Erykah Badu: C /D, S&D

i don't think i'd use the word half-hearted to describe any of this album, the hooks may meander or drift at times but there's a lot of feeling in it.

i think its being given more credit than is perhaps deserved because of who made it. or maybe i should replace half hearted with 'knackered'. she just sounds like her mind is somewhere else. which isnt in itself a particularly bad quality to have as a vocalist. cos yeah, there is feeling in it but theres not much craft. its just an album of sketches. reminds me a lot of princes from the vault album that he gave in to close his warners deal.

this is prob the most unessential album shes released.

http://jensfilipsson.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/erykah-badu-live.jpg

album works best if you treat it as mostly throwaway leftover/fun/not totally finished sessions from the last album. ie inconsequential as someone said upthread. this is prob the most unessential album shes released.

― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, August 23, 2010 5:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is so so wrong & umbearably titchy/corny of you

i wonder if it's just one of those records that's slightly confused by the expectations. i remember seeing in the mood for love having only seen chungking express, and i was just disappointed that it wasn't more offbeat fun, you know? there's so much preaching and communion in part one that part two must seem slight on account of its deficiency of these things. but it's a different record. it's full of jams, not songs. i like bopping around with fall in love on my headphones as much as i liked listening to me on the last one, but they're different kinds of albums. i could only see the songs as slight if you think they're attempting to be part-one-esque narrative songs rather than the slinky jams it seems she was shooting for.

Yeah, the precedent for this one isn't, as advertised, Mama's Gun but instead Worldwide Underground.

Sonically this sounds closest to Mama's Gun, but I just don't think the songwriting and singing are as sharp on this one.

xpost - thanks for setting me straight deej.

Yeah, the precedent for this one isn't, as advertised, Mama's Gun but instead Worldwide Underground.

otm.

Worldwide Underground isn't bad just irrelevant, and this one isn't irrelevant at all.

This is a B+ record.

worldwide underground isn't 'irrelevant', though i don't really understand how you measure relevancy or indeed what use it is

Wait, who was calling WU bad? Certainly no one whose opinions on Badu I give a shit about.

Of course, Badu : Me :: Wagner : Nietzsche

It floats out of time and bears no relation to the records bookending it (which might be an attraction too). Also, it's the only album whose songs I don't care for at all, so even on its own terms it doesn't grab me.

haha <3 Eric H

worldwide underground has danger!!!!!! and i want you!!!!!!!!

Plus "Back in the Day" is maybe her most inviting, most comfortable jam ever.

totally

worldwide underground has danger!!!!!! and i want you!!!!!!!!

^^^ + !!!!!!!

yeah, "Danger" is fine.

i want you is masterful

so when you say it is 'irrelevant' what you mean is 'i don't like it'?

there is feeling in it but theres not much craft.

this is otm

It floats out of time and bears no relation to the records bookending it

Not at all. Obv the songwriting isn't as sharp as Mama's Gun or 4th World War, but it's more a record about sounds than anything and a lot of the sonic advancements carry over to 4WW.

OK, you guys won me over. I'll spin it again when I get home. It's really been years.

is 'hollywood' on the us version or was it a euro bonus track? because that is a jam too.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it IS her weakest album of the '00s ones. But so what, et al?

Yeah, the precedent for this one isn't, as advertised, Mama's Gun but instead Worldwide Underground.

this is otm, i totally hear it as WU pt 2 (and i love WU unconditionally).

i think it's easy to think of worldwide underground as, maybe not "irrelevant", but certainly a "mere" curio in the badu canon, not because of its quality but because of its relatively low-key release and reception, particularly her insistence that it wasn't an album, but an ep. an ep with 11 tracks that was album length. ok then erykah.

i fux with WU unconditionally, fwiw, and agree that no album with "danger" and "i want you" on it can ever be irrelevant. to an extent the same.

