Jon Batiste - "World Music Radio"
It's as eclectic as the title suggests
Jon Batiste is an R&B and Jazz artist from Louisiana, and yet he is also so much more than that. His first album dropped in 2005, when he was only 18 years old (he’s 36 now). He wouldn’t release another album until 2013, but he also released his third that same year (with Stay Human), and now World Music Radio is his seventh LP. In that same span of time, he spent seven years as bandleader on The Tonight Show with Stephen Colbert, became the music director for The Atlantic, the artistic director for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and co-wrote the score for Pixar’s Soul with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (yes, both of Nine Inch Nails fame).
His last album, We Are, won AOTY at the 2022 Grammys, beating out Taylor Swift (Evermore) and Lil Nas X (Montero), among others.
He’s out here carrying banners and gaining widespread acclaim. Which makes it awkward that, honestly, I have never heard his name beyond a month or so ago. And, honestly, I don’t think I’m alone in that. He’s up to 4.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify. I mean, that’s not bad — T-Swift is at just shy of 100m; Hozier is in the mid-20m range; and even decently popular metal acts like Delain, Kamelot, and Haken are sub-500k. But Greta Van Fleet has over 5m — not too far ahead of Batiste — and I have heard their name non-stop for well over a year now. So why not Batiste? I’m not sure what it says, but I’m not loving it.
Now, to move on with the actual review — the album is as eclectic as the title implies, and I kinda love it. It also uses a radio frame setup, similar to the last album from The Weeknd, with a deejay introducing the album and occasionally popping in between tracks. I mean, it’s a cheap way to sort of unify the album (because songs on the radio are largely going to have nothing to do with the other songs around them in the order), but it works decently well.
To take it further, Batiste describes the album as a concept album, saying that the “album’s central character, a timeless interstellar being named Billy Bob Bo Bob, curates a potpourri of the far-flung musical languages of Earth and transmits it to the cosmos with chuckling, Daddy-O commentary, like Doctor Who crossed with Wolfman Jack.”1
But, regardless of how grand a concept Batiste wishes to pitch, the strongest unifier is track 3: “Be Who You Are”.
I can't pretend 'cause I know You can only be who you are That's just who I am, that's just my radio (my radio) That's just who I am, that's just my video Wherever you are, real magic You can only be who you are
Because the album, as a whole, is as eclectic as it is because of the musician behind it. That same NYT article (see footnote 1) goes on to describe Batiste as an artist “…who can’t easily be pinned down to any single role, or genre, or corner of the music market.” And this album really doesn’t settle into any particular genre at any point - or even any part of the world.
And there’s so much here. The album runs for 65 minutes across 21 tracks. Naturally, some of those tracks are just the frame story DJ, but not as many as you might expect - only two, totalling about three minutes. Now, there’s also “Chassol”, which is basically a French-speaking hype-man at a concert or festival introducing Batiste, and it lasts about a minute; and “17th Ward Prelude”, which is 13 seconds long.
Overall, that brings us down to 17 tracks running for just over an hour in terms of actual music. These 17 tracks cover Jazz (piano, smooth, and otherwise), Pop, Soul, Hip-Hop (Lil Wayne gets a verse on “Uneasy”), Blues, Funk, Dance, Folk, and more. And it moves between styles as smoothly as breathing.
And Batiste, himself, often doesn’t sit in the spotlight. These are his songs, but about half of the time, he’s not the one on vocals. I already mentioned Lil Wayne, but there are a dozen guest and featured artists on the album, such as Jon Bellion, Rita Payes, Native Soul, and Lana Del Rey. There’s a 1:17 interlude track which is a snippet of “Clair de Lune” with Kenny G on sax. And “Call Now (504-305-8269)” features Michael Batiste, Jon’s father, on vocals, funk-scatting his way through the choruses.
I know I’ve already said a lot — there’s really just a lot to talk about here because of how diverse the album is — and, believe me, I’m doing a lot of skimming. But now we need to talk about where the album misses.
The biggest criticism I’ve seen in my research for this album is that in pulling in all of these different styles and genres, Batiste also over-sanitizes them. And I think that’s at least partially valid. Much of the Jazz lacks its technicality, despite that it’s his specialty; the funk and blues sections have clear Jazz infusion; and every bit of it is a bit poppier than perhaps it needs to be. Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t some really high highs on the album; there are some serious gems here, such as “Raindance”, “Uneasy”, and “Be Who You Are”.
However, of the 17 tracks that actually feel like part of the album, six failed to pass for me. Some, like “Worship” and “White Space”, were too repetitive. The “Clair de Lune” snippet was interesting, but ultimately feels like a wasted minute. “Master Power” was just a total whiff. And “Wherever You Are” felt like a really promising Big-Band-but-with-Rock-stylings concept, and then it spent most of its runtime basically in an idle animation; instruments are playing, lyrics being sung, but nothing is actually happening.
This is, honestly, one of the most difficult reviews I’ve faced all year. The album is simultaneously simple and complex; clever and basic; interesting and dull. It has some really bright spots. The concept, and the attached cohesive elements, work better than I expected they would. At the same time, it still feels overly loose.
It’s good. It all balances out in the end, but only enough to meet par.
Rating: Green
Taken from this NYT article.