vainandy said:

"How Will I Know" was pure pop to me. I don't really sense that she was trying to be "funky" - if it's there it's so watered-down as to be non-existent to my ears. Whitney's voice IMHO was made for gospel, AC or disco, but R&B I don't think would have been her forte. It's important to keep in mind that she's only a vocalist - similar to Diana Ross, she pretty much interprets what she's given, and that's it. Now Arista offered her a chance at stardom with a style of music that she was comfortable with. Was she really supposed to turn it down? I don't think so. Perhaps they were telling the producers to "make it less black", but they certainly weren't telling Whitney that, because she wasn't making the music, and there's no way you can make that voice sound gritty or edgy.

P.S. I don't think The Jackson 5 are a tremendous stylistic leap from where she finally ended up (well, it certainly depends on the song she was covering). If she were doing James Brown, I'd raise an eyebrow.
[This message was edited Wed Jul 14 23:24:41 2004 by VoicesCarry]

Supernova - I'd love to hear the Whitney Houston quote To me she's been singing sappy ballads since she was on record so she's remained the same for me (not counting her time in the chuch, of course)...

I disagree w/ the notion that if you "have no funk under your belt" or whatever, you're automatically a "sell out". That's putting Black artists in a VERY narrow box, which is bullshit IMO.

The only person I can think of off the top of my head is Brian McKnight. He has an incredible voice. His first album was really good to me. Then the muthafucka got lazy. He throws together an album full of adult radio friendly fluff, does a track w/ the rapper of the moment & calls it a night. His song writing has taken such a dive - by the numbers, boring bullshit. He even said in an interview w/ Vibe that he "has a formula for successful albums" & that he'd keep using it as long as he could, or something to that effect. So he's basically saying, "I'mma churn out what I know you idiots will buy, not challenge myself as an artist & not challenge you as a listener." "Never Felt This Way", "Is the Feeling Gone" - those were great songs. He ain't made anything near that good since. I used to really dig him but now to see him sleeping like this? He needs to get hungry again, get some of that fat off the back of his neck, lazy bastard...


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[This message was edited Thu Jul 15 1:35:45 2004 by CalhounSq]

u kno readin some of these posts i get the feelin that bein a sell out is not doin the type of music ur SUPPOSED 2 do or the music u WANT 2 do..am i right?

if whitney wants to do what u call "watered down" r&b and what i call music fine..let it b..but can't noooo body say that whitney aint one bad sista..ok..yall kno yall was feelin Queen of the Night..My Love is ur Love..Heartbreak hotel and And i will always love u.

now how is michael a sell out? and anita? anita is THE shit! and so is mike.

what yall call sellin out (wit ya music)i call goin n a different direction..i can't remember 4 the life of me who said this but some celeb was asked how they feel about crossin over..and they said something like what am i crossin over 2? i'm still me.

someone said the Prince Beyonce performance was sellin out n the highest form..again what the fuck is sellin out? i personally liked the performance..beyonce would not have been my choice...noone who is out right now would've been my choice but it was still a nice performance.

another thing i get from some of the posts is that being a sell out is being not "black" enough ...WHAT THE FUCK IS BEING BLACK ?! someone please tell me PLEASE? do all black artist have 2 b funky? if thats not there thing let it be! damn! yall really need to get out of this bag some of yall'r n..cuz its really sad!

2 me this right here is the "true" definition of sellin out


[This message was edited Thu Jul 15 5:17:06 2004 by Moonwalkbjrain]

Moonwalkbjrain said:

Uh, I don't think it's a "y'all". It's one person. There's plenty of dissension in this thread.

I don't think it's fair to call someone whos black a sellout just because they don't record funk. Maybe the person(s) you're referring to just don't prefer funk. Anita Baker, Rachelle Ferrel, Cassandra Wilson, etc. would all sound kind of goofy doing some rick james funk music...

If they make good music, then kudos to them. If trying not to sound to funky is considered selling out, when what do we call people like Michael Hutchence, who were white but added funk to their music?

This thread could also be titled "I REALLY hate Whitney Houston"

I have always HATED the word, term or expression of selling out. Because your black you have to do this music, or if your white your not allowed to do this music. To me that is light weight racist. You are putting people in category's because of there skin color and not because of the type of artist they are. Nope, don’t care for it, not at all. Some of my favorite artist and performers have been so called sell outs, or have crossed over.

