What is the difference between Soul and R&b? I've never really made a distinction.

as much as i like soul music i find it hard to say whats the difference
but soul music consists of R&B and gospel .and i think soul has more emotion put in too it. eg who's loving you ( j5 version) he put alot of his "soul" in too it

I always felt "soul" was an euphemism. But I guess in terms of style, soul equips strings, gospel-influenced vocals, call and response harmonies and fluent musicianship (Booker T & the MG's, the Funk Brothers, MFSB).

R&B varies from blues to early rock to Motown to "soul" to funk, etc.

IMHO there isn't a "soul" genre. There's music with soul, and that can be any genre. I don't really consider anything to be "R&B." Everything that can wear that label has a more appropriate tag.

What made you ask this question?

Dance said:

I hear those terms thrown around while searching for some music. As long as I've been playing, creating, and just listening 2 music, I've never thought they were different.

Graycap23 said:

They really aren't if you think about it.

Graycap23 said:

There is no difference -- they're both euphemisms for "black contemporary popular music." Maybe from a stylistic phrasing, one can make some differentiation but in reality they're interchangable in what they are catchphrases for.
[Edited 6/20/08 20:08pm]

Graycap23 said:

Yeah, you have to tune that mess out. Once upon a time there was some meaning to them, but today just about anything with a black artist attached to it wears one of or both those labels at least as far as casual listeners and the industry are concerned.

I never knew there was much of a difference between the two really.
[Edited 6/20/08 20:20pm]

I love both.

Cinnamon234 said:

Soul, think of artist like Bobby Womack, Wilson Pickett and Joe Tex. R&B, think of someone like Bobby Womack, Wilson Pickett and Joe TEx. See what I did there?

LittleBLUECorvette said:

It's the SAAAAAME thing.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

R&B, think R. Kelly and Mary J. Blige.


I think "soul" connotes a certain type of spark. Some have alluded to a gospel thing, but I also think real soul music is romantic. So little of what I hear in today's "R&B" world is romantic, classic music. I think Anthony Hamilton comes real close, and Alicia Keyes seems intent on being a modern-day soul singer. On a good day, John Legend might, too. Lauryn Hill was, on her first release.

Maxwell is.

Hard to say. I think there's a timeless element, something akin to heart and class, that takes something from being solely R&B to being soul.
[Edited 6/20/08 22:44pm]

Timmy84 said:

Somebody sees what I did there.

Quincy Jones posed this exact same question some 10 years ago to a group of four music journalists. And you can see just how unimportant the answer really is when even he didn’t know or care all that much.

Perhaps when you peel back the layers of Soul, you find yourself in church and/or locked to a bone as tight as a dog (Funk).

Perhaps when you peel back the layers of R&B, you find yourself picking the Blues out on the porch and/or jumping to the more consistent/song-oriented birthplace of Rock & Roll.

There’s also a tremendous amount of diversity in those churches and porches.

But it’s all mixed, matched and metamorphosed now and often it’s just an easy way to segregate.

R'nB stands for Rhythm & Blues.
It comes from the 50's with artists like Ray Charles,
Etta James,Louis Jordan etc etc.

As the rhythm & blues or soulmusic changes over the year,
today's R'nB has nothing to to with original Rhythm & Blues.
So nowdays it's 2 different things altho it comes from
the same words.
/peace Manki

Timmy84 said:

No no... can't you see the spelling of Joe Tex goes from "Joe Tex" to "Joe TEx", notice the capital 'E'!

I don't know. To me, the term R&B can be applied to music that is the watered down Rap and BS that is played on black radio now.

R&B and Soul may have been virtually indistinguishable for a while, but not now.

Some of T-Pain's songs are classified as R&B, because that's the convenient way to categorize his music.

But could you call T-Pain a soul artist?

Dance said:

For me, soul and R & B merged about the time disco arrived. Disco served as a platform for them both and while there are soulful artists, for me, soul is music from a period of time which would now be called R & B.

namepeace said:

I would hardly classify him as R&B much less soul. It humors me what gets passed on as "R&B" these days.

I have my own categorizations of whats soul and whats r&b. It has basis in NOTHING but my own opinion and tastes. I classify soul music as the 60's-70's(and even some 80's and today's artists) black music scene of music sang by soul singers. I consider r&b to be the watered down, overly produced, schmaltzy, superficial "Didnt We Almost Have It All" type stuff

LoveAlive said:

"Didn't We Almost Have It All" is strictly POP.

To me, this is how I would make a difference between soul and r&B, just by listing artist.


SOUL:
Joe Tex
Wilson Pickett
Bobby Womack
Gerald LeVert


R&B:
Delfonics
Smokey Robinson
Jerry Butler
Ralph Tresvant


The SOUL cats have like more emphasis when they're singing, with harder sounding horns, ect. They put that "elbow grease" into it, while the R&B cats I listed are smoother, and the music is lusher and softer, more strings.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Here's another example from a female singer perspective:

SOUL:
Aretha Franklin
Etta James
Gladys Knight
Martha Reeves

R&B:
Diana Ross/The Supremes
Dionne Warwick
Mary Wells
Freda Payne

namepeace said:

I think we're hitting at the same thing. I think, by and large, neo-soul is soul. It's organic, it's still a bit romantic.

R&B falls short of that classic standard, these days.

Timmy84 said:

I wold have considered this list all pop:
Diana Ross/The Supremes
Dionne Warwick
Mary Wells
Freda Payne

Delfonics
Smokey Robinson
Jerry Butler
Ralph Tresvant

R&B AND SOUL ARE THE SAME THING PEOPLE. STOP GIVING YOURSELVES A MIGRAINE TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT

I look at it as, back in the day they were the same thing, but now there is a difference. For example, today's artists:

Soul:
Anthony Hamilton
Raheem DeVaughn
D'Angelo
Maxwell
Chrisette Michelle
Jill Scott

R&B:
Chris Brown
Omarion
Ashanti
Rhiana
Usher
Jaheem

I feel like today's R&B music is more of a watered down version of Soul music.

Back in the day R&B and soul was the same:

Bobby Womack
Teddy P.
The Temptations
O'Jays
Jeffrey Osbourne
Rick James
James Brown
Otis Redding
Sam & Dave
and so on.
[Edited 6/22/08 11:51am]

Graycap23 said:

Of course, being considered "pop" doesn't preclude being considered "R&B."

AlexdeParis said:

LOL, that is a good point though...