ARMS

?uestlove = The Parthenon.

That’s some fine music writing.

tlaclol:

Give the drummer some: Amir “Questlove” Thomson

Now, Questlove has been in the spotlight a lot these days and isn’t necessarily in need of more praise - between him being on national broadcast television every night, his many many high profile projects, his weekly DJ gig and his sometimes interesting but mostly annoying twitter feed he’s gettin’ plenty. But as a drummer, musician and human being I’m eternally indebted to him for his work on D’Angelo’s Voodoo (2000).

If I had to choose my most favorite album of all time, Voodoo is the only album that I wouldn’t feel conflicted electing. I’ve listened to that album more than any other single album and it hasn’t lost any of its magic for me over the last ten years. To me it’s the apotheosis of artistic achievement in pop music - It has artistic vision, technical mastery, amazing production, great songwriting and honors its own musical influences. Marvin Gaye, Al Green, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix and Prince among many others are all present in D’Angelo’s music but it never at any moment sounds derivative. Rather it is definitely modern and served as a challenge to the sad state of affairs of R&B at the time.

Voodoo deserves a much longer discussion, but I just want to point out a few aspects of Questlove’s drumming and production that help make this album awesome.

Questlove has one of the most distinctive feels of any pop drummer alive. His groove is instantly recognizable – it has a certain clarity, lightness and precision to it that no other drummer has. His beats swing even though they’re usually straight eight grooves. I think this comes from the internal tension he builds into them. I’m not sure of the process involved in recording this album – it sounds like live drums, and I’m sure it is for the most part – but each note of the beat is laid out in such precise relation to metronomic time that it sounds like he plotted them out on a computer and made a loop. It either speaks to his abilities behind a drumset or his abilities behind the board. Either ways he’s awesome.

What I mean by saying the beats are precisely laid out is that each note – snare, bass, hi-hat – lands at a certain moment in time to affect an internal tension within the beat. The bass drum, snare and hi-hat push on each other in different directions which makes the beat come alive – it’s like the Parthenon with its finely curved architecture.

“The Root,” is a good example of this. It’s hard to perceive precisely what’s happening, but it sounds to me like the hit-hat is hitting either right on the beat or just behind it, the down-beat bass hit is right in the middle of the beat, and the snare hit is just ahead of the beat. It’s incredibly consistent and entirely intentional which is why I love this album so much. They really got into the details of rhythm.

The end of this song is incredible too. D’Angelo layers his own voice over and over again and creates a whole D’Angelo choir. So good.