D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

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

and yeah, my first reaction was TOTALLY bilal. I need to dive back into his stuff soon.

i think its kinda fucked up how bilal, despite releasing a steady string of albums, that havent always been worthy of his talent, gets about 1/10th of the love that dangelo get. but i realise this isnt the place for that. suppose hes just one 'weird' and 'dark' album away from having more people check for him!

i meant 'that havent always been worthy of his talent, but have still contained some seriously sublime moments'

nah, i see what he means. this is basically a GREAT 3rd dangeloMBV record (and one of my favourites this year, its made my day in fact), but not one that really merits the 1520 year lay off. its an album that could very easily have followed voodoo Loveless 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'.

lol yes MBV is what i keep thinking of too. and i love that album, though for all that album's much hyped jungle-shoegaze (junglaze?) direction, which i think they did BRILLIANTLY btw, speaking as a jungle/D&B fan, you could substitute 1000 deaths as a premise for what black messiah might have been.... (and was supposed to have been, though i should know better than to trust questlove, whos like the least reliable commentator for any record he works on). i think MBV actually IS perfect, and 80% of BM is perfect too, but i just wonder how much of that tinkering really made a difference. shields and dangelo have some sort of OCD/hoarding issues they might need to work on.

The mbv record largely went in one ear and out the other for me, though I've never been a My Bloody Valentine disciple. I'm not historically a D'Angelo disciple either, but something about the timing of this record and the sound of it and not having any real expectations and then getting blown away makes Black Messiah SO much more important to me than mbv was.

i like MBV more than loveless, though thats prob cos i wasnt into loveless when it came out. i WAS very into voodoo when it came out (though badu's mamas gun is STILL the better album of the two), but i still think this new one is actually an improvement in several ways.

I'm already to declare this better than MBV, and I say this as a) someone who's a big MBV fan and loved that album, and b) someone who is new to D'Angelo. (When he was initially popular I wasn't into his style of music.)

i dunno if i can go that far, though i am digging this & still kinda figuring it out. Voodoo feels infintely more subtle and like, deft, or something—not inherently superior but a more interesting approach to me—here's there's definitely a letting the accidental contrasts happen of live musicianship going on, a less precise approach

i keep wondering if the fact prince released some new albums this year made dangelo finally give this thing in.

bilal's recent work is nowhere near this daring or expansive... and i LIKE bilal

I dunno, Prince has never really stopped releasing albums. Just for some reason people were paying attention to Prince this year.

xp Black Messiah probably more painstakingly crafted but i don't see how its that much more daring or expansive than "A Love Surreal"

skipped the part where people started talking about MBV but this isn't better than voodoo lol

viny's on sale now btw https://twitter.com/TheDangelo/status/544638668347281408

ah shit

well I wasn't gonna wait til February

given the emphasis on live musicianship it's crazy this album doesn't sound more conservative, the production and arrangements are super dense and detailed

Had a fair bit of time to tinker

well yeah

so happy the vinyl is not $45 like the new MBV

airtights revenge has some pretty unusual touches and interesting chords throughout, more than a love surreal actually.

True. My brain thinks Airtights Revenge is a lot older than it actually is for some reason.