>Here goes my reply: <BR>>>stevie: SONGS IN THE... was held back <BR>>>for 2 and a half years. <P>>You just made my original point. 2 <BR>>and 1/2 years doesn't equal 5 <BR>>years. <P>So if Voodoo would have been released in two and a half years, it would be a better record? It would be more worthy? That really seems to be a silly point. Again, they took to damn long to get this record out but the timing does not reflect on whther or not its groundbreaking. If it came out 2 and a half years ago, I'm sure you would still believe that it was merely a good record.<P>>You're preaching to the choir here..and again, >making my point. "Here, My Dear" is arguably his >greatest collective piece of work. It >commercially flopped, and within another year or >so, he was able to put out another album. No >artificial release dates, no hyping, no >bullshit. It really shouldn't take a musician >five years to come out with excellent product. >Ask Me'shell, who within the five years between >D's two, put out three great ones of her own. <P>Again, so great albums should never have artificial media hype. Then Songs is not a great album. Do you know the hype and promotion machine that Berry Gordy put behing this album? Berry Gordy is the King of Hype my friend. I mean Berry was about to lose his shirt waiting on Stevie to produce Songs. Motown's whole fiscal year was based on what Songs would do. Berry hyped and promoted that record like none other. Remember this was back in the days before Soundscan. Gold and Platinum sales were determined not by how many units were bought at the store but by how many units were shipped. Motowon shipped a million units of Songs, that was something unheard of at the time and it was all part of Berry's hype and sales strategy to assure people that Songs was a classic and that Stevie was a genius, so please let's not rewrite history here. Again, if you think Voodoo isn't groundbreaking, you have every right to believe so. But don't change history.<P>>Ask Me'shell, who within the five years between >D's two, put out three great ones of her own. <P>Better point. This album was deemed as an album of the year and a great piece of work the second it dropped, so I guess you have no problem with critics rushing to judge an album as classic in this case. However, what if Maverick would have "artificailly hyped" and promoted Bitter? You know what would've happened? Maybe Me'shell would get some of the recognition she deserves and maybe the album would be somewhere near approaching Gold status. So r u saying great artists shouldn't have their stuff heavily promoted? That makes no sense to me because that would only further destroy the qualty of black music. I do think that Bitter is a greater piece of work en masse then Voodoo for reasons hard to describe succintly but the fact that it wasn't promoted or the fact that Me'shell put it out in a shorter time period has nothing to do with it.<P>>I didn't mean to imply that the <BR>>artists from a previous generation were <BR>>unscathed. I did, however, state that <BR>>they consistently and regularly gave us <BR>>excellent releases, and it didn't take <BR>>them five years to do so <BR>>(in most cases, around a year). <P>I understand the point you are trying to make but I think you're really generalizing and overstating. Some artists were prolific like Aretha who was turning out album after album but she also was used like a mule by Arif Mardin and company, plus she barely wrote any of the songs she recorded and barely played on any of the music (Although Aretha can play her ass off on the piano and her sister had some of the most beautiful background vocal arrangements in the history of black music). Secondly, back then, especially, when there were separate albums released it wasn't necceessarily a different recording process or anything. These artists would just have some of their recording sessions broken up and put out as albums. So it wasn'tlike they were going back every year and a half and saying let's try something else, these albums were just part of what they were already doing and had ben done. The whole JB catalog is reminiscent of this (probable exceptions of Black Caesar soundtrack and the Big Payback) for the most part before, 70's Stevie and Marvin, albums were just a collection of sides. Artists recorded single after single and that's all record companies cared about they weren't really into albums as a piece of work, expecailly in black music. And a lot fo the the work on some of those albums are just ok not classic at all. Hindsight is something else but a lot of these artists you refer to have so much out that they had plenty of classic cuts but not that many of them put out stellar, solid groundbreaking albums. iT's hard to do that when you're churning out singles. <P> Now for Motown artists with the exception of Stevie and Marvin, who we already know took time to put out their stuff, who else was putting out conssitently great material, irregardless of the time it took?<P>“What are the rewards of those who tend to their God-given talents as they would have the creator tend to their spirits and daily lives? What happens when the artist becomes the conjur man? These are questions that seem to be null and void in the face of all the glitter and glamour that has dominated most successful balck artistry of recent years. We seem to be more preoccupied with cultivating our bank accounts than cultivating our crafts. Nowadays, I find my peers more inspired by an artist's business tactics than their artistry. In fact, we do not seem to mind an artistry that suffers in the face of seemingly good business. More artists yearn to own their own labels, etc. than they seem to yearn to master their crafts. No, we cannot allow any more Bessie Smiths to occur, but once an artist owns their own publishing the question then becomes, what are you going to publish?”<P>The VooDoo Manifesto – Saul Williams

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