D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

http://insideplaya.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/an-open-letter-to-dangelo/

ha the effect of this letter putting in D'angelo on blast is mostly that it makes me want to listen to D'angelo

I hope he replies with a new album.

Word

Dag. Bridge: burned.

who is "inside playa"?

Yes, wonder that too, and how is his dissing everyone gonna help

it's gary harris

seems like an asshole!

also petulant? what's the point of this beyond some dude feeling aggrieved about being written out of history

the last paragraph seems especially bitchy (it's true I don't hear a lot of James or George in his music, but Sly definitely. Prince too)

hard out here for an A&R guy

sounds like a good friend!

http://afropunkfest.com/
he's headlining

Billboard a week ago:

In March of 2013, Liles told Billboard, "We're trying to finish the album. Right now we have 13 songs done, trying to think about the sequence of the album, mastering and mixing within the next two weeks, and release the thing. Ain't no question it's coming."

Judging by that tectonic pace, the album actually should be just about approximately almost 100 percent done right about now. Here's what Liles said:

"Here's the thing: with D'Angelo it was a process. He didn't perform for 10 years and he's been working on an album for the past 12 years. I actually got him to go out and do 30 shows (in 2011-2012), and then we did some 'Brothers in Arms' shows. I said, 'We have to get motivated around what people want to hear from you, and what does it mean to come back to that space?' He very bluntly put it, 'Kev, the studio and the stage: that's my lifeblood. Now that I've touched it again, now that I see it again, I wanna be sure that the baby I'm about to have -- the album -- that I take it to the point where it's all it can be.'

"There'll be an album this year: there's 14 records so far, we might have a couple of bonus records, but all the recording is basically done and we're mixing and mastering now. Definitely, he'll be back.

Claiming he has 14 records ready to go sort of undercuts even the modest claim that he even has one record ready to go.

"record" = song

yeah, usually modern industry guys say 'record' and mean song, not album.

(that usage confused me when i first heard it but now i hear it all the time from people in the rap world)

xp

Sorry, was confused, because he calls them songs earlier.

Anyway, not holding my breath.

lol yeah mixing and mastering only two weeks haha

I hope he finishes the album and then keeps it to himself because it's too good and the world is not ready yet

He means two weeks, total, not in a row. Like, one hour one week, three the next, third week off, one year off, two days in a row ...

haha

it's funny/sad that anybody involved with the project even tries to tell people how much is done anymore. i totally believe that there's probably a lot album-worthy music ready to go, but at this point they should realize that people are tired of promises and just want a single and a release date.

at brooklyn bowl a year ago quest was like "the album is 98% done!" but still literally made the crowd cheer as loud as possible so that d'angelo would understand how badly we wanted to hear the new album

it was kinda sad

I wouldn't believe a release date.

yeah this has basically taken on mbv levels of trolling. if it shows up it shows up but i refuse to get my hopes up about anything until then.

My expectations have only grown. It will be a masterpiece.

First 11 on pfork

i finally don't care anymore.

IF his live shows are anything to go by he's become far more guitar oriented but its not clear that he has the chops to pull that off.

I'm guessing somewhere between discordant overkill and tepid disappointment, if anything does materialise.

i haven't been mega-thrilled by the funk/go-go workouts that he seems to favor these days, i want to hear him go even further down the inward-looking close-mic'd quavering intensity of voodoo, where you feel like you're suspended in amniotic fluid or something

Given that apparently broke his brain ...

yeah this has basically taken on mbv levels of trolling. if it shows up it shows up but i refuse to get my hopes up about anything until then.

― ginuwine's cousin (monotony), Wednesday, June 25, 2014 9:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha Channel Orange came out in 2012!

Oops

i haven't been mega-thrilled by the funk/go-go workouts that he seems to favor these days, i want to hear him go even further down the inward-looking close-mic'd quavering intensity of voodoo, where you feel like you're suspended in amniotic fluid or something

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, June 26, 2014 5:59 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

same

me too but this seems unlikely. he already made Voodoo, and the new material seems like it will be more straightforward or extroverted (ironically). but who knows, really.

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/untitled-an-oral-history-of-dangelo

why do they have to subtitle is "longreads or whatever"

why

indexing purposes i guess

Not much new stuff there. But this caught my eye:

Christgau: I will believe that [D'Angelo's third album] is a good record when it's in my hands and I hear it. But I am skeptical. I don't believe he has the profile of a genius. I think he has the profile of an unreliable artist. I can tell you what I'm certain is going to happen—is nobody is going to know what to make of the record when they write about it. There will be just reams of bullshit written about it. I am certain of it. The long-awaited follow-up album never gets a smart review. You just need time to absorb it.

