luvsexy4all said:

the music sounds funky ...but those voices....this is where Prince will ALWAYS beat him

i know that's real. his falsetto doesnt sound as good as it used to and his voice layering doesnt sound as good either

tbh

after 14 years

is that all?

so where are ALL the ?Love haters peanut gallery now????? crickets... you know who you are...

Would you all please stop with this? We are damn near 14 weeks away from April Fool's Day. I can't believe you all fell for this?

And which one of you hacked iTunes to list these bogus tracks for sa- . . .

wait . . .

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!?????

At some point next year, one of the most profitable companies in the world, Apple, will

release its iPhone 6 c/s, which will be the 6 but with minor upgrades and/or modifications.

The public will wait with baited breath as the months, weeks, days, and minutes count

down towards its release date. Pundits, experts, and talking heads will be splattered all

over the blogosphere and the totality of the social media with their take on whether or not

the release will meet the insatiable public's lust for anything with a bitten apple logo placed

on it. Inexorably, someone will get their hands on a test version, release photos and

specs online, and make customers even more lusty (thirsty?). And you can best believe that

a loyal Apple supporter will hype the iphone 6 c/s as "the messiah of all smartphones." It will
be the arrival of the future of smartphones. But guess what? The next big thing is already
here.

The above, you donkeys, is what Black Messiah is. It's Voodoo c/s. If you wanted more of the

same grooves, vamps, lead vocal layering and background vocal arranging, casual odes

and nods to Prince, a Spanish tinged song here, a gospel influenced tune there, with the same

players (Questo, Palladino, Q-Tip, etc), then this is the album for you! Yeah, it's not exactly

Voodoo, but it's not exactly not Voodoo either. It's a slight modification; and as far as I can

tell, it's in the musical landscape i.e., instrumentation, that we find the differences.

Questlove was quoted as saying that he expected Black Messiah to be mentioned in the same

breath with records such as Smile, On The Corner, There's A Riot Goin' On. But he did not say

that the comparisons would be in songwriting or pushing the boundaries of the particular art

form further. The similarities, Questo said, is in the keyboard patches. You can read the inter-

view here.

Black Messiah is awashed with eclectic instrumentation and strange and odd sounding keyboard

patches and effects. Yet, it still harkens too much to Voodoo, and that's kind of a letdown, in my
opinion.

Similar to how the first century Jews considered Jesus of Nazareth as just another messiah

claimant, I think D'Angelo was just another R&B messiah "suppose-er." He never pushed the

boundaries further. He simply re-imagined the height of R&B's decade, which was the 70s,
when R&B at the time was being corny-fied (thanks, Teddy!) and wussiedfied (all hail Babyface!).

D' should be lauded for composing beautiful Black American art. He is a great, albeit, troubled

artist whose artistic gaze has no use for what millenials accept as "art." Face it: today's pop R&B

is straight wack. It's a bunch of kids giving us art who don't have a decent sense of musicianship.
D'Angelo can be the most intriguing,yet cliche-ish musician I can remember - how
many supremely talented artists have flamed out only to re-appear amidst glory? Lots, that's how
many.

Black Messiah is funky, intelligently produced, and beautiful in its sound. D'Angelo makes some

of the sexiest albums in the genre; his taste in production and in re-imagining grooves is so

sophisticated. But he never veered outside his lane. And that is disappointing with his amount

of talent, and that is why I think Black Messiah is ultimately a footnote to Voodoo.

Philly76 said:

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Philly76 said:

tbh

after 14 years

is that all?

Did you expect an 120, 6 disc box set.

>

I honestly don't know.

To me it distinctly sounds like D'Angelo while not being a retread like people claim.

I mean listen to a song like "Prayer" and tell me it sounds like something from "Brown Sugar" or "VooDoo".

I think people were expecting a POW! moment but failed to recognize that D'Angelo doesn't do Pow! He wasn't going to have a "Purple Rain" 1984 thing going on, which while everyone is debating is the real difference between Prince and D'Angelo. To this day Prince still goes for POW! D'Angelo on the other hand is too grounded in his roots at this point. If he ever goes THERE it'll be a surprise.

