Saturday Morning Records: #16 — D’Angelo’s Voodoo

A new series for paying subscribers — celebrating favourite albums for the weekend

Voodoo is the second album by singer and multi-instrumentalist D’Angelo. And it might be the only one that really matters — even though his 1995 debut, Brown Sugar, is entirely what caused the fuss. And 2014’s Black Messiah was entirely brilliant after such a long wait. But ask anyone their favourite D’Angelo and they’ll say Voodoo. For sure. And there’d be people out there that might not have heard Black Messiah, and probably haven’t heard much of Brown Sugar, apart from its title track, when it was — briefly — everywhere. But they’ve heard Voodoo. It must be the number one most owned of D’Angelo’s three records, is I guess what I’m saying.

It was released in January of 2000, meaning it’s very nearly 25 years old. And when you listen to it now it brings memories of 2000, only if you were out and about and hearing it in the dimly lit bars. It feels like it could have been recorded in secret in 1969 or 1973 or 1982. And it also sounds like it is still waiting to be released in 2029 or 2047.