dialogue abt ANYTHING...LOL....everything (in the Lesson) ends up becoming a competition abt this artist being better than this one...or ppl trying to dissect and discredit an artist's music for the most minutae of reasons -- "they don't like so and so's chord progressions" or "so and so sounds too nasal when he sings" or whatever the case may be

but

having said that...

Let me start off by saying anyone who shows the potential to be great whether in sports, acting, and/or music always has a certain level of unrealistic expectations placed upon them...and D'angelo is no different.

I'm a huge fan of D'angelo and think his sound embodies many of the past soul giants from Al, Curtis, Jimi, Marvin, Sly and of course Prince...and he manages to encapsulate these many sounds w/o sounding dated but very current in fact. That to me is a big part of his genius. (something he writes abt in great depth in the liner notes of 'Voodoo')

His 1st cd, 'Brown Sugar,' tapped into a bygone era of blk soul music that many ppl, myself included, thought was a thing of the past.

I think a lot of the hype heaped upon him on this board and elsewhere had to do with ppl from generations past and present being so starved musically of *true* soul music. The 80s represented somewhat of a deviation, for better or worse, from the "soul (r&b) era" of the 70s, and became more abt (contemporary) R&B and less soulfulness w/artists like Luther Vandross, Peabo Bryson, Freddie Jackson, Whitney, and Angela Winbush and others.

That's not by any means to say that that music didn't have its place and its share of supporters or that it didn't produce A LOT of great music and artists alike, but seemingly true soul music became somewhat of a relic particularly w/HipHop becoming the most listened to music and for a brief stint, "New Jack Swing" filling in as the replacement in the early 90s to the conventional soul/r&b music most ppl were accustomed to hearing.

Fast forward to the mid 90s when music w/live instrumentation starting to have a place once again in music beginning w/the acid jazz movement which preceded the "neo-soul" movement, and thus the birth of such acts as D, Erykah, Lauryn, Jill etc. (people felt hopeful once again abt the direction soul/r&b music was going in)

Honestly speaking, though, I haven't heard many ppl already proclaiming D'angelo's greatness as you suggested in the topic but I'm sure there are those who do feel that way. I certainly don't place him amongst the greats (yet) but he has served as a standard bearer for his generation of r&b/soul artists.

In addition, let me say that just because he has ONLY TWO CDS in his discography doesn't mean he isn't or shouldn't or can't be thought of as a great artist. I cite someone like B.I.G. in HipHop who has a large contingent that thinks he's the greatest MC to ever grip a mic or L-Boogie who's also regarded by many as being the greatest female MC of all time and she only has ONE solo CD to her name and TWO as a member of the Fugees outfit.

So I say all this to say that I hope (for D'angelo's sake) that his new cd is a commercial success but more importantly, I'm just glad he's back to making music and I hope more than anything that the music is sonically as tight as his 1st two cds.