When all's said and done, the only Badu album I don't really spin much these days is the first one.

and even if a lot of return of the ankh consists of straight-up lifted samples and meandering jams, the same is true with it containing "window seat", "gone baby, don't be long" and "out my mind, just in time" - it's a beautifully paced and sequenced work that's absolutely gorgeous sounding, and almost all of it moves me on some level...and it feels like the right album for her to have made at this point in her career. so while it's not "OMG ALBUM OF DECADE" like 4th world war, it's still exactly what i wanted and almost totally satisfying - i wouldn't play god with it, in other words, apart from making her release the 320 of "jump up in the air (stay there)" in some form.

spun this last night after wondering whether i had missed anything. yeah it is like part two of worldwide underground. badu seems to make one collection of songs that may or may not fit together (WWUG, baduizm) then come up with one thats really focused/mulled over/conceptualised (mamas gun, nu amerykah). she seems to have done this pretty much for all her career. so maybe the next one will feel more vital and gestated. i dont care so much about the samples, just cos even though theoretically i wd prefer someone like badu didnt do so many obv steals, shes made too many great songs of her own using samples/replays (didnt cha know, certainly, etc) for me to complain about it. the thing about this album is just that while it def isnt parody or anything, its just badu doing exactly what youd expect from badu, almost like as close as shes going to get to a 'safe' album, for her anyway. so windowseat is basically like badu in precis. texturally and sonically theres plenty to love on this - obv yeah it is gorgeous... vocally, her phrasing and melodic sense is still sublime, but lyrically and songwriting wise, she doesnt seem to have really focused much or tried very hard - it all feels like a series of first drafts. sometimes thats cool, its nice to sometimes just hear an artist just being totally relaxed, but it means the material is really 'slight' and doesnt reward my returns to it. its a record that doesnt have much invested in it. thats what gives it its casual, nice and easy 'just an average day at the studio' feel, but i would have liked more, and i think theres scope in this material for her to do more with it. in an odd way, i think the fact it IS so gorgeous sonically (though sorry i expect more than just glorious warmth from badu) is what undoes it partially. hearing all the songs/sketches/whatever recorded in such amazing fidelity just seems to highlight that the material isnt as rich as the sonics, whereas if it was all sounded like a series of home demos, it would probably not matter as much. id just think of it as her stopgap/rough draft record. id love to hear her do a record like that actually.

nu amerykah pt 2 may not be as "conceptual" or interesting production-wise, but it has better melodies than pt 1 imo.

i'm not sure i agree w that

Biggest problem with Nu Amerykah pt.2 is that it's...Nu Amerykah pt. 2. There's no way it could stand with pt. 1, which is one of the decade's great album, prolley one of the greatest albums of pop music. She uses the same methodology as she did in pt. 1, but gets rid of all the apocalypticism.

I will say, however, that there is a genuine lazy streak throughout the album that is quite frustrating--the straight up track-jacks, the way that Lost My Mind is Green Eyes warmed over...but E. has already given us two of the greeatest albums of this last decade; I can't stay mad at her too long.

prolley one of the greatest albums of pop music

whoa

no disagreement on my part

That "Green Eyes" is a masterpiece does not automatically mean that "Out My Mind" is not also pretty damned great.

But, yeah, there is a little bit of a lazy streak running throughout the album. Only I'd say "lackadaisical" instead of "lazy."

dont get everyone riding so hard for amerykah pt 1 over pt 2 -- i mean i do to the degree that its a DIFFICULT RECORD (zzz) but yeesh

all i know is i'm pretty sure i've never made it through pt 1 once in one listen, but i've listened to all of pt 2 a bunch of times. admittedly, i am very lazy.

pt 1 speaks to me in a personal way, pt 2 doesn't. simple as that

dont get everyone riding so hard for amerykah pt 1 over pt 2 -- i mean i do to the degree that its a DIFFICULT RECORD (zzz) but yeesh

― NOT FUNNY NEEDS MORE GUCCI (deej), Tuesday, August 24, 2010 1:12 PM (3 hours ago)

get ouuuuta here with this faux-naive bs, you're better than this - it's not "difficult" it just "has songs"

pt 2 doesn't have 'songs' now? that's as bs as suggesting pt 1 is the 'difficult' record

Pt. 1 is the white record, Pt. 2 is the black one.

i'm white btw

Pt. 1 is the white record, Pt. 2 is the black one.

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 24, 2010 6:02 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

LOL

Pt. 1 is the white record, Pt. 2 is the black one.

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 24, 2010 3:02 PM Suggest Ban Permalink
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i realize you state this at least partly in jest, but you have no idea how fucking enraged this statement makes me.

almost just said "fuck you" and left it at that tbh