D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

thanks, dad.

flugelhorn genius

lol instruments are so old lol aren't they atually made of wood??? LOL wtf. actual musicians rofl get with the times grandad we just rub our clits now and wear giant mouse heads

sounds like a party

One of the reasons I love "Sugah Daddy" is cause it sounds like if the "just because the record's got the groove" part of "Sir Duke" was extrapolated into a full song.

deadmaus's clit is MIDI?

Ben Kane says it's Mark Hammond (not familiar but he's a jazz dude apparently) on the fancy flamenco guitar on 'Really Love', D on other guitars, and Gadson on drums again (fooled me! the extra snaps and claps make it sound very Quest-ish).

listening back to that bootleg that went around a few years ago and the final version is definitely an improvement.

As always, I enjoy/appreciate the instrumental detail and feel, regardless of who plays what where, and here the lyrics add something, though also as always, the vocals keep me a little detached, and currently get a little annoying, with that tendency to blur, if not strain---doesn't always happen: I really like "Sugah Daddy" for inst, and ”Till It’s Done (Tutu)” is very fine---but whatever you think of this set, don't sleep the *actual* Sly's 2014 (imperfect but often excellent) anthology, which is also timely, in a startling way, esp. keyboard-wise:
http://lightintheattic.net/releases/1451-i-m-just-like-you-sly-s-stone-flower-1969-70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCyHAhJgFA

Also, he's got me listening to this year's Prince albums again, dittoMusicology, The Hits/The B-Sides, and The Black Album, so thanks D'.

Third Eye Girl might be the worst backing band ever, so gross clubfooted bar band gunk

made me listen to lots of old 70s and 00 soul i havent touched in a while (as well as prince). find it hard listening to individual tracks - it only really works as an album to me, though i do find certain phrases popping into my head every so often. sometimes think all the labour and attention to detail has maybe come at the expense of immediacy (save for sugah daddy), but then i think thats always been there in dangelos music.

not to return to the virtuoso argument but i think we do often conflate 'multi instrumentalist' with 'virtuoso'.

Didn't realize he was managed by Eric Leeds. Between Leeds, Jesse Johnson and John Blackwell, whole lotta Prince in the D'Angelo family.

I'm sure they each have their own story about how Prince fucked them over

eric leeds must be the most patient man in america

Alan Leeds is D'Angelo's tour manager (and Prince's tour manager in the '80s). Eric Leeds the Prince saxophonist is his brother.

alan leeds also worked for james brown IIRC

oops, i definitely know that, i do get the names confused sometimes. one of my friends ran into eric leeds at the grocery store recently, i love that minneapolis shit. :)

wondering which old prince collaborators dangelo will pick up next... surprised john blackwell is drumming for him, i thought dangelo would go for sheila e first.

Alan Leeds was also at the listening party. He was the one person there I would have liked to have a conversation with.

his name is all over the sleeve notes of soul/funk reissues from the 80s/90s, isn't it?

for posterity:

Prayer: @Chrisdaddydave came in and crushed the drums for this one at Henson Studios in a way that only he could. #BlackMessiah

Ben Kane @kanevibrations · 5m 5 minutes ago
Prayer: the claps!!! My bro @TheDangelo had me working on sound of his claps for a fortnight and I think it paid off. #PerfectingIt

Ben Kane @kanevibrations · 7m 7 minutes ago
Prayer: Of course now there is also bass provided again by @pinopalladino__ and some add'l guitar and the final solo by @JesseJohnsonViP

Ben Kane @kanevibrations · 11m 11 minutes ago
Prayer: the basis for this was crafted at Ds homestudio The core of what you still hear is this beautiful composition. Gtrkeybassprogramming

i love the idea of the young engineer toiling away in handclap bootcamp, sort of a zen master/student situation.

one of the D.C. R&B stations played "Really Love" yesterday and that really made my day. i guess that's the radio single, not "Sugah Daddy"? good choice.

I feel like those are the two songs that make the most sense as singles. Maybe "Another Life" or "The Charade"?

If there was a way to releas singles straight to the Delilah show, "Betray My Heart" would be a cinch.

"Really Love" definitely has one of the album's biggest hooks but i didn't expect it as a single just because it's 2 minutes before he sings (90 seconds before the drums even come in). maybe there's a single edit that abbreviates the intro, which would be kind of a shame since it's gorgeous, but would make sense.

at the listening thing they said "really love" is the official single that they sent to radio

increasingly the album this reminds me of the most is not Riot, it's Parade

hum. It would be a "Parade" without "Kiss", "Girls and Boys" and "Sometimes it snows" !
To me it sounds more like prince circa "Emancipation".
I enjoy it (more and more) but it's not groundbreaking or anything. Very competent soul/funk.
Also, is it just me or is the rhythm guitar out of sync or something on Tutu ?

i feel like a lot of things sound out of sync on this album

Rhythmically, it is definitely the most off-the-grid modern records I've ever heard

"Tutu" is a challenge yeah, I would say misfire but it's totally hilarious just how pushy the kit is, basically two songs at once

I like the various elements of "Tutu" but the out of sync thing is really annoying. I can't focus on anything else !
Is there an explanation for this ? it's certainly not a mistake considering the level of the musicians involved and the time it took to make the album !

i don't hear it on "tutu" but i can't even listen to "1000 deaths" and i tried really hard

it's a little more Fresh than Riot to my ears, but also more its own album than any of these comparisons.

And Riot is totally a 'dark' album! in part because its chaotic production is such a well-told story, but even its brightest, most pop moments - Running Away, You Caught Me Smiling, Family Affair - have a bittersweet shadow over them.

