Tag: R&B
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Grover Washington Jr. ‘Mister Magic’ (1974)
As a kid one of my fondest memories was going on trips with my parents during the weekend to local record stores to purchase albums. These of course were the halcyon days when an experience like going on a Saturday drive with your father to Fry’s Electronics (a local big-box store that had an incredibly…
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Nina Simone ‘Wild Is The Wind’ (1966)
When I first heard Wild Is The Wind it caught me completely off-guard. It was a beautiful summer morning in sunny Northern California, I was driving the kids to daycare, and they were in an exceptionally good mood giggling in the backseat. I was feeling inspired after a night out where I met about 30…
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James Brown ‘Live At the Apollo’ (1963)
For decades James Brown was America’s preeminent showman and The Apollo Theater in Harlem was America’s preeminent live music venue. It’s only natural that these would come together in the fall of 1962 for Brown’s first live album and the first live album ever recorded at the Apollo. It’s soul dynamite packed into a tidy…
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Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings ‘Soul of a Woman’ (2017)
The youngest of six children, Sharon Jones was an American soul singer from Brooklyn. Throughout her life she spent a lot of time in the gospel choir at church and did some session work for various artists but never gained any real traction in her music career, leading her to jobs like serving as a…
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Stevie Wonder ‘Songs In The Key of Life’ (1976)
The word “beloved” gets tossed around too often when talking about musicians (guilty as charged on that front), but it’s the perfect word to use when describing Stevie Wonder. An American icon in every sense of the word, Wonder was born six weeks premature and developed retrolental fibroplasia which caused him to become blind shortly…
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BTS ‘Love Yourself 轉 Tear’ (2018)
BTS is the largest boy band in the entire world, one of South Korea’s largest exports, have spoken at the United Nations General Assembly three times, and was the first non-English speaking act to sell out concerts at the fabled Wembley Stadium in London and Rose Bowl in California. In other words, they’re absolutely massive…
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Dusty Springfield ‘Dusty in Memphis’ (1969)
Dusty in Memphis is Dusty Springfield’s magnum opus, an amalgamation of Memphis soul and British orchestral pop that over time has grown in stature to be regarded as one of the all-time great albums. The album was actually a pretty significant commercial flop upon its release 1969 (even with top 10 single “Son of A…
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Kool & The Gang ‘Celebrate!’ (1980)
Celebrate! marked the end of Kool & The Gang’s hipness as the band transitioned from ultra-smooth funk practitioners to the radio-friendly R&B disco group that shot to the top of the charts with this platinum selling album. Artistic bonafides aside it’s hard to argue with the results– lead single “Celebration” was a smash hit, and…
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The Weeknd ‘After Hours’ (2020)
The Weeknd’s brand of dark and brooding R&B was a revelation for the genre in the mid 2010’s, breathing new and fresh life into a storied but somewhat stale industry. On After Hours The Weeknd took those R&B roots and pushed everything a bit further– delving into dream pop and synth-driven instrumentation, crafting a semi-concept…
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Matt Corby ‘Rainbow Valley’ (2018)
Matt Corby’s Rainbow Valley is loaded with atmospheric sheen that’s smoother than a can of peanut butter. Recorded in Corby’s home studio on a five-acre plot in Byron Bay, Australia, Rainbow Valley is a wide-ranging musical journey into the spacey world of Indie R&B. The backing tracks feature an impressively set of instruments all played…
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Four Tops ‘Four Tops’ (1965)
Last week we talked about the universal appeal of Motown, and we’re back on that glorious kick again here this week with Four Tops self-titled 1965 debut album. The Four Tops were a part of the Motown Sound that took the world by storm in the 60’s alongside other iconic groups like The Temptations, The…
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Kirk Franklin ‘The Rebirth of Kirk Franklin’ (2002)
Kirk Franklin is a modern contemporary gospel singer and this live collection of some of his most popular songs. The Rebirth of Kirk Franklin was recorded live at Lakewood Church, a non-denominational evangelical megachurch in Houston, Texas that has one of the largest congregations in the United States with about 45,000 coming through its doors…
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Drake ‘Scorpion’ (2018)
There’s been no larger mainstream figure in hip-hop over the past decade than Drake. He almost singlehandedly dominated the commercial charts in the 2010’s, appealing to hardcore hip-hop fans, grandmothers, and everyone else in between. Time will tell how well Drake’s prolific output ages in the coming decades compared to some of his contemporaries (see:…
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Devin Morrison ‘Dream Lobby Vol. IV’ (2022)
Dream Lobby Vol. IV is an album well-suited for hold music around something exciting (think less customer tech support, more booking a travel agency) or elevator music in the lobby at a Las Vegas casino. I’ve actually started leveraging Devin Morrison’s albums as a soundtrack for work when I’m building Powerpoint decks for an upcoming…
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Parliament ‘Mothership Connection’ (1975)
Welcome to the funk. With a loose and fun as hell mythology surrounding interstellar travel, spaceships, Thumpasorus people, and the ever-healing powers of the funk, 1975’s Mothership Connection is a concept album whose sole concept is to get your butt out of your seat and dance. I can sign up for that. I was first…
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Rhye ‘Woman’ (2013)
Rhye burst onto the scene in 2013 and immediately grabbed me with the airy tenderness of vocalist Mike Milosh’s vocals. At the time I was literally completely unaware the singer on Woman was, quite literally, not actually in fact a woman. Whether it was the relative secrecy behind the band at the time or the…
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Whitney Houston ‘Whitney Houston’ (1985)
As I’ve mentioned before there are only two singers in the GOAT conversation for me– Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston. They are two different types of singers (you can read our recap of Aretha’s 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black to understand why her soulful delivery is so damn special) but from a technical perspective…
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Solange ‘A Seat at the Table’ (2016)
Solange’s A Seat at the Table is a terrific album. Much like Thursday’s War All The Time, this is an album meant to be experienced from front to back, an art piece that is more than the sum of its parts. Throughout A Seat at the Table Solange invites us into her home to discuss…
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Bruno Mars ’24K Magic’ (2016)
If this album doesn’t make you want to get up out of your seat, throw your hands in the air, and bust out dancing you’ve lost an appreciation for things that make life worth living. I’m serious. If you don’t smile at least once while listening to the album we can’t be friends. 24K Magic…
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Janelle Monáe ‘Dirty Computer’ (2018)
Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer is a cyberpunk dream trip through R&B and pop influences, bouncing around like a pinball amidst the synths, spacey guitars, and percussive elements. There’s an air of hope underpinning each track on the record, a sense of self exploration which drives everything forward thematically. When combined with all of the hooks…
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