AlbumE · 1995
Brown Sugar
by D'Angelo
Brown Sugar is a 1995 contemporary r&b album by D'Angelo. It runs 10 tracks across 53 minutes on EMI.
Contemporary R&B · Neo-Soul · Hip Hop Soul
Your rating
- 87 /100
- 10 critics
- 10
- Tracks
- 53 min
- Runtime
- 86 bpm
- Tempo
- A minor
- Key
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Critics
10 publications
- The Guardian5/5
- Entertainment WeeklyA
- Pitchfork9.2/10
- AllMusic4.5/5
- MSN Music (Expert Witness)A−
- NME9/10
- Rolling Stone4/5
- Spin8/10
- The Rolling Stone Album Guide4/5
- Chicago Tribune3/4
Scores collected from the English Wikipedia ratings box (CC BY-SA). Ratings belong to the publications; follow a link to read the review.
Brown Sugar album cover
The Brown Sugar cover was designed by C.M.O.N., photographed by Per Gustafinson, and art-directed by Henry Marquez.
- Design
- C.M.O.N.
- Photography
- Per Gustafinson
- Art direction
- Henry Marquez
Your rating for the cover
Tracklist
10 tracks · 53 min
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About
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.
In brief
- When was Brown Sugar released?
- Brown Sugar was released in 1995 on EMI.
- How many tracks are on Brown Sugar?
- Brown Sugar has 10 tracks, with a runtime of 53 minutes.
- What genre is Brown Sugar?
- Brown Sugar is catalogued under Contemporary R&B, Neo-Soul, Hip Hop Soul.
- What BPM is Brown Sugar?
- Brown Sugar runs at a median tempo of 86 BPM across its tracks, most often in A minor, measured from audio analysis.
- What albums are similar to Brown Sugar?
- Listeners of Brown Sugar also rate The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Lauryn Hill, What's the 411? by Mary J. Blige, Nina Revisited: A Tribute to Nina Simone by Lauryn Hill.
Brown Sugar at a glance
- Labels
- EMI Records, EMI
- Produced by
- Ali Shaheed Muhammad, D’Angelo, Raphael Saadiq
Facts from Wikidata (CC0).