I think it's a deliberate decision to make the track sound live and off-the-floor. I don't know who produced what on this record, who drummed where, but Karriem does the same stuff on Badu's records: shortens the fourth beat of every bar so the track feels falling-forward, and pushes the drums ahead of the vocals. It's just way more extreme on "Black Messiah". The phasing in-and-out of sync on "1000 Deaths" is difficult and psych-y to my ears (i.e. hooray!) but I can totally understand how it'd be unattractive to lex's

I can only speculate, but I'd guess that the out-of-sync-ness of "Tutu" was likely a decision to play with the extremes of possibility of how lazy they could make the track feel. The drums are so far ahead it is ~mind-blowing~

1000 Deaths reminds me of the Fela-tributes on Common's Like Water For Chocolate

The drums are so far ahead it is ~mind-blowing~

Same thing, but I think of it as everything else being way behind. I'll bet Questlove played right on it, whatever he was playing to.

I love it but it doesn't even sound weird to me anymore, now that we've had a decade plus to absorb Voodoo, Dilla, and everything that was influenced by that stuff. For me, D'Angelo is a stylist first & foremost and his sense of (rhythmic) feel, for how every sound fits together, is my favorite thing about this album.

I think it's a deliberate decision to make the track sound live and off-the-floor.
I can only speculate, but I'd guess that the out-of-sync-ness of "Tutu" was likely a decision to play with the extremes of possibility Yes, I hear it as being about/the story of being hazed out, in your habitual niche, gradually getting the resolve to come out of your shell, get your shit together, personally and/or politically, given the overall context of his own er career and present/ongoing social issues he's indicated that he means to address, directly here, with oblique strokes there, either way he's not gonna stick around give a big speech, about his experience or anything else, that's not him.

Which would go with the deliberately against-the-grain sound of Riot, which came out at a time when marketing to the emerging mass bohemian couch stoner market, after the tumult of the 60s, tended to involve "tasty licks"---terms like "smooth grooves" and format "Quiet Storm" (from the Smokey song) were not far away.

(I was there, on that couch, but Riot disturbed my haze.)

I love it but it doesn't even sound weird to me anymore, now that we've had a decade plus to absorb Voodoo, Dilla, and everything that was influenced by that stuff. For me, D'Angelo is a stylist first & foremost and his sense of (rhythmic) feel, for how every sound fits together, is my favorite thing about this album.

― virtuoso thigh slapper (Jordan), Tuesday, December 23, 2014 6:22 AM Bookmark

Yeah, same here. Nothing on this record sounds rhythmically off or messy to me (yes, chaotic in the case of "1000 Deaths", but not in a way I haven't heard before or throws me off) unless I stop to think about what exactly they're doing. It's an intuitive groove at this point for me.

Shiiiit, I just realized part of why "1000 Deaths" is so amazing is usually when anyone in the modern era tries to do this type of later-Sly/earlier-Funkadelic shit, it comes out sounding way too clean and controlled.

totally.

btw that track is the most wildly variable depending on what system i'm hearing it on. sometimes it sounds amazing and others it's the only one that does sound 'messy' to me (mostly between the kick and the bass).

I'm impressed that "Tutu" doesn't sound, like, tipping point to you Rev & Jordan! sounds to me like they were working to make it so

tbh "Tutu" is the one track on this that's kind of been slipping by me entirely

xp yeah this definitely reminds me of something I've said about the Shabazz Palaces albums, which is that they sound like entirely different albums on any given system (which I wouldn't say of the much less dense Voodoo)

https://medium.com/cuepoint/nyu-music-professor-gives-dangelo-an-a-beeae902f782

Quite simply, what sets this record aside from anything else that’s come out in the past ten years is the level of musicianship and research that went in to it. Why does it sound so fresh? Because no one in R&B can make a record at this level anymore.

The industry’s shift to cut-n-paste style production since D’Angelo last released an album has had a profound effect on the music-loving public’s collective attention span. Whereas the Dr. Luke and Max Martin type of pop songs all but scream “here comes the chorus” (or, in some cases, “the drop”), we must actually pay attention to Black Messiah to recognize its subtle, hidden structures, something many listeners who came of age in the days and years since Voodoo simply don’t know how to do.

First and foremost what sets this record apart from anything else in the past decade is its rhythm. While being as danceable as any contemporary four-on-the-floor, boots-and-pants EDM-style pop hit, Black Messiah does something that those records don’t: It swings. My colleague Jason King has written at length about the unique “out-of-jointness” of D’Angelo’s groove on Voodoo — influenced in many ways by hip-hop and especially by the off-kilter rhythmic work of J Dilla. It’s one thing to adjust notes in relationship to the beat when you’re on a computerized digital workstation. It’s quite another thing to pick up your instrument and make that happen like these guys do. On Black Messiah, the musicians return fire and then some.

Coming as it did — a total surprise — a lot of folks have been compelled to offer their thoughts about Black Messiah upon first listen, especially because, well, it’s their job to do so. But Black Messiah is the kind of record that reveals itself almost as slowly as D’Angelo works in the studio. To really hear its sonic complexity takes at least five listens. To get your head around what your ear is hearing takes ten. To get your heart around what your head deciphered takes at least fifteen. To finally realize the type of earwormy, sing along-ishness that it took all of eight measures for you to get from Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” takes even more listens still. In this way, Black Messiah blossoms like Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Radiohead’s Kid A or Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back.

Because no one in R&B can make a record at this level anymore.

oh let us NOT do this

the muso talk in this thread has made for the most boring bits of it, the muso skill on the album is maybe its least exciting aspect, the muso exceptionalist praise can DO ONE