Lionel Damn Richie

I'm sorry but Whitney Houston recorded one of the funkiest songs I've ever heard on her first album-Thinking About You with Kashif.

TheOrgerFormerlyKnownAs said:

That was a pretty good jam.

Concerning Brian McKnight - yeah his first album was the best so far. His debut incorporates to some extend elements of jazz and 'steviewonderisms' both in ballads (never felt this way) and midtempos (The way love goes - very cool groove in my opinione). I also enjoy some of his newjackswing moments. Nevertheless, his later albums became too similar and I lost interest. However, I would not consider him a 'sell-out'. He does what he likes (that is AC pop) and does it rather well (especially when compared to other acts out right now) so can it be so wrong?

As to Whitney Houston - i believe she did some disco songs (her first song ever was some disco track - not sure bout the title - and sang backgrounds on various other) but that's not the case. Her debut was a straight up R&B tune. True Her followup was a AC ballad that was previously done by George Benson (a sellout ???) 'Greatest Love Of All' - but it was a hit amongst all audiences. She is who she is and sing what she wants. Only by going against her will by picking tunes just to make her more black/yellow/white/green should she be considered a sell-out.

Peace

Have you any idea how stupid your thread introduction is?

Whitney has always made POP records. Not Black, or White. soul or Rock. You said yourself, "From her very first single". She always took the middle ground. Thats not "cross over". Thats preference.

She makes POP music. In fact, she is more consistant than the likes of Prince, who makes POP music and genre specific. Whos more the sell out?

Whitney, Prince and MJ all became successful making POP music, because the general public buy it, making it POPular.

You say they are so poppy, they make you sick. So you don't like the sound of modern POPular music. So what. Don't buy it.

And why, if its pop, does it become lilly white?

It seems, if you don't like it, its a sell out. Now how stupid is that?

Anita Baker was singing professionally long b4 Whit-Whit had her black forest down south, know your shit b4 you claim it.

Fuck that, I don't even know why I clicked on this thread

Harlepolis said:

Yeah, I'm backing away too....

OdysseyMiles said:

I know, right? Pretty fucking stupid.

co sign this and everything from squirell meat on down.

SquirrelMeat said:

I get the gist of what vainandy is getting at, however I agree with the following quotes:

CalhounSq said:

bigonez said:

Along those same lines, I don't like when black artists abandon or exploit their musical roots in favor of crossover appeal. For example, Mariah Carey. She was all over black radio with her first LP until one day she "crossed over" ... not a necessarily a bad thing. Every album starting with Daydreaming had to contain singles along with videos which were targeted to pop and remixes which were targeted to urban audiences. Not necessarily a bad thing either. What bothers me however, is that she didn't allow her original music to stand on its own feet and felt the need to make music for her pop audience and remixes with " insert current chart-topping rapper here" for her black audience. I consider that "selling out" above any of her music crossing over. Now call that the money-making machine process or whatever, but it still pisses me off to turn on MTV and see Mariah straddling horses and butterflies in a field, then turn on BET and see her half-naked sipping Cognac with Da Brat for the same song.


In addition to my list I'd like to add:

M.C. Hammer ; How do you go from Let's Get It Started and U Can't Touch this to Pumps and a Bump & It's All Good?

Ronald Isley ; How do you create a masterpiece like Voyage to Atlantis and follow it up 25 years later with bullshit like Contagious ... riding on the heels of R. "The Pied Piper" Kelly?
[This message was edited Thu Jul 15 12:17:59 2004 by psykosoul]

