Back in the day you had R&B/Funk bands all over the place - The Time, Kool & the Gang, Frankie Beverly & Maze, LTD, EWF, The Commodores, SOS Band, Gap Band, Zapp, Confunktion, Zapp, Parliament Funkadelic, Slave...just too many to name. Now they don't even exist in the mainstream.

Robert Randolph & the Family Band got very little mainstream love - radio/video airplay - when they came on the scene a few years back. Do you think the R&B/Funk Band is dead? Do you think it will ever regain mainstream love?

Somebody tell me what the fuck happened to both classical and jazz as well!!

chuckaducci said:

I'm with you on that. I was thinking that there was a time when classical and jazz artists were household names. Then I wondered if that would ever happen again. Sadly, I can't see it happening.

Someone on another post asked if music was dead. I just looked at the Billboard Top 100 and it might just be time to start hammering some nails in the mainstream music coffin.

bellanoche said:

Well Prince and his bands and Parliament/Funkadelic are still active in the game. Basically what happened is these bands have gotten old and their are not many young bands to take their place. Instead of picking up an instrument their pushing a button now.

Thumparello said:

I agree. That is where I was headed with my original post. I meant that there are no young bands to pick up the baton. That's why I check out Prince or Meshell or people like that whenever I can, because I just love to see a live band in action. But they are still old school, established artists. I am just miffed that there is a dearth of young, self-contained bands. I agree that many in the younger generation don't have the patience or dedication to actually learn to play and master instruments or write music because it is so easy to just push a button or sample someone else's hard work.

Also, many of the younger listeners don't have the palate to appreciate that kind of music, because they are so used to hearing the button-produced stuff.

bellanoche said:

What goes around comes back! They'll be bands again, it'll just be a bit different.

bellanoche said:

Not until hip-hop/r&b artists/producers/beatmakers learn to play instruments beside THIS:

bellanoche said:

Con Funk Shun

Yeah, and why aren't buildings built anymore according to classic ancient Greek standards? Or books written in old English? And somebody please tell me what's all this talk about films being shot in colour instead of black & white? What's all that about?!?

novabrkr said:

Gotta give props on this biting sarcasm. This type of commercial r&b funk is outdated and best served on the oldies market. Truth hurts, but that's what 95% of PFunk All Stars is nowadays and who really wants to hear old EWF songs without Maurice? Is somebody gonna bring stuff better and stronger than these oldies?

What I really don't understand is why did they replace the old ketchup with so many different flavours. I mean it's probably still made somewhere by some company, but I can't bloody hell ever find it when I go to the store because the shelves are so filled with so many different tomato sauce based products that it CONFUSES MA MIND.

PFunkjazz said:

The issue isn't recycling older artists -- something the soul music market has never done like its other genres in arms -- but the alarming lack of creativity and spontaniety in the genre.

You have three major influences here:

1.) the growing lack of music education programs in the school systems, thus no emphasis on learning how to play instruments. Most acts simply push a button on what vainandy calls some tin-sounding, faint beat with hardly any supporting instruments.

2.) music companies finding it cheaper to create, market and invest in throwaway artists, mostly of the vocal variety. Most of these acts don't even perform live (much less tour) and when they do perform it's painfully obvious these acts haven't spent a lot of time on their craft.

3.) shit-hop (an inferior, meeker version of hip-hop music) to the point where the vocalists are just window dressing. On top of that, the music for the past dozen years is incredibly downbeat -- it's rare you hear an uptempo song from these artists.
[Edited 3/26/07 7:53am]

I agree with most of the comments here. My question is, why can't the few who are REAL bands generate sales?

For example, Mint Condition in my opinion puts out really GOOD music but they can't seem 2 sustain sales. Why?

Graycap23 said:

Part of the problem is the industry and outside factors, but part of the problem was Mint Condition themselves -- they basically were a ballad band and while they had some eclectic styles (particularly in their uptempo songs), only "Nobody Does It Betta" from their "Welcome to the Mint Factory" album made any dent.

Watch out y'all Vainandy's on his way!

Najee said:

I don't disagree with any of your points. They are all valid, but I just don't think the political and social climate today matches the urgency of Civil Rights era into the late 70s. That sense of desperation, urgency and detrmination fed into the black community and developed new trends in music. Hip-hop has lost its political impetus and traded in for crass materialism. Even if it's not overtly political r&b needs the fire in the streets to fuel it's artists. So you go to a PFunk or EWF concert and sit back playing "Remember When..."

"'Funk is dead'
That's what they said."

PFunkjazz said:

Go to most schools and you rarely see children with musical instruments. Music classes are hardly mandatory classes in middle schools and high schools and in some schools they have been cut out. Nowadays, the only place you may see someone playing music is in the church.

The music scene is in its present condition because there is hardly any venue to spur creativity. Why spend time learning how to play instruments when I can simply press a button or sample some pre-existing song? Not to mention it's more economically feasible to throw out artists like Omarion and Pretty Ricky than something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/wa...eD80xOm_D0

[Edited 3/26/07 8:34am]

Rock is dead, funk is dead, jazz is dead...I've been hearing this for years but every once in a while, BAM! there's a new band that kicks ass and suprise, they're funky or they're jazzy or whatever...it's all about cycles.

