This Strange World

I've found myself liking the song in the Macbook Air commercial quite a bit lately. So I went and looked it up and found myself liking the real video for the song quite a bit too. I was only the 5,447,070 person to view it.









The artist's name is Yael Naim and the song is called New Soul. A nice, quick read here sheds some light on her struggle with the industry before this huge break.


I'm thinking I might start a new blog just about commercials.

Amazing

So recently I've been hearing this song on a DWS [correction: DSW] Shoes commercial and immediately recognized it but couldn't quite place it. It was a tight groove too and I'm saying I know I have that on something. Well after the third time or so seeing the spot, it hit me... no[ne] other than The Bamboos' "Happy", who happen to still be on my Recent Listening list.

I say to myself, "I should post about this," because I love to talk about commercials even though I hate commercials. I start thinking how the commercial jingle is dead and that the people working behind the scenes are actually using real music to sell their products, whether it be current or retread 80's hits. Still, this may not have made it to print until tonight.

Sitting at home watching the NCAA tourney, toying with the blog template, I notice that The Bamboos are still in my recent listening. I actually say to myself, "Ha. I bet all of my recent listenings are in commercials these days." A fairly baseless musing to myself, especially when I look over what's there and see Maynard and Saul Williams, cats who aren't popping up in commercials anytime soon. And then... literally within 20 minutes or so... this commercial:

No shit! And while the title of this post is "Amazing", truth is it's really not that amazing anymore. At the end of the day music doesn't pay the bills unless you're selling platinum. Artists make their name from the music and make their money from everything else (merchandise, touring, licensing, etc.)

When the commercial was over how did you feel? "Damn straight!" That's what I said.

Missing D'angelo

I missed the track Really Love leaking last April. It is available on this recent mixtape release that is definitely not the new album everyone is waiting for.

This is the most definite info I've read on D'angelo's forthcoming release, tentatively titled James River.

Below is a sample grab that has nothing to do with the new album. (You'll have to trust me that he does in fact talk about the new album or click the link and read for yourself.)

i turned him onto hendrix just before we started voodoo (hence the album title) and he just went crazy. it was like a revelation for him. he realized (for the first time) that a lot of his heroes were greatly influenced by hendrix, including prince, sly, george clinton...everyone!

So after reading that, of course I wanted to know more about this Russell Elevado. Who exactly was he and how legitimate was his info? I'm almost ashamed that I didn't recognize the name, being someone who avidly reads the liner notes of most of my cds. Turns out Russ Elevado has worked as a mixing engineer on many of my favorite albums. These include Blackalicious' Blazing Arrow and The Craft, Saul Williams' Amethyst Rock Star, Roy Hargove's RH Factor - Hard Groove, a few tracks off of Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun (including Bag Lady and the epic Green Eyes), and of course, D'angelo's Voodoo. Okay, my interest was really peaked now.

Last year Russ was featured on Gearslutz.com where he answered many user questions. Check out what he had to say on the following.

R.E. on Blazing Arrow

R.E. on Amethyst Rock Star


Looking for his website led me to Wikipedia where a link for his personal site was discretely located at the bottom. Here's where I think it gets interesting. I jumped to his site and it says "Welcome to my temporary website." Well damn, won't be much here I figure. But I click his blog link and he just put the first message up Thursday, March 6 2008. Hmmmmn, looks like Russ is just starting this thing. The website doesn't show up on a Google search so my guess is it hasn't been active very long. Well over on recent projects he says:

currently i'm in the studio with D'Angelo. we started the next phase of tracking for his 3rd album. this album has been a work in progress since just after the voodoo tour in 2002. we haven't done any work on it since around 2006. D'Angelo is in good spirits and is ready to make another masterpiece.

I'm taking this as confirmation that D'angelo is still working and moving towards completing the long awaited next release. Not a surprise or anything new really, as it's been reported for some time that work was being done. But this at least sounds like it's moving forward right now and hopefully that means it won't be much longer.

You can check out Russ Elevado's full discography here.


Over on that gearslutz forum, someone re-posted what ?uestlove had previously posted on Okayplayer awhile back (years ago now) about the new project. I had never seen this, but it's got me excited.


-----Here's the deal: 11 songs are done. Most need lyrics. Most are in the 7-9 minute range. All are epic as ****. Most need a haircut. Shit I love. But shit I know the marketplace ain't even ready for. If "Untitled" video is what got him over on the idiot side of things, he is gonna have to get his physical game back and come with some strong ass imagining to make up for the fact that there will be no radio friendly single -- newbies I'm warning you now, if you want to "understand" this record--you must purchase and study the following: [Funkadelic's] Maggot Brain, America Eats Its Young, Cosmic Slop, Standing on the Verge of Getting It On, Let's Take it to the Stage, Tales of Kidd Funkadelic, [Sly & The Family Stone's] There's a Riot Going On, [Miles Davis'] On the Corner, [Shuggie Otis'] Inspiration Information, [Brian Wilson's] Smile, [the Beatles'] Abbey Road, Revolver, [Jimi Hendrix's] Electric Ladyland, [the Sex Pistol's] Nevermind the Bullocks Here's the Sex Pistols, [Prince's] Dirty Mind, [Tony Williams'] Ego and Emergency!. Study and absorb and research this shit now. Memorize it. Understand why the albums I mentioned were important in their historical context. Lower your expectations. This will throw you for a loop. ----- [?uestlove on D'angelo's new material]


And finally, how 'bout some D'angelo obscurities from YouTube. I went searching for some nice live performances and ended up finding these gems.


First, a young D'angelo performs Bill Withers' Use Me with David Sanborn and a few very recognizable "friends." 1998.




And at the 1996 Grammy Awards (though I swear that doesn't look like the same young D), a very cool tribute to Stevie Wonder performed with Tony Rich. I have a hard time focusing on the different parts while listening, so I can imagine how tough this was to sing and play.