Listening to: Voodoo – D’Angelo
Year: 2000
Genre: R&B
As a lover of R&B, I know I couldn’t pass on not listening to a D’Angelo album at least once. Ironically, this isn’t my first run-in with D’angelo. I initially listened to his Black Messiah album to a somewhat mixed reception. I enjoyed the somewhat weird songwriting and instrumentation, but I could just not vibe with it. I know if I understood the context to that album and maybe learned more complex songwriting methodologies, I’d be able to appreciate it. But my first impressions on an album often stays with certain and big exceptions that I might showcase in another post.
But enough rambling, we’re here to talk about Voodoo and man this is such a vibey and sexy album. I came across this as my good friend and I were talking about funky and groovy music and this song ended up on their Spotify’s discovery weekly. Least to say, we fell in love with the track instantly and I wanted to go even deeper.
While I can finally hear the nuances and motifs that D’Angelo had when composing his music, this record was considerably more vibey than Black Messiah. The bass is so rich and thick with so much texture and the percussive strike with incisiveness without overstaying its welcome. Tracks like Send It exhibit this quality perfectly. Seriously, I can’t even explain how good this track makes me feel. A combination of the groovy bass line, lowkey drums and D’Angelo’s vocals is mixed in absolutely perfect balance.
And despite that, it still has the complexity that keeps me coming back to this album. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve listened to this album probably 3 times just today, and I’ve had a pretty busy day going out on a photo shoot for my org. Any time I had free time, I’d just plug in the Muse HiFi East 6 and just vibe and I could not go wrong.
This made me realize that complexity is what makes one go back to an album more than once because if I understood this album immediately, I probably would’ve been like “Yeah, nice album next one.” I’m literally listening to each song and trying to figure them out, but unless I actually focus on each song, it would require me more than 10 listens to just understand this album in its entirety.
Anyway, this is definitely an album I’ll be coming back to. I loved this album from start to finish and yes I could not completely understand what it’s trying to do. Is it a collection of groovy beats or does it try to tell a cohesive story? I’ll find out eventually. Until then, I just gotta appreciate how groovy this album is.
My total absolutely unbiased scoring:
Vibe: 10/10
Flow: 7/10
Mixing: 9/10
Complexity: 8/10
Consistency: 8/10
Emotional Factor: 6/10
Fave Track:
Send It On
Gears Used:
Muse HiFi The East 6
HiBy R3 III
Das it, das music