I guess everyone defines "Sell-out" in a different way than this, because I think a sell out is an artist who gives into commercialism, ie. selling other things besides just their music. This basically means that almost every black artist has sold out. I'm going to list the black artists that I think are "Super sell-outs". Beyonce has really sold out, commercially and musically. She went from saying that she wasn't going to be a part of the "Half-naked" trend (because she said something to the effect of, "I'm too Christian and lady-like to being showing my body like that"), to doing that damn "Baby Boy" video. But, she did blame it on her naughty persona, who she calls "Sasha". Bee, Please Save the BS for Oprah!!! I don't think Whitney is a sell-out, because R & B radio stations choose to play her songs...that's their fault. I've never seen Whitney say that she was an R & B artist or a pop artist or a rock artist...she just says she's a artist. People just categorize her as R & B or pop or whatever. The biggest sell-out is 50 cent. That bastard was crackin' on JaRule by saying that JaRule wasn't hip-hop; he was pop music (even though Ja did get pretty soft). Hmmm, didn't 50's album debut in the Top 10 on the pop charts last summer? What the fuck is he talking about?!?! All of his songs that were released were soo damn pop it was disturbing...."In Da Club" being the main one. It was one step up from bubblegum, teenybopper pop. Then he laughed at JaRule for doing hip-hop ballads, what the hell are those two songs that he did with Lloyd Banks supposed to be classified as, because they sure sound like sappy-ass hip-hop ballads to me. Plus, he's sold out commerically, just like Jay-Z, who is also a super sell-out, because pop stations play his shit too. Note to the hip-hop idiots, if you're music is being played on TRL, than you're fucking pop! I don't give two beans if you are rapping or whatever...if the general public likes you and votes for you, then you are popular (pop) music! Wu-Tang clan has kept it real from day one, so has Outkast and Nas...now they're real hip-hop. The rest of these clowns, ie. Nelly, Jay-Z, and especially Puff Daddy...P. Diddy, whatever the hell he calls himself today, are total sell-outs to me. Lil' Kim may have sold out commercially, but her music hasn't become "watered-down" to please everyone. She's still as raunchy as ever. I don't know why people say Lenny Kravitz is a sell-out, because I have never been able to classify him as any category. He does a little bit of every style of music and has been doing so for his entire career. But, he did sell-out commercially, because I never thought I would see him doing a commercial for Nascar or Target. Anita is like Whitney...she was placed in R & B categories, but she never claimed to be an R & B artist. The majority of sell-out black artists now are hip-hop artists. The majority of them have to soften their hard-core images to sell those platinum albums. I can't wait for the hip-hop culture trend to die-out.

estelle1981 said:

U should add Outkast to the pop list. "Ms.Jackson" and "Hey Ya" were HUGE pop hits and yes, "Hey Ya" was on TRL for awhile. Which is nothing wrong with that, but umm, Outkast is pop like Jay-Z is pop, because why? They're {popular}.

rushing07 said:

Not "wrong" necessarily, but lazy as all hell He has/had the potential to be GREAT. But he settles for being a bore, putting squirt can cheese on record, cashing checks, buying ugly ass shirts. He's bought & sold. Is it wrong? Not necessarily, but I certainly don't respect it...

psykosoul said:

GOOD POINT, hadn't thought about it in that way (the dual image thing)...



Yea, seeing him include that when he/they performed on the BET Awards was questionable. I'm like, "WHY is he including that shit?" But they audience applauded more for that than they did "It's Your Thing" But the BET Awards is a whole 'nother story, it infuriates me. How you gonna clap the loudest for the rappers in the "appearing tonight" lineup but be silent for Angela Bassett, Danny Glover, etc. OY...

Tom said:

Or "The Bitch Can't Dance & She Ain't Funky Anyway"

[quote]

Harlepolis said:

As I said before, I never claimed that Anita sold out, I said that Whitney sold out.

Here I go again. The comparisons I made to Whitney and Anita is they are both slow artists. Someone else asked me if I knew how many millions Anita sold. I said yes, of course I do.

I did make the point that had it not been for Whitney, Anita would never had been as successful as she is because she would have been competing with a funk dominated era. As for your point about Anita coming out earlier than I thought she did and I didn't know about it, that proves my point! As heavy as I have been into the funk and R&B radio, (which I "know my shit"), the fact that I had never heard of her in the early 80s proves that she had to compete with a funk dominated era and could not tread water. Yes, I knew she was in a band in either the late 70s or early 80s but I did not know that she had come out as a solo artist as well until the late 80s. Had she made a big enough noise in the early 80s, I would have heard of her. In those days, I ate, slept, and drank R&B radio.

Read closely.

Ditto!

[quote]

Moonwalkbjrain said:

Ditto! And I LOVE Prince but that a DAMN sellout!

Ditto!

vainandy said:[quote]

WTF??