While I agree with all of the comments here, at the end of the day, the music gets out from musicians. It's just how to reach the masses when there's talent around every corner

Najee said:

One of the big pushes of the boomer generation has been to bear the cost of music education on themselves. Most folks who have grown up in 60s and 70s want their kids to do the music thing and many are practitioneers or wanna-bees. Granted it's a squeaky clean suburan approach, but the music retailers do decent business with the public schools.

I've got my kids in extra-curricular classes outside of school. My daughter did her Spring recital yesterday where she nailed Beethoven's "Fur Elise". She's also in the marching band and the school to competes (and places!) in regional and national festivals (the band geek equivalent of gameday).

THIS is what happened to funk bands.....











Late 80s....horrible years.....HORRIBLE FUCKING YEARS!!!!!
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[Edited 3/26/07 17:22pm]

Ashford and Simpson could jam when they wanted with songs like "Nobody Knows", "Found A Cure", "Street Corner", and "High Rise".

Luther Vandross started out funky working with the group, Change. "She's A Super Lady" from his first album is also funky as hell. His production of Aretha Franklin "Jump to It" and "Get It Right" was funky. Luther had a funky streak when he wanted to.

Stephanie Mills had a jamming streak in her also with songs like "Put Your Body In It", "Sweet Sensation", and "Pilot Error".

As for folks like Peabo Bryson and Jeffrey Osborne, yeah they existed, but their type of music did not dominate the R&B airwaves in the early 1980s....funk did.



I don't know what radio you were listening to. Yeah, folks like Kool and the Gang, The Commodores, and Earth, Wind, and Fire were not turning out material as strong as their 1970s work but it was also a new decade and they were replaced by new funk groups just as strong and existing funk groups from the 1970s such as.....

Lakeside
Brick
The Gap Band
Cameo
Roger and Zapp
The Dazz Band
Con-Funk-Shun
Midnight Star
One Way
Xavier
Bill Summers and Summers Heat
Rick James
Prince
The Barkays
Ebonee Webb
Shalamar
The Whispers
Dynasty
Instant Funk
Mass Production
Kleeer
Fatback

The list goes on and on and on.....and these are the type of groups that were dominating R&B radio in the early 1980s. There's nothing soft or adult contemporary about them.

You need to catch some of the episodes of "Soul Train" they have been airing lately. The next time they have an episode from the early 1980s, look and see how many "soft" songs they play.
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[Edited 3/26/07 17:56pm]

What I want to know is what happened to black bands all together??? ...Tony Toni Tone? Ready For The World? Mint Condition? etc.?

See! Vainandy, right or wrong, he a fightin' man.
As ever knowledgeable and passionate.

Vainandy, (a little off topic but,) what do you think of terence trent d'arbys body of work.
Amazin' voice huh? He's got great strength in singing ballads, but als rocks it up sometimes too.
What do you think of this singer?

I didn't care for him too much when he first came out in the late 1980s and didn't buy his album.

However, when shit hop took over in the 1990s, I got more into rock and I bought two of his albums and liked them. One of them is called "Vibrator" and I can't think of the name of the one that came out before it, that I really like.....except for the lyric....."fine as Whitney Houston in the daytime". I wanted to snatch him bald for that line.

I haven't listened to those two albums in ages. They are in my collection but I only play them when I'm in a mood for that particular type of music.

vainandy said:

I think the album b4 the classic "Vibrator" album was "Neither fish nor flesh".
I think he's got some personal integrity, and this is often difficult 4 major record labels to get along with.
This is why he hasn't had much of the limelight or the recognition he deserves.
I'm glad he wasn't in your reach when you heard that shitney line! He still writes amazin' stuff, these days as ever.

Of course there were one hit wonders and groups that didn't have consistent hits one after another but each and every year they were replaced by other groups with jams just as strong and funky (unlike the late 80s when jams were getting scarcer and scarcer each year).

As for comparing Ashford and Simpson to Freddie Jackson, Freddie could NEVER do a hard ass jam like "Nobody Knows" and if "Jam Tonight" is his strongest uptempo jam, that's a very weak example. It sounds just like what he said last weekend on "Soul Train".....he wrote the song 10 years earlier for a bunch of old people. I can believe it. It's uptempo enough to get their blood circulating but not hard enough to give them a heart attack.

Whether or not the groups I listed were huge successes doesn't matter. The point is, funk was dominant enough for people to continuously make it year after year. When one group would die, another would take it's place. Funk was getting more airplay than anything else on R&B radio. Even non-singles were popular and requested.

As for Kool and the Gang being the most successful band of the 1980s, I wouldn't doubt it, they crossed over and tried to crossover. That's where the problem comes in, people trying to crossover. Yeah, everyone wants to be successful but when you water music down by trying to crossover, that weakens the music. However, for each time Kool and the Gang had a hit, there were also loads of stronger funk acts taking up the slack such as The Gap Band, Lakeside, Midnight Star, or One Way....and when they died down, someone else just as strong replaced them.

Then there's artists trying to get massive sales. That's when the real problem started. Shitney Houston not only went after the pop audience but the adult contemporary audience as well. Freddie Jackson and Anita Baker may have not been successful with pop audiences but they were successful with older R&B audiences. They were not only trying to sell to the young R&B crowd but their mothers as well. The airwaves became flooded with people trying to get that mass success of all ages. Nothing is cool about listening to "music that your mother would like". That's what opened the doors for these rebellious shit hop artists to come above ground and take over the void that funk left when it died.
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[Edited 3/26/07 18:59pm]