D'Angelo - "Black Messiah" 12/15/2014

Album has its moments...but once it hits its stride the album is done. Wish it was longer. I want more vocals. This album is more about the vanguard than it is his voice. Voodoo had a better balance of vocals and production. Black Messiah sways more to production. This album has more of a live mashup vibe. It's a great start. Hopefully he has a more vocal heavy follow up somewhere down the line.
 
Chopper said:
JJs07 said:
He has 3 albums under his belt that you can argue are all 10/10. There have been SO many other artists who have dropped near flawless albums, but their follow-ups haven't met the standard of what they previously dropped. D'Angelo, somehow, has either matched (IMO), or bested all of his previous work. That's no easy feat considering how high the bar is/was.
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Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This early, to say Black Messiah matches/bests either Brown Sugar or Voodoo is crazy talk. It's just too early to compare a day old release to his two classics. 
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Put it this way...there is no fall off from BM in comparison to Brown Sugar or Voodoo. D'Angelo accomplished a rare trifecta here.
 
This album gets better & better with each listen... This & Benjamin Booker's release in Oct are my favorite albums of the year... 1A & 1B.

When you got a band with the likes of Pino Palladino on bass & either Questlove and/or James Gadson on drums, you're bound to have some instrumental jamz in there.

I love the way D has put his influences in there in a subtle way... Parliament, Ohio Players, Prince, etc... I even hear some Bill Withers, Shuggie Otis... His guitar work is indeed impressive. I've always said & posted in the varioud thread here in the music section that r&b with guitar is always the best (include a Fender Rhodes in there too).

This album has such an organic feel to it... I can't think of many records released recently that have this feel or sound.

BTW, this album is out of the running for the next grammys... I believe the window runs from Sept to Sept.... If I'm correct, we should see this in the running for several categories in 2016...
 
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^ Ditto. Had to have a physical copy for the archives. And I love liner notes, so the CD was a must.

I said this in the other D'Angelo thread, but does anyone else feel the fingerprints of Dilla all over this album? There are these subtleties I hear when listening that sound like he was behind the boards. Pretty cool to think about how enmeshed that whole Soulquarians crew is/was.
 
D'Angelo + Live Band Köln (Deutz) - Tickets

Fri, 3/6/15, 8:00 PM
Theater am Tanzbrunnen
Rheinparkweg 1, 50679 Köln (Deutz)


Hell yeah. I'm going to try my hardest to be there.
 
superblyTRIFE said:
I said this in the other D'Angelo thread, but does anyone else feel the fingerprints of Dilla all over this album? There are these subtleties I hear when listening that sound like he was behind the boards. Pretty cool to think about how enmeshed that whole Soulquarians crew is/was.
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Dilla's influence is still prevalent in his fellow Soulquarians. How can it not? You can hear it in all the projects The Roots, Com, Yasiin Bey, Talib, & Q-Tip do.

Speaking of Soulquarians... Missing new stuff from Roy Hargrove... Hope the brother gets past his substance abuse issues & comes back with some new music...

Edit - I posted this in the D/Stockholm thread so I'm posting in here to... He talks about the musical influences for BM & plays some music while chopping it up with Chariman Mao at RBMA...

http://www.rbmaradio.com/shows/d-angelo-headphone-highlights
 
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Chopper said:
Bro if that's the case, you should just go and cop Brown Sugar and Voodoo, cause you might not get these feels without knowing them two front to back. 
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Always meant to listen to both of those albums, just never got around to it... Putting it on my to-do list this weekend :smokin
 
The only thing that this album is missing is the remakes of old songs that he does and puts his spin on, like on Brown Sugar he did "Cruisin", on Voodoo he did "Feel like makin' love" but no remakes on this one, but it is still cool to me though because it is still quality music. And it might not be for everybody, but eventually it'll grow on some people. It is a pretty awesome album to me though.
 
ShotsRangOut said:
Man I am two tracks in and this isn't good to me at all....
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I wasn't feeling it either until I made it to Charade(I remembered it from the early youtube videos of him performing in the UK or whatever) and Really Love. It picks up around there. And then u hit Betray My Heart, Til Its Done and Another Life and you're wishing there was more like Another Life tracks on the album.
 
The way he laid down a lot of the vocal tracks & alternating harmonies reminds me a lot of Parliament-Funkadelic.

This album is such a mix of various influences but all in his own original way if you will.

I can see if some people don't like this album (especially if you listen to a lot of the music out today). This album isn't accessible or easily digestible to to average Joe.

For me, this release is something you listen to beginning to end. This album is meant to listen to as a whole. Completely different from the stuff being released today where you can just pick a track or two (or three).

I feel like if you skip a track, you miss out... At least that's the way I feel now.

This along with Benjamin Booker's release are my favorite albums of 2014.

BTW, check out Eric Clapton's reaction upon listening to a track from Voodoo years ago at the 6.07 mark...





For heads, check out this interview from earlier this year if/when you get the chance.
 
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Curious if some of y'all who dig this funk sound have listened to the DamFunk and Snoop album? Joint is tough.

But yeah Prince is all over this album. Continues to get better with each spin.
 
I can't believe this album is this good. And Brown Sugar has been in my rotation since I started having a rotation. But when Ain't That Easy began I felt like...idk. It was amazing. The whole thing is just amazing. :pimp:
 
Chopper said:
Curious if some of y'all who dig this funk sound have listened to the DamFunk and Snoop album? Joint is tough.

But yeah Prince is all over this album. Continues to get better with each spin.
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And yeah of course. Untitled was the best Prince impersonation ever. :lol:

And I mean that in the most respectful way possible. I ****** love that song.
 
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