Terence Trent D'arby "Wildcard!" (2001)

Wildcard!
release date: Oct. 11, 2001
format: cd (2002 reissue)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,36]
producer: Sananda Maitreya [aka Terence Trent D'Arby]
label: Sananda Records - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "O Divina" - 5. "SRR-636" - 7. "Suga Free" - 8. "What Shall I Do?" (4 / 5) - 9. "Testify" - 12. "Ev'rythang" - 16. "Goodbye Diane"

5th studio album by Terence Trent D'Arby, or: Sananda Maitreya as he has now changed his name to. The album is also filed as "Terence Trent D'Arby's Wildcard!" and "Sananda Maitreya's Wildcard!" or even as "Terence Trent D'Arby's / Sananda Maitreya's Wildcard!". And I do understand the various titles involved. Fact is, the album cover comes in (at least) two different versions. On Sananda Maitreya's official homepage the album is referred to as "Wildcard! - The Jokers Edition" (a 2002 reissue). However, all editions of the album contain a small circle with both "his" names in it: the "Joker"[!].
Anyway, the music is fine, almost as usual. The 'hard rock' element he has excelled in on the predecessor Vibrator from 1995 is completely absent, instead it's a more mellow and soulful 'neo-soul' release consisting of 19 tracks. It has been released on several labels: Rock On, Universal and D'Arby / Sananda's own label Sananda Records. Both the 2001/02 releases contain 19 tracks but doesn't have identical track listing. The version I have come to know is the reissue containing the fine "What Shall I do?", and two other tracks omitted from the original album version. The original release was an album by Terence Trent D'Arby produced by Sananda Maitreya, which hints to TTD's decision to officially have his name changed to Sananda Francesco Maitreya. He has released another 6 studio albums since the release of this album, none of which I have come across. Since 2002 he lives in Milan, Italy.
Wildcard! may not be a masterpiece but it surely deserves much more recognition.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]

<  show covers >

org. cover, 2001

inlay showing
both names

Terence Trent D'arby "Vibrator" (1995)

Vibrator
release date: Jun. 1, 1995
format: digital
[album rate: 2,5 / 5] [2,27]
producer: Terence Trent D'Arby
label: Columbia Records - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 3. "Holding on to You" (3,5 / 5) - 6. "We Don't Have That Much Time Together" - 8. "If You Go Before Me"

4th studio album by Terence Trent D'Arby continue its style from Symphony or Damn (1993), only it doesn't contain compositions on the same high level. It sounds and feels much like leftovers from his previous work. Together with Neither Fish Nor Flesh from '89, I find this his least interesting album, and the one that makes me think of Prince the most, and I'm not a fan of his. This is only just mediocre. This is one huge blend of styles: funk, soul , pop / rock, r&b, well even jazz is represented here making it fusion jazz rock. It seems he's almost trying to embrace all styles and genres, which can only lead to the style of... confusion [!].
[ allmusic.com 2,5 / 5, Select 1 / 5 stars ]

Terence Trent D'Arby "Symphony or Damn" (1993)

Symphony or Damn
release date: May 11, 1993
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,68]
producer: Terence Trent D'Arby
label: Columbia Records - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 2. "She Kissed Me" (4,5 / 5) (live - live) - 3. "Do You Love Me Like You Say?" - 4. "Baby Let Me Share My Love" (4 / 5) - 5. "Delicate" (feat. Des'ree) (4 / 5) - 6. "Neon Messiah" - 7. "Penelope Please" - 12. "Are You Happy?" - 14. "I Still Love You"

3rd studio album by Terence Trent D'Arby is a fine return to form. The style is closer to his great debut album, but also has a more hard rock profile, which makes me think of Lenny Kravitz as a younger (and lesser gifted) admirer of his.
D'Arby's struggles with an image of being over-ambitious doesn't come easy with tracks #1-9 labelled "Part I - Confrontation", and tracks #10-16: "Part II - Reconciliation". However, once again D'Arby shows his great musical skills by being credited as musical arranger, for handling lead and background vocals, as instrumentalist playing bass, clavinet, drums, acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, percussion, for making drum programming, horn and string arrangements, sound effects, AND for producing the album. Aside from that he has composed all music on the album. Yes, he is enormously gifted, and (sadly) he points to that himself, BUT this is a fine album almost parring his great debut. I didn't come across this album until after 2005, but it really doesn't sound like being produced in '93. It has a big and vivid sound, and considering the seemingly absent attention that was attributed the album, it surprises me how good it is. It's a recommendable, almost essential r&b album of the 1990s.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]

