I stay with my statement that Rick James is one of the most overrated artists ever.

Bands like Living Colour and Urban Dance Squad really did take music a step further. Rick James is way overrated, incorporating some rock into his R&B and funk, but definitely dont making a severe change.

The morons here who think that Living colour was 'just' a black rock band, you are just wrong. I bet you never listened to their albums, because: Glamour boys mixes south-american music with hardrock, Whats your favourite colour is a strong funk jam, Elvis is dead, is a hybrid between funk and rock, while other songs from the "Times up" album incorporate hip-hop, funk and calypso music.

Rick James has never released an album that urgent and direct as "Times up", he was way overrated, incorporating some rock into his funkmusic indeed, but not even able to create musical magic with that.

Next to that, the attempts of Rick James trying to mix funk / R&B with rock sound dated and oldfashioned.

He isnt a very good songwriter, and his music mostly sounds halfbaken and unfinished. Nothing more.

Bands like Living Colour (no, they arent a rockband only, have you ever listened to their albums?), Urban dance squad and Fishbone, definately pee all over Rick James clumsily, old fashioned music.

So, wake up, and try to realisize what is happening.

Riverpoet31 said:

I agree that living colour incorporated a lot of other styles in their music but I wouldn't go as far a calling them Funk but they had elements of funk. I hear a lot of people call the Bad Brains Funk for the same reason. Fishbone actually made a lot of pure Funk songs. A
However I can't understand your hate for Rick though, he may not have been the greatest songwriter but his music moves me more than most.
Come get it is one of the best Funk Rock albums ever.

IMO Funk-Rock is 3+3 era Isley brothers, Warner Brother's era Funkadelic, Sly, Ohio Players, Early Commodores (esp. caught in the act) and 80s Cameo.
I honestly believe that your only knowledge of funk is through Prince.

Riverpoet31 said:

Yes, LC ventures beyond funk into jazz, rock hip-hop, reggae and electronica, but I'm quite proud of them as a black rock band.



GHETTO LIFE certainly fits that bill, but overall, I see Rick as a dancefloor funk act that moves into soul man balladeer territory, rather than hard rock funk through and through.

Riverpoet31 said:

Maybe we morons who have actually listened to, I don't know, more than one or two rock records in our lives as well to know that most rock records incorporate several tracks on them that branch out to different styles of music. That doesn't make Aerosmith, KISS or Faith No More funk bands either.
[Edited 12/1/07 7:28am]

novabrkr said:

You have made the fatal error of making a sensible argument. Riverpoet is content to call names and insult the dead because we hurt his widdle feelings by disagreeing with him. I guess it's his thread and he can cry if he wants to.

He even ignores the fact that the term "crossover" -- which he used in his OWN title thread -- implies to a certain extent commercial success among black and white audiences, and by that standard, Rick James "crossed over" more successfully than Living Colour did.

The fact he got his card pulled by some of the truest funkateers on the Org is, in the words of the esteemed Daffy Duck, the "coop de gracie."

Well, I do agree with him on considering most of Rick's "rockier" output as not his best. They do sometimes sound a bit silly to me (aside from "Mary Jane", but it's debatable whether it's a rock track or not) - however I would hardly consider Rick "overrated". If anything he is globally underrated, and most.orgers don't even seem to know that many of his funk cuts put Prince's to shame. He's definitely not a bad songwriter.

Living Colour, on the other hand, well... didn't really stand the test of time. There was some diversity like said on the later work like "Stain" and such, but at least to me when they were branching out it just produced quite unlistenable stuff (and I own some 100+ records that sound like Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music", so that says a lot). I do however love Vernon Reid's first solo record, but Living Colour to me just proved that black musicians are capable of making equally insipid, juvenile and soulless material as white musicians (pardon me). It's definitely not the worst there is, far from it, but there have been tons of better rock bands around, and I'm not going to force myself to listen to Living Colour just because I'm usually more fond of the "African-American" musical expression style than I'm of the "white-American".

novabrkr said:

I find LC still relevant because I have a lot of black male anger to express and funk-rocking out to "Cult Of Personality" was the most benevolent path. Nowadays "Postman is especially relevant when I hit the punching bag in the gym and is very expressive of my current attitude. I can see if one doesn't have any anger in them, then the songs would seem "insipid, juvenile and soulless".

I guess personal history with the albums help. It's just that since I've probably heard all the most extreme forms of music over the years, and compared to something like Grunt, Masonna or Commit Suicide (just off the top of my hat) the aggression teeny heavy metal bands like Living Colour attempted to exhibit can seem terribly juvenile and wasted to me.

But of course I do wish more black Americans would try their hands at more aggressive forms of music, and maybe come up with something new and original on that field. Lord knows we could benefit from that. I'm still waiting for the first black power electronics / harsh noise band.
[Edited 12/1/07 11:13am]

Exactly. A lot of funk lovers don't even know who the hell Living Color is. They certainly weren't played on R&B radio.

Exactly. Just because an artist is black, does not make them a funk artist. If that's the case, then Charlie Pride is a funk artist also.

There's that word "dated" again. All music sounds like the era it was recorded in. I can listen to a song I've never heard before and tell you what decade it was recorded in by the way it sounds. I'm glad it sounds dated. I sure wouldn't want it to sound like today's music.

