.

?uestlove Trying to Pin Down Justin Timberlake, Gritty Vintage Sound for New Al Green Record

September 5, 2007 6:13 PM ET

The Roots multitasker ?uestlove has spent three years working on Al Green's as-yet-untitled new album that's due next spring, and he tells MTV News that guests on the record will include D'Angelo, Corinne Bailey Rae, Anthony Hamilton and possibly Justin Timberlake. But more importantly, the producer says, he's trying to pin down an old-school, real-sounding aesthetic that he says is missing from today's recordings. "I'm trying to take him back to 1974 -- very dry, very dirty, very grassroots sound," ?uestlove said. "One of the biggest mistakes of modern technology, it doesn't sound gritty, doesn't sound raw. A lot of the favorite records we sample from today, those were recorded in studios that were very lackluster. Those weren't the best studios in the world. I want this album to sound very cheap, very dirty ... the vibe the Amy Winehouse album gave you. More than just the song, the creative aspect." So will Timberlake bite and get in on the record? Rock Daily guesses yes: In 2005, he gushed about Green in a Rolling Stone story, "Hearing Al as a kid made me want to become a singer and showed me that it was OK to have a softer, more falsetto voice. ... I always loved the way the mistakes were kept in on his albums, like the way the band is almost out of sync at the beginning of 'Love and Happiness.' Even his messes are beautiful."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

prev
Music Main Next

blog comments powered by Disqus
Stay Connected

Sign up to get Rolling Stone's daily newsletter.

Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

More Song Stories entries »