Terence Trent D'Arby "Neither Fish Nor Flesh..." (1989)

Neither Fish Nor Flesh...
release date: Oct. 23, 1989
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,46]
producer: Terence Trent D'Arby
label: CBS Records - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 3."It Feels So Good To Love Someone Like You" - 4. "To Know Someone Deeply Is To Know Someone Softly" (4 / 5) - 5. "I'll Be Alright" (4 / 5) (live) - 6. "Billy Don't Fall" (3,5 / 5)

2nd studio album by Terence Trent D'Arby with the full title Neither Fish Nor Flesh (A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope & Destruction) is released 2½ years after his great debut. The style is less focused, and loans from funk rock folk and gospel. It doesn't contain the same great single hits as the debut, but it contains fine music. I don't recall hearing it upon its release, and frankly suspect that most radio stations and distributor links didn't want D'Arby at all. Critics were hard on D'Arby. Well, he hadn't made it easy to himself claiming that his debut was a more important album than Sgt. Pepper... by The Beatles, and generally just taking it for granted that everyone in touch with the music industry could tell he was a genius. Prior to the album release, a German producer, Frank Farian reissued the album Love on Time (1984) by the German band, The Touch, a band featuring Terence Trent D'Arby on vocals. He played in the band while serving the US army stationed in Frankfurt, and Farian took advantage of D'Arby's new-found international debut to reissue the album as Early Works against D'Arby's will. When Neither Fish Nor Flesh was released, many music critics called the new album over-ambitious, pretentious, and simply rejected D'Arby's persona. Apparently, and according to D'Arby he found himself and the record label with conflicting ideas about promotional aspects, which wasn't in favor of the album nor the artist behind it. Some time after the release, TTD referred to himself as Sananda Maitreya, a name he legally changed to in 2001. On his homepage referring to this album, he recalls: "We believe this is the project that literally killed ‘TTD’, and from whose molten ashes, began the life of Sananda."
[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]

Terence Trent D'Arby "Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby" (1987)

Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby [debut]
release date: Jul. 13, 1987
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,05]
producer: Martyn Ware, Terence Trent D'Arby, Howard Grey
label: Columbia Records - nationality: USA

Tracklist: 1. "If You All Get to Heaven" (4 / 5) - 2. "If You Let Me Stay" (4,5 / 5) - 3. "Wishing Well" (4 / 5) - 4. "I'll Never Turn My Back on You (Father's Words)" (3,5 / 5) - 5. "Dance Little Sister" (4 / 5) - 6. "Seven More Days" (4 / 5) (live) - 7. "Let's Go Forward" (3,5 / 5) - 8. "Rain" (3,5 / 5) - 9. "Sign Your Name" (4 / 5) - 10. "As Yet Untitled" (3 / 5) - 11. "Who's Lovin' You" (4 / 5) (live)

Studio debut album by Terence Trent D'Arby (born Terence Trent Howard). This is a fabulous debut album. D'Arby wrote, sang, played, arranged, and co-produced most tracks single-handedly. He is a multi-instrumentalist and has a singing voice that pars the best soul artists, and feels stronger, tighter and more intense than any contemporary r&b, soul, and pop / rock singer around. Stylistically, it's a huge blend of styles with rhythm & blues at the center of everything, and around that, D'Arby drags from especially soul, but also from pop / rock, blues, and vocal jazz with noticeable sources like Otis Redding, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder. The album went straight to #1 in the UK and many other European countries, whereas it had a harder time in D'Arby's home country, the USA. To me, this is much better than Michael Jackson or Prince, perhaps because it contains more rock and soul influence - it's more hard hitting than most r&b releases, which may explain its difficulty in his home country. After this first great album, D'Arby strangely almost vanished from the public eye. Initially, I bought the album on cassette in '87, and only first in the 90s bought it on cd. The album is rightfully enlisted in "10001 Albums You Must Here Before You Die".
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5, Q Magazine 3 / 5 stars ]