House of Music
House of Music is the fourth and final studio album by American R&B band Tony! Toni! Toné!, released on November 19, 1996, by Mercury Records. It follows the success of the band's 1993 album Sons of Soul and a hiatus during which each member pursued individual musical projects.
For House of Music, Tony! Toni! Toné! regrouped in 1995 and worked at studios in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Sacramento. Bassist-vocalist Raphael Saadiq, guitarist-vocalist D'wayne Wiggins, and percussionist-keyboardist Timothy Christian Riley worked on songs for the album independently before recording them together as a group. Most of the album was produced by the band; the only song to feature outside production was "Let's Get Down", produced by Saadiq with rapper-producer DJ Quik and G-One.
Tony! Toni! Toné! sought to emphasize musicianship rather than production technique during the sessions for House of Music. Expanding on their previous work's traditional R&B influences with live instrumentation and balladry, the album features both contemporary and older musical sensibilities alongside witty, sensitive lyrics informed by the spirit of romantic love and seduction. Tony! Toni! Toné! named the album after a small record store in the band's native city of Oakland, which Wiggins said they were reminded of after listening to the finished music.
House of Music charted for 31 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 32, and was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Critics widely praised Tony! Toni! Toné!'s musicianship and songwriting, later deeming the album a masterpiece of 1990s R&B. An international tour promoting House of Music was planned but did not materialize amid growing tensions within the group stemming from creative differences and Mercury's management. They disbanded shortly after the album's release to pursue separate music careers.
Background
Tony! Toni! Toné! took a hiatus as a group after the commercial and critical success of their third album Sons of Soul. According to vocalist and bassist Raphael Wiggins, each member had pursued individual music projects, and "the group was trying to figure out where everybody's time, space and head was at." He, D'wayne Wiggins, and Timothy Christian Riley worked on songwriting and production for other recording artists during the band's hiatus, including D'Angelo, En Vogue, Karyn White, Tevin Campbell, and A Tribe Called Quest. Raphael Wiggins adopted the surname "Saadiq" for his professional name in 1994—meaning "man of his word" in Arabic—and released his solo single "Ask of You" in 1995. Their work outside the band led to rumors of a break-up during the time between albums, before regrouping to record House of Music.Recording and production
House of Music was recorded in sessions that began in September 1995 and took place at the following California-based studios: Brilliant Studios and Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco; Coda Studios and Grass Roots Studios in Oakland; Encore Studios, Image Recording, and Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles; and Pookie Labs and Woodshed Studios in Sacramento.Tony! Toni! Toné! used vintage recording equipment and, for certain tracks, a 40-piece orchestra. Some songs also featured guest musicians, including rapper and producer DJ Quik, percussionist Sheila E., and the Tower of Power horn section. Saadiq worked with DJ Quik on the song "Let's Get Down" and said the collaboration proved very "natural" because of the producer's affinity for funk music. Tony! Toni! Toné! wanted to record the album with an emphasis on musicianship rather than production flair. Wiggins felt that the absence of their once prominent synthesizers made the resulting music sound more distinctive. "On a lot of the songs, you can just imagine a five-piece band performing", he later told USA Today.
Unlike the group's previous albums, each member arranged, composed, and produced songs on their own before putting the finished recordings together for House of Music. According to Saadiq, "what I did was write a lot of stuff and rehearse it for about a month, then recorded it live. Then would add their parts separately." He worked with his own recording crew for House of Music, featuring guitarist Chalmers "Spanky" Alford, drummer Tommy Branford, and keyboardists Kelvin Wooten and Cedric Draper. Wiggins believed the band's hiatus benefited the recording of House of Music, making them less likely to produce an album derivative of Sons of Soul.
The album's opening track, the Al Green-styled "Thinking of You", was one the group conceived and recorded together at 3:00 a.m. in Saadiq's Pookie Labs studio. As he remembered it, "I was just playing around and started singing off the top of my head. I never wrote anything down, it was just what came out." "Annie May", one of Wiggins' songs for House of Music, had Saadiq's backing vocals pre-recorded and then overdubbed to the track's final mix. Tony! Toni! Toné! completed recording House of Music in September 1996. The album was then mastered by Brian Gardner at the Bernie Grundman Mastering studio in Hollywood.