Or maybe you feel that way because it was more funk than rock. Not everyone wants to crossover all the time. Rick sticking to his funk roots is a good thing. Too bad he didn't continue it on his latest album.

How could I listen to their funk songs if I didn't even know they existed? They weren't played on R&B radio. They were a crossover band right? Where's the crossing over from pop radio to R&B radio?

vainandy said:

Black LC fans already crossed-over to white rock acts or were already into the stuff before LC. We never felt bad listening to classic rock radio instead of r&b radio.

That's not my point. My point is that crossover acts are big with both audiences. Apparently, Living Color was not big with the R&B crowd or they would have been played on R&B radio. Therefore, they never crossed over.

vainandy said:

I was making the point for you. The black audience didn't come from that demographic. There's a big big difference between the dance-floor funk favored on r&b radio and the hardcore head-bangin' funk we get from LC. This thread is talking about funk-rock and most of that R&b shit don't hold up.

novabrkr said:

I could realy care less about your musical experiences, but your opinion of LC is not definitive or even accurate.

Okay, I didn't really remember they also had material like this:

http://www.youtube.com/wa...re=related

So I guess the crossover definition does apply quite well. That's a pretty horrible song though.

PFunkjazz said:

Nice way to articulate your point by the way, especially as you had already referred to your own musical experiences in the previous post. But if people here think Living Colour, Fishbone or othere were artistically successful tackling more aggressive forms of music then fine. The difference is basically the same as in elevator jazz and real jazz.

I think we have a definition-problem here, Vainandy... lol

For me its not about certain artists being popular with both the 'rock' (white) public or the 'R&B' (black) crowd, its in the first place about artists artistically succeeding in blending different musical styles together succesfully, and in the late eighties the main ingredients off those bands were funk and rock.

And on that level i consider Rick James in the first place a disco/funk-artist who used some rockguitar to spice up his music, and Kool and the Gang and Earth Wind and Fire aren't even crossover in my book, buth discofied, smooth funk.

So, i am not talking about black artists 'crossing over' to the white public, lie you seem to do, but about artists succesfully blending white and black musical styles, most notably funk and rock, and yes: The Red Hot Chilli Peppers (an all white band) were very good in it, Living Colour (an all black band) too.

Around that period a lot of bands were trying to mix up all kind of music, and ccreate something special with it. Its not about skin-colour, but about musical creativity.

novabrkr said:

"Glamour Boys" was a goofy joke based on a few bars of hyper-reggae riffing. Goofy themes are always popping up in funk, as witness the entirety of Parliament on Casablanca. Singing along I always cringe when it's gets to the "I'M FIERCE!" chorus. That was some real gay-ass shit, but the video is a lot of fun.

novabrkr said:

You'll never hear me say some bullshit like "I respect your opinion, but we disagree...". Fuck that; you're just fucking wrong and I'm right.

novabrkr said:

Again, fuck that. Folks oughta form their own opinions instead of listening to some assbite.

Notices a lot of the so called "funkateers" seem to have a rather narrowminded taste in music.

Sorry to say, but its what i see in here.
[Edited 12/2/07 9:02am]

Riverpoet31 said:

Besides vain, who is still waiting for the next funk renaissance, most of the funkateers in here really have broad tastes. Some, like Pfunkjazz, you can't tell them fat meat's greasy, but they know their stuff. They're just disagreeing with your perspective on and definitions of "funk/rock" and "crossover," yet you call them "narrowminded."

Riverpoet31 said:

You see those threads praising LRB, Olivia Newton-John and "Endless Love"?
I wouldn't call them "funkateers"; most on the org are more into disco, teeny, stripper and mainstream pop. I'm all for diversity in music, but these fools would walk out on a Living Colour show.

I'm not lying whatsoever. I understand what you are trying to say but your thread title is very misleading because you used the term "crossover". Crossing over means going after both the R&B/funk and pop/rock audiences and attempting to be successful at pleasing both crowds.

If an artist leans too far in the funk direction, they aren't going to get the attention of pop radio. And if an artist leans too far in the rock direction, they aren't going to get the attention of R&B radio. Bands like Living Colour were way more in the rock direction than the funk direction. And folks like Rick James were way more in the funk direction than the rock direction. However, going by the true definition of "crossing over", Rick was much more successful at it with "Super Freak" because he was all over both R&B and pop radio. Everybody knew who Rick James was. Living Colour has been on pop/radio only and the majority of funk/R&B fans have never even heard of them, regardless of whether they had funk in their music or not.

I don't know, maybe you're from overseas or something, where I've heard that radio was much more broad. But that's how it was here in the good ole U S of A.
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[Edited 12/2/07 10:31am]

I'll settle for the next disco or house renaissance also.

vainandy said:

Exactly.

vainandy said:

Yea he's from Down Under somewheres.

namepeace said:

I've been thru the shit with riverpoet over Ben Harper and we're pretty much cool. Technically he said "The morons here who think that Living colour was 'just' a black rock band, you are just wrong". Which is a lot like using the N* word. I know he ain't talking to me cuz LC does so much more than funk or rock.

For the record, hamhocks and fatback are greasy meats I just don't eat.

Riverpoet31 said:

'Street Songs' sounds half-baked and unfinished?? Whatever,dude.