The immediate response to "Black Messiah" has been positive, to say the least. So allow me to anticipate the backlash to this very good record with a bit of my own contrarian shittiness.
The typical crack on D'Angelo is that the man doesn't really have an identity of his own. Yes, he has a "sound" that is easy to identify as the "D'Angelo sound"-- think spare but groovy percussion, put super high in the mix; some guitar licks and keyboard riffs sprinkled in here and there; multi-tracked falsetto vocals all over the damn-- but that sound is really just a mixture of previously existing soul sounds. "Voodoo" was Al Green and Marvin Gaye; "Black Messiah" adds in a bunch of Funkadelic guitars and Parliament studio whackery.
For me, the lack of "sonic originality" isn't too big of a deal. As Dave Marsh has pointed out, soul music is syncretic: getting from one act to another usually just involves adding or subtracting a few time-tested elements (example: The Isley Brothers are Motown funk with Hendrix pyrotechnics). What bugs me, then, at least on "Black Messiah," is the seeming lack of "vision." The timing of the record's release and its somewhat pompous liner notes ask us to view it as a political album (certainly, 90% of the critical establishment has not had a problem following these cues). But I dunno. What is political about "Black Messiah" isn't exactly deep-- cool a couplet as it may be, "All we wanted was a chance to talk / 'stead we only got outlined in chalk" says not-a-whole-lot about contemporary race relations-- and what isn't political about "Black Messiah," is, well, most of the record. Lyrics like the aforementioned couplet get pasted to the front of the mix every so often, which might lead one to think that the majority of the record is social commentary. But what about all those words you can't locate any meaning at all for, given how mumbled D's vocals are and how much noise his band creates?
"1000 Deaths" is an angry rock song, so, alright, we'll say that one is political. "The Charade" has that line I just quoted... So obviously that too. That leaves us with 10 songs, i.e. the majority of the record. "Ain't That Easy" is a classic D'Angelo boast. "Sugah Daddy" is about, uh, a Sugah Daddy (I'm assuming... again... It's VERY hard to make out the words on this album... the insane amount of vocal effects does not help.) "Really Love" is a love song. "Another Life" probably is, too. "The Door" is a break-up song. "Til It's Done" and "Prayer" COULD be political, but only if we interpret them in the loosest metaphorical sense. Same goes for "Back to the Future": a biased critic might see "I just wanna go back baby / Back to the way we were" as some longing for a better political past, but it could just as easily be a lament for lost love (especially as the past for blacks in America has not exactly been, you know, GREAT).
What I'm trying to say is that "Black Messiah" is not a political record. If it is about anything, then it's probably about the subject of all D'Angelo's prior records: himself. This is not necessarily in itself a bad thing. I mean, shit... He IS the Black Messiah: I don't care what his liner notes say. He knows that only HE is making this sort of soul music in the year 2014. He knows that if he doesn't resurrect these smooth rhythmic sounds for this generation, no one will.
But even if we imagine that "Black Messiah" is a record about bringing the past to life-- a record about resurrection-- it doesn't really hold together. In some respects, this is a great thing. For one, these songs are fantastically diverse: ranging from funk-metal ("1000 Deaths," which I HAVE to mention again, if only because everyone else has mentioned it a million times, too) to pop-jazz ("Betray My Heart," which might be the closest we get to a "classic D'Angelo ballad" here, and also doubles nicely as a statement of purpose), and then from rough-hewn soul ("Ain't That Easy," which would be a perfect opener if not for the distracting VOCAL EFFECTS, GOD) to psychedelic tapestries of sound ("The Charade" is pretty bad-ass). Sadly, the diversity has a dark side: too many of these songs feel underdeveloped, included to show D'Angelo's breadth... at the tragic expense of his depth. "The Door," for example, is nice, but I really do wish the man had come up with a melody line that didn't just mimic the whistle and guitar part to a tee. "Sugah Daddy" is a ton of fun, but jeez, is it ever lightweight: even "Chicken Grease" seems to have more edge to it. Part Two of "Back to the Future" is just a reprise of Part One's admittedly cool bridge: why does it exist?
This gets back to what I was saying about vision. D has put together some very, very nice sounds here. But... Dammit... What's the POINT? Where's the EMOTION? Where's the MEANING? Show me one song here that is even a fraction as affecting as "Africa." You can't. Shit, you can't even show me one that's as balls-out as "How Does It Feel?," which was a SINGLE last time around. None of the love songs on "Black Messiah" are as sexy as "The Line," and none are as intimate and beautiful as "The Root."
Essentially, D'Angelo comes off like a schizophrenic musical sociopath on this, his comeback record. It's like he felt the need to touch every soul base but forgot to include, err, SOUL. All the time and effort put into "Black Messiah" SHOWS: what's lacking is the spark that turned nearly everything on "Voodoo" into a stone classic.
But what do I mean by "spark"? Honestly... It's hard to say. There's just something missing here. You know what it might be? It might be D'Angelo's voice. On "Brown Sugar" and "Voodoo," D makes it very clear what his most valuable asset is. He puts it up front, he enunciates his lyrics, he double-tracks it, layers it, and does everything with it: coos, yelps, cries, croons, shouts, raps, etc. On "Black Messiah," D obscures his voice, and constantly. There are very few places here where we really care about what D himself has to sing-- the focus is always on someone or something else, be it a crazzzy horn part or an army of distorting effects.
Which makes me wonder: D'Angelo is pushing forty. Has he lost his voice?
I shudder when I think of these things. If I've seemed harsh this time around, know that it's because I love the man. Truthfully, there is much to love about "Black Messiah," and a handful of songs that easily belong in the D'Angelo canon. But we all need to settle down a bit, I think. Let's think about how we appraise lest the backlash overwhelm any hope of a true soul revival. Yes?
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