Great article. A few of the comments he made brought two orgers to mind.
(These are edited versions of the complete answer.)

vainandy...

You seem to have such a great love for R&B music. What do you think of the current state of popular R&B, both in terms of songwriting and sound?

Disappointing is kind of the least of it. Is it enough to put a drum machine on never changing, little "doot-doot" thing with somebody in hysterics on top of it?

~~~~~

The basis of R&B was always a great song. None of the Justin Timberlakes, or the people who write for them, seem to have any connection with that, or realize how far away they are from Marvin Gaye or the Four Tops.

~~~~~

But as we in the music industry know, 90 percent of the products are substandard. Most of these albums are manufactured as quickly and cheaply as possible. The remaining 10 percent are the industry standards, and about one percent of that are true, state-of-the-art products.

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paligap...

The readers will kill me if I don't ask you about [XTC's] Skylarking [Caroline].

Everybody knows the basic gist of it, which was that Andy Partridge started to bristle at the level of my involvement. It was pretty much because Andy, due to stress, could not play on stage anymore--the only place he would play music was in the studio. He would wear producers down and the records would inevitably get finished by Andy and the enginer.

~~~~~

There's no doubt that Andy's clever, but the fact is that nobody kept a firm hand on the tiller. Andy was essentially running the record through a distillery. I knew to expect this going in, and I warned the band that I would finish the record. I would not quit.

~~~~~

Andy was pissed that he had lost control of the project and started bad-mouthing the record before anyone had even heard it. Then, when the record came out, they did everything they could to sabotage it.

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...A few of the albums produced by Todd Rundgren.


If you don't normally get EQ Magazine, you can read the complete article here: http://toddrundgrenarena....azine.html




tA

Tribal Disorder

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

Thanks! He's also in the new Guitar Player magazine, too.

He's a wizard, a true star.

theAudience said:

I totally agree with this. Someone once said to me that when they think of Mariah Carey, they hear her voice, see images of her in their mind, but can't remember any actual songs. That doesn't mean there haven't been any good R&B songs recently, but all to often it's a lot of sound and not a lot of song.

He's right and vainandy is right.... but guess what.... some I say some on this board still eat up this sh&t fest called present day r&b and hip hop.

and swear it's cause we are old or not open to new stuff.. There are artists doing good stuff, but it sure as hell wouldn't reveal itself in some of the "regular" artists mentioned in these here boards.

Great Article!! Thanks tA!!!!!


Pali (still somewhere on Rainbow Bridge).....





...

Great article TA and I totally agree with the points of the article that you were pointing out my way. Today's music is nothing but a drum machine (and not even a good sounding drum machine, but a weak cheap sounding one) with either some talking on top of it or someone who is overdramatic when they sing. All I hear in current R&B is little birds.....cheap, cheap, cheap.

Hmmm. I wonder if this is already in the library.