D’Angelo – Brown Sugar (1995/2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Brown Sugar is the debut album of American recording artist D’Angelo, released on July 4, 1995, by EMI Music. Recording sessions for the album took place from 1994 to 1995 at Battery Studios and RPM Studios in New York City and at the Pookie Lab in Sacramento. Production, instrumentation, arrangements, and songwriting were primarily handled by D’Angelo, who employed both vintage recording equipment and modern electronic devices. Brown Sugar contains themes of love and romance, and features a fusion of contemporary R&B and traditional soul music, along with elements of funk, quiet storm, and hip hop music.

Brown Sugar debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart, selling 300,000 copies in its first two months. With the help of its four singles, it spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and attained platinum shipments within a year of its release. Upon its release, Brown Sugar received acclaim from music critics and earned D’Angelo several accolades, including four Grammy Award nominations. Regarded by music writers as a pivotal album in neo soul, the album provided commercial visibility to the musical movement, amid the prominence of producer-driven, digitally approached R&B.

By the mid-’90s, most urban R&B had become rather predictable, working on similar combinations of soul and hip-hop, or relying on vocal theatrics on slow, seductive numbers. With his debut album, Brown Sugar, the 21-year-old D’Angelo crashed down some of those barriers. D’Angelo concentrates on classic versions of soul and R&B, but unlike most of his contemporaries, he doesn’t cut and paste older songs with hip-hop beats; instead, he attacks the forms with a hip-hop attitude, breathing new life into traditional forms. Not all of his music works — there are several songs that sound incomplete, relying more on sound than structure. But when he does have a good song — like the hit “Brown Sugar,” Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin’,” or the bluesy “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker,” among several others — D’Angelo’s wild talents are evident. Brown Sugar might not be consistently brilliant, but it is one of the most exciting debuts of 1995, giving a good sense of how deep D’Angelo’s talents run. –AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Tracklist:
01. D’Angelo – Brown Sugar (04:22)
02. D’Angelo – Alright (05:12)
03. D’Angelo – Jonz In My Bonz (05:55)
04. D’Angelo – Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine (04:46)
05. D’Angelo – Shit, Damn, Motherfucker (05:14)
06. D’Angelo – Smooth (04:21)
07. D’Angelo – Cruisin’ (06:24)
08. D’Angelo – When We Get By (05:45)
09. D’Angelo – Lady (05:45)
10. D’Angelo – Higher (05:27)

Personnel:
D’Angelo – Arranger, Composer, Multi Instruments, Vocals
Seymour Barab – Cello
Julien Barber – Viola
Bob Brockman – Trumpet
Tim Christian – Piano
Winterton Garvey – Violin
Regis Iandiorio – Violin
Olivia Koppell – Viola
Gene Lake – Drums
Will Lee – Bass
Jesse Levy – Cello
Ali Shaheed Muhammad – Composer, Drum Programming
Dunn Pearson, Jr. – Arranger, Conductor
Bob Power – Guitar, Mixing, Multi Instruments
Sue Pray – Viola
Eufrosina Railenu – Viola
Matthew Raimondi – Violin
Ralph Rolle – Drums
Raphael Saadiq – Arranger, Bass, Composer, Guitar
Alexander Simionescu – Violin
Gerald Tarack – Violin
Laura Vivino – Flute, Piccolo
Mark Whitfield – Guitar
Marilyn Wright – Violin
Masako Yanagita – Violin