smooth, yo. "Night and Day" was the jam, yo. I was like so in love with this girl name Monique and I use to mouth the words to her on the subway. When he say "Kyle West break it down" in "Night and Day" I used to say that along with the tape and pretend I was playing the keyboard break. This album was the sound of the night life in NYC in the late 80's. We was smooth, with the right hair, the right shoes and the ladies on us. The winters was cold and we try and keep warm on the subway with our tunes and our ladies. Al always did the trick. And then we also got Keith Sweat, yo. But I think that came out the next year when Terry and Katrina moved to Maryland. Anyways, if you looking to relive the smooth times with that one you love then you got a good album to start with here. All you needs is a bottle of wine and a lady. Let Sure do da rest."