One of Saadiq's songs for the album, "Me and the Blind Man", was excluded from the final mix because, as Saadiq told Yahoo! Music, "they didn't want anybody playing favorites, so one of my songs had to come off." The recording was a moody blues piece with surrealistic lyrics about lust, longing, and a fictitious blind man's secret powers. Saadiq wanted to show "a darker side ... some depth" to listeners with the song. "To me, songs like 'Blind Man' make the whole sound, the House of Music", he remarked. It was featured on an album sampler sent by the group's label to music journalists. Saadiq later recorded a version of "Blind Man" for his 2002 solo album Instant Vintage.
Music and lyrics
House of Music expands on the traditional R&B influences of Tony! Toni! Toné!'s previous work, emphasizing live instrumentation and ballads. In the opinion of Daily Herald writer Dan Kening, the album is a continuation of the band's mix of contemporary R&B and old-fashioned soul, resulting in "half a tribute to their '60s and '70s soul music roots and half a masterful blend of modern smooth balladeering and danceable funk." Salon critic Jennie Yabroff believed House of Music mostly features ballads in the form of "slow, emotional numbers with muted beats" that accentuate the lyrics. According to Drum magazine, mid-tempo songs such as "Thinking of You" and "Still a Man" rely strongly on 1960s R&B/soul "given a contemporary face", while up-tempo songs such as "Lovin' You", "Don't Fall in Love", and "Let's Get Down" have elements of funk.The lyrics on House of Music are described by several journalists as witty and sensitive. Michaelangelo Matos of the Chicago Reader characterizes Saadiq's songwriting as playful and quirky, while comparing his tenor singing voice to that of a young Michael Jackson. Of Wiggins, Matos says his melodies and rhythms are subtler than those of Saadiq and observes "burnished obbligatos, hushed burr, and starry-eyed falsetto" in his singing. Saadiq alternates with Wiggins as lead vocalist throughout the album. Richard Torres of Newsday attributes the group's lyrics on the album to their " in the power of love and the lure of romance".
According to Saadiq, the opening track "Thinking of You" is "a really soul, southern, funky song" inspired by Al Green. It has light guitar strokes and is sung in a Southern twang by Saadiq, while "Top Notch" features jazz elements and the vocalist's playful promise of a trip to Denny's for "the most expensive dinner we can find". On "Still a Man", he sings from the perspective of a man who was left by his wife to raise their children alone. The backing vocalists sing the meditative hook, "Have you ever loved somebody / Who loves you so much it hurts you to hurt them so bad?" On "Holy Smokes & Gee Whiz", Saadiq's older brother Randall Wiggins sings lead. It is described by Washington City Paper journalist Rickey Wright as a modernized version of the Stylistics' 1972 song "Betcha by Golly, Wow", featuring "a dead-on impression of Russell Thompkins' unmistakable falsetto and precise diction".
"Annie May", written by Wiggins, is a story about a "good girl next door" who becomes an exotic dancer, while "Let Me Know" is a love song with Wall of Sound elements. According to Nick Krewen of The Spectator, "Wild Child" is "a ballad in the grand sense" of the 1977 Earth, Wind & Fire song "Be Ever Wonderful". "Party Don't Cry", a meditation on mortality with jazzy, philosophical overtones, is said by Wright to convey "an overt spirituality unheard in the Tonyies' past songs". The album's closing track is a gospel-influenced instrumental and variation of "Lovin' You" composed by Saadiq. Its sole lyric, according to Wright, is a universalist platitude.
Title and packaging
House of Music was named after a record store in the band's native Oakland, which had closed several years prior to the album's release. Wiggins explained in October 1996 to Billboard: "We title all our albums at the end of the project. We sat back and listened to everything, and it reminded us of this mom-and-pop store around our way in Oakland." "We grew up in a house of music", Wiggins continued, remarking how their father was a blues guitarist and music had a unifying effect on people. According to Billboards Shawnee Smith, the album's title describes a varied, complete work distinct from a contemporary music market oversaturated by "retro-soul groups".The album's cover and booklet photos were taken by photographer William Claxton, who captured Tony! Toni! Toné! dressed in casual and formal, retro clothing. This departure from the more outré wardrobe of the band's past was interpreted by journalist Brandon Ousley as an effort to promote "the elegance of 1960s-era Black America and legendary soul acts to a modern generation".