This Is Book's Music

Esperanza Spalding – Black Gold (feat. Algebra Blessett) from Concrete Loop on Vimeo.

With a forthcoming album called Radio Music Society, it might sound like Esperanza Spalding might be catering to radio a bit more, but look at the title again. It suggests that perhaps we are living in a “radio music society” where a lot of people are coming off as being forced to comply to the ways of music on the radio, but if they simply move to a different channel, or even to turn it off, they might discover something quite incredible. Spalding is sitting on a black & white graphic of an 80′s boom box, almost as a way of saying “the days of the glory of the radio are over, it is we outside of the radio that can offer you much more musical color to listen to.”

Again, it’s a suggestion that I see, but you can actually see and hear the first video from the album in the form of “Black Gold”. Will this become a hit song, or serve merely as a promotional tool to let people know that she has new music? It can be both. Are people going to get pissy because she was a Grammy winner a few years ago? Who cares, let them get pissy. The track features Algebra Blesset helping her out, and the video serves not only as a means of entertainment, but an education tool as well as a reminder for some viewers about Black History Month and why being honored in the shortest month of the year is denial of an important part of world history.

Radio Music Society is the follow-up to her previous album, Chamber Music Society, so immediate one can detect a bit of a statement being made. Is one better than the other? Is one more sophisticated, and if so, what makes one not so sophisticated? Have the lines been blurred, or are they too forced onto a public that lives by not knowing the non-differences? The album will be released as a regular album and a “deluxe edition”, both will make its way to the public on March 20th.