NWF said:

An new r&b band could be successful if it was not labelled an "r&b band". It would have to be marketed to a multi-racial, but not exclusively black audience, because it would eschew hip-hop (not necessarily ignore).

Artists like Ben Harper and Robert Randolph are fairly successful with their tours, but are still uncharted phenomenons. A large part of their appeal is they are marketed to jamband, alt-rock and even blues audiences(!). Both have lead vocals with a soulful, spiritual gospellish approach and the bands are racially mixed. Musical fare runs the gamut from rock to ballads to funk-jams. I'd also add the Derek Trucks Band and Victor Wooten's Family Band to that list. (Maybe Lenny Kravitz and John Legend would qualify, but I haven't seen either perform live).

Try no style change in 15 years, and that's more like it.

Oh, if music styles would finally change, I would be having an absolute orgasm without even having any contact whatsoever with my dick. I would be spraying off like a windex bottle set on "stream".

PFunkjazz said:

As awesome and as talented as those guys are, I wouldn't classify them as R&B either since they're not that appealing to the mainstream R&B crowd. Those are bands that are appreciated more by music connoisseurs like you and I. The majors tried to break them into the mainstream, but they seemed to be apprecaisted more by sophisticated listeners. That's not really a bad thing, but you probably won't hear someone blast Robert Randolph out their boombox on the street corner. I think most of these folks on this thread here just want a 21st century version of a Stone City Band or Gap Band. You know, like an R&B band that's more pop-oriented and accessible to the masses.

Totally agree. I always play "Count the black people in attendance who are not working security, the bar or onstage" at their shows.

I don't want anything pop (I hate crossover shit ) but I definately want something comparable to the funk groups in the early 1980s, and if it's anything but funk...hell to the naw, they can keep it the shit.

As for mass appeal, I definately want it to appeal to the masses so it will be played in clubs. The only reason I go out these days is to find someone to sleep with. With good music in the clubs, at least I can be entertained (like I used to be) on the nights when I don't get lucky.

vainandy said:

Man, you've got quite a chip on your shoulder about music today.

Music has always been my main source of entertainment. Take away my entertainment and I get mean.

R&B died and got re-incarnated into Neo Soul -
Gangster Rap just slowed the funk down a bit.. folks too scared to pickup the tempo...trying to be cool... but it will come back around..

twistedeargasm said:

That's what I say. Folks just need to be patient. History does repeat itself as I have learned when a whole bunch of new bands in the last few years decided to bring back Post-Punk and New Wave. Look at Bloc Party, Hot Hot Heat, Franz Ferdinand, The Bravery, The Rapture, and so forth. If those bands can ressurect an old sound and put a new spin on it, why wouldn't it happen with THE FUNK?

And like I said, I'm working on something.

That's the problem with people today, they are the exact opposite from when I was growing up. They think it's cool to be slow as hell and when I was growing up, if you liked nothing but slow shit, you were the biggest geek in school. A generation ahead of me fought like hell to get fast rhythmic music on the radio and now these dead asses slow the tempo back down to my grandparents' tempo.

That's why I throw every insult their way that I can think of comparing their music to slow geeky shit like Lawrence Welk because they are around the same tempo. Unfortunately, they don't have the good sense to be insulted because they don't know who the hell Lawrence Welk is.

Well, hurry up and get it together because I am going through some serious withdrawal. And to think, I used to be nice.

carlluv said:

Prince replaced them with a drum machine

Tessa said:

I blame hip-hop DJs/producers for the same reason, plus the keyboard sampler and their vinyl record collection to sample from.

Tessa said:

Prince replaced horns with synths too

CinisterCee said:

is anyone happy about it?

Tessa said:

Synths are cool when people are programming new sounds with it.

But synths are also uncool (especially the Korg Triton) when everyone is using the same preset sounds, a practice that is typical hip-hop today.

