Music press is quite deceptive. It can create phenomenons just to boost sales, becoming little more than gossip in the process. And when it came to music writing in italian newspaper, the situation could be quite bad. The average age of the journalists would make irrelevant most articles, all filtered through the lenses of a bunch of people who look with suspicion anything released after 1978. And it was very hard to read about something other than classic rock.
But luckily, there was the odd stroke of genius. “Musica”, bundled with Repubblica each wednesday for most of the 90’s, had solid reviews and could often look out of the box. And when it reviewed Voodoo, in one of the most glowing reviews I’ve ever read, I know I had to get it. Something in the review was telling me I had to have it. Then I saw the “Untitled” video on MTV. I never saw anything like it, but most importantly, I rarely heard anything with that kind of intensity.
I got the record in a shop I never used to go to, right in the center of Cagliari, one saturday after school. I never heard of D’Angelo, I remember being puzzled reading the liner notes, a fascinating and confusing stream of consciousness, and being surprised to see such reverence for Prince, an artist I never really listened to. I also liked the tribal feel of the packaging. Soul and Hip Hop were going for a sleek, clean feel. I could tell that this one was trying to change things, to make a statement. Once I put the CD in the player, and my mind was blown. I never listened to anything like it before. The whole record SWEATS in you ears. When anyone talks about “organic” sound, that’s always the first record I think of. The performance are all amazingly groovy. It’ almost hyperreal: it feels like the musicians wanted the record to sound like a living being. It’s one of the few record that I still can’t remember by heart even after listening to it close to a hundred times. Its beats and its grooves go right into your skin and they stay there, never blowing in your face, going deeper each time you listen to the songs. After listening to the album, the liner notes and the overall style of the packaging started to make a lot more sense. D’Angelo and the musicians working for him wanted to get back to the roots by recapturing the intentions that made soul great while still looking forward.
This was the record that made me really appreciate soul music. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson, and I was always fascinated by r’n'b and the Motown sound, but this was the first time someone taking that seriously. It’s still one of my all time favorite records. Voodoo is timeless. It was way ahead of the time, and it can’t quite age. It’s a celebration of human rhythm, of joy and life. I am now a big Prince fan, I consider him a genius and an amazing musician. Still, I’m not sure he ever recorded a record as good as this. 10 Years from the release of Voodoo, I just hope to get to experience a new D’Angelo record once again. Soon.
1) The central theme of this movie is lack of talent and inspiration, and it’s very close to Kitano’s last two movies, Takeshis and Glory to the Filmmaker!. It’s as if after two movies where he expressed his feelings, he decided to tell a story around the same theme. The result is a charming movie with a lot of bittersweet laughs squeezed in between some very acute observations on the wicked ways the art world works. It may lack the power of some of its best movie, but Kitano’s voice is always very entertaining and surprisingly earnest.
