Stranded with Voodoo

Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island, the 1979 collection edited by Greil Marcus in which various music critics detail their 'desert island picks,' ended up as bathroom reading for me. This did two things: 1) it turned the book into a drawn out affair, and 2) it provided an inordinate amount of time for me to decide the album that I would most like to have in my luggage if I were stranded on a desert island for the rest of my life. As a compulsive over-thinker, I was worried that the excess time would prevent me from ever reaching an answer. But as time passed, I realized that a lengthy consideration of the suitors was more than appropriate, given that this is a marriage for which there is no divorce.* While I did have a short list in mind from which to begin, as most serious music fans undoubtedly do, I hadn’t the slightest clue how to narrow it. Thus, my first task was determining the criteria for choosing a desert island record.

My initial inclination was that complexity was key, as the record that would require the most unpacking would likely prove to be the most interesting over time. However, upon realizing that Beastie Boys’s Paul’s Boutique filled that role on my short list, the thought of hearing ‘Hey Ladies’ every 50 minutes on an island without, you know, ladies took me back to the drawing board. My next thought was that the record with the greatest depth of emotion would be best. If Paul’s Boutique were too light-hearted, Elliott Smith’s Either/Or would be a sea of feelings. Fearful that I might drown in Either/Or’s waters, I decided that what I really needed was a variety of emotions, not a depth. Then, I thought maybe I could cunningly sidestep the issue altogether by choosing a box set. With 138 tracks, Neil Young’s recently released The Archives Vol. 1 1963-1972 would provide plenty of fodder for analysis, a great variety and depth of emotion, and a 236-page book! However, such a move seemed cheap, and I once again returned to my blank slate. Finally seeing what should’ve been crystal from the beginning, I arrived at my Goldilocks answer, the record that struck a balance of emotions while still proving complex enough to take seriously for an indefinite period: D’Angelo’s Voodoo.**

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In perhaps my earliest display of the little understanding I have of the musical sensibilities of most others, my 15-year-old self bought Voodoo as a birthday present for my mother. She was – hindsight says, predictably – less dazzled than I, but I felt compelled to share the impact Voodoo had on me, even if D’Angelo’s Prince-inflected warble fit nowhere in her collection. While I lacked the vocabulary to articulate what I found so appealing on the record, I did know that those who couldn’t ‘feel’ it lacked ‘soul’— a position I stand by today. However, to be fair, given that two of my favorite records at the time of Voodoo’s release were Tony! Toni! Toné!’s House of Music and The Roots’s Things Fall Apart, it’s unsurprising that the seamless combination of retro-soul and unapologetically raw hip-hop would have beaten such a special drum in me.

As I’ve grown older, and more musicologically astute, my boyhood infatuation with Voodoo has matured into a full-blown love. Nearly ten years of examination of the record and its recording process has revealed that the Soulquarians – D’Angelo’s supporting cast led by ?uestlove, James Poyser, and J. Dilla – painstakingly pursued the ‘feel’ and ‘soul’ I picked up on, but couldn’t describe, as an adolescent. Four years of studio sessions recorded with the same equipment and tape as many of the artists that influenced the album*** developed into an authentically vintage sound still unmatched in the digital era. However, Voodoo’s greatness isn’t based on studio wizardry alone. The songwriting is spectacular. With most of D’Angelo’s songs beginning as sparse piano numbers, the rest of the Soulquarians had the freedom to take the grooves wherever they saw fit. Often, the tracks go in and out of time, with a spontaneity clearly derived from the work of J. Dilla, serving to complement the retro aesthetic achieved in the recording process. The album sounds as if it could have been done in one take, while somehow managing to sound as loose as anything on Stax, but as tight as anything on Motown.

Moreover, the record is especially fitting as a ‘desert island record’ due to its variety of moods and tempos. I’ve always seen two starting points for Voodoo, providing two distinct modes of experiencing the record, a quality that will surely come in handy as time passes on the island. Voodoo plays through very well in its entirety: starting at ‘Playa, Playa,’ it quickly peaks in pulse at ‘Devil’s Pie’ and gradually mellows into ‘Africa.’ This has always been my choice for standard listening, putting the diversity of styles and emotions on display. Beginning at ‘The Line,’ skipping the more contemporary sounding ‘Devil’s Pie’ and ‘Left & Right,’ the record flawlessly manifests the spirit of its influences. The aforementioned retro sound is, of course, present through the rest of the record, but it is on the last nine songs that D’Angelo is at his most soulful, and where he most shines lyrically. This starting point has always been my choice for more introspective moods, allowing for a mellower listen.

