Wildheart (album)

Background

In an interview with MTV, RCA Records executive Mark Pitts discussed Miguel's recording of Wildheart. "He's more confident, and it’s going to show in the music, his look and in the videos", Pitts said. "Miguel is ready to push the button. His first album was about trials and tribulations. The second was OK, we’re here; I wasn’t bugging. And now it’s here we go. He wants people to understand who he is. He’s tired of people asking who are you, what’s that, 'do you like girls?' He tells me, 'I want everyone to know I am wild, funny, edgy and love women. I need this album to connect'".

Music and lyrics

According to AllMusic's Andy Kellman, Wildheart's music was defined less by melody than by the presence of "grinding guitars and mechanical beats", played in the style of contemporary R&B and new wave rock. Sheldon Pearce from Consequence of Sound said the album's neo soul music ranged from "psychedelic to interstellar" sounds while defying the "traditional sensibilities in modern R&B".

According to journalist Robert Christgau, Wildheart shared more with rock music's recurring theme of struggles with normalcy and human contradiction than it did with R&B's "sin-versus-salvation struggles". Jon Pareles from The New York Times believed the alluring but amoral environment of California was a recurring setting throughout the record, which explored Miguel's "clashing impulses further" than Kaleidoscope Dream (2012), "toward love and death, raunch and exaltation, doubt and confidence, salvation and damnation, cynicism and hope"; "gonna die young" was written about the dangers of leading a risky lifestyle, while "...goingtohell" explored themes of human mortality and romance. Sex-themed songs ranged from the wholesome narrative of "coffee" to the pornographic "the valley", which made reference to the San Fernando Valley's adult entertainment industry. According to Pareles, the rock ballad "what's normal anyway" served as the crux of Wildheart, as it found Miguel contemplating his biracial heritage and feeling of rootlessness, while Christgau surmised that the song's "straightforwardly confused" lyrics properly outlined Miguel's character: "He is normal—because he ain't."

Release and reception

In 2014, Miguel released an extended play, titled Wild, in promotion of Wildheart, featuring the songs "NWA", "Hollywood Dreams", and "Coffee". The lead single from the album was a re-worked version of the EP's track "Coffee", renamed as "Coffee (Fucking)", featuring guest vocals from American rapper Wale; it was released on May 4, 2015. Wildheart was released on June 29 by RCA Records and ByStorm Entertainment. In its first week, the album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and sold 40,500 copies in the United States.

Wildheart received widespread acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 84, based on 27 reviews. Will Hermes from Rolling Stone found it "even bolder" sonically than Kaleidoscope Dream, and Q deemed Miguel's take on R&B and rock "quixotic". In Entertainment Weekly, Kyle Anderson called Miguel's lyrics about romance and thrill in Los Angeles both exciting and balanced, while Pitchfork's Anupa Mistry felt he had improved his songwriting with a sex-positive perspective that was distinct from the lustfulness of most other R&B music: "Languorous and detailed, it transcends the genre's established narratives with a focus on pleasure and partnership instead of one-sided pursuit". Jesse Cataldo of Slant Magazine compared it to D'Angelo's socially conscious album Black Messiah (2014), finding Wildheart to be "just as relevant, acknowledging the complicated realities of modern sexuality while pushing to expand its horizons". In a less enthusiastic review, NME critic Ben Cardew lamented some of the guitar elements, writing that they occasionally sounded heavy handed in the manner of arena rock. Kyle Fowle from The A.V. Club deemed "Face the Sun" a failed attempt at rock and "What's Normal Anyway" too blunt of a "self-love message" amidst the more subtle songs, while Spin's Andrew Unterberger found the album somewhat inferior to Kaleidoscope Dream, even though he said it broadened that record's musical variety.

At the end of 2015, Wildheart was named the year's best album by Time magazine. On other year-end lists, it was ranked 11th best by The Guardian, eighth best by Pitchfork, and 28th best by Rolling Stone, who said it was both one of 2015's best R&B and psychedelic rock albums. Wildheart was also nominated for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Urban Contemporary Album, while "Coffee" was nominated in the category of Best R&B Song.

Track listing

Notes

Personnel

Credits are adapted from AllMusic.