Originally Posted by Severian

Thanks for making a nice, classic café post louder. I was beginning to forget this thread existed.

I agree with you 100% of course. Even though Black Messiah is nowhere near my favorite album of the decade (that honor would have to go to MBDTF or possibly something I'm totally blanking on at the moment... Public Strain maybe? Reflecting the Light? The Seer? Nah... almost certainly MBDTF) it is certainly an album that only grows larger and larger in my estimation with the passage of time.

It was actually incredibly difficult for me to appropriately rate the album for the year of its release, since it dropped in 2014. My impulse was to make it too 3, and it definitely wound up in the top 10, but I had a hard time justifying placing it above albums that had had more time to prove their worth.

I don't find it a particularly epic album. I find that I'm not deeply connected to it emotionally. Instead, like a great jazz album, I find that listening to it is never a bad choice. It's soothing and it's organic and it has the fragile perfection of a soulful Beatles ballad ("Don't let me down" with Billy Preston comes to mind), or an enigmatic but well-balanced experimental pop game-changer (like perhaps Prince's Sign O The Times).

If I were to rate 2014's albums now, I'd put Black Messiah above everything except for Syro (what can I say, I've followed and adored and awaited the return of RDJ as Aphex Twin just as you have with D'angelo). More than A U R O R A or Bécs or 9 Songs or MyLittleGhost, Black Messiah imprinted on me from the very first listen. Since then my feelings for it have only grown stronger.

I'm willing to bet that it will be in my top 10 of the decade. And frankly, I believe I prefer it to Voodoo. The sound of Black Messiah is less a product of a moment in the evolution of a genre than its predecessors. Instead, it's like a crystal clear snapshot of one of the world's greatest artists at his absolute best. If any note was struck differently, it make for an entirely different experience, making BM an extremely personal, immediate and of the moment piece of work. Like a journal entry. It's imperfections, if it had any, help make it perfect.

Word.

Originally Posted by noisereductions

New DP would be awesome

Originally Posted by louder

Wish I could rep you back. Spot on with the "Don't Let Me Down" comparsion, I can definitely hear it.

Originally Posted by pepper_green

meh! it's like she's trying too hard for that figure. bet she can't buck like a real stallion like those mean cellulite thighs packing chicks.;) not sloppy enough for me.

oh god!! haha!!

Originally Posted by pepper_green

I love U guys. sometimes I think ya'll hate me with my crazy post. like "is this dude Aspergers or what". but I mis read posts sometimes because my brain plays tricks on me, but I can switch it with confidence. it's weird.

shit. I've been here long enough to have some emotional attachment. you know, sometimes I cross that threshold like some flashback shit. neurotic.

Originally Posted by pepper_green

Kim was sexy back in 2005 but now it's an overload. all of them an overload. it's like having to see a person everyday and ever knowing the surface. those women reveal nothing to me. it's a show. a soap opera turned real life. soft porn with condoms while waiting to check out yr groceries.

Originally Posted by noisereductions

Blowout Comb is incredible. A masterpiece.

Originally Posted by noisereductions

Pharrell is the other remixer son!

Originally Posted by pepper_green

I love U guys. sometimes I think ya'll hate me with my crazy post. like "is this dude Aspergers or what". but I mis read posts sometimes because my brain plays tricks on me, but I can switch it with confidence. it's weird.

shit. I've been here long enough to have some emotional attachment. you know, sometimes I cross that threshold like some flashback shit. neurotic.

Originally Posted by noisereductions

Woah woah woah I love Pharrell man. I heart NERD big time.

Originally Posted by noisereductions

Love you too dood. Sometimes you come at me and I dont get it. But I always prefer you are here.

Originally Posted by Severian

I was just listening to it again yesterday. It really does feel like a kind of definitive statement. Humble, but uncompromising. In some ways it feels like the pinnacle of modem soul. Like, Erykah Badu had come close to this kind of brilliance before (specifically thinking of New Amerykah vol.1 here- "Soldier", "My People", "The healer") but as great as that record was it relied on electronic eccentricity and production a bit too much to really feel like a genuine soul record.

D'angelo has made an immediate classic that will either turn tides and produce followers, or separate D from the schizophrenic mainstream and send him off on his own, an outsider icon like Prince or Tom Waits. Either way, Black Messiah kinda feels like the Yeezus of soul. Yeezus didn't need to sell a million copies in its first week like Graduation, because the music demanded to be heard and digested and considered. Then it came to basically mark yet another new era for hip hop, and Black Messiah is very much the same. For better or worse, Black Messiah is going to make it a hell of a lot harder for Beck to pull off another Midnite Vultures.

The album carries with it a kind of dare to other artists to try to follow it up. I hate to say it, but Beyoncé and Frank O. and Miguel all sound a bit ... Forced in comparison to D.

Hopefully the wait for the next album won't be anywhere near as long.