A Seat at the Table

Solange - A Seat at the Table
Critic Score
Based on 30 reviews
2016 Ratings: #5 / 1004
Year End Rank: #4
User Score
2016 Rank: #32
Liked by 377 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
Record Collector
It’s a master-stroke on a landmark record of staggering intelligence, depth and musicality.
100
AllMusic
Their restrained ornamentation and moderate tempos are perfectly suited for Knowles, an undervalued vocalist who never aims to bring the house down yet fills each note with purposeful emotion.
100
The Arts Desk

A Seat at the Table is a luscious, absorbing album – but if you're not its intended audience, you'd better be ready for the questions it raises.

100
NOW Magazine
There’s a weariness to Solange’s album, a realization that the Black identity, stripped of its dimensionality and packaged for mainstream entertainment, has left us all looking like bad dudes to some degree in the eyes of others.
100
Entertainment Weekly

It’s a bold statement on what it means to be a proud and yet sometimes anguished black woman in 2016, and it’s also her most individuated work to date. Solange gets political by also making Seat stunningly personal and poetic.

92
GIGsoup

Musically, it is a lesson on how to slay, using intimate, achingly poetic groove laden candlelight funk. But thematically, ASATT is a celebration of black culture and a comforting embrace to those frustrated by the outside perception, appropriation and misunderstanding of blackness and black history.

91
Pretty Much Amazing

A Seat at the Table shines due to Knowles’ unwavering commitment to her own complexity, both musically and personally. You won’t pin her down on the first, second, or third listen, but each listen will give you a better understanding as to why you never will.

90
musicOMH
It’s a record that articulately and passionately celebrates what it means to be black in America, but never runs the risk of becoming a divisive polemic, while also containing some impossibly slinky RnB.
90
Mixmag
Album number three is her finest, and most topical, yet.
90
Spectrum Culture

On A Seat at the Table, Solange with an expansive mix of features and co-producers, continues a legacy of Black cultural production that is not just self-referentially critical, but peaks in spiritual and emotional transcendence.

90
God Is in the TV

The subdued nature of the songs means that they take a few listens to hit home, but once they do, it’s obvious that this stunning and vital record is one of the year’s best.

90
Loud and Quiet
It’s brilliant. I can’t emphasise that enough. It’s surprising and clever and current. But its real genius resides in Solange’s radical political voice — she veils her anger in a soft, soulful sound that even her detractors will find hard to ignore.
90
Exclaim!

A Seat demands a careful listen, and rewards it richly. This is Solange's strongest album to date.

90
No Ripcord

A Seat at the Table is intensely rich and gracious in its candor, so much so that it’s quieter, painstakingly personal moments are every bit as robust as direct aggression.

90
The 405

A Seat At The Table – like the headlines of 2016 - is the score of black pain, black rage, black strength and black joy. And for everyone else enjoying the enticing R&B, it's for the rest of us to quiet ourselves, listen, learn and respect.

90
HipHopDX
If Chance The Rapper is singlehandedly carrying the torch for Black Boy Joy, it’s only right we place Solange alongside him because she is Black Girl Magic personified, especially through her newest endeavor.
87
Pitchfork
Even though it’s been out less than a week, it already seems like a document of historical significance, not just for its formidable musical achievements but for the way it encapsulates black cultural and social history with such richness, generosity, and truth.
80
DIY
Where ‘A Seat…’ excels most is in the contrast that runs through select moments. It’s both extremely personal to Solange’s experiences, and specific in its examination of black lives, but it exudes a universality that doesn’t exclude or discriminate.
80
Crack Magazine

Overall, the sound of this album is not dissimilar to Solange’s previous offerings ... The difference here though, is that there’s much more substance behind her signature harmonies. Solange has imbued this album with a narrative steeped in the experience of blackness in America as well as an engaging, deeply personal insight into her own identity.

80
The Guardian
Its delicate anger and the measured way it unpacks a host of issues means you want to give it the time it deserves rather than demanding it reveal itself immediately. There’s a unique brilliance to that.
80
The Needle Drop
Solange doesn't disappoint on this elegant set of neo-soul track that mix the personal with the political.
80
The Observer

It’s safe to say that though big sis Beyoncé has run her close recently, she’s once more the most intriguing Knowles sibling.

80
Clash

‘A Seat At The Table’ is an expertly-curated, a near-perfect record that serves as a timely, musical manifesto on how to be black and proud.

80
Albumism
This is bold, beautiful and vital soul music from an artist hitting her stride perfectly.
80
The Sydney Morning Herald
There's a crispness to the sound, richness in the textures and constant delights in the sonic undergrowth of this album. Even if you step away from the vocals you can drift on some serious bliss.
80
NME
These are complicated topics to address on record, but ‘A Seat At The Table’ succeeds because it’s musically soothing even when her lyrics are challenging.
80
PopMatters

Daunting and at times exhausting, A Seat at the Table is still an undeniably important work.

80
Rolling Stone
In a volatile world increasingly defined by the brash and the crude, Solange's packaging of brutal honesty in tender, harmony-rich murmurs is both beautiful and radical.
75
Consequence of Sound
Here she evades definition entirely, bolted steadfast to the burden of the past, but stubbornly careening toward the future, life through death. Solange is R&B as hell.
60
The Independent

Save for the chunky “Don’t You Wait”, there’s little punch or pop charm to the album, which boasts a surfeit of luscious textures and feisty attitudes, but a shortfall of killer melodies.

Quet
100

“…it really saddens me when we're not allowed to express that pride in being black, and that if you do, then it's considered anti-white. No! You just pro-black. And that's okay.”

This album is fucking magnificent. On A Seat at the Table, Solange relishes in her black roots, which, being half-black, sticks with me very well. It sails lightly despite packing a powerful punch, and even its cover lets you know that “we will be having these conversations”. It’s ... read more

frienderman
96

This > Lemonade

exception
40

limeade

sillyometer
85

i didnt expect to like this as much as i did its super cool seeing what changed and what stayed the same from when i get home. this is a super awesome album and I'm definitely gonna revisit it

LitDinosaur
75

Her voice it's a good take for sure. However the whole listening experience makes me bored at the most of the time with too many interludes and similar song styles. Maybe need a relisten.

Number:#627
First Listen:2024.3.11
Times I Have Fully Listened To:1
First Re-Listen:
Lately Re-Listen:
Special Meaning:
Collection:

74

Nice album

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Added on: September 27, 2016