|
>Unlike cats who were jumping off
>the deep-end left and right in that post, saying he's vocally
>on par with Marvin Gaye,
>Aaron Hall, and Phillip Bailey and all kinds of astronomically
>comical stuff.
first off, go back into the bilal post and address my request for specific examples for your argument. bilal "creates more"? WHERE DO YOU THINK HE "CREATES SOMETHING COMPLETELY NEW"???:
http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=2913211&mesg_id=2913211&page=2#2914658
second, including aaron hall wasn't "random" at all. d'angelo cited aaron hall as an influence in his recent red bull interview with chairman mao:
http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/dangelo-black-messiah-inspirations-interview
as for d'angelo's singing, he's developed his own unique voice that's just as moving and creative (or effective) as all the singers i listed. you said they could "sing him under the table" and i call bullshit.
out the gate, he was doing some really interesting shit, especially with his vox arrangements: "dreamin eyes" "alright" "higher" etc. i can't recall any of his contemporaries bringing that many layers and nuances and creativity, especially not when they were 19-21. the press always citied marvin, but i thought he was channeling old gospel vocal groups.
and his rap/singing style on the song "brown sugar"...d's music has always been informed by hip-hop, which gave everything and added edge the others didn't (or never had). dudes on my high school bball squad never felt soft when they had "brown sugar" in their walkman on the bus.
and related to that, his falsetto voice has always been as masculine as it is pretty. that's not easy to pull off. others had pretty falsettos, but it could get feminine (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that at all), or even whiney and shrill.
starting with the jazz cafe show, i noticed that he was adding some of that "squaller", which i think sounded more like an extension of his playing and added some funk even more edge. this is when i noticed that his voice was really becoming his own.
but it was still beautiful and moving: see "untitled". honestly, any singer who tries to cover "untitled" sounds off. they might pull off the pretty part, but there's no muscle behind it. see: usher and adam levine's live cover on "the voice". no other singer can touch that song.
then he gives "the root" which built on all the shit above, and created something no other singer could EVER touch. so many layers, so beautiful, so moving, so much technical stuff (backwards shit, singing in between chords, etc.), voices coming outta nowhere, etc.
"devil's pie" = slaves singing the in fields over a fat joe-rejected primo beat??? what other singer is that creative???
and he can get a little weird too. "glass mountain trust" and "tutu" sound like erykah singing from outer space. so he can have a masculine falsetto AND a warped interstellar female sci-fi voice???
but then when you think he depends too much on fx, harmonies, and weirdness, he gives us "prayer" which may be his most beautiful, naked, painful, performance yet. even before that, his "everybody loves the sunshine" cover was just one voice.
he's got vocal strength live: his national anthem performance, "devils" pie during the voodoo tours, even his recent afro punk show.
and he's got the ballads: "higher" "cruisin" "heaven must be like this" "send it on" "untitled" "really love" "another life"
given the above, i think he deserves to be in the conversation.
Happy 50th D’Angelo: https://chrisp.bandcamp.com/track/d-50
|
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
The Lesson
