Aloe Blacc - Lift Your Spirit - Printable Version +- Music Discussion (https://www.music-discussion.com) +-- Forum: Music Discussion (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4) +--- Forum: Soul/R&B/Hip Hop/Rap (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=15) +--- Thread: Aloe Blacc - Lift Your Spirit (/showthread.php?tid=10267)

Aloe Blacc - Lift Your Spirit - Music Head - 21-03-2014 enters the Billboard chart this week at #4 Spotify online listen 3.5 of 5.0 from allmusic had a primer awhile back of Mr. Blacc from CH with Good Things I like this one even better not a big fan of the single The Man I get an updated Bill Withers feel on some tracks and I don't see anybody "featured" artist website - http://liftyourspirit.aloeblacc.com/ Bio - from allmusic Born to Panamanian parents in Los Angeles in 1979, E. Nathaniel Dawkins (aka Aloe Blacc) first began playing trumpet in elementary school, and continued with the instrument throughout high school. There he also independently released Imaginary Friends, produced by DJ Exile, with whom he would go on to form the hip-hop group Emanon. While at college at USC, though his artistic endeavors were placed behind his scholastic goals, Aloe still managed to learn how to play the guitar and the piano, and after graduating and spending some time in the corporate world, he decided to return to his first love, music. In 2005 Emanon's full-length debut, The Waiting Room, came out on Shaman Works, and the next year his first solo album, Shine Through, a combination of retro-soul and Latin music, was released on Stones Throw. He partnered with the Truth & Soul Productions crew for 2010's more organic effort Good Things. The album featured the single "I Need a Dollar," which reached the Top Ten in several countries, including the U.K. and Germany. The song was licensed for use as the theme song to the HBO show How to Make It in America. In 2013, Aloe co-wrote and fronted Avicii's "Wake Me Up," an international smash hit that reached the Top Five of Billboard's Hot 100. His third album, Lift Your Spirit, was released in some territories later that year. In the U.S., it was issued through Interscope in early 2014. Album Review - from allmusic Like fellow retro-minded rapper-turned-singer Mayer Hawthorne, Aloe Blacc moved from the revered independent Stones Throw to a major label, but he did so after one of his singles -- 2010's "I Need a Dollar" -- went Top Ten in ten territories. Between the song's unlikely rise and an Interscope contract, Aloe co-wrote and fronted Avicii's peculiar folk-EDM hybrid "Wake Me Up," an even bigger hit. Thankfully, Lift Your Spirit doesn't attempt to capitalize on the success of the Avicii collaboration, unless the zero-percent EDM version of "Wake Me Up," placed third on the U.S. album, is factored. Just as Hawthorne's major-label debut presented his throwback sound with sanded surfaces, this set does have some contemporary sheen. Compared to Good Things, it sounds like its making was much more considered and laborious. That goes more for the material and productions than for Aloe's everyman voice, still redolent of a young and optimistic Bill Withers with an old soul. It remains as easy on the ears as a worn pair of slippers on the feet. Aloe co-produced all but three of the songs, with veteran DJ Khalil involved with all but two of them. Several cuts -- dance party numbers "Can You Do This" and "Chasing," the hat-on-heart ballad "Red Velvet Seat," and the exultant, Elton John-referencing "The Man," boosted by a gospel choir -- are spiffier spins on Aloe's earlier soul stylings. More surprising, "Here Today" trails "Wake Me Up" with more folky platitudes, this time with a stadium "all together now" chorus, while "The Hand Is Quicker" has a blues edge. One cut made with Pharrell Williams, "Love Is the Answer," takes no time to slip into an easy disco-funk groove and fits into the album with its sunny outlook and elegant horns and strings. The lone song with a sentiment that can't be summarized by the album's title, "Ticking Bomb" ("The whole world's sitting on a ticking bomb, so keep your calm and carry on"), doesn't seem right within the sequence but is a career highlight. The album's content is otherwise reflected in the title. It could use more of that grit heard in the earlier releases. much better than The Man: [video=youtube;7m-1ba0N2N0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m-1ba0N2N0[/video] Track Listing 1. The Man 2. Love Is the Answer 3. Wake Me Up [Acoustic] 4. Here Today 5. Can You Do This 6. Chasing 7. The Hand Is Quicker 8. Ticking Bomb 9. Red Velvet Seat 10. Owe It All Aloe Blacc - Lift Your Spirit - SteveO - 21-03-2014 I like Here Today!!!...thanks Music man!