I really don't like R&B at all - never liked rap, never liked hip-hop, never liked acts such as R Kelly... it leaves me completely cold.

Personally I find R&B all too samey, whereas rock has much more diversity within the genre to my ear, as you get so many forms of it, plus it seems infinitely more musical as it involves the playing of instruments rather than programming, mixing or sampling, so I admire rock acts more for their talent.

Nasalhair said:

So, how did you end up being a Prince fan? I know that P fuses a lot of genres together, but he has never been rock heavy and it seems that quite a few fans have a problem with that.

PurpleCharm said:

It's the guitar thing, leads to confusion

I really don't like R&B at all - never liked rap, never liked hip-hop, never liked acts such as R Kelly... it leaves me completely cold.

Personally I find R&B all too samey, whereas rock has much more diversity within the genre to my ear, as you get so many forms of it, plus it seems infinitely more musical as it involves the playing of instruments rather than programming, mixing or sampling, so I admire rock acts more for their talent.

Nasalhair said:

So, how did you end up being a Prince fan? I know that P fuses a lot of genres together, but he has never been rock heavy and it seems that quite a few fans have a problem with that.

From my observation, it seems like a significant portion of Prince's online fan community have a strong dislike for r&b music. This really boggles my mind. How can anyone be a Prince fan and dislike r&b music. Can someone explain this too me?
[Edited 3/19/06 5:14am]

Those of you that dislike the current r&b scene, how do you feel about the current pop and rock scene? I mean, who are the current day Rolling Stones, Pat Benatar, Steely Dan, The Doors, etc? Too me, all the commercial genres are affected by mediocrity, but I rarely see people dissing pop and rock music, like they do r&b.

PurpleCharm said:

I became a Prince fan in 1984 when I first heard "When Doves Cry" on its release as a single. The song isn't what I'd call R&B but is more of a middle-ground between rock and, say, the funk of Sly or James Brown, and it completely caught me off guard.

To me, Prince may have always had elements of R&B in his music (the "soul ballads", the occasional - bad - dabbles with rap) but he only went more R&B from the "Symbol" album and beyond, by which time he started to lose me. All-out R&B-a-thons like "Emancipation" leave me completely and utterly cold, as did 90% of "Rave", and the music of his I like is where he melds together different attributes of different genres, like the "Purple Rain" album was rock-funk, "ATWIAD" was pop-psychedelia-rock, "Parade" was pop-jazz, "SOTT" was funk-rock-soul.

I don't mind it too much when an artist uses elements of R&B in their music, as long as they colour it with something else and turn it into something new. For me, this is what Prince has always done - take something established and turn it into something different, distinctive, and his own - but now he seems to be moving more into a wholly R&B groove and treading water with it.

I understand not liking current r&b music, but current pop/rock music is in shambles also, but I don't see the constant post about how crappy it is.
[Edited 3/18/06 18:54pm]

I really don't like R&B at all - never liked rap, never liked hip-hop, never liked acts such as R Kelly... it leaves me completely cold.

Personally I find R&B all too samey, whereas rock has much more diversity within the genre to my ear, as you get so many forms of it, plus it seems infinitely more musical as it involves the playing of instruments rather than programming, mixing or sampling, so I admire rock acts more for their talent.

Nasalhair said:

Eh? "For You' and "Prince", his first two albums, were straight R&B. "Dirty Mind" wasn't a conventional R&B. It was more of punk/R&B album however, Controversy was R&B. "1999" was an R&B/pop album.

PurpleCharm said:

I became a Prince fan in 1984 when I first heard "When Doves Cry" on its release as a single. The song isn't what I'd call R&B but is more of a middle-ground between rock and, say, the funk of Sly or James Brown, and it completely caught me off guard.

To me, Prince may have always had elements of R&B in his music (the "soul ballads", the occasional - bad - dabbles with rap) but he only went more R&B from the "Symbol" album and beyond, by which time he started to lose me. All-out R&B-a-thons like "Emancipation" leave me completely and utterly cold, as did 90% of "Rave", and the music of his I like is where he melds together different attributes of different genres, like the "Purple Rain" album was rock-funk, "ATWIAD" was pop-psychedelia-rock, "Parade" was pop-jazz, "SOTT" was funk-rock-soul.

I don't mind it too much when an artist uses elements of R&B in their music, as long as they colour it with something else and turn it into something new. For me, this is what Prince has always done - take something established and turn it into something different, distinctive, and his own - but now he seems to be moving more into a wholly R&B groove and treading water with it.

PurpleCharm said:

-----
True Pop music sucks right now to but, you don't see the haterade on this board or anywhere else that you see for RnB . On the otherhand I have not come across too many bad reviews of 3121 and it is obvious this is P in RnB mode.

laurarichardson said:

The first 5 songs booted off the 3121 Album Survivor Series were the r&b cuts.
[Edited 3/19/06 7:56am]
[Edited 3/19/06 7:56am]

I don't dislike R&B. I just dislike most of today's R&B. It sounds so tired, lifeless and uninspired almost as if it's a job to sing these songs instead of them really feeling what they are singing.

