D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

please. tell me what notes are played on this album.

― $80 is absurd and very ridiculous! (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, December 15, 2014 12:44 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's mostly all Bs, Es, and C#s

― you say tomato/i say imago (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, December 15, 2014 10:51 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah, it is interesting that d'angelo chose to sharpen those Cs!

i dont disagree w/ tanuki that groove isn't quite as foregrounded here as it is in 'voodoo'

one big reason for that (obv) would be no dilla

please. tell me what notes are played on this album.

― $80 is absurd and very ridiculous! (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, December 15, 2014 12:44 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's mostly all Bs, Es, and C#s

― you say tomato/i say imago (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, December 15, 2014 10:51 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah, it is interesting that d'angelo chose to sharpen those Cs!

― $80 is absurd and very ridiculous! (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, December 15, 2014 12:54 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like sharps are inherently a political statement

walking around listening to this on a shitty rain monday makes everything feel so good

like i wish the flowers & trees were all getting their groove on, lol

http://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/dancing-groot.gif?w=650

http://www.cnsolartoy.com/pic/small/_200912111352434155.gif

lol ty

crazy how guitar-heavy this is. not that he was ever a synth-focused guy but the lack of synthesizers/keys on a 2014 r&b album is p striking. and the guitar playing is amazing

bass on charade is so good

I think comparisons to "Riot" are both obvious and not entirely accurate. This album at least on first listen really doesn't have that same dark night of the soul (pun intended) quality, though it is murky. But again, need to hear the lyrics to get what and where he's at.

Or maybe if there is a "Riot" thing going on, it's tempered by all the same stuff that tempered "Voodoo," like dollops of Prince and whatnot.

I wasn't comparing the whole album, just "1000 Deaths" in particular.

At any rate DJP never hearing a D'angelo album is way more o___O than Lex never hearing Riot til now.

brainwasher pointed out to me & it's totally obvious now that he's said it that this stuff also kinda sounds like bilal's work of the last few years

I said this on twitter last night.

Lex never hearing Riot til now

lol why do you guys listen to lex's opinions

At any rate DJP never hearing a D'angelo album is way more o___O than Lex never hearing Riot til now.

― Dej & the Fommly Loaf (The Reverend), Monday, December 15, 2014 10:09 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a riot going on is about the only pt of comparison questlove made that makes any sense

― deej loaf (D-40), Monday, December 15, 2014 9:22 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also i would argue that questlove was saying he'd gotten into beefheart, zappa, zep, etc. which i would say influence can play out in ways other than 'making music that sounds like the person who inspires you'

can we discuss how awesome the hand claps and drums on "The Charade" are?

Every detail about "The Charade" is awesome.

"Charade" is the early standout for me, but I could make a case for almost any song here.

I love the sequencing on this album; how it starts with the bleak, claustrophobic songs then brightens up. The compression loosens, the grooves get funkier; D'Angelo ditches the Bane from Batman voice and begins to sing in a more conventional falsetto. There's sort of a problem/solution structure here, and it makes what could've been a very daunting album ultimately feel very uplifting.

Production more crowded than anything he's done (not in a bad way)

whole thing sounds busier than usual. His vocals aren't controlling and dictating the tracks like they usual do.

This was exactly my first reaction, at least to the first few tracks. When Sugah Daddy hits it feels really open and spacious by contrast.

ooh Chris Dave replied to my tweet and confirmed that he's on 'Prayer' :)

charade is my favorite right now but ask me again in an hour, lol

its only the vocals that sound like riot, and 1000 deaths. every time someone does a weird/vaguely 'dark' soul record, riot is the standard comparison. in atmosphere, voodoo was much closer to riot than this one. i dont think it sounds that much like recent bilal as recent bilal has been all over the place (not in a bad way... bilal should actually get more attention than he does...). the second half of this is pretty fabulous.

Loving the hell out of "Back to the Future Part 1"

"The Door" has some kinda Paul McCartney-esque songwriting

i love the way The Door comes back in with a new groove

I hear shades of recent Bilal here, as well as shades of New Amerykah and maybe even Dwele's Some Kinda. But I think mood wise The Roots' Game Theory is a good comparison, too.

"the door" reminds me of the ukulele song off of Portishead's Third lol

"The Door" has some kinda Paul McCartney-esque songwriting

― you say tomato/i say imago (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

if you mean "Ram with the sheep dung and peat and weeds left in," yeah.

love the piano on Sugah Daddy so much

Walked into a record shop and bought this on cd earlier.

I hear shades of recent Bilal here, as well as shades of New Amerykah and maybe even Dwele's Some Kinda. But I think mood wise The Roots' Game Theory is a good comparison, too.
And bits of 'Like Water For Chocolate' and 'Electric Circus'.

On second run through now. "Prayer" and "Really Love" the early standouts for me.

from grantland's alex pappademas, who is usually not exactly this utterly wankery with his criticism:

I like wondering; I like building Chinese democracies in the clouds. And I mourn a little for the imaginary third D’Angelo records that never were.