But this album here? Justin Timberlake; sit! Neyo; sit! Chris Brown; please! I'm getting delirious now I don't even know why I typed that last sentence, but you get the idea.

By clear consensus, Black Messiah is the finest album of music ever recorded and it's not even very close. Damn, I can't WAIT to hear this thing!!

Full album booklet courtesy of Jesse Johnson: https://www.facebook.com/...6755491224

A few of the songs are very good, but many are humdrum. I don't like his mumbling vocals. Never did. Prince has a stronger voice.

A B+ album.

jasminejoey said:

By clear consensus, Black Messiah is the finest album of music ever recorded and it's not even very close. Damn, I can't WAIT to hear this thing!!

>

It's a giant leap forward from last year when critics were saying all kinds of crazy things about "Beyonce" when everyone knew she was never in danger of putting out a best album of anything, and I like Bey but c'mon...

Bought reviews?

I expected more..

[Edited 12/16/14 23:47pm]

In case anybody cares, here is D'Angelo's sales forecast:

D’Angelo (RCA) 95-100k sales / 100-105k SPS

SPS (Sales Plus Streaming)

KingSausage said:

Prince fans are hilarious. They get all upset when someone other than Prince releases a stellar funk/R&B/ soul album. Like this new album means you gotta hand in your copy of AOA or some shit. It's funny to me that Prince writes about anything that demands your attention being a waste of time or whatever on Affirmation. Disappears from social media. Buries his head in the sand. D'Angelo? He addresses the issues of today. He doesn't shirk. http://mobile.nytimes.com...;referrer= Also, D'Angelo would never put his name on something as shitty as Plectrum.

Amen... I can' believe this fng board... we live for outtakes.. and 3 songs like clouds on albums.... but peeps are shitting on this.

fng shame that it went this way on the board

aalloca said:

KingSausage said:

Prince fans are hilarious. They get all upset when someone other than Prince releases a stellar funk/R&B/ soul album. Like this new album means you gotta hand in your copy of AOA or some shit. It's funny to me that Prince writes about anything that demands your attention being a waste of time or whatever on Affirmation. Disappears from social media. Buries his head in the sand. D'Angelo? He addresses the issues of today. He doesn't shirk. http://mobile.nytimes.com...;referrer= Also, D'Angelo would never put his name on something as shitty as Plectrum.

Amen... I can' believe this fng board... we live for outtakes.. and 3 songs like clouds on albums.... but peeps are shitting on this.

fng shame that it went this way on the board

It has nothing to do with Prince. D'Angelo just released his 3rd album, his first in almost 15 years.

While he may be very good, he's not a legend just yet. Why is that so fucking bad? Not everybody needs to be a legend.

aalloca said:

KingSausage said:

Prince fans are hilarious. They get all upset when someone other than Prince releases a stellar funk/R&B/ soul album. Like this new album means you gotta hand in your copy of AOA or some shit. It's funny to me that Prince writes about anything that demands your attention being a waste of time or whatever on Affirmation. Disappears from social media. Buries his head in the sand. D'Angelo? He addresses the issues of today. He doesn't shirk. http://mobile.nytimes.com...;referrer= Also, D'Angelo would never put his name on something as shitty as Plectrum.

Amen... I can' believe this fng board... we live for outtakes.. and 3 songs like clouds on albums.... but peeps are shitting on this.

fng shame that it went this way on the board

Sixteen pages of posts and not one person has 'shat on it.' Curious statement.

KingSausage said:

jasminejoey said:

aalloca said:

Amen... I can' believe this fng board... we live for outtakes.. and 3 songs like clouds on albums.... but peeps are shitting on this.

fng shame that it went this way on the board

Sixteen pages of posts and not one person has 'shat on it.' Curious statement.

my man read through those 16 pages again, I just did and counted a few. not all ..some are constructive criticisms, but I am dissapointed by what I see as 2 sets of rules... one for the man with the name of the board and others.

