Jamie Lidell’s latest album Compass is soulful, grungy, electronic and uneven as all get-out. However, he still manages to deliver some gems along the way. One of my favorites is the old-school flavored “She Needs Me”. Lidell packs enough soul/funk (with shades of Prince and Al Jarreau) into this one song to put R&B radio playlists to shame.
Listen to “She Needs Me” on Posterous
People who say they don’t make songs like they used to, simply need to look a little harder. In his (profanity-laden) words:
With that song, I challenged myself to write a song in one evening. I basically ad-libbed the whole vocal over a loop on my laptop. I was just singing in my living room, just feeling the magic. Then I took it to a session at Ocean Way studios, where James Gadson added his drums. You’ve got to have Gadson for that shit. I mean, he played on “Let’s Get It On”. You can’t dream of telling a drummer these days, like, “Hey man, let’s try to do a really fucking sick slow jam.” People can try, but Gadson is that sound. Whenever I’m playing with him, some crazy lock goes on I’ve never experienced with another musician, ever. He’ll just look over and he’s smiling and nailing that fuckin’ beat. And when he finished the track, he’s like, “I got it from you!” Fuckin’ no ego on him. “She Needs Me” is about musical pleasure. It’s about a lot of kinds of pleasure but, ultimately, the musical pleasure needs to match the sexual pleasure. [laughs] Otherwise, it’s no fun.
quote via Pitchfork
