The D’Angelo album Rick Rubin hailed as “absolutely perfect”
What makes a perfect album? It’s hard to truly know. Is it instrumentation, storytelling, or raw emotion?
Now, as a music journalist, I have some authority on labelling a record as somewhat perfect, but in such lofty and high-praising realms, I would be happy to defer the designation of any such record to Rick Rubin.
The spiritual father of modern music, he has a grip on how to translate an artist’s early ideas into something sonically innovative. Starting out as the founder of Def Jam Recordings, he had his ear to the grindstone of hip-hop’s earliest days, before developing that understanding into the funkier, rockier realms of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
But no, it didn’t stop there because he continued to diversify his back catalogue with the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, and Jay-Z. While some critics on the fringes question his technical legitimacy, I would argue that he is a masterful producer for the simple fact that he helps artists communicate their ideas like no other. He taps into the subtle humanity of what any given artist is trying to relate, and makes it into something musical coherent.
While his impressive back catalogue boasts a unique level of diversity, what I would argue as the common denominator in all his great works, is an air tight rhythm section. It was something he developed in his early hip-hop days, and kept on moving into his more modern projects.
So it was no surprise that D’Angelo’s masterful 2000 album Voodoo ranks high on the list of Rubin’s much-loved albums. In fact, it ranks higher than that. It stands as the one album Rubin is willing to label as flawless.
“The D’Angelo Voodoo album to me is absolutely perfect,” he explained to the record’s drummer Questlove, on an episode of his podcast Broken Record.
He continued, “It’s the first time I can remember listening through to an album wishing I had something to do with it because it was so good. It was just like, oh my god, this is everything I want an album to be and it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before.”
The record defined an era of neo-soul that would follow upon its release and cemented D’Angelo as one of the most influential voices in modern music. At the very core of the record’s success was the pairing of D’Angelo’s voice with Questlove’s unique, off beat drumming style. Together they conversed throughout the entire record, with a heightened sense of telepathy that made the entire runtime feel thematically coherent.
As a record, it acted as a bridge between the past and the future. Traditional soul was in a state of flux, but somehow D’Angelo managed to grab it by its roots once more and modernise it, with originality and freshness. It’s unsurprising, then, that the album was recorded at Electric Lady Studios, using vintage equipment once owned by Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Wonder. I think both of those musical icons would have been pleased to see what D’Angelo was doing with the hallowed equipment.