Just my

Nasalhair said:

Interesting. Thanks for taking the time to break it down.
I would like to know what has kept you in the Prince fan community for the past 14 years if you believe that P has been making r&b music that leaves you completely and utterly cold.

Nasalhair said:

-----
If you can really sing you have just as much talent as some who plays an instrutment and so like a sick cat when they open they sing.

Romera said:

He is biting pharrel somewhat, though to give pharrel credit, if he did the song, it wouldn't be quite so ordinary. Pharrel is great at chord changes.

Cool discussion, and glad it's stayed civil. My 2 cents is that any artist with a diverse body of work is going to get it from all sides, and because P has released a predominantly R&B album this time, the anti-R&B crowd is going to be the most visible. I remember when Chaos & Disorder came out there were a lot of people on here grumbling about his rock album.

Personally, I like a lot of modern, mainstream R&B/rap, but it seems to be mostly a single culture, because that's how the music biz markets it. And though there's a strong non-mainstream R&B (and especially rap) underground, it receives no love from the market. Indie rock got pushed in everybody's face after Nirvana, and in essence, became simply "the new rock." R&B, unfortunately, hasn't really had that chance.
[Edited 3/19/06 8:18am]

Up until the 90's, R&B truly was Rhythm & Blues. Since r'n'b and hiphop got blended in the 90's, it became "Repetitive & Boring".

See, I like my music with an EDGE. I like my hiphop with a street edge, not a watered down pop hook, and I like my r&b with FUNK and SOUL. The 90's blend of hiphop and r'n'b fucked up BOTH genres if you ask me.

So, do I as a Prince fan hate r'n'b? Of course not. I love REAL r'n'b. I love Motown, and Stevie, and the detroit spinners, and the four tops, and Prince, Cameo, Roger, Patrice Rushen, Juicy, Mtume, Jesse Johnson - the real shit.

Do I hate the modern pop r'n'b mixed with hiphop bullshit? ABSO-fucking-LUTELY.

I could probably name on one hand the amount of decent r'n'b singers to come out in the last 10 years....
[Edited 3/18/06 19:47pm]

Nasalhair

R&B is considered black music. And, the entertainment world's major outlets don't really acknowledge or promote too much diversity within "black entertainment," music or otherwise.

But, I respectfully say that, nasalhair, becuase you don't hear it doesn't mean a comparable diversity doesn't exist.

For example, Anthony Hamilton and Donnie are quite different from say Kenny Latimore or New Edition alumni or Brian McKnight.

Keyshia Cole is quite different from Teena Marie or Oleta Adams or Rachelle Ferrelle's soul offerings.

Just because you don't hear it (or, possibly, know about it) doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

And to the original question, no I wouldn't say P's fans hate that genre anymore than they hate rock or jazz. I do think we are less tolerant of mediocrity, though, wherever our ears find it.

Not sure what you mean by this...

If you're saying that not all R&B is the same, I appreciate that, but whenever I hear R&B music it all sounds more or less the same to me. I haven't heard of any of the people you mention I'm afraid, not being a fan of R&B.

Nasalhair said:

Could it be that you hear it from the same outlet(s) -- stations, networks, etc.? A lot of those are committed to a specific format that caters to certain artists and demographics.

I say all this because I find myself often musing that I'm not a big fan of R&B, when it turns out my dislike centers mainly around Top 40 R&B. Somehow, I amassed all or most of the albums of Sade, Maxwell, D'angelo, Erykah Badu, Lalah Hathaway, etc. I guess I like R&B after all, just not all of it.
Well if I don't like the songs I hear (mainly via music TV channels seeing as I rarely get the chance to listen to the radio) I'm unlikely to go out and buy albums of it just in case I like the non-chart stuff.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of "old school" soul and have a few collections of Motown, Atlantic soul and Northern soul, as well as a James Brown CD and a few Sly & the Family Stone ones, but I class all of these as soul rather than R&B. Granted, I don't like absolutely everything on these, but what I do like I love with a passion.

Somebody mentioned earlier in response to one of my postings that Prince's first two albums were "pure R&B". Maybe this explains why I never liked them much and didn't bother to get them on CD.




[Edited 3/19/06 11:40am]

Those of you that dislike the current r&b scene, how do you feel about the current pop and rock scene? I mean, who are the current day Rolling Stones, Pat Benatar, Steely Dan, The Doors, etc? Too me, all the commercial genres are affected by mediocrity, but I rarely see people dissing pop and rock music, like they do r&b.

Nasalhair said:

Eh? "For You' and "Prince", his first two albums, were straight R&B. "Dirty Mind" wasn't a conventional R&B. It was more of punk/R&B album however, Controversy was R&B. "1999" was an R&B/pop album.

PurpleCharm said:

It's the guitar thing, leads to confusion