PFunkjazz said:

I remember as a teenager going to the House Of Oldies in The Village with my best friend at the time who bought that album.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

vainandy said:

Acts like Cameo and The Bar-Kays never had the success of The Commodores, and when Lionel Richie became a solo artist the massive success of his self-titled debut in late 1982 and "Can't Slow Down" in late 1983 signaled the end of bands. By the mid-1980s, record companies started wanting acts like Richie and Michael Jackson.

vainandy said:

I'm not talking about Prince during the "1999" era; I'm talking about Prince from his "Around the World in a Day" through "Lovesexy" era, save for "Kiss from 1986's "Parade" album and his 1987 album "Sign 'O' the Times." Even his breakthrough album "Purple Rain" was a hard rock album, save for "When Doves Cry."

vainandy said:

I'm not making a direct comparison with Prince's and Richie's music, just in the direction they went when they acheived massive crossover success. Prince called himself being "artistic" which became a euphemism for "not making anything considered solely geared toward a black audience." Some of his hard-core soul/funk fans turned away from his music at this period.

vainandy said:

Did you listen to the same Michael Jackson I listened to? "Thriller" was loaded with stuff you would consider weak and sellout, such as "Baby Be Mine," the title track, "Beat It" and the duet with Paul McCartney, "The Girl is Mine." People keep forgetting "Thriller" was panned by critics and the media when it was first released, a tune that changed when the album was a runaway success (thanks to the videos).

From "Bad" forward, the MJ I grew up with in the late 1970s and early 1980s was gone physically and musically. MJ is the epitome of sellout, crossover music.

vainandy said:

It sounds like you have a grudge against Whitney Houston, PERIOD. That seems to go a little beyond this conversation here -- it's gotten to the point where you're blaming her for the downfall of soul music and lumping acts like Freddie Jackson, Luther Vandross and Anita Baker in with her even though stylistically they don't resemble her at all.

If you're blaming the death of bands and soul music on anyone, it was the success of her predecessors -- Jackson, Richie and to a degree Prince -- who got the ball rolling. Without their blueprint for highly successful crossover acts who eschewed soul influences as soon as they received such praise, Houston likely would not have had her success.
[Edited 4/1/07 21:07pm]

thorntonmellon said:

I sure this would mean something if:

1.) Freddie Jackson didn't have the equally talented Paul Laurence producing his songs;

2.) The most known songs Luther Vandross did in this period were ballads like "Superstar," "Give Me the Reason," "There's Nothing Better than Love" and "Any Love." Outside of "'Til My Baby Comes Home" and "It's Over Now," the most known Vandross songs were ballads.

It seems like you're banking more on Marcus Miller's outside reputation to claim some advantage for Vandross, when in reality the Vandross/Miller pairings created the same style of music the Jackson/Laurence pairing did.

murph said:

Exactly. This thread should have ended right after this statement. But since I'm enjoying the professional argument of Vainandy & Najee, let us all watch and learn something.

BTW, all of you young rookie orgers need to listen to theAudience & Funkenstein more often. I'm only age 32 and even I can learn something new from these guys in Rock/Funk threads like this.
[Edited 4/1/07 22:00pm]

TonyVanDam said:

Thanks, Tony

There's no doubt that there is some weak shit on that album. I've never understand why it was so successful to begin with. However, there was some stronger cuts on the album such as "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and "PYT". Even "Thriller" was pretty good. No it wasn't near as strong as other artists of the day but it sounds as funky as "Holy Ghost" by The Barkays when compared to anything by Shitney or some of the acts that followed her.

As for a rock cut like "Beat It", that's fine too. At least it ain't weak sounding like something like "How Will I Know" by Shitney.



I agree.



They don't have to sound like her. Their music was weak and so was her's. If she hadn't been such a success with weak music, they could never become as successful as they became. They would have eventually just faded out and we could have gotten back down to throwing down again.



They may have had crossover success but they didn't have complete albums with nothing but either adult contemporary or pop, with the exception of Lionel. They had plenty of uptempo songs on their album (even if they weren't as strong as before). After Shitney, many artists started becoming a huge success that didn't even have one uptempo jam on their album (and even if they did, it was a weak sounding one).

As for Prince beginning with "Around The World In A Day", I wouldn't call that selling out. He simply lost his damn mind. Yeah, R&B fans abandoned him left and right back then but so were pop fans. He was making shit that neither side was happy with during that time. People wanted either funk or rock and he was giving them jazz, classical, retro funk, and all types of artsy/fartsy stuff that the average person (from either side) could have cared less about at that time.

I almost dropped Prince's ass myself. If Shitney had not made music weaker as a whole, I would have dropped Prince myself during this era because there probably would have been someone else making strong enough music to replace him as my favorite artist. Prince's music was artsy/fartsy as hell during the late 1980s but it was still stronger than most everyone else out there.

Najee said:

Yes but the difference is the vandross/miller combo was far superior to the
jackson/laurence pairing. Yes freddie was relevant for his first 3 to 4 albums but
lutha was relevant to the day he died and is currently getting airplay for songs
that were released after his death. Nobody wants to hear freddie anymore unless you are just a hardcore fan.
[Edited 4/2/07 8:49am]

There are a lot of reasons why funk r&b bands faded but technology and
the popularity of solo artists in the 80's are probably the biggest reasons.

phunkdaddy said:

The "far superior" comment is purely subjective, of course. As for Freddie Jackson, I hear songs like "Rock Me Tonight (for Old Times Sake)" and "You Are My Lady" regularly on such soul formats (namely, romantic, more conservative soul music and "Quiet Storm" formats) just as much as I hear Luther Vandross' 1980s stuff.

As for Vandross, by the early 1990s he became a pop artist and starting making music mostly geared toward that audience. Most of his 1990s music I don't hear on such "Quiet Storm" formats and stations that play that style of music in the daytime.

Ironically, it was this move that allowed Vandross to stay relevant for another decade as soul music started being overrun by the R. Kelly- and Jodeci-types. People like Jackson and Keith Washington fell by the wayside with their brand of music.

vainandy said:

Again, it seems like you're lumping all these acts in the same bag with Whitney Houston and accusing Houston of destroying soul music and bands. Luther Vandross and Anita Baker preceded Houston and Freddie Jackson came out the same time Houston did. In other words, the albums these acts were producing were no way influenced by what Houston did.

Moreover, you're assuming that everyone who listened to soul music only likes the sweaty stuff -- which is making everyone in the audience come off like some monolithic group. Solid, romantic soul music like what Baker, Jackson and Vandross were making always had been in style; Houston was definitely a pop act, especially by her second album "Whitney."

Well, she did.



That's true, but once again, they were never the huge stars they were until after her.....the late 80s. Hell, I had never even heard of Anita Baker until around 1986. Yeah, their music is entirely different than Shitney's but they all have one thing in common.....albums of mostly slow adult contemporary type stuff and no real jams whatsoever.



There were plenty people that liked jams before Shitney. However, after her, a lot of the same audience abandoned jams and went after her type of dull music. It's like they lost their sense of rhythm or something.

Many didn't complain, they just moved on. However, when jams become much more scarce and adult contemporary starts to dominate (like it did in the late 80s), I'm not one to accept the change because I grew up on jams and, like a crack addict, I have to have them.



Yeah, they have always been in style and will always be in some form or another because there have always been dull people in the world and always will be. However, they were not dominant.
.
.
[Edited 4/2/07 13:37pm]