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"Brown Sugar"
by D'Angelo
By Webjockey CasimirPulaski
Check out Webjockey CasimirPulaski's Rifflist:
Brown Sugar
At 21 D'Angelo revitalized the hip-hop/soul scene of the mid-90s with his debut album Brown Sugar. At the time the trend was to take soul songs and re-cut them to hip-hop beats but this became stale fast. D'Angelo instead chose to use hip-hop flavors and apply them sparingly to soul music that he wrote himself. The soul of Marvin Gaye and the pop sensibilities of Prince are both apparent in his influences and while he'd be nowhere without influences of the like, D'Angelo does a nice job of adding to the genre with a touch of his own.
The groove of this 1995 album is undeniable. While some of the tracks seem to lack significant departures from the others, throughout the album there is such a vein of deep soul that it's hard to not intrinsically enjoy every one of them. D'Angelo's voice is among the best for contemporary soul singers, and the lazy slurring of his singing is always pitch perfect and deep in the pocket. The effortless nature of his singing is one of the marvels of this album, not to mention D'Angelo plays many of the instruments himself.
Among the ten tracks, there are several stand-outs. One such song is the title track, with its chorus of D'Angelos, funky organ tone and grooving bass and drums combo. Another is "Shit, Damn, Motherfucker," a modern-day "Hey Joe" narrative. The lyrics are rough by any standards, telling the story of catching your wife with another man and subsequently stabbing them to death, but the instrumentation is so tight and the vocals so haunting you seem to forget what you're listening to. This is perhaps what is greatest about D'Angelo, no matter the content, you're going to enjoy what he brings to the table, it's almost as if you don't have a choice. His music connects undeniably with something deep beneath the surface.
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