Admit it: You were halfway ready for this to be some kind of transformational, cathartic brick, for him to reemerge with an incredibly competent bar-band blues album or some black–Scott Walker torture implement of a record — for him to try something, anything to move the conversation about him into a different room, out from under the royal portraits of Prince and Sly and Marvin and himself in the “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” video with abs shredded up like Crying Freeman’s. Who wouldn’t want to do that, under the circumstances? As much as I wanted this to be a great D’Angelo record, I wanted almost as badly for this to be D’Angelo pushing the whole idea of D’Angelo out to sea in a flaming canoe to kick off a confounding, Van Morrisonian third act that would involve playing a lot of jazz festivals with weird things pinned to his lapel. I wanted a mystifying D’Angelo record that would not come with the pressure to love it, one I might grow to love.

...did anyone else want any of these things, really? ban music critics.

There's sort of a problem/solution structure here

a la curtis, though this is more knotted

those things all sound terrible

xp

apologies if that should've gone in the worst writing ever thread

nah, i see what he means. this is basically a GREAT 3rd dangelo record (and one of my favourites this year, its made my day in fact), but not one that really merits the 15 year lay off. its an album that could very easily have followed voodoo in 2002 or thereabouts. if someone told me it was a lost album from 2002 i wouldnt be at all surprised. which is what makes it both great and a bit 'oh'.

at least bow i know who i'd like to push off in a flaming canoe

*now

some black–Scott Walker torture implement of a record
some black–Scott Walker torture implement of a record
some black–Scott Walker torture implement of a record
some black–Scott Walker torture implement of a record

like, for someone whos been going ON (or is that questlove) about the pressure to be a loverman, a soulman, a sex symbol, a demigod, this record doesnt really sound like someone trying to shirk those things! (which is maybe a very good thing, but it doesnt really explain the questions that have been raised since 2000)

its made my day in fact), but not one that really merits the 15 year lay off

tbf this is not the sort of thing an artist plans

needs more ticker tape

anyway, if you forget all the external stuff, its bloody good. he better release an album every year from here to 2020 though.

I'm not interested in albums explaining/answering "questions" about the artist

its only the vocals that sound like riot, and 1000 deaths. every time someone does a weird/vaguely 'dark' soul record, riot is the standard comparison. in atmosphere, voodoo was much closer to riot than this one. i dont think it sounds that much like recent bilal as recent bilal has been all over the place (not in a bad way... bilal should actually get more attention than he does...). the second half of this is pretty fabulous.

― StillAdvance, Monday, December 15, 2014 4:13 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dunno, bilal & riot both seem like pretty reasonable points of comparison to me. like, in what way is it not? i don't think it's THAT dark of a record, it's not the darkness that is of a piece w/ riot, more the graininess of the textures & the exultation of it

and it's that kind of deconstructed classicism that's in bilal records like "Sirens II"

the darkness of riot has always been way overstated to me. i blame it on greil marcus and wanting to project a shit load of stuff onto sly/riot than wasnt always warranted. sure, riot is kinda dark, but to me its always been more bittersweet, wry, sardonic, cynical than properly DARK. theres still humour in there... i.e. its not dance to the music, but its still SLY. yes hes drunk (id call it a drunken record before i would a dark one actually) and high. but he didnt turn into a nihilist. anyway, dangelo layers and mixes and arranges his vocals in a way bilal doesnt tend to (unless youre talking sally or fast lane). more recent bilal (iirc) has been more about him just being one of the greatest, most graceful, emotive singers of the last ten years. dangelo buries his voice in the songs, and he does it beautifully, but dangelo is a hider, in the tradition of hendrix, or lennon, bilal places his vocals where they would normally be expected to be. i dont hear black messiah being as broken or weird as nu amerykah.

the darkness of riot has always been way overstated to me. .... sure, riot is kinda dark, but to me its always been more bittersweet, wry, sardonic, cynical than properly DARK.

totally agree w this. it's not a Black Sabbath record.

the darkness of riot has always been way overstated to me. i blame it on greil marcus and wanting to project a shit load of stuff onto sly/riot than wasnt always warranted. sure, riot is kinda dark, but to me its always been more bittersweet, wry, sardonic, cynical than properly DARK. theres still humour in there... i.e. its not dance to the music, but its still SLY. yes hes drunk (id call it a drunken record before i would a dark one actually) and high. but he didnt turn into a nihilist. anyway, dangelo layers and mixes and arranges his vocals in a way bilal doesnt tend to (unless youre talking sally or fast lane). more recent bilal (iirc) has been more about him just being one of the greatest, most graceful, emotive singers of the last ten years. dangelo buries his voice in the songs, and he does it beautifully, but dangelo is a hider, in the tradition of hendrix, or lennon, bilal places his vocals where they would normally be expected to be. i dont hear black messiah being as broken or weird as nu amerykah.

― StillAdvance, Monday, December 15, 2014 4:57 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i have no idea who greil marcus is but riot is one of the darkest albums

Quite an album, I'm enjoying it greatly. More fond of the back half.

people WANT riot to be darker than it really is

as if music that isnt, simply isnt important otherwise

there are actually moments that are darker on a whole new thing, the first sly record, songs that are much deeper and far more angry