Music geekery - D'Angelo
I’d like to talk about music and the myth of music.
1) Because of my age, I’m prone to seeing music video as an important thing. Realizing that MTV means Music Television is becoming as much of a sign of doddering old age as calling CBS the Columbia Broadcast Station, but it’s accurate. Once upon a time, tiny movies walked the earth and were shown on the box-from-which-reality-shows-emerge. It’s true.
Thinking in terms of music video makes me prone to see missed music video opportunities. Sia’s fantastically sassy song “The Girl You Lost To Cocaine” is a prime example, as the video’s… quirky. Doesn’t fit the song for crap, but it’s certainly quirky. I’d love to see the video as a quadruple-speed capture of a girl angrily packing to leave, with normal speed interludes in which the girl interacts with her ex’s dealer, her friends and the like. That would be a nice counterpoint to the song. Dancing around soundstages in costumes? No.
2) Being a huge geek, I’m quick to toss the word “genius” out about artists whose work I enjoy. This dilutes the brand a bit, especially when a work of real genius comes along.
D’Angelo’s 2000 album, “Voodoo” fits that bill. The album, at its absolute worse, is a rolling, sliding R&B album from an era when ProTools was a novelty item, the Soulquarians were creating avant-garde popular black music in their various incarnations and a male performer needed to have more than just a nice stomach to make his mark in the music industry.
At its best, “Voodoo” is revelatory. The skeletal grooves that D’Angelo’s band inhabits are simultaneously languid and urgent. Each song wears its influences on its sleeve (the guitar line from “When We Get By” refers directly to Parliament’s “One Nation Under A Groove”) without pandering to the past or seeking to hide in the shadows of its elders. “The Root,” my favorite song on the album, is incantatory, working call and response into a song about love, sex and hoodoo that easily becomes more than the sum of its parts. The album as a whole is a masterclass in black music, making everything from party songs to covers to the hoary old “I want to have intercourse with you all night long and make relations on your back” song real, new and important.
Genius.
3) The song for which D’Angelo’s best known, and one of his finest, is one of those “intercourse you up” songs, “Untitled (How Does It Feel?)” It’s gorgeous, it’s sexy as all hell and it’s smart. It sets a scene wonderfully, from the first muttered “Turn that track up” to the final gospel shouts.
The song’s not remembered for its musical innovation, though.
It’s remembered as “that song that had the video where D looked like he was getting head while he was singing.”
Which is as unfortunate as it is ironic. Ironic because, to a degree, his downfall was due to attempting to purchase a beej from an undercover cop. Well, that and the booze and drugs.
(A note: This characterization in no way speaks to any opposition to fellatio. On the contrary, I’m a big supporter and advocate. Were there a charity telethon for fellatio, I’d donate money. Were there a 5K fun run/walk, I would participate. I’d even buy a shirt.)
4) Music, like everything that really matters, is best observed through the scrim of myth. “Untitled,” in everything from the tinny rehearsal-hall piano to the gradual buy-in of the band and backup singers, is a fantastic mythform that’s as real and magical as Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, Anansi getting caught in the tar baby or Robin Hood firing that last arrow to the site where his body would be buried.
The song is genesis via jam session. It's false, of course. The band you hear in the song is three men. The vocals are all D'Angelo, backing and lead. The song's well-conceived, intricately crafted and very much an idiosyncratic expression of wanting to freak you funky-style from an idiosyncratic musical genius.
The myth of genesis via jam session, though, is too strong not to put to use.
Turn the song on in another window, if you would. Don’t worry. I’ll wait.
Now, listen. Imagine the band sitting around a practice space as D’Angelo comes in, handing out sheet music for a new song, something he just thought up. He sits at the piano and, as the bassist and drummer tentatively begin to play, he starts in.
Gradually, the rest of the band comes in, building on the vamp as D’Angelo sings. The backup singers follow, moving from occasional “oohs” to sweeping, swirling counterpoint, making their part of the song their own.
Somewhere in the midst of things, you’ve got that moment of realization that this thing could work. Each performer knows the song because they’ve built the song. They’ve made it their own, and it’s up and walking. The rhythm section maintains the beat while the guitar and vocalists sneak in, no one wanting to rush into anything, enjoying the flow of the thing and the glow following creation well done… and then, as a body, they begin to swoop and rush to conclusion. It’s not climax, because it’s simply the affirmation that this thing is real, it’s here and it’s glorious in and of itself. Climax ends. This doesn’t.
And then the song stops. D admits that he hadn’t figured out a way to end the thing. Everyone laughs. Fade to black as the Lady in the Lake sinks under the water, Excalibur at her side.
