Song #17 // Raphael Saadiq “Radio” [Stone Rollin’]
These are simple pleasures: a summer afternoon, childhood games, and speakers (however ill-equipped) pumping out grainy, feel good tunes.
This was the scene one summer day this past year when I traveled up to my parents’ house in Leelanau and convinced them to finally pull out the badminton set they had bought on clearance at Meijer (Michigan pronunciation: Meijer’s) a few years ago.
After some initial trepidation, my Dad helped me put the set up in their lush green grass aside the nearby treeline of the woods. Before long, my Mom joined us and we spent the afternoon like children, running barefoot and slapping at a small rubber object with glee.
The best part of the scene came later in the game, when I laid nearby under a tree, played the Raphael Saadiq album through my iPad’s small speaker, and watched my parents play a surprisingly competitive match.
My parents, having grown up in Detroit on the Motown sound, I figured would like the album, though honestly they probably couldn’t hear much of it above the wind and our laughter. For a few hours, though, the iPad became a transistor radio in the yard—one of the best apps it wasn’t designed for.
This album is classic in every way. There is no 21st century irony or lo-fi admiration that tries to put a spin on an old sound. This is simply old school rock and roll and R&B at its finest.
Saadiq, formerly of Tony Toni Tone (yes, that Tony Toni Tone), is as unpretentious on this album as a kid pulling a speaker onto a street corner and strumming for coins. There is a purity in this high treble track listing that, what it lacks in bombastic super hits, more than makes up for in its consistent resolve. It’s the perfect music for an outdoor gathering, a familiar romp through simple pleasures.
