D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

vinyl's not out till Feb, is it?

I want it though

ah ok, i thought i read someone say they'd saw vinyl up thread....

the climax of "Another Life" is sorta "Untitled" like though

the climax of "Another Life" is sorta "Untitled" like though

as i was writing that i thought to myself that "another life" is like a tiny album

but my point is that the tension-and-release of voodoo is very specific and extreme and black messiah doesn't even go for it. to its credit i think

So today from Ben Kane, ie the engineer -- turns out Humorist/Phil's Reality of My Surroundings take wasn't far off:

1k deaths: was once told D was inspired to write the music to this directly after being blown away by a joint at a Fishbone concert.

Voodoo had that perfectly-formed-in-the-heavens quality to it that I don't think this record has, but I don't think that is a bad thing. It feels like more of a Project, and I need more time to get my mind around it. I like everything I hear on it, nothing has quite earwormed me, and I will definitely keep listening to it.

I like that I've seen every track named by someone as the standout or the one that caught their ear first.

I think Sugah Daddy is my fav so far. I'm not crazy about the maxed-out sound of Charade but I haven't heard it on a good system/good headphones yet.

this feels shaggier and more improvisational to me than voodoo. "betray my heart" starts out sounding like it could be "spanish joint part ii" but it's got other ideas, loping along, finding other riffs.

can i just reiterate, i am so happy right now.

i have got to listen to this on headphones - i am so enraptured by "sugah daddy" through to "betray my heart" but i swear my mp3s of the first two tracks must be fucked bc they still sound like total messes and i can't even seem to hear what's going on in them

i do wish his vocals were higher in the mix generally

i have no sense of any of these as SONGS yet

yeah I feel the same, they're more like really elaborate jams

i also need a lyric booklet so badly because i can make it approx five lines on the whole album and this is a BARRIER to me

*make out

the official lyrics are up here fyi: http://www.metrolyrics.com/news-story-dangelo-black-messiah-lyrics-revealed.html

lex maybe you should just make out to this album instead

lex maybe you should just make out to this album instead

apart from having a bf without the requisite taste, i don't feel like this is a partic sexy album anyway? like, not in the way voodoo or brown sugar were

i think my opinion on it would be so different if it actually just started at "sugah daddy"

'Sugah Daddy' sounds like the blended style that Outkast were going for with the music in Idlewild

haha this kind of occurred to me too - this is an album Andre 3000 wishes he could make

guitar playing and all

i thought caring abt lyrics was rockist? like they should just function as sonic elements of a song. i left my cheat sheet at home tho

this is an album Andre 3000 wishes he could make

otm

'prayer' has really started to put in roots as something i don't want to be without in my life

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. But

Betray My Heart has some gorgeous gospel, though sounds like a Voodoo pre-sessional jam that didn't quite progress onto the level of a fledged voodoo track. Never the less beautiful.

Ooooh Check out those Delphonics late 60s soul licks on the last track Another Life!! Smooth azz track to end.

His voice has suffered a little in the last 14 years

Doesn't have the groove or the confidence of Voodoo, doesn't have the melodies of Brown Sugar

Sugah daddy to Really Love is a powerful moment

He's channeling prince stronger than ever before

Sounds good after 1st listen though I'd put it has his 3rd best album

Still agreeing with myself.

He's following a benchmark classic of the genre and then a bonafide classic in popular music in general so what he's come up with here, which is essentially a live jam session feel recording was actually a real smart move. With the 60s soul adorations, uptempo, gospel nods, and all sorts of musical homages I think is a cool move at this point. Moving away from the Rhodes sound of Brown Sugar almost completely now muddies his melodies to maybe where he's feeling more comfortable at this point after all his personal issues. He's not the same person as on Brown Sugar writing those smooth clear consistant earworm melodies on every track. He's always been most influenced by Prince but on some tracks on here like Sugah Daddy he's gone there stronger than ever before. S.D is almost a straight Prince homage.