Since we are talking r&b bands hear. Is anyone aware of the UWF all stars.
(United We Funk) Super funk group.
I believe the dazz band's sax player bobby harris came up with the concept.
They started in 1999 and started touring in 2000. The original lineup was
comprised of the dazz band, barkays, confunkshun,sos band, and charlie wilson
representing the gap band. I got to see them twice and it was one hell of a show. Also the late great roger troutman was supposed to be a part of the tour
before his tragic death.
The superband has continued to do shows and will tour again this year in 2007.
Charlie i believe is no longer touring with the supergroup probably due to his
solo projects. The rest of the band are still together with a select group filling in for charlie such as midnight star, club nouveau, etc. I know they
have a date in greenwood, sc later this year with one way as a part of it.
I know vainandy likes nothing but the funk so if you get a chance check one of
these shows out. I will keep the pure funkateers posted on the UWF all stars
selected tour dates for 2007. Remember keep that funk alive!

phunkdaddy said:

This sounds awesome. So they mainly tour parts of the USA?

phunkdaddy said:

They have a live cd that is pretty NICE.

CinisterCee said:

I agree.New Jack Swing,which started in the late 80s,is basically what killed R&B and funk.That's when they started adding hip-hop elements to R&B music,which led us to where are now

But Prince also had real drums and bass also. Shit hop only has drum machines and no real drums to give the song strength. And the type of drum machines that shit hop uses aren't the strong sounding ones that Prince used. Shit hop drum machines just barely tap and sound extremely cheap and "kiddie" sounding.

Drum machines are only the problem when they are weak sounding. Just look at house music. Those drum machines beat hard and sound great.
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[Edited 3/1/07 6:45am]

That's the best thing he did. They gave him his own sound. When he fucked up, is when he started using real horns and tried to become a reincarnation of James Brown.
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[Edited 3/1/07 6:48am]

Their live album is absolutely great! However, the album they did of new material is absolutely horrible.....sellout shit hop.

CinisterCee said:

Because acts like Full Force and Teddy Riley composed and created their music with live instruments with the technology complementing what they did. Full Force didn't sample music for the most part -- they were a self-contained band similar to how The Isley Brothers were set up (three vocalists, three instrumentalists). Their "hip-hop" influence was basically using live drums to create the beats.

Riley's stuff -- whether he did it with Keith Sweat, Bobby Brown or GUY -- was as progressively funky as any fact in soul music. But unlike today's songs and artists, Riley's music wasn't made at the expense of making the vocalist secondary. Producers like Timbaland and Pharrell are the stars of the songs they produce, with the artists' voice being a secondary piece.

Stuff like Justin Timberlake's music can be sung by anyone and would have been a hit, because there is no sense of vocal ownership in those songs. People like Riley made their music with a harder edge, but it didn't drown out people like Sweat, Brown and Aaron Hall by any means.
[Edited 3/1/07 11:35am]

And Prince's synthesizers and drum machines were only part of his music. They were on top of real drums, real bass, real guitars, etc. All the things that give a song rhythm. Today's music has ONLY drum machines (and weak ones at that) or a synthesizer (also a weak Snoop Doggy Dog kiddie sounding one) with none of the real instruments to put power in the songs. Prince's drum machines and synthesizers were just an extra little goodie to make the songs sound futuristic (or at least what we thought the future would sound like....too bad it didn't turn out that way).
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[Edited 3/1/07 13:04pm]

vainandy said:

I was talking about Dirty Rap/Bling Bling era how the sound remain the same for the last seven years. At least in the 90s the sound of rap changed a bit even though you didnt care for it. Like from 1990-93 was political type of rap, 1993-96 was gangsta rap then 1997-99 was more of Bad Boy/Timberland era.
But I know what you mean though.

vainandy said:

In an iconic twist, it was around this time that Rick James was using synths more often.....as if he went behind Prince's back and stole it!

vainandy said:

Yeah i failed to mention the live album. Yes the new material on that album from
the artists was stale in comparison to the older stuff but two of the cuts from
that album that the superband performed live that sounded great was confunkshun's shake it easy and the barkays the way you shake. Both sounded much
better live than on the uwf new material cd.

There are R&B bands...but there just not mainstream

Kindred and the family soul is a name that comes to mind.