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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.
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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.