So y'all want me to write this one like one of them uppity, bloggy-esque critics or just give it to you straight, how-I-feel style? Okay, stupid question. It's still early and i'm not awake yet, so here goes:
Screw everyone who says the cat sounds like Stevie. Ignore the fact that he's Marvin Gaye's younger cousin. And unless you're gonna buy it, forget that his first joint, THE COLORED SECTION was one of the best concept soul albums to come out in the last 5 years. Let's igg the fact that DJs didn't lock they studio doors and play TCS at least twice all the way through Petey Greene style for their listeners, critics, PDs, and payola be damned remains one of the bigger shames in recent Black radio history.
But forget all that.
Just 'member this right here:
Donnie's 2nd album, THE DAILY NEWS (2007) is one of the best most cohesively souful albums you'll hear in any genre in any decade by anybody. TDN picks up where his TCS album left with Donnie being on some ol' Joe Williams-Bill-Withers-Sam-Cooke, day-in-the life-soul-sangin', good-feelin', we-gon'-make-it music. This boy DONNIE is taxes-and-death for real!
Like his previous The Colored Section, The Daily News is a (near) concept album centered around current events (politics, terrorism, consumerism war) and day in the life struggles (unemployment, depression, suicide, relationships, etc.) and how the average, mostly working class people deal with it all.
Over-The-Counter-Culture had me rollin' from start to finish. (The Pharma industry is the real drug dealers and we're all junkies!) Impatient People examines our quick-fix society-especially us as Black Folks, while Suicide—a surprisingly upbeat (and confessional?) song by a Black male artist, no less—talks about suicide. (BET'll rock this one. lol.) Then there's China Doll, which, couldn't be more timely—it's about incest and molestation. ("Leave her alone-she's just a little china doll," he sings.)
The crazy thing about The Daily News is how Donnie continues to hone his almost creepy ability to sound so upbeat and catchy about really depressing and serious stuff. And if he weren't such a good songwriter, it'd almost be comical. But he pulls it off with style. It's almost like listening to a new-school Stev—no, I ain't gon' say it; he's heard it enough.
But I will say this: Not only is The Daily News some truly good news, but it elevates Donnie into the exclusive category of cats that I will always check for on GP—I don't care if I hear any parts of his next album, soon as I know he's got something fresh in the works, I'm coppin' it with cash money on the strength of these last two and lettin' the chips fall where they may. Dude's earned that.
The following was TDN's lead single: If I Were You.
DONNIE
The Daily News (2007)
SoulThought Entertainment
http://www.myspace.com/donniemusic
