The Book of Daniel (album): Difference between revisions
m →Track listing: (from official website/Allmusic) |
m also reverted "mental illness" to "mental health deterioration" pre-edit war...constantly claiming that an artist has a mental illness when it has not been revealed/diagnosed is, at best, against guidelines and at worst, extremely libelous and insensitive |
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| writer1 = [[Danny!|Daniel Swain]] |
| writer1 = [[Danny!|Daniel Swain]] |
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| length1 = 5:13 |
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| title2 = Hello! |
| title2 = Hello! |
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| note2 = featuring the MUSYCA Children's Choir |
| note2 = featuring the MUSYCA Children's Choir |
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Revision as of 22:42, 18 October 2018
| The Book of Daniel | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | October 12, 2018 (US/CAN)[citation needed] | |||
| Recorded | November 2015 - December 2017 | |||
| Studio | StarTower Studios (Atlanta) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 75:32 | |||
| Label | StarTower Music, Ltd. | |||
| Producer | Danny! | |||
| Danny! chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Singles from The Book of Daniel | ||||
| ||||
The Book of Daniel or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Be the Bomb, more commonly known as The Book of Daniel, is the fourth studio album from Atlanta recording artist and producer Danny!.[1]
Originally titled "Deliverance", The Book of Daniel is, by and large, a first-person account chronicling the origins, delayed awareness and eventual self-acceptance of the album protagonist's mental health deterioration. The album was notable for its maximalist aesthetic as well as its sharp departure from Danny!'s previous hip hop-centric output.
The record was initially slated for a Leap Day 2016 release[2] but would later be postponed for almost two years. The Book of Daniel is Danny!'s first album since 2012's Okayplayer Records LP Payback.
Background
During a years-long hiatus from recording music Danny! starred in a digital short for Sesame Street,[3] composed music for an Emmy Award-winning episode of FOX's Bob's Burgers (earning himself a plaque for his contributions)[3] and performed voiceover work for ESPN.[3] With the money earned from these opportunities Danny! was able to continue funding what would become The Book of Daniel, initially titled "Deliverance". In its original incarnation The Book of Daniel largely relied on obscure production library music samples not unlike Danny!'s first two studio albums And I Love H.E.R.: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Where Is Danny?.
The Book of Daniel is named after the 27th book in the modern Christian Bible, with whom Danny!'s birth name also shares a source, and features twelve songs to match the twelve chapters of the album's namesake.
The record's only other parallel to the biblical chapter is its shared motif of overcoming excessive hardship. The Book of Daniel details the present-day difficulty of the album protagonist's adult life as a result of severe childhood emotional neglect, and the complications experienced during — and leading up to — efforts to repair the damage done to both his interpersonal relationships and his mental health.[4] It is not known whether, or how much of, the album's narrative is autobiographical.
The subtitle of The Book of Daniel is a reference to the Stanley Kubrick-directed film "Dr. Strangelove".[4]
Music and lyrics
Though produced entirely by Danny!, The Book of Daniel employs the use of many outside vocalists and orchestras in an effort to give the album a "film score" sound by enhancing its diverse and obscure sample usage. All but one song on The Book of Daniel — an interlude — features chamber musicians playing a wide variety of instruments such as the glockenspiel, harp, cello and violin (Miri Ben-Ari, for example, contributes to the final two minutes of "Love U 2 Much", culminating in a violin solo composed and performed by Ben-Ari at the end of the song), along with non-baroque instruments such as the ukulele, kalimba, Electro-Theremin and music box.
Danny! would later joke that the production of the album, paid for with his own money and mostly consisting of sample clearance fees and the aforementioned session musicians, cost "the equivalent of three or four administrative assistant salaries" and that he'd spent years "climb[ing] out of financial and emotional debt...just to get right back in it [for the sake of The Book of Daniel]!".[5] It was also not uncommon for Danny! to regard The Book of Daniel as "a million-dollar album for 1/10th of the price",[1] referring to its production costs, during the album's development.
In a recent interview Danny! acknowledged the fusion of musical genres such as folk, baroque pop, R&B, gospel and psychedelic rock, along with the record's main themes of melancholia and mental health, into the overall sound of the album as "Blue meets Supa Dupa Fly meets Stoneground Words meets Pet Sounds, with a pinch of Paul's Boutique". It was during the conception of The Book of Daniel that The FADER affectionately nicknamed Danny! "black Beck".[5]
The self-realization that personal happiness stems from accepting "[life] is all bullshit" is one of the album's main themes, and is repeated often throughout the entirety of The Book of Daniel; Danny! has credited The Beatles' 1967 song "Strawberry Fields Forever" as the album's initial source of that theme (similar to his debut album And I Love H.E.R., another album lauded for its diverse range of musical genres,[6] heavily borrowing visual themes from The Beatles' 1964 film A Hard Day's Night).
