spacedolphin said:

Id rather have someone over singing than not being able to really hold a note at all

spacedolphin said:

Care to elaborate further? Are you saying you never liked r&b as far back as the 60's,70's,80's go or are you saying you don't care for the current state of r&b? What current genre are you into?

bboy87 said:

Oversinging?

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

http://www.youtube.com/wa...3E2h1Te8Fs

http://www.youtube.com/wa...iuR4J_IYUk

http://www.youtube.com/wa...pOykqxbh3I

http://www.youtube.com/wa...t30dnfYTeI

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

http://www.youtube.com/wa...noCtIKj_ZI
(hip hop beat but no oversinging IMO..)

And modern stars really can't win on this forum. Thread starts about none of them being able to sing, I show you one that can and now she sings TOO MUCH.
[Edited 10/28/07 0:20am]

shorttrini said:

Actually, this is spot on. Record companies did not kill music, the big multinational corporations killed record companies, and merely operated via them by buying them and including them in their own business networks.

purplesweat said:

The girl can sing, but she can't really emote

phunkdaddy said:

No, I was talking about current R&B.

I wasn't born when it started to develop but I don't mind the early Blues and Soul...Ruth Brown, Herman Parker, Etta James, Midnighters etc. Back when it was called Rhythm & Blues. The shortened form makes me think of the 80's and 90's brand. Guess I'm young.

And btw I never said I hated it. I just said I never really found the current stuff all that good, as opposed to saying all of today's music completely sucks.

I've been into Industrial since I first listened to music. Remains the same, + EBM, Electro and Trance. But I appreciate all genres.

bboy87 said:

Well at least someone finally admitted she can sing.

TotalAlisa said:

The British Invasion in the 60's was all very young musicians. The Beatles, Herman's Hermits, The Who, etc. - all in their early twenties.
Al Green was in his early twenties when he had his biggest hits.
Aretha started young.
The Monkees.
The Jackson Five.
Just to name a few.
It was always young pop stars.

No the 60's & 70's didn't have this packaged kid/stars like we have today but
it was still a youth movement. The big stars of the 60's & 70's weren't in their 40's & very few were in their 30's.

spacedolphin said:

My like or dislike of a music genre is not in question here. You stated you never liked the soul music, so why are you in a thread discussing what some people feel is wrong with the genre today. That's like if I went into a heavy metal thread and started bashing the genre, not out of a sense of frustration with its current state but in a manner of, "I never liked it anyway."

So in essence, you have not made a contribution as well -- just a drive-by post.
[Edited 10/28/07 8:09am]

spacedolphin said:

It sounds to me you have created different names and categories to classify contemporary black popular music. In your original statement, you gave no sort of context in which you were talking. I would say that you simply like certain periods of contemporary black popular music, instead of trying to invent certain terms.

bboy87 said:

You got it! That was my problem at her concert. I've been a Beyonce/DC fan forever and she use to have the ability to do that. I don't know what happened.

i think everyone has some valid points but i'm sure that the reason is a sum of all the parts presented here.

but i guess it's also a matter of
1. education of music or lack there of
2. the internet and technology making it easy to make music therefore bypassing the education
3. making music a commodity instead of art; so the labels needing to make money. also the glamourization of it all.
4. and the generational gap, as others have stated.

phunkdaddy said:

i DON'T know if you're talking to me.. but i do like song from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and of course 90s,

but i don't understand how a lil kind can sing rnb, when its supposed to be about love and relationships... Those kids have just gone through puberty and NO nothing about love or relationships.. the also have ZERO experience...

BLAME THE RECORD COMPANIES FOR TRYING TO CATER TO THE YOUNG GENERATION... they try to cater to teens.. and thats not cool....

blame the record companies for allowing all these young kids have a big place in the industry...

TotalAlisa said:

Thats very true, and thats where the issue lies. Labels target the younger kids because they feel they are the ones that are buying everything and listening to the radio, but there is no more mix like there used to be. I can remember when i was starting my teen years and listening to music, i was listening to bands like Duran,a-Ha,Rem,Inxs,u2 etc and singers like elton and billy etc, and even the RB i was listening to like Prince,Rick,Lionel,Kool and the gang,cameo, these were all artists and bands that played, and they were all older than 25, and some of them were just starting out. It was a fluke back in the late 80's when you had a Debbie Gibson or Tiffany bust through as a teen success, but now that is the normal thing, there is no middle ground. Music is a wide spectrum and it should be all-inclusive, but its not that way anymore, just as a Rihanna or Britney can get airplay, Van Hunt or Rashaan Patterson should be heard just as much and on the same stations (thats another issue).

