As the 2010s come to a close, I've been trying to do some deep cuts playlists that reflect what artists I think really helped define this decade's popular music and consistently delivered. And Miguel Pimentel is very near the top of that list, maybe the top or second only to Beyonce in R&B, easily one of the best vocalists of his generation, but also a talented songwriter with great taste in production, collaborators, and influences. Few people have made albums better than Kaleidoscope Dream this decade, but more than that, few artists' 4th best album of the 2010s is on par with Wildheart.

Miguel deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Girl With The Tattoo Enter.lewd
2. The Thrill
3. Pineapple Skies
4. What's Normal Anyway
5. Use Me
6. Teach Me
7. Cadillac
8. NWA f/ Kurupt
9. Python
10. Caramelo Duro (Spanish Version) f/ Kali Uchis
11. Hard Way
12. Shockandawe
13. R.A.N.
14. Anointed
15. Strawberry Amazing
16. Damned
17. Wolf f/ Quin
18. Hero
19. Arch & Point
20. Pussy Is Mine
21. This Is Not A Game w/ The Chemical Brothers
22. Leaves

Track 15 from Mischief: The Mixtape (2008)
Tracks 1, 6, 11 and 18 from All I Want Is You (2010)
Tracks 2, 5, 19 and 20 from Kaleidoscope Dream (2012)
Track 21 from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt. 1 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2014)
Tracks 4, 8, 16 and 22 from Wildheart (2015)
Tracks 7 from The Get Down: Original Soundtrack from the Netflix Original Series (2016)
Track 12 from the "Shockandawe" single (2017)
Tracks 3, 14 and 17 from War & Leisure (2017)
Track 13 from SuperFly (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2018)
Track 9 from the "Python" single (2018)
Track 10 from Te Lo Dije EP (2019)

Miguel has released a lot of EPs and one-off singles in between albums, most notably 2012's Art Dealer Chic. It's really frustrating to me that the Art Dealer Chic songs that didn't end up on Kaleidoscope Dream as well aren't on streaming services, I'd love to include "...ALL" or the early version of "Candles In The Sun" on here. But streaming services do have "Strawberry Amazing," one of his early mixtape tracks from the late 2000's, and I threw in some of his great soundtrack work, and a track from the recent EP of Spanish language versions of songs from War & Leisure.

Miguel famously kicked around the industry for a long time before becoming a star. He auditioned for the hilariously named group Fatty Koo, as seen in their hilariously named reality show "Blowin' Up!: Fatty Koo," in 2004. And in the late 2000s sang hooks for blog rap stars like Blu and Asher Roth and signed with an indie label. Recording an unreleased album for that label, which subsequently sued him when he left and signed to a major label, really slowed Miguel's career down for years, and yet he still seemed to arrive right on time. By the time "Sure Thing" was a huge radio hit in 2011, it had been almost 4 years since the same song helped him get a manager and a deal with Jive Records. Much was made of lumping Miguel in with other less traditional new R&B stars like Frank Ocean and The Weeknd, but Miguel had already found his sound and his approach years before that, it was more like everybody had caught up to him.

I'm not sure when Miguel started playing guitar, but I've been impressed with how consistently guitar has featured in his music, whether he's the one playing it or not, dating back to the "Strawberry Amazing" era. He may not have the chops of the biggest inspiration for his rock/R&B fusions, Prince, but he has an interesting propensity for muddier, more distorted tones. Guitar is absent, or presence in lighter, more atmospheric ways, on a lot of his biggest hits, but it's pretty prominent on his albums, and often on my favorite songs. I ended up putting a lot of the same songs on both this and the Six-String Soul: Miguel's Guitar Music playlist I made a couple years back.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 3:09 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.