I am/have been hard on D'angelo on this board for his lack of motivation and teasing of this album, read through my history if you like. But I think this is pushing envelopes like rnb/soul hasn't been pushed in a good long while. maybe since Andre's love below

novabrkr said:

I can see this record getting 4½ - 5 star reviews from critics. I think I like it the most out of the albums he's put out so far, if only for the reason that it's heavier on the funk.

I agree with the criticism that the recordings could have more clarity to them. I understand that it's his artistic decision to have his stuff sound this way, but a lot of the cool and artsy stuff must go unnoticed by many of the listeners because it can easily become just stuff that plays in the background. I was a little disappointed in the studio version of "Charade", because there's all kinds of great things going on there, but he doesn't quite drive it all the way home on the album. Like, could you emphasize the hooks next time around and just let me enjoy the good stuff, right?

I do think there's some artistic progress there and that that it's not just a copy of "Brown Sugar" and "Voodoo". There are more synths and distorted guitars used throughout it. It's not so reliant on that loud rimshot sound to give it the signature D'Angelo sound as Voodoo was and that's a good thing. "1000 Deaths" doesn't really sound like his old stuff to me.

It's not really a "ladies' record" on the whole, is it? It's like he decided to do a record mostly for the guys this time around.

agree 1000% on this Nova

Stymie said:

D'angelo is not as gifted, prolific & musically inclined on EVERY instrument as .

But he should be bowed downed to, for beating drugs and making a MAJOR comeback!!

Militant said:

Neversin said:

In the last 14 years Prince has released at least 3 albums worth of music better than anything on "Black Messiah"...

"Black Messiah" suffers from the same blandness that Janelle Monae's albums have;

- first listen, really good album
- second listen, notice too many misses and annoyances

- third listen, album has become stale

It's just disposable music on a disposable album and not worth 14 years of waiting...

After 14 years D'angelo still can't sing and his mumbling and squeeling schtick is old and tired...
Really good production and musicianship on the album though, got to give him that...

Neversin.

Agreed with this.

I'd say there's 3 good songs on the D album. That's it.

Brothaman needs to learn to write a catchy melody, stop mumbling, and learn how to write a good chord progression.

Ya, a lot of mid tempo mumbling. It's okay in small doses but after three listens I'm less than enthused with an entire cd of it. I'm happy to support D but probably wont listen to BM too often.

novabrkr said:

UncleJam said:

I remember when I used to get this excited for new Prince albums.

I remember when I used to get excited about getting high, but after doing it for a good number of years the novelty wore off.

OK... I've heard the album now. Very solid. Superior, I think, to all of his prior projects. Taking nothing away from this win, I personally still want to hear what D'Angelo would do in the way of more varied compositions, namely up-tempo and rock-inflected stuff. I've long suspected he's had the musical vocabulary, and "1000 Deaths" (which is now possibly my favourite track ever from this guy) confirms he's got the chops.

I hope it's not another 14 years before we get more.

[img:$uid]http://i1.minus.com/jbax4prliLsJWW.jpg[/img:$uid]


Rock this mutha! I like this image from the album booklet.

Lammastide said:

OK... I've heard the album now. Very solid. Superior, I think, to all of his prior projects. Taking nothing away from this win, I personally still want to hear what D'Angelo would do in the way of more varied compositions, namely up-tempo and rock-inflected stuff. I've long suspected he's had the musical vocabulary, and "1000 Deaths" (which is now possibly my favourite track ever from this guy) confirms he's got the chops.

I hope it's not another 14 years before we get more.

Are u glad u picked it up?

Just finished first listen...

Really digging this. Musically it's very Voodoo part 2 to my ears.

Some funky stuff on here!

Interestingly, on first listen the only song I didn't like is 1000 Deaths, which seems to be getting a lot of love from everyone else. I'll have to see if it grows on me or not. Loving every other song though!!

Identity said:

KingSausage said:

Identity said:

[img:$uid]http://i1.minus.com/jbax4prliLsJWW.jpg[/img:$uid]


Rock this mutha! I like this image from the album booklet.

Where did you get that booklet?? I heard the lyrics didn't make the CD booklet, but is that picture in it? It rules.

Came with the gift bag at the listening party.