The current state of R&B is stagnant & stale....I love the music from back in the day....Usually i go for the under dog of singers.....I love The Marvelettes,Kim Weston,Brenda Hollaway....So many to name male and female....We need the old recipe for some good old fashion soul like old motown as one orger put it...where music was cultivated and created and critiqued.....NOW stuff is released and its not good at all.

P2daP said:

I think that is a good point. Michael Jackson and Madonna are pop phenom who were also artists. Sadly, they influenced bad soundalikes and not people with real ambitions to create and write (although one could argue Michael was pushed into singing and show biz much like his imitators). The reason Michael stuck around for so long, through decades, from childhood to an adult (an adult in the legal, physical sense....emotionally, not so sure) is because he is certainly talented, so let's not debate. Now the current state of dance and R&B singers...

VinnyM27 said:

The problem is that most of the dancing/singing-type male artists in question come off more as Bobby Brown derivatives -- the street-style clothing, the aggressive lyrics, the mildly raunchy gyrations, the blending of hip-hop attitude/musical styles with contemporary black popular music. Not to make it an issue of racial perspective, but it tends to be non-black people who want to compare these certain acts with Michael Jackson because '80s and early '90s MJ was more universally accepted by that group.
[Edited 10/28/07 16:00pm]

Because of what she sings. She sings over shit hop. She sings very well but the music behind her is bullshit. Hell, Shitney Houston can sing also. So can Barbara Streisand, Michael Bolton, Judy Garland, (hell somebody throw an opera singer's name my way), and a whole lot of other people....but look at what they sing.

I don't care if someone started singing in a crack house. As a matter of fact, I don't care if they can sing at all. All that matters to me is the music behind their singing because that's what shakes my ass, not their singing. If a singer ain't got some funk behind them, they need to get the hell out of the way and make room for someone who's going to put some funk behind them.

Exactly. It has gone on for so long now, that if record labels were to start signing and promoting good artists, the younger generation wouldn't buy them because shit hop is all they know. A style change should have happened in the mid 1990s before too much damage had been done.

TotalAlisa said:

Good point, but it's also true that back in the day Our Hero threw his first album out at the world when he was 20.


Maybe the problem is that too many quality artists, young AND old, just aren't being given the chances they used to.

purplesweat said:

It takes so much more than the ability to hold a note to make a great -even just a good -singer, and Beyonce just does not have it.

As others have said,the main reason today's R&B sucks is because of the hip-hop influence.Nobody even cares about making REAL SOUL MUSIC anymore.Mariah Carey can't seem to make an album without a bunch of thugged-out rappers pissing all over her tracks.Jaheim could have been this generation's Teddy Pendergrass but instead,he seems more interested in making shit hop.Remove the vocals from a Beyonce album and you basically have an instrumental hip-hop album.

Listen to an R&B album made in the 70s and you will hear horns,piano,bass,saxophone,strings.....and melody! Listen to an R&B album made in 2007 and what will you hear?

And most importantly, DRUMS!

vainandy said:

And most importantly, DRUMS!

People put too much emphasis on church, when its not the reason. Some of the highly influential RnB & Blues vocalists of our time didn't learn their singin' from church(Chaka Khan, Billie Holiday, Rick James, Phyllis Hyman and countless of others).

Its simple, really; there's no "sincerity". When you're sincere, you get spontaneous, when you're spontaneous you deliver freshness, when you deliver freshness you put a higher standard, when you put a higher standard you're bound to be written in history.

Most of these artists(even the talented ones) want to be the "next so & so" instead of tackling individuality and wearing a new skin,,,,which means, there's nothing sincere about that.

SoulAlive said:

The fundamental trio; lyrics, melody and rhythm

Shit, you don't even need a voice,,,all you should have is "character" lol George Clinton proved that.

vainandy said:

It's literally the same musical style that was popular when I was in my mid-20s. A perfect example would be R. Kelly -- you can play a song like "Bump and Grind" behind one of his later songs and you would never get the sense which one is the older song. You would have to look at the copyright date. You can't do that with other acts who have had similarly long track records, like Marvin Gaye.

In 1993, you had a triple convergence in contemporary black popular music: acts started making ballads almost exclusively; hip-hop beats and elements started becoming the primary sound; and lyrics started becoming much more sexually aggressive and explicit. Since then, the genre has been stuck in that rut.
[Edited 10/29/07 4:44am]

Harlepolis said:

Funk upon a time, George had a very good voice. His current hoarseness is partly due to age, but mostly due to too much crack-pipe usage.

PFunkjazz said: