Day 326: Deodato – Prelude

I’m in the market to find new crafty hobbies to do where I don’t have to think too much and can just do something repetitive and zonk out for a while, so today I was trying a bit of diamond painting. I wanted an album that I also can just mindlessly have on in the background, with no lyrics to distract me or too much going on, so I thought I’d try a bit of Deodato.

Album cover courtesy of CTI

Deodato, or Eumir Deodato de Almeida, is a Brazilian pianist, arranger, composer and producer from Rio de Janeiro. He has a successful musical career on his own, but he’s also known for having produced or arranged on more than 500 albums, including Björk’s Homogenic, six albums by Kool & the Gang and All 'n All by Earth, Wind & Fire, as well as working extensively with Luiz Bonfá. 15 albums produced or arranged by him have sold platinum.

He released his first solo album Prelude in 1973, which became his label’s biggest seller of all time, as well as one of the best-selling fusion jazz albums in history. It features sophisticated bossa nova and funk-inspired jazz tracks, as well as his versions of iconic classical music, with Debussy’s "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" and Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra”, the latter of which became such a huge hit that it reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

I love how many of the albums he has produced have already made it to my website, and they’re all fairly high rankers, too: Homogenic was a rare 10, All 'n All was a 9, Luiz Bonfá was a 9 and Kool & the Gang ranked between 8.5 and 7. Based on that, I expected a whole lot from this album, and it sort of delivered: it was perfect for the purpose I wanted it for, having it on as something to enjoy in the background. But is it something I’ll reach for again? Probably not.

I’ll be honest, bossa nova is nice but I’m not deep enough in the game to find it particularly interesting, so while I enjoy his version of “Baubles, Bangles, & Beads”, it’s just not something I’m itching to hear again. All of the songs are perfectly enjoyable, but aside from maybe "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun", nothing stands out to me too much. However, it’s still good enough that I want to go through the rest of his solo discography to dig for gold, since I’m sure there’s some to be found. It’s a 7/10.