The Book of Daniel's content lucidly acknowledges mental and substance abuse, existential depression, fatherhood and the emotional fragility of generations of African-American children.
Artwork
The "weeping man" on the cover of The Book of Daniel comes from The Drifters' 1968 compilation album Golden Hits; specifically, the single "I Count The Tears". The man, believed to depict Danny! and the album's narrative of "crying out for help",[5] holds up two fingers to count the number of tears as they stream down his face. The hot air balloon shown on the alternate cover art references a suicidal lyric from The Book of Daniel's "Goodbye (Cruel World)", itself a song loosely based on Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)".
Promotion
In anticipation for the new album, Danny! leaked a snippet of "Sweet Virginia" on his now-defunct Tumblr blog in early November 2015,[7] followed by daily instrumental cues shared on his Instagram page that were later deleted (though a small portion still remain). The FADER, calling the album "the [present-day] successor to Late Orchestration", premiered its then lead single "Constellations"[5] two weeks prior to The Book of Daniel's original February 29, 2016 release date.
As of 2018, Danny!'s social media posts — primarily Instagram — continue to preview new music from The Book of Daniel leading up to the album's mid-September release date.
Track listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Sample(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Gospel According To..." | Daniel Swain | 5:13 | |
| 2. | "Hello!" (featuring the MUSYCA Children's Choir) | Swain | Contains interpolations of "Normal American Kids", written and performed by Wilco. | 4:20 |
| 3. | "Machine" | Swain | Contains elements from "The Man-Machine", written and performed by Kraftwerk. | 6:47 |
| 4. | "Paul Is Dead" | Swain | 3:14 | |
| 5. | "Sweet Virginia / Mama, I'm Sorry" | Swain | Contains samples from "Nazdrave Ti, Chorbadjiio", performed by the Mystery of Bulgarian Voices Choir and "Candyman Suite: Opening Theme", composed by Philip Glass. | 12:52 |
| 6. | "Why Not" | Swain | 4:04 | |
| 7. | "Love U 2 Much" | Swain | Contains a sample of the composition "I Love You Too Much", written and composed by Stevie Wonder. | 5:42 |
| 8. | "Black Zombie, Pt. 2" | Swain | 8:47 | |
| 9. | "(They're Gonna) Let You Down" | Swain | 8:44 | |
| 10. | "My Dear Mother Agatha" | Swain | Contains excerpts from "Hum Ghar Sajan", composed and performed by Haruomi Hosono and Tadanori Yokoo. | 4:57 |
| 11. | "Goodbye (Cruel World)" | Swain | Contains a sample of the composition "Blue Haze", composed by Alan Hawkshaw and Alan Parker. | 5:36 |
| 12. | "Savior" | Swain | Contains elements from the composition "The World Is A Ghetto", composed by War and performed by George Benson. | 6:36 |
| Total length: | 75:32 | |||
| No. | Title | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13. | "Constellations" (Swain) | Produced by Danny! | 3:40 |
| No. | Title | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13. | "Smile Away" (Swain) | Produced by Danny! | 2:18 |
| 14. | "Perfect (feat. Chell, Just Blaze and James Poyser of The Roots)" (Swain) | Produced by Danny! | 2:51 |
See also
References
- ^ a b Phili, Stelios (2014-03-05). "The GQ+A". GQ. Retrieved 2014-03-05.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Saul, Heather (2016-02-10). "Kanye West Says Bill Cosby Is Innocent". The Independent. Retrieved 2017-12-01.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c Swain, Daniel (2018-01-12). "Danny! News". DannySwain.com. Retrieved 2018-01-15.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b Jeffries, David (2013-03-11). "Danny!: Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 2014-02-11.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c d Golden, Zara (2016-02-16). "Danny! Is Clear-Eyed In New "Constellations" Video". The Fader. Retrieved 2017-02-11.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Raible, Allan (2009-08-22). "The 50 Best Albums Of 2008". ABC News. Retrieved 2017-12-24.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Swain, Daniel (2015-11-26). "Sweet Virginia (demo)". Tumblr. Retrieved 2015-12-01.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help)