Deep Album Cuts Vol. 201: Solange
Last week I reached the 200th installment in the Deep Album Cuts series. And having reached that milestone, I also wanted to pay respect to the person who inspired the name of this column and its first playlist in 2013, Solange Knowles, who tweeted about the importance of knowing Brandy deep album cuts. At the time, Solange only had two full-length albums, but now that she has four and has emerged as a significant artist in her own right, I wanted to look back at her catalog.
2. Get Together
3. This Could Be Love
4. Would've Been The One
5. Cosmic Journey featuring Bilal
6. 6 O'Clock Blues
7. Don't Let Me Down
8. Some Things Never Seem To Fucking Work
9. Bad Girls (Verdine Version)
10. Cash In
11. Junie
12. F.U.B.U. featuring The-Dream and BJ The Chicago Kid
13. Borderline (An Ode To Self Care) featuring Q-Tip
14. Don't Wish Me Well
14. Don't Wish Me Well
15. Scales featuring Kelela
16. Things I Imagined
16. Things I Imagined
17. Down With The Clique featuring Tyler, The Creator
18. Way To The Show featuring Cassie
19. Stay Flo
20. Dreams featuring Devin The Dude
Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Solo Star (2002)
Tracks 4, 5 and 6 from Sol-Angel And The Hadley St. Dreams (2008)
Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from the True EP (2012)
Track 10 from Saint Heron (2013)
Tracks 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 from A Seat At The Table (2016)
Tracks 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 from When I Get Home (2019)
Solange's career arc reminds me a bit of Janet Jackson's -- being in a famous family and the little sister of a superstar gave them both the opportunity and freedom to make music at a major label level and study under great producers and songwriters, before really finding their sound with a chart-topping third album. Obviously Janet became a pop star on the same scale as Michael while Solange has charted her own course that feels like she's not trying to be as much a virtuoso superstar like Beyonce, but still, there are parallels. And much as I think Janet's pre-Control albums are kind of underrated, I found stuff to enjoy on Solange's first two albums that feel a little overlooked now.
Solange was 16 when she released her first album and Destiny's Child were at the height of their success and her big sister was about to become a huge artist in her own right. So Solo Star is stacked with big name talent -- beats by Timbaland (the Static Major-penned "Try Again" soundalike "Get Together") and Neptunes and Rockwilder. Unfortunately, the versions of Solange's first 2 albums that are currently on streaming services are not the original major label releases but reissues from a few years later by Music World Music Inc., a company owned by Matthew Knowles. Those reissues change around the running order and cover art, add some tracks and drop others, including both songs on Solo Star that were co-written and co-produced by Beyonce.
Sol-Angel And The Hadley St. Dreams has some real gems, particularly "Would've Been The One," which was co-written by Baltimore native Makeba Riddick, and that wild 6-minute song with Bilal. The single "T.O.N.Y." might still be my favorite Solange song. True was kind of a turning point where people took Solange more seriously, but I don't really like Dev Hynes's sound that much, his stuff is so blandly retro. The kissing scene at Jimmy John's in "Some Things Never Seem To Fucking Work" is pretty amusing, though. And Verdine White from Earth, Wind & Fire plays some gorgeous bass on "Bad Girls."
I think A Seat At The Table is definitely her best album, though. It took some time to grow on me, but it sounds better now, revisiting it after "Cranes In the Sky" has really stood up as one of the best R&B singles of the last few years. It surprised me Solange basically didn't release a single from When I Get Home. The surprise release was of course nothing new, and she did shoot a few videos for the album, but nothing really emerged as a radio song on the level of "Cranes." "Things I Imagined" kind of became the most quoted song on the album, but it was more of an intro than a full song. I also really dug "Cash In" from her Saint Heron label compilation, I hadn't heard that one before I started putting together this playlist.
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on Monday, August 17, 2020 at 9:56 AM.
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