D'Angelo "Brown Sugar" [1995]

Hard to tell whether the "brown sugar" D'Angelo refers to is black women or hero'n; these spacey, slow-tempo vamps -- calling them "songs" would be super-generous -- give naught but an extremely hazy perspective either way. Played by a bunch of strung-out jazzers who shamefully include gospel music into their oeuvre, I sincerely hope their grandmamas are no longer around to hear their Jesus music mixed with this druggy porno. I'd guess the sleepy narcotic nod of song after song leans toward drugs and away from sex, however, unless slow-motion fucking is someone's idea of a good time. Also, I wonder where D'Angelo would have wound up had it not been for the automatic harmonizer; would he have stuck with his vocal passes long enough to sing whole secondary parts and beyond, or -- as I suspect -- would he simply have opted for another hit and crashed out on the leather couch in the console room? Please tune in if you'd like to hear Prince OD'ing on sleeping pills, but otherwise this CD reeks of a performer who hasn't paid his dues, finds life extremely easy and is perfectly comfortable telling us how little it all means to him. Way to cash in your ticket, bub -- now disappear forever.