The only foreseeable downside to having Voodoo as a ‘desert island pick’ – besides having to repeatedly listen to the subpar verses from Method Man & Redman on ‘Left & Right’ – is the constant reminder of the current uncertainty surrounding D’Angelo’s career. Rumors of his follow-up to Voodoo, James River, have been floating around the music industry for years, but life on a desert island would prevent any confirmation or denial of such rumors. The optimist in me is hopeful, but the realist thinks taking Voodoo to a desert island might be the best thing for my D’Angelo fandom. After all, if I’m happy living the rest of my life with Voodoo, who needs James River?

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Everything considered, Stranded is a great starting point for an interesting internal debate, even if it’s not the most terrific piece of music criticism. The desert island question is a personal one; and as such, I most gained from contributors’ explanations of how they thought the choice should be made, rather than the details of their exact picks. Furthermore, given the degree of subjectivity permitted in such an exercise – when you’re the only one listening, there is little motivation to attempt objectivity – many of the selections are a bit dated. Apparently, the concept was revisited in 2007 with Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs. While the critics aren’t as eminent in the new anthology, the updated collection might be a tad more satisfying for the modern reader. However, if you find that a good amount of your collection is comprised of songs recorded pre-1979, or you have a serious interest in music literature from that era, Stranded is an interesting and important read. For the rest, your efforts would probably be better spent elsewhere.

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* It might be claimed that there is always the option to throw the album in the water, which takes re-marriage off the table in this analogy, not divorce. But, you tell me, is a life without music really an option for you? It’s not for me either. Thus, it seems anything short of ‘til death do us part’ is irrational.

** Here is a link to a stellar promotional video for the album that includes a sampling of the songs and a bit of insight into the recording process. I highly recommend it to both the uninitiated and the seasoned listeners.

*** The story goes that all recording sessions began as listening sessions, in which the musicians studied the work of, amongst others, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Fela Kuti, Al Green, Prince, and George Clinton. Once a groove was found, it was performed until a song appeared, which sometimes took hours. Most documented is the evolution of Prince’s Parade into the album’s closer, ‘Africa.’

Alex Ross - The Rest is Noise

I finally finished Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise and recommend it to anyone with any interest in music, especially its modern history. And with sufficient fear of hyperbole, I don’t feel at all uncomfortable claiming that Alex Ross has produced one of the best pieces of music journalism of the last few years. Still, I wasn’t immediately able to pinpoint exactly what separated it from the classics of the field. My first inclination was to conclude that Ross’s adeptness with the written word and his expertise with the music of the early-to-mid 20^th Century were the distinguishers; and even while those factors may explain part of it, they don’t quite capture why this book so deeply resonated with me, or why I think it might do the same for others with similar musical backgrounds as myself.

I’ve long lamented the dearth of skill in Rap journalism. While I’m unsure of the explanation for the origin of this problem – whether top-down or bottom-up – it’s clear that, outside of a handful of writers, there is a lacking of quality Rap analysis in the annals of music criticism. Rappers may cover the tabloids, but articulate advocates of the genre are underrepresented in the broadsheets. Because our generation’s best scribes, rather than their Page 6 counterparts, will most likely define our histories, I’m a bit unsettled by the potential legacy that Rap’s intelligentsia is leaving itself. These worries are exacerbated by the fact that some of our era’s most proficient music writers have a less than amicable relationship with the genre. In short, I worry that because some of Rap’s brightest critics have either failed to find a medium – or, for whatever reasons, have been denied the opportunity – Rap will be falsely remembered as a purely lowbrow art form.

While the previous paragraph makes some claims that demand more consideration in later posts, my intention here was only to illuminate why Alex Ross’s book was so personally satisfying: it only mentions Rap four times. Given the sentiments of the previous paragraph, a terse commentary on the genre that commanded pop music at the close of the 20^th Century might be seen as a bad thing, especially in a book that fashions itself as a history of the music of the entire Century. However, given the state of music criticism, the absence of poor Rap analysis is refreshing. Ross exercises admirable restraint in pop music: and in a book subtitled “Listening to the 20^th Century,” this is perfectly reasonable. Ross describes the socio-musical blueprints from which Rap was built, establishes its place in the musical tradition, and provides the tools for comparing it to other genres. Even if Rap’s prominence at the turn of the Century is not fully communicated, it is a sign of progress that such an eminent critic has given the genre a valid spot in the musical lineage.

This is not to say that The Rest is Noise is great simply because it avoids misunderstanding or undervaluing Rap, but that these are nice cherries atop a superb sundae. Remember, Ross is the senior music critic at The New Yorker; a merely good book would have been unsatisfying. The Rest is Noise exceeded expectations, in both writing and analysis, and seems to be on its way to being deemed the definitive work on the subject. Even the most knowledgeable musicologists are likely to learn something; those falling short of expert will learn a lot. Borrowing a metaphor from John Cage, The Rest is Noise defines the channels of the great musical delta that was forged in the 20^th Century. Ross describes, with fascinating detail, how various genres flowed out of the great river. I’m particularly happy to see that Rap wasn’t left out, as I fear it is being lost in the ocean.