D'Angelo - Black Messiah (2014)

black messiah may be more psychedelic than voodoo but i don't think it's significantly weirder

Voodoo is more insular and murky and detailed (and it was my fav album for years), but Black Messiah has better songs and is a synthesis of everything that makes him great imo

idk maybe it's just because i'm always stoned when i listen to it but voodoo takes funk to such an interior space that it's a deeply weird album to me, psychedelic without literally being psychedelic bc it's pushing a form to its absolute limit and beyond xp

"but Black Messiah has better songs"

idk about all that

i think there's aspects of black messiah where i could see one gravitating to it depending on taste -- there's a darkness to it and a sort of unsettled itchiness where it's almost at once belabored and unfinished, some tracks feel like semi-thoughts where others feel so worked over that the instrumentation swallows up his vocals. on the other hand voodoo is warmer and intensely perfected, everything is in its right place even as the production makes the songs feel like the substance holding them together is almost gelatinous. of course this is its singular brilliance. personally i think voodoo is the clearly superior record and so i once again bash the button next to my computer that says "brad otm" ... i really just think it's one of the most perfect albums of all time, i can't imagine basically anyone improving upon it let alone the guy who made it. but it's cool that black messiah connects the thread while also standing on its own in a number of ways

Voodoo feels like the apotheosis of a genre that it also more or less defined. Black Messiah feels like an album that exists outside of genre and is kind of too out there and proggy and inherently sui generis to inspire a lot of similar albums. I like each for its own reason, more likely to put on BM than Voodoo though.

a lot of nice words here even when I'm not sure how much of them I agree with

i'm inclined to go with voodoo still but I listened to it so much as a teen before BM came out so I may be over/underrating them accordingly. all 3 are amazing ofc

otoh I never warmed to the godawful meth & red verses lack of which is def a point in BM's favour

ok so this album is fucking amazing

black messiah is usually my favourite but voodoo is near perfect too. i think it just comes down to black messiah being a more direct work, the songs are easier to grasp despite still being so dense.

Lot of hyperbole in this thread

he's that fucking good

it was the most justifiable hyperbole of the 21st century

But the right ranking is BM, voodoo, brown sugar obv. Bm is where voodoo couldn't get to yet. Voodoo has great ambience, sounds incredible sonically, but it can be a bit, idk, stilted, like hes running high on studio craft and label budget but lower on proper direction and inspiration. Its a transitional album, d'angelo leaving neo soul to enter his own sound. Erykah badu got to where he wanted to quicker with mama gun.

Voodoo is vibier, bm is songier

BM is still pretty damn vibey.

i suppose, but the emphasis is on each song being entirely its own thing, self contained, not sounding like anything else on there, whereas with voodoo it sounds like the product of a lot of studio improv and jamming and then extensive production labouring and attention to sonic details

Brown Sugar still his best imo. I get how BM's murk is the point, inseparable from his aims, which makes it an ideal album to slap on while cooking dinner.

with voodoo theres a lot more sonic cohesion, a lot of the same sounds, whereas BM doesnt have that. nothing else souunds like 1000 deaths or uses those same sounds for example. another life is all on its own.

"Brown Sugar still his best imo."

what lol

Listened to this for the first time in a while last night. Can't believe it's coming up to six years old already.

I must admit that while I enjoy a good amount of this record, it's one of these records I admire more for its vision, prowess and execution than something I'd listen to all the way through for fun.

Maybe it's because it was my intro to D'Angelo and I wasn't formally familiar with his work prior to it.

The first three tracks I find especially hard - so murky and claustro, just busy and packed-in. By the time Sugah Daddy rolls round, it really hits its stride. I love that one, and Really Love and The Door. The lighter, less busy tracks I guess.

I'm impressed with anyone who can discern much from his lyrics on this one. To me, the way his vocals are processed and produced make them become another instrument in the endlessly evolving wall-to-wall funky squall of the thing that he may as well be scatting the whole way through. I wouldn't have put it past him, but still it was perhaps surprising to look up the lyrics to Charade and find out how deep and complex they are. Now it feels like there are codes weaving in and out of this music which aren't really accessible to my ears

there is a certain, slight proggishness to his last two albums. they arent 'fun' per se. you have to make some effort to engage with it. the tempo is also a factor. he likes a lot of slightly plodding tempos. prob all that weed he smokes. i dont mind not hearing his lyrics. i like the way they are buried almost and shrouded in layering and overdubbed vocal work. makes it more interesting to me.

Til It's Done is the key track for me. Like Al Green's dropped by the studio while Sly's recording Riot. Just floors me.

what lol

― candyman, Saturday,

why not? Any answer is correct.

Sure, but just surprising. It's better than I thought it would be though when I played it recently. Jonz, shit damn, cruising, when we get by, all great. The cover he did of ewfs cant hide love in this era is the one though. Weird seeing how diff he looked back then, even accounting for age. Guess hes done a shit ton of drugs.

Brown Sugar puts to mind Stevie’s assessment of Talking Book, a great collection of songs but not as strong an album as what came after.

I definitely know some Brown Sugar partisans

I probably listen to Voodoo least. To my ears BS captured a vibe and groove so indelibly that I keep returning to it.

I definitely know some Brown Sugar partisans

Its def the easiest to listen to.

Ease of listening has got nuthin' to do with it.

alrighty then

Anyway I think with every album dangelo is becoming more dangelo-y

I’ve owned Brown Sugar for more than 20 years and I can’t remember a damn thing about it. Bought it after I’d got into Voodoo at uni. Played it a couple of times, didn’t click, been on a shelf ever since. I should do something about this, yeah?

I think so.

It's very 90s sounding now. A man cant do Rhodes and hip hop drums forever.

*boom bap drums/crunch/thump etc

I’m happy to spin Brown Sugar. I’m happy that afterward he went in the direction he went.

exactly

Brown sugar the actual song has not aged well.

is that a stones joke

comparing drugs to women is always corny and problematic but i don't see what makes it that much worse than the rest of the album

Not much worse, just that the best songs on there are better. Its melodically weak too. Instrumental is good though. Good to vibe to.

Back to black messiah though. Not to get all stevehoffman, but i I bought it on vinyl thinking that would be the perfect format but the CD seems to handle it better, esp 1000 deaths.

categorically disagree that the melody for brown sugar is weak. rhythm is as important to a melody as range and variation

it’s definitely true that d’s melodies grew much more complex by the time black messiah came around, hard to imagine “another life” appearing on either of the first two albums

does the organ/falsetto hook on BS count as part of the melody? i could listen to that all day

The hook is good, thats true, I was thinking of the verses.

"categorically disagree that the melody for brown sugar is weak. rhythm is as important to a melody as range and variation"

Thanks for your input. However I didn't comment on the rhythm, I commented on the tunefulness, specifically the verses. To compare to another rnb weed song, its hardly Mary Jane by Rick james.

what the actual hell

I commented on the tunefulness, specifically the verses.

you...didn’t, actually?

nvm i already regret engaging

BLACK MESSIAH IS THE GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME