Solange’s new album, “When I Get Home”, is making waves all over the internet with its ambiance and alluring soul. Released March 1st, the 32-year-old Houston singer’s fourth studio album covers a range of soothing jazzy beats, R&B elements, and new age touches that lend themselves to some truly phenomenal songs that carry tons of replayability.
The album opens up with a dreamy, floaty tune called “Things I Imagined” that eases the listener down the cushioned rabbit hole and into their own beautiful wonderland. A personal favorite of the bunch, this song has strong new age elements, and some of Solange’s best vocals in the entire album. The electric piano and easy-breezy air of the song are beautifully complemented by Solange's wavy, smooth-as-butter voice. This is a song to be put on repeat, a hundred times over, in its own playlist.
From that point, the songs make a slow transition towards having some more solid R&B elements leading up to the jazzy hip-hop song “Stay Flo” and bounces around between the genres on several other songs like “My Skin My Logo” and “Binz.” Producer Metro Boomin joins Solange with a nice clean the beat on “Stay Flo” and creates that musical blend of hip hop and new age, with a touch of jazz, that is signature to the album. Solange’s vocal range isn’t at its best or most expressive in this song, but she rides the beats and lets the music do a lot of the talking for her.
Directly after “Stay Flo,” the beautiful “Dreams” glides in and takes its place as one of the best songs on the album. Giving “Don’t Touch My Hair” vibes, the song “Dreams” is ambient, rhythmic, delicate, and extra smooth. Not many other songs on the album provide the same vibe and energy as “Dreams,” unfortunately. A few tracks after this point seemed to decrease in the life and imagination of previous songs. With the exception of “Almeda,” several of the songs toward the middle and end of the album seemed to breeze right by, without leaving the lasting impressions that the earlier tracks provided. Still, “Almeda” is a track worth acknowledging. Just closing out the end of Black History Month, the whole album hosts several beautiful and empowering songs for black listeners, but none quite like “Almeda.” This song comes right in the middle of the album and exudes blackness, beauty, and brilliance. Taking on Pharrell's signature tight drum beats, the song just oozes black family reunion, summertime barbeque vibes with its tribute to black skin and throwback to “Blackberry Molasses.”
After “Almeda,” however, the album loses a bit of steam and hovers around middle-of-the-road beats and lyrics. The album breaks the spell cast by the first seven tracks and just flies right by to the finish line after the halfway point. The entire album is actually quite short in its entirety with most songs being under three minutes, but the weightiness of the earlier songs seemed to last a beautiful lifetime. Those several songs in the beginning were well worth the entire album.
Solange’s eclectic collection of songs on this album features a range of artists from Playboi Carti, Gucci Mane, The Dream and several more talented musicians that each lend something wonderful to the finished product. Though not my personal favorite Solange album, each song of the collection deserves more than one initial listen. The beautifully crafted, exploratory album gains something beautiful with each consecutive listen.
Similar to reactions garnered from her third studio album “A Seat at the Table,” fans are happy to see Solange make her stamp on the new age genre and create memorable music that demand to be replayed.