Day 0912 - Mama's Gun

Erykah Badu "Mama's Gun" (2000)

 

Badu is another artist with a long musical history, having sung from a young age and been rapping since she was a teen.   She studied performing arts, recorded a demo and this led to her recording a duet with neo-soul aritst D'Angelo.

From there Badu's deubt album "Baduizm" was a success but she then took time off to be with her newborn son to Outkast rapper Andre Benjamin.   The relationship with Benjamin broke down and both parties expressed this through their music: Outkast's "Miss Jackson" and tracks on Badu's second album "Mama's Gun".

The sound has a bit of neo-soul going on but it's a bit of an organic, live-instrument mix of funk, jazz and hip-hop too... not surprising then that one of Badu's collaborators is ?uestlove whose group the Roots mines a similar musical vein.   Badu's voice is her game changer though.  She can to do soul singing and rap, but then on a song like "Green Eyes" she can switch into a straight-up jazz singer.

The tracks "Orange Moon" and "In Love With You" sounded familiar to me.   Good album!

Day 0740 - Whatever

Aimee Mann "Whatever" (1993)

Aimee had been bassist and vocalist for the band Til Tuesday, who had a successful Mann-penned single "Voices Carry".   The band broke up and Mann pursued her solo career.

This is Aimee's first solo album and it's brilliant for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, Mann is an amazing songwriter.  She's another of those rare songwriters whose lyrics actually made me stop and take notice, she has real way with words.  The ballad "I know there's a word" is brilliant and affecting while still being tastefully opaque.

The other reason is that Mann enlisted the help of Til Tuesday touring member and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, who would go on to produce my favourite Fiona Apple album as well as albums by such adventurous souls as the Eels, David Byrne, and Rufus Wainright.

The music has a bit of a country lilt to it, maybe a hint of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and then (possibly courtesy of Brion) a subtle theatricality in places.

I thoroughly enjoyed this.  It's almost the opposite to a lot of albums, in that rather than being a bit front-loaded, it gets better the further into the tracklist you go so that you end on a high note, ready to revisit the songs.

Day 0372 - Exodus

Bob Marley and the Wailers "Exodus" (1977) - got it

A bit of a change from my usual "all reggae sounds the same" spiel.  Though there are a few familiar reggae musical devices here; there is also a healthy dose of variety, with everything from scratchy organic reggae through to soul, pop and proto-disco elements finding their way into the mix.

While songs like "One love", "Jamming" and "Three little birds" are definitely reggae, they are also pretty solid pop songs.  Bob does a good job of balancing his political messages with some more universal messages.

It's a surprisingly upbeat record considering that Marley had recently relocated to England after a gunman injured him and his wife in their home during a murder attempt.

Day 0366 - Legalise it

Peter Tosh "Legalise it" (1976)

 
Tosh's first solo effort after getting out from under Bob Marley's leadership.

Well, Tosh clearly wears his heart on his... erm, green sleeves in the title track. The album suffers from some of the same-ishness that I tend to associate with reggae, but I'd say there was actually slightly more variety than the last couple of Marley albums I've listened to for this list.

As with Bob's albums, the uniformity doesn't make it bad or unenjoyable; just less engaging over the duration of the album (maybe I should have gotten stoned first).