D\'Angelo - Brown Sugar [1995] (EAC + LAME APS)

D'Angelo - Brown Sugar [1995]
EAC + LAME 3.90.3 APS

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

By the mid-'90s, most urban R&B had become rather predictable, working on similar combinations of soul and hip-hop, or relying on vocal theatrics on slow, seductive numbers. With his debut album, Brown Sugar, the 21-year-old D'Angelo crashed down some of those barriers. D'Angelo concentrates on classic versions of soul and R&B, but unlike most of his contemporaries, he doesn't cut and paste older songs with hip-hop beats; instead, he attacks the forms with a hip-hop attitude, breathing new life into traditional forms. Not all of his music works -- there are several songs that sound incomplete, relying more on sound than structure. But when he does have a good song -- like the hit "Brown Sugar," Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'," or the bluesy "Shit, Damn, Motherfucker," among several others -- D'Angelo's wild talents are evident. Brown Sugar might not be consistently brilliant, but it is one of the most exciting debuts of 1995, giving a good sense of how deep D'Angelo's talents run.

Link:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ak5gtq6znu46

01 - Brown Sugar
02 - Alright
03 - Jonz In My Bonz
04 - Me And Those Dreamin' Eyes Of Mine
05 - Shit, Damn, Motherfucker
06 - Smooth
07 - Cruisin'
08 - When We Get By
09 - Lady
10 - Higher