he was going cellophane when cats were at a loss of what to do with his voice.

his debut album (from '83) has some of the funniest liner notes I've read, I'm gonna have to post them sometime. but the gist was Johnny was marketed as a youthful counter to the "dirty" music that had come of prominence in R&B (i.e. what happened after Prince got in the door); ironically, some of his early music sounds like they tried to make music like New Edition('s second album).

His second album scrapped all of that and they put him in more of a Luther/Adult Contemporary lane (w/o that Luther production). at 19 years old (the same age Bobby was when he was doing "My Prerogative")

then he joined New Edition, and most importantly, got aligned with Jam/Lewis. he got more uptempo and with producers that could actually do something with his voice.

reason I mention Johnny, is because he has way more in common with the R&B artists that stumbled in the 80s when NJS came around, but he was saved by that trend of music