#183 D'Angelo, 'Brown Sugar' (1995)

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If drums are the heartbeat of a song and bass is the soul, this album is all heart and soul. My initial thought when listening to this was about how high the drums and bass were mixed. I wondered who the players were on the record as they were standouts for me. I know that on his later two records (one of which we’ve already listened to at #395), Questlove and Pino Palladino were responsible for drums and bass respectively. On this record, it turns out that D’Angelo played every single instrument. Always an impressive thing to see. D’Angelo made a name for himself performing at the amateur nights at The Apollo in Harlem (if you ever have the opportunity to get to one of these, I highly recommend it, it’s super fun). After three consecutive wins, he was inspired to produce his own record. He was signed in 1993 on the back of a lot of buzz on the streets.

The album is smooth, or rather, D’Angelo’s voice is. The album consists of mostly ballads and love songs and showcases his musical prowess. He knows his way proficiently around many instruments. The title track is a great intro to the record, a thinly veiled love song to weed, but he’s so smooth, you’re buying whatever it is he’s selling. I loved ‘Shit, Damn, Motherfucker,’ mostly because D’Angelo makes swearing sound romantic. ‘Smooth’ has a lot of great little Jazz breaks, before seamlessly going back to the RnB. It’s quite impressive how seemless it is, actually. Also on the record is a great cover of Smokey Robinson’s ‘Cruisin’.’ So good, that it could almost be an original, if you didn’t know better. While listening to the record, it was obvious that it had Prince’s influence all over it, so it’s interesting to read that that really was his main influence on the record. The album would go on to sell over a million records in the States and set D’Angelo up as a new force to be reckoned with in RnB music.

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