True, this.

v otm

Why always so much talk about a Voodoo followup, I'm still waiting for the follow up to Brown Sugar, it's been 20 years.

why do they have to subtitle is "longreads or whatever"

why

Refer to: Nathan Barley

And how is that Christgau quote anything other than bullshit? This place is hilarious sometimes.

i'm not sure you understand what a follow-up is

im not sure you do

ok let's just agree to be unsure

was E.T a follow up to Raiders of the lost ark?

yes. it's the next major work by the same person (and in music, using the same name). i think you're looking for "sequel"? and sequel albums are usually shitty.

You're talking about the noun follow up, I'm talking about adjective follow up. Adj. follow up as to relate to, reinforce, evaluate, a previous action. That's not the same as a sequel. Voodoo was not a follow up to Brown Sugar. Any more than Purple Rain was a follow up to Controversy.

There's no indication that this new album will be a follow-up to Voodoo in the sense that you're talking about so what exactly is your point?

Oh wait, how does Beck work into this conversation?

‘The Door’…ffs what a mood killer that tune is

Seriously can't believe the lack of mentions for Voodoo when discussing D'Angelo's finest piece. It captured something culturally as well as musically which I don't think the others did in the same way. It's his defining statement in my opinion.

new song, with jay-z and jeymes samuel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOCRO4lJkKM

Wow, 9.5 minutes. I was listening without looking and thought it was a nice tune about to end, and then there was Jay talking and 5+ min of strings and guitar vamping. Happy to hear anything though, sounds like something that would be on a Badu album, or a lost P Funk jam. Sounds Questlove on drums, ofc.

Loving that.

sounds like something that would be on a Badu album

*knocks down ten people rushing to listen to it*

that's interesting, yes. but how does that jeymes samuel album have a fucking terry callier feature!??!

Real Mothership vibe here.

Get a feeling that this isn’t new…might of been left over from Black Messiah…

i don't think it's from the black messiah sessions because some of the musicians credited on it weren't on black messiah at all

This had me from the first cymbal hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OEzt6Y2oRU

really worth watching. little tune played at the end is gold

and parade is the correct answer, yeah

that was a treat, thanks for sharing.

"riot going on" vs "stand" as "intro funk album" is such a fine line

cuz "riot going on" is better as an album but it's just
_exceptional_

the sly stone story is so sad because it's true

he hasn't _lost_ anything, it's all _there_

he just can't get to it reliably, it's buried under all this other awful shit

the drugs and trauma and shit

breaks my fucking heart

cuz whereas with brian wilson, i mean

maybe this is harsh, but it's what people say, that there just wasn't much of him left, that there was maybe 10% of him left by the '80s

but with sly, i don't get the sense that he's lost a damn thing

Worse ways to spend an hour:

https://nelsongeorge.substack.com/p/dangelo-and-questlove-722013

i was at this show, it was very special. they did do some d'angelo songs at the end, not sure if they're in this recording. i definitely remember them doing "lady." my other lasting memory is questlove imploring the crowd to cheer loudly to convince d'angelo to release a new album, saying that if we cheered really loud it might convince him, in that distinct tone of voice one has when they're saying something that sounds like it's a joke but really isn't

at brooklyn bowl a year ago quest was like "the album is 98% done!" but still literally made the crowd cheer as loud as possible so that d'angelo would understand how badly we wanted to hear the new album

it was kinda sad

― le goon (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, June 25, 2014 5:02 PM (ten years ago)

wait i posted about it in this thread, lol

With word from Raphael Saadiq that he’s been back in the studio

https://consequence.net/2024/09/dangelo-new-album-raphael-saadiq/

oh i'd missed this from a few weeks ago! exciting

There was an interview with one of his engineers in Tape Op earlier in the year who confirmed that D has been recording this whole time, they just never know when or if it's going to come out.

i'm sure i've said this already in this thread, but at the listening event where they first played this album, nelson george (who was emceeing) said that, essentially, he and questlove had to wrest control of the album from d'angelo once they were able to get it to a certain level of completeness, bcuz if they didn't do that then he probably would've have just been happy recording forever w/o ever releasing anything