See? Much better than naked guy singing.
1) Because of my age, I’m prone to seeing music video as an important thing. Realizing that MTV means Music Television is becoming as much of a sign of doddering old age as calling CBS the Columbia Broadcast Station, but it’s accurate. Once upon a time, tiny movies walked the earth and were shown on the box-from-which-reality-shows-emerge. It’s true.
Thinking in terms of music video makes me prone to see missed music video opportunities. Sia’s fantastically sassy song “The Girl You Lost To Cocaine” is a prime example, as the video’s… quirky. Doesn’t fit the song for crap, but it’s certainly quirky. I’d love to see the video as a quadruple-speed capture of a girl angrily packing to leave, with normal speed interludes in which the girl interacts with her ex’s dealer, her friends and the like. That would be a nice counterpoint to the song. Dancing around soundstages in costumes? No.
2) Being a huge geek, I’m quick to toss the word “genius” out about artists whose work I enjoy. This dilutes the brand a bit, especially when a work of real genius comes along.
D’Angelo’s 2000 album, “Voodoo” fits that bill. The album, at its absolute worse, is a rolling, sliding R&B album from an era when ProTools was a novelty item, the Soulquarians were creating avant-garde popular black music in their various incarnations and a male performer needed to have more than just a nice stomach to make his mark in the music industry.
At its best, “Voodoo” is revelatory. The skeletal grooves that D’Angelo’s band inhabits are simultaneously languid and urgent. Each song wears its influences on its sleeve (the guitar line from “When We Get By” refers directly to Parliament’s “One Nation Under A Groove”) without pandering to the past or seeking to hide in the shadows of its elders. “The Root,” my favorite song on the album, is incantatory, working call and response into a song about love, sex and hoodoo that easily becomes more than the sum of its parts. The album as a whole is a masterclass in black music, making everything from party songs to covers to the hoary old “I want to have intercourse with you all night long and make relations on your back” song real, new and important.
Genius.
3) The song for which D’Angelo’s best known, and one of his finest, is one of those “intercourse you up” songs, “Untitled (How Does It Feel?)” It’s gorgeous, it’s sexy as all hell and it’s smart. It sets a scene wonderfully, from the first muttered “Turn that track up” to the final gospel shouts.
The song’s not remembered for its musical innovation, though.
It’s remembered as “that song that had the video where D looked like he was getting head while he was singing.”
Which is as unfortunate as it is ironic. Ironic because, to a degree, his downfall was due to attempting to purchase a beej from an undercover cop. Well, that and the booze and drugs.
(A note: This characterization in no way speaks to any opposition to fellatio. On the contrary, I’m a big supporter and advocate. Were there a charity telethon for fellatio, I’d donate money. Were there a 5K fun run/walk, I would participate. I’d even buy a shirt.)
4) Music, like everything that really matters, is best observed through the scrim of myth. “Untitled,” in everything from the tinny rehearsal-hall piano to the gradual buy-in of the band and backup singers, is a fantastic mythform that’s as real and magical as Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, Anansi getting caught in the tar baby or Robin Hood firing that last arrow to the site where his body would be buried.
The song is genesis via jam session. It's false, of course. The band you hear in the song is three men. The vocals are all D'Angelo, backing and lead. The song's well-conceived, intricately crafted and very much an idiosyncratic expression of wanting to freak you funky-style from an idiosyncratic musical genius.
The myth of genesis via jam session, though, is too strong not to put to use.
Turn the song on in another window, if you would. Don’t worry. I’ll wait.
Now, listen. Imagine the band sitting around a practice space as D’Angelo comes in, handing out sheet music for a new song, something he just thought up. He sits at the piano and, as the bassist and drummer tentatively begin to play, he starts in.
Gradually, the rest of the band comes in, building on the vamp as D’Angelo sings. The backup singers follow, moving from occasional “oohs” to sweeping, swirling counterpoint, making their part of the song their own.
Somewhere in the midst of things, you’ve got that moment of realization that this thing could work. Each performer knows the song because they’ve built the song. They’ve made it their own, and it’s up and walking. The rhythm section maintains the beat while the guitar and vocalists sneak in, no one wanting to rush into anything, enjoying the flow of the thing and the glow following creation well done… and then, as a body, they begin to swoop and rush to conclusion. It’s not climax, because it’s simply the affirmation that this thing is real, it’s here and it’s glorious in and of itself. Climax ends. This doesn’t.
And then the song stops. D admits that he hadn’t figured out a way to end the thing. Everyone laughs. Fade to black as the Lady in the Lake sinks under the water, Excalibur at her side.
See? Much better than naked guy singing.