Cool stuff. I'm not sure someone like D'Angelo is capable of making disappointing music.

re: the hope upthread that this would be his new amerykah, it's more like his worldwide underground

I don't know if I agree - Worldwide Underground doesn't really hang together as an album and, for all its qualities, is quite misshapen and feels like a grab-bag of unrelated tracks to me, whereas this has a really strong, coherent flow (albeit clearly being an album that reveals more with every play).

re: the hope upthread that this would be his new amerykah, it's more like his worldwide underground

― lex pretend,

Not sure what the thing is here with the constant comparison linking with other "neo soul" artists (He's like Bilal!! x200, Come on really?) but I'm gonna have to engage in this scraziness after this absurd comment! This album is far, far far far more like New Amerykah Part 2 than anything on Worldwide Underground. New Amerykah pt2 has the live instrument lazy melodies session jam feel that W.U completely lacks (beat machines!)

this album would be bewildering if you haven't already heard voodoo IMO (which is insane btw)

the drums on "Prayer" sound weird to me, like they skip backwards every now & then. it makes it hard for me to follow the beat because I'm dumb. I think it's supposed to be like that, right?

"ain't that easy" is the real single to my ears. it's in my head constantly when i'm not listening to something else.

day 2 impressions are that it's a very nice album and i'm glad it exists. but for something that, as others have said, sounds very jammy and more off-the-cuff than his previous work, i am kind of mystified that many (most?) of these songs have been around 8, 9 years now

I think it's supposed to be like that, right?

― droit au butt (Euler), Tuesday, December 16, 2014 12:33 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

everything on this album is supposed to sound how it sounds

i haven't heard voodoo tbh

"the charade" song of the year

Nobody's yet pointed out that "Back to the Future" very nearly turns into The Charleston several times before the guitar drags it back into a funk groove. Love it for that.

i think it's striking how hard they push on that clompy-snappy-shuffle rhythm that you can hear on voodoo as well, i don't know at all but i very much associate it with dilla. there's something very tense about it, it tends to work against the other tendencies of the music and conceal the songs, kind of like a house beat can overwhelm before you learn how not to hear it while you're listening. i would expect a lot of the hidden pleasures of the songs to come from seeing where they work against that.

lex maybe you should just make out to this album instead

I have made out to this album and I can confirm yes, very good, A+.

hotsa hotsa

Very early predictions have him doing 90-100k. Not to make this all about sales, I just think that's pretty impressive given the gap between albums and the state of R&B music sales climate.

CRUT! (xps)

Seriously. Crut, DJP: fix your lives right now.

(Wait I'd heard Voodoo before DJP? How in the world...you know what, never mind.)

Does a guy called Steven Hyden from grantland post here because he stole my Another Life/Delphonics post from this thread

what a disaster for grantland

And hither is a merit runneth down of thy awful music writing http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/lightning-round-it-took-dangelo-15-years-to-create-his-new-album-black-messiah-it-took-us-15-hours-to-respond/

Interesting to note the cultural shift since his last album. D'Angelo because of internet is being exposed to so many more range of people who wouldn't be interested in neo soul when he was releasing Voodoo, even with it's Untitled smash hit video and number 1 album etc, now so much is different, the fans of his back then were still majority fans of the genre, now because of itunes internet hype etc reach is huge across all genres, ages, society.

lol a bunch of that writing is terrible. I mean:

And Black Messiah is messily precise, a ramshackle gospel of overdubs and swelling hexagonal production.

"messily precise"? "hexagonal"?

He's occupying a unique space now in music of an artist who hasn't been seen in 14 years but still has the coolness clout and hype cranking abilities to be relevant to a whole load of young people who don't know who he is and/or do know who he is vaguely or not but never were interested in him before and are going to be now listening to music that actually doesn't sound like the homogenous or quirky sound like everything else electronic music they usually have to listen to today, which I think is why so many people are over rating this album. It would be similar if say Erykah Badu hadn't released anything since Mama's Gun, and New Amerykah Part 2 was released today. For 2014 music, in a world where Frank Ocean rnb albums are rated as bonafide classics this album probably sounds like powerful colonic irrigation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdLvp630plc

yeah that definitely sounds like swelling hexagons

everyone who hasnt, go listen to Voodoo now

then get yr hand stamped at the door or u wont be allowed back in

:D