FunkyDissCo said:

It's obvious that you don't give a damn about labels, as you don't know what they mean. R&B has been around since just a bit before Beyonce and D'Angelo. And as Human Body and New World were originally meant for a "techno-influenced" record called New World, I think they fit the bill of "techno influenced".

Techno influence - Loose!, New World, Human Body,
R&B - Do Me, Baby, Scandalous, U Make My Sun Shine, Dark/So Dark, Slow Love, Betcha By Golly Wow, (huge chunks of Emancipation), TMBGITW, Round & Round, Greatest Romance Ever Sold, Damn U, Love Sign, Call My Name, and on and on...

Jazzy instrumental stuff="jazz", ie Madhouse, Xpectation, N.E.W.S
[Edited 9/23/09 11:52am]

PopcornFetus said:

I'm glad you pointed that out - as I was about to!

And all those that keep referring to Pro-Tools as software are being somewhat naive! Pro Tools always started out as a high-end hardware and software combo that was only found in the very best studios. It has since been watered down for consumers and you can now get ProTools as a software only DAW - however, you can bet your bottom dollar that's not what Prince was using!

Making it sound as though MPLSound was made with a few hundred dollars worth of software on some desktop pc is doing it a disservice. (however, I will add that I would rather Prince use all that wonderful technology to make something more contemporary than just rehashing his old sound (a sound that he pioneered, but that he shouldn't go back on - just go forward!)

PopcornFetus said:

Yes, of course it was. This is where all kinds of so called "black" music are coming from (put aside Chuck Berry and jazz roots), think of Ray Charles and tons of artists before him. But are you able to explain the similiarites to each other and the differences to pop music in general that allows to pack Ray and R Kelly into the same drawer? Extra points will be given if you're able to explain me any other reason to label a style of music "Rhythm n Blues" nowadays except for the fact that US award and media machinery is shy of calling it "black music". And if you're done with that, will you explain me the difference between "RnB" and "Soul" as well? Thanks in advance, I'm really looking 4ward to your answers...



Now you're telling me that - if we except the basic assumption that labels make any sense at all - a track is "techno influenced" as soon as the respective artist is calling the album "techno influenced" for which it is composed?? Come on...



Which again makes me ask for your distinction between "ballads" and "rnb". And "Round & Round" is actually not a Prince track. Yes, he did some stuff for RnB artists in the sense I'm referring to that term.



Sorry, but Madhouse is definitely not a jazz band. NEWS is not a jazz album. Have u ever, ever, ever listened to "jazz"? What makes a track a jazz track? The lack of vocals? A sax?

Mindflux said:

Bit confused now if you referred to the wrong post? That was exactly what some here were saying, that MPLS definitely is not "computer generated music" in the sense it was used here. It received a lot of that electronic touch, but the only one here thinking it was "made" with computers only obviously was the fellow who started this discussion.

Plus i seriously doubt that you guys have EVER even heard one single track of what is called "techno". You know that "house music", "trance", "drum n bass" or whatever is to "techno" what Louis Armstrong is to John Zorn, right?

FunkyDissCo said:

I know Club UK, Final Frontier night, Wandsworth, South London, Friday nights years ago. Off my tits dancing like a cunt until the sun came up. Oh I know what techno is. Sven Vath, Ritchie Hawtin, Carl Cox and so on. Banging times.

And for my house and garage it would have been Naughty But Nice in Hereford, also on a Friday night. Judge Jules monthly resident. As the music changed so did our djs. Digweed, Morales, Boy George, Tall Paul, Jon of the Pleased. Great times, great pills, great music, great dancing. Until Trance came along and it all went commercial and the drugs stopped working. Bad times.

RnB? Well I've seen the Blues Brothers, does that count? Ola Onabule, Eric Roberson, Beverly Knight, seen them perform so that should count as a bit of soul, rnb and jazz

Okay, let's just stop there. If "Loose!" and "The Human Body" aren't at least techno-influenced somebody needs to remove the excessive amounts of earwax out of their ears (or brain).That's not to say that "Loose!" wouldn't have also traces of Prince's New Wavish days on it, whereas "The Human Body" could be also taken as more or less based on the type of electronic funk he has always been doing, just with different type of synth / drum sounds on it.

