My Complicated Melody
www.novaslim.com

While looking over my Most Played Albums chart generated by last.fm, I realized I might be something I didn't necessarily intend on being: a SoulHead. I know I pointed out the presence of a number of soul artists, but upon further inspection, I noticed that there were way more on there than I initially realized. The chart basically looks like guidelines for the interns over at VH1 Soul.

This is unsettling for a number of reasons.

I was telling the bf the other night while VH1 Soul played in the background that I tend to look at some of these artists with suspicion, as I do most things, and it was the reason I was initially turned off by India.Arie when she first came out with "Video". I found the song annoying, and didn't partically care for the way it sounded despite my closeted love for "Put It in Your Mouth". And I posed a question to him: Could it be that these soul-classified artists have images and sounds that are just as contrived and calculated as their pop counterparts?

I think it's a fair question, because I swear I needed fingers and toes to count the number of sistas on TV walking through the grass barefoot strumming a guitar singing about empowerment. And I added that in striving to be so "different", are they running the risk of just being the same?

It occured to me that I have just as many conflicting emotions about soul music as I do hip-hop.



I liken the mindset of these artists to gay men that, in their quest to defy stereotypes, create new ones that are just as tired. So if a soul artist makes a conscious decision to not wear revealing clothes, shake her ass, wear a blonde weave and pen songs that have a "point", is she not feeding into another industry-generated pigeonhole?

Like I said not too long ago, everything is commercial and this post for me is complicated.

I went ahead and looked up neo-soul's Wiki and something stood out to me:

Many musicians who create what is considered "neo-soul" prefer to disassociate themselves from the tag, due to the term's buzzword-like usage. These artists argue that many record labels, hoping to cash in on the success of the "neo-soul" style, simply had A&R departments take R&B singers, give them a bohemian look, and have them state Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, or Marvin Gaye as their favorite artists. Instead of using the "neo-soul" tag, many artists simply refer to themselves as soul musicians.
By that logic, what exactly separates the Lizz Wright's from the Keyshia Cole's? How does one craft a specific sound that would be classified as "soul" when there are many R&B-classified artists that, aside from rocking the bohemian look, also have old school, blues, and jazz-influenced material and are doing pretty much the same thing? And why are we, as an audience, so quick to jump on these classification bandwagons (myself included)?

One thing that irritates me about folk is that they use their music tastes as a validation, or a badge of honor. Do you have a friend that says with an air of superiority that she only listens to "real" artists like Jill & Erykah? What exactly does that mean? And how many of you shitted your pants when you came to the realization that Alicia Keys and Musiq Soulchild were just as R&B as Mary J. Blige and R. Kelly?

All that aside, I listen to what I listen to because I find it sonically appealing, and it was never predicated on any fedelity to what some of us think "real music" is.

And I do plan on seeing Jill and Erykah in concert later this summer, because I live for them.

he/she makes some good points i think