The music snob in me can think of numerous recipients for this wonderful someecard (IE sponsoring notwithstanding).
(JUAN.of.a.KIND) |
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"Astonishment is our natural state of mind." - Paul Harris.
"Style is what an artist uses to fascinate the beholder in order to convey to him his feelings and emotions and thoughts." - Stanley Kubrick.
"Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it." - Bruce Lee.
"If ya ears hurt, you shouldn't listen. That means you artificial and my style'll poison ya brain tissue." - Black Thought
"I also believed that comics were capable of more than just making people laugh. So in my themes I incorporated tears, grief, anger, and hate, and I created stories where the ending was not always happy." - Osamu Tezuka
The TOP 40 albums (both official and unofficial) that I’ve scrobbled over the past 12 months. Technology, I tells ya!
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TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2010:
1. N*E*R*D - Nothing —-> Check out my preferred tracklist here!
Choice cut #2: Victory
For being victorious in winning the “grand prize” of top spot on my countdown of favourite albums from 2K10, N*E*R*D’s return-to-form opus gets 2 (count ‘em, TWO) consecutive audio posts. Because, as we all know, we only get one valuable Tumblr audio post a day to use wisely, although we should at least get 2 (come on, slippery slope!).
A 5-spot of LPs righ-chea…that I also enjoyed during the last 12 months, but didn’t make my personal stacked Top 10 (listed in order of release date):
- Massive Attack - Heligoland
- Reflection Eternal - Revolutions Per Minute
- John Legend & The Roots - Wake Up!
- Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross - The Social Network
- Ghostface Killah - Apollo Kids
A tremendous year for music, no doubt. My ears greatly thank all of these talented artists for their quality creative output which in turn gives a memorable soundtrack to our everyday lives. Yay for (good) music!
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TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2010:
2. The Roots - How I Got Over
Choice cut: Right On (feat. Joanna Newsom & STS)
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TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2010:
3. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Choice cut: All Of The Lights (w/ interlude intro)
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TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2010:
5. El-P -Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3
Choice cut: Meanstreak (In 3 Parts)
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TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2010:
6. The Foreign Exchange - Authenticity
Choice cut: This City Ain’t The Same Without You (feat. YahZarah)
I posted this lovely track once before. And although I’m trying to stick to joints that I’ve never posted for this countdown, the atmosphere of this track (i.e. warm and tender images amidst the background of the cold city) was rather suitable for this time of year (currently feels like -19 Celsius out there).
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TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2010:
7. Big Boi. - Sir Lucious Left Foot…The Son Of Chico Dusty
Choice cut: Night Night
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TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2010:
9. Slum Village. - Villa Manifesto
Choice cut: 2000 Beyond
J Dilla on the hook, ?uestlove on the live drums.
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“Turn the track up…”
And the TOP album of the decade (IMO, of course) is…
Swerve! There is a tie for Number 1! I just couldn’t choose between either of these albums as they both deserve to be crowned the best of the 2000s. Plus they’re fraternal twins musically (and how the hell am I gonna choose between twins?). But for now, this will be my last post of the decade (and as you know, I like to go big as opposed to go home). So with or without further adieu, I present to you my TOP album choice of the decade: Pt. I
1. D’Angelo - Voodoo (2000)
Choice Cut: Untitled (How Does It Feel) [Prod. D’Angelo, Raphael Saadiq)
Sure Shots: The Line, Chicken Grease, The Root
The distilled ambiance of an Al Green song, the ambiguous sexual majesty of a Prince song, the creative genius of Stevie Wonder…D’Angelo has made his choices, carefully weaving them into his character.
-Quote taken from the Voodoo liner notes (which still smell brand new 10 years later, due to the earthy, rustic paper that was used…if you own the disc, go ahead and take a spiritual whiff).
When you can remember the exact conditions/surroundings/occurrences of the day that you purchased and listened to an entire album, then you know that said album is something very special (a classic, if you will). I still remember where and when I got this album; it was a snowy January afternoon and I was coming back from classes. Made a stop over at the local mall while changing buses. Spotted the oft-delayed and highly anticipated Voodoo finally sitting on the new release shelves. Copped it with the quickness. Caught the next bus home, kicked off my outdoor gear, popped the CD into my 3-disc changer (haha) and laid on my bed and just closed my eyes as I absorbed the vibe. Incidentally, D’Angelo’s Voodoo was also my very first personal purchase of the 2000s. True story.
It must be acknowledged that SO many talented artists had a significant hand in working on this soulful recording. The assemblage is bar none one of the greatest rhyme & rhythm sections of all-time that includes the likes of: Raphael Saadiq, DJ Premier, Meth & Red, Q-Tip, Pino Palladino, Roy Hargrove, Charlie Hunter (who amazingly plays guitar and bass at the SAME time on the majestic 3-spot of The Root, Spanish Joint and GreatDayNDaMornin’) and of course the Soulquarians (D, ?uestlove, J Dilla/Jay Dee, James Poyser) who were in full bloom at this time. In addition, Voodoo also took nearly 4 years(!) to complete, beginning in the summer of 1996 all the way until near its release date of January 2000. I vividly remember the multiple delays that this album went through and how the anticipation for D’s sophomore effort just kept growing and growing with each set back (especially after a stellar and multiple award-winning debut such as 1995’s Brown Sugar). Clearly, D was waiting til things were just perfect. You can’t rush inspiration and you can’t rush the making of a timeless masterpiece, which is what this LP is through and through.