"Madhouse" isn't the closest thing to jazz imaginable, but his later instrumental albums do not differ that much from the hundreds - if not thousands - of similiar-sounding albums that have been rather conveniently enough labeled as "jazz" for more than three decades. Which is to say, jazz has hardly been just about the "real deal" all the time, there's been a whole lot less ambitious music produced under that title. The term itself originally referred to a very large spectrum of popular music, before any artistic experimentation or risk-taking was widely associated with it.

Music genre names are just abstract and rather loose definitions - techno and jazz in particular are really wide-spanning umbrella terms - deal with it. If there's a need to be more specific, then you can bring up a subgenre or a specific movement to emphasize what you are referring to with your comments. Otherwise you're just speaking out of your own ass. Such things have very little to do with your own preferences - whether you would prefer John Zorn or James Carters matters shit in that regard.
[Edited 9/24/09 5:13am]

Well I'm just glad that Prince does his own thing. It doesn't bother me what genres he dips his toe into as it'll still sound like him at the end of the day. Session musicians are the guys that play other genres in a strict manner, not Prince.

It still irks me when other people say he is a master of other styles as it's obvious he's not. He's Prince, he plays rock, funk n pop, with a little bit of rnb, soul and blues thrown in for good measure. It's his band musicians whom (in my opinion) are often the more knowledgeable and competent. But it's Prince that binds them and gives them the direction.

A cake is only as good as it's ingredients no matter the recipe. And vice versa. Sort of. Shit at analogies

FunkyDissCo said:

I do not intend to give the dissertation on music history you asked for(though, you apparently do need one). Cram your extra points and condescent. Ballads can be RnB. Round and Round is a Prince track. Xpectation is jazz. And yes, if an artist states that they were influenced by a particular genre, then I tend to believe them. Why would he lie? To watch the mayhem ensue on the org? I suggest you have this conversation with Prince, as I am not the originator of the music in question or the statements of influence.
Also, it's not called "black music" because there are other races in the world that listen to it and create it.

And don't presume to devalue the knowledge of others when yours is challenged. It's unseemly.
[Edited 9/24/09 22:54pm]

Could you listen for a second?
- Of course can ballads be RnB and vice versa. But that wasn't the point here.
- Round and Round is a Tevin Campbell track which was composed by Prince.
- "Why would he lie?" LMAO!
- "there are other races"... True, of course. But again, you unfortunately completely missed the point here.
- Neither "New World" nor "The Human Body" are techno tracks. That's what I said. Nobody would label a track anything because it was "influenced" by some musical style, that's silly. Every Timberlake track is somehow "influenced" by soul and funk history, but of course he's not a "funk artist". Get the difference?
- And my main point was that MPLSound is not "a techno record". Anybody saying that seriously needs to do some homework, that's all. Techno and house are different genres, OK? And there isn't even a "house influence" on MPLS. That's all I was saying. And as well: I didn't question that Madhouse stuff, NEWS and so forth are jazzy pieces, influenced by jazz music, etc. But they're simply NOT jazz.
Check your facts, and more important, please check what the one you're replying to really wrote. Thanks!
[Edited 9/25/09 1:44am]

FunkyDissCo said:

I did read what you wrote. You contradicted yourself alot. And you keep saying "That wasn't the point" when you're wrong about something. Round and Round is a Prince track (yes, sung by Tevin Campbell, still a prince track). Also, never said that someone would label a track based on influence. Get the difference?

"And as well: I didn't question that Madhouse stuff..." - We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. You do know that jazz evolved beyond Birth of the Cool?

"Of course can ballads be RnB and vice versa. But that wasn't the point here." - Of course! heh, well, actually you said "Which again makes me ask for your distinction between "ballads" and "rnb". Do you know the meaning of the word distinction? Because there's not one. You said there was. Point.

""there are other races"... True, of course. But again, you unfortunately completely missed the point here." - I believe your point was "explain me any other reason to label a style of music "Rhythm n Blues" nowadays except for the fact that US award and media machinery is shy of calling it "black music"". All you have to do is scroll down if you forget what you wrote. I gave you a reason as you asked. Point.

I do agree with you about MPLSound not being techno, but that wasn't the subject of any what you and I were going back and forth about. We're going Round and Round like that famous non-Prince song, and this is probably the most pointless exchange I've had on here in 7 years. Moving on to posters that can stick by their posts or at least not try to lie about stuff everyone can see.
[Edited 9/25/09 11:04am]