Additionally, the amazing music on this album inspired, helped to create and was also inspired by music from Slum Village’s Fantastic Volume 2 and Common’s Like Water For Chocolate*, all of which (along with Reflection Eternal’s Train of Thought) came out in the incredible musical year of 2000 (but each of the recordings were birthed 2-4 years before).
*It was a close call between Like Water For Chocolate and Be for Com’s best album of this decade. I ended up going with Be because it was sort of a re-birth for Lonnie Lynn and felt like one continuous track (due to its incredible cohesion and strong theme/message to just Be). Kanye and Dilla also provided some of the best production you could ever ask for. In Ye’s case, Be is still my favourite recording that he was ever a major part of (and that includes his own albums).
music lovers come under 2 umbrellas. number one: those who use it for growth and spiritual fulfillment and number two: those who use it for mere background music. the thing is, this record is too extreme to play the middle of the fence. this record is the litmus test that will reveal the most for your personality. cats who live for music and all the new directions it can show you have cried when i played this record for them (i don’t wanna embarrass no one but i assure you at least 7 of your favourite artists were on their knees BAWLING because of this astounding document of music. this is what we need today…this is no miseducation…this is the blueprint right here!).
-?uestlove, from an early review of the near finished Voodoo in late ‘99, posted on the then new OkayPlayer website. These reviews don’t seem to exist on the net anymore, so it’s a good thing that I printed this one (a very detailed track-for-track review) out when I did (over 10 years ago!). Found the paper stacks hiding deep within my closet just yesterday.
As always, ?uesto speaks the truth. This is one of those albums that separates the men/women/serious music fans from the boys/girls/casual listeners. There are no lightweight compositions on this album. Just looking at the tracklisting, not one joint out of the 13 is shorter than 4.5 minutes long and most of them go into the 6 and 7 minute zone. But never does Voodoo feel like it’s dragging at any time. It challenges the listener while creating an unbelievable vibe that is hot damn sexy as hell. And as a result, the album enlightens and entertains. Voodoo truly lives up to its namesake and beautifully works its magical spell over the listener.
Guitar musician/techie geek/Chappelle’s show guest/popular dork John Mayer once said that Voodoo is what inspired him to become a professional musician and even wrote an open letter in a fashion publication (not sure if it was GQ or Esquire or something or other) saying as much and pleading with D’Angelo to come back to the music scene and begin creating again. Obviously, if D’s own Soulquarian peers couldn’t convince the soulful enigma to get back into the recording studio, then Mayer was sh!t outta luck (and so were the fans). But it was a valiant effort nonetheless and something that all of D’s admirers wished would materialize into something substantial. But 10 years after Voodoo and we’re all still waiting…very, very patiently.
Although there is probably no better album to rest on one’s laurels than Voodoo, it’s still unbelievable that someone with the immense talent of Michael Archer (D’Angelo’s real name) hasn’t released any official studio recordings in the past 10 years. But to be fair, he has experienced his share of misfortunes/personal struggles over the same time period: D got into a serious car accident a few years back (and thankfully recovered), allegedly became grossly out of shape (especially for a man that made this famous music video), suffered from a great lack of inspiration and alienated himself from some of his peers (i.e. ?uestlove’s story regarding D’s planned appearance on Break You Off from the Phrenology LP, the track of which was completed after many scheduling/record label headaches but D’s version was ultimately unreleased).
Speaking as a fellow Aquarian (D’s birthday is Feb. 11, mine is Feb. 14…and while I’m at it, Dilla was also an Aquarian, born on Feb. 7), we can definitely be aloof, moody and sometimes wish to just isolate ourselves from everyone like the aliens we can sometimes act like, all while still finding outlets for our sometimes uncontrollable creativity when the passionate self-expression bug bites (I’m no musician by any means, but I do love to use music and film for personal growth and spiritual fulfillment as well as write and write and write, as you can probably tell…hey, wake up!). But until D’angelo can find the passion to record on a regular basis, we’ve got 2 incredible albums to enjoy repeatedly as well as a slew of Voodoo outtakes: recording sessions/covers that were created during the aforesaid time period, but were cut from the album or were never meant for the Voodoo (that D do). D’angelo’s sophomore effort is not only the best album of this decade (IMO), but one of the greatest albums of all-time (I’m sure that’s not only my opinion).
Now if you’ll ex-squeeze me (actually, I am certain that NO ONE is reading this right now since it’s close to New Year’s here in EST), I have to go bring out the beers/hard liquor for tonight’s celebration (bitches) as well as set the table for my family’s traditional New Year’s Day feast, which occurs shortly after midnight and is traditionally our way of ringing in the new year with health, nourishment and some damn good food and drinks ASAP (along with a bunch of other traditions that I don’t feel like going into detail about right now). So then, the very best to you and yours; have a great time ringing in the new decade with those who mean the most to you. And see/hear from you guys in 2010.
Grey Daze Theme by Polaraul
