BlaqueKnight said:

Timmy84 said:

Of course but fuck it, why anyone waiting to save it. Maybe saying R&B music ain't promoted on radio anymore is too politically incorrect for some folks here.

Co-signing radio pushed R&B is co-signing the corporate media's choices of music. Radio is bought, paid for and owned by Clear Channel and theor corporate cronies - unlike when some of us were younger. THAT is why its so different. That is why you don't have the same options as we once did and that is why people looking for more interesting music shouldn't look there for it. I don't let old white guys in stuffy suits pick my clothes and I won't let them pick my music, either. They can't tell me shit about funk, so why should I listen to them? They don't know whats good and whats not in the genres I listen to, so why should I limit myself to their options?

Haven't "old white guys in stuffy suits" been picking what music the public likes since the late '70s/early '80s with the popularisation of rigid playlists and the elimination of independent minded DJ's? It is hardly a new phenomenon.

rialb said:

BlaqueKnight said:

Co-signing radio pushed R&B is co-signing the corporate media's choices of music. Radio is bought, paid for and owned by Clear Channel and theor corporate cronies - unlike when some of us were younger. THAT is why its so different. That is why you don't have the same options as we once did and that is why people looking for more interesting music shouldn't look there for it. I don't let old white guys in stuffy suits pick my clothes and I won't let them pick my music, either. They can't tell me shit about funk, so why should I listen to them? They don't know whats good and whats not in the genres I listen to, so why should I limit myself to their options?

Haven't "old white guys in stuffy suits" been picking what music the public likes since the late '70s/early '80s with the popularisation of rigid playlists and the elimination of independent minded DJ's? It is hardly a new phenomenon.

The short answer is "NO"

There was a counter-culture going on outside of mainstream radio. The way things were done pre-Clear Channel was different. Playlists were a lot more diverse in the 70s/80s than they are now and the radio didn't control what was "in"; it followed. When you wanted to hear new music, you went to house parties, clubs, skating rinks, etc. and that is where you got turned on to the new stuff. From there, people would start to request it and radio DJs would start to play it. DJ payola started in the 80s but it wasn't until Clear Channel came into power that playlists became corporate and TRULY rigid.

Now corporations SPONSOR the parties in order to promote their new artists. Its all a big game to get people to buy shit.

There is a huge counter-culture in its growth stage right now and we are on it. The internet is going to kill mainstream radio and video off altogether eventually. That is why corporate entities buy up every new online trend site - it is because they want to retain control and they want in on whatever might be next. MySpace an Youtube have brought about the next generation of celebrities and soon they will all come from online.

The suits have gotten more agressive about observing and controlling trends. The problem with the younger generation is that they are conditioned at a much younger age and in more ways than previous generations ever were. Companies used to have to earn "brand loyalty" and when I was growing up, that wasn't even a term. Now its a common part of daily society. That's a problem.

Real R&B can still be found. If you have any local artists that put out quality music that strives for more than the Top 40-hip-hop-derivative drivel that passes for R&B, support it. There are groups out there that tour regionally and even globally that have never had crazy radio airplay but that are really, really talented. It's up to folks to buy their CDs, like their Facebook pages and support them on iTunes.

I agree with Blaque. The corporate model that dominates the scene today requires people to look for and support good music. That's for whatever genre, really.

rialb said:

babynoz said:

Not to mention that people like Aretha, Gladys, Marvin and Luther are SOUL singers...not R&B.

The rest they mentioned are mostly pop-tarts.

Splitting hairs don't you think? Isn't Soul music a type of R & B? The Sex Pistols were a punk band but they still played rock music. Bill Monroe played bluegrass but it's still country. When Miles Davis played fusion it was still jazz.

NO!!!

babynoz said:

rialb said:

Splitting hairs don't you think? Isn't Soul music a type of R & B? The Sex Pistols were a punk band but they still played rock music. Bill Monroe played bluegrass but it's still country. When Miles Davis played fusion it was still jazz.

NO!!!

Besides I always considered rhythm and blues, meaning the so-called "jump blues" stuff that emerged in the pre-rock and roll/hoy hoy days of post-WWII music. When that became old-fashioned for the corporation, that's when they started seeking "gospel" singers doing pop music, which is why the "soul" genre came to be...

Motown and Stax built on that: pop-rock music (gritty or polished) sung by former gospel singers because technically that's what both labels consisted of.

babynoz said:

rialb said:

Splitting hairs don't you think? Isn't Soul music a type of R & B? The Sex Pistols were a punk band but they still played rock music. Bill Monroe played bluegrass but it's still country. When Miles Davis played fusion it was still jazz.

NO!!!

Very well, Mr. waggy finger, what exactly is the difference between soul and r & b?

I agree with Blaque that commercialization trends very much drive the wide success of certain acts, dwarfing other unsung talents in R&B... and other genres, too. But this sort of industry displacement aside, I wonder if, in fact, there is a lull in quality R&B acts (not to diss those underground acts that do clearly still exist) and if that lull isn't in part attributable to a storm of cultural factors.

I mean, who really presses upon youngsters (and here I suppose I'm talking particularly about Black youngsters) the merits of truly immersive musicianship anymore? Many school districts have altogether done away with music programs, particularly in commuinities where money is tight -- and we know that in the U.S. at least, those communities are often those of color. I don't see many parents taking up that slack either, forbiding playtime until after an hour of piano, guitar or voice practice, for example. I don't see the appreciation for the power of poetry and verse that we saw through the '60s and '70s. Churches, as someone has mentioned, have widely taken up a contemporary worship style and musical sound utterly devoid of anything organic, much less soulful. (At my wife's childhood church, for example, where they used to tear the house down with soaring gospel and gritty spirituals accompanied by live musicians, they now sing [if we can call it "singing" ] to prerecorded pop/R&B-sounding crossover instrumentals cued up on a laptop.) Too many would-be acts are spoiled by the ease of sampling and Pro Tools, etc. And I just generally don't see the same relationship between Black folk and music that once was. Once upon a time, we needed music to survive: It gave us voice where we had none elsewhere. It consoled us. It enraged us. It rallied us to do substantial and magnificent things. And that intimate relationship bred music with some serious heart. I listen to R&B these days and it seems like we employ this "music" anymore primarily to cosign how crappy the opposite sex is, how cool we look on the dancefloor, and how hot sex with Stranger X is gonna be. That stuff is occasionally fun to some, I guess; but it's hardly life-giving.

I think we need to teach our kids (and maybe re-teach ourselves) to appreciate how important music is to a people and reward those who demonstrate a real, painstaking devotion to it as cultural art over a commodity poised simply to keep a party going. Maybe then we'll see an upswing not only from the underground, but in more mainline R&B acts as well.

[Edited 7/16/11 15:01pm]

Lammastide said:

I agree with Blaque that commercialization trends very much drive the wide success of certain acts, dwarfing other unsung talents in R&B... and other genres, too. But this sort of industry displacement aside, I wonder if, in fact, there is a lull in quality R&B acts (not to diss those underground acts that do clearly still exist) and if that lull isn't in part attributable to a storm of cultural factors.

I mean, who really presses upon youngsters (and here I suppose I'm talking particularly about Black youngsters) the merits of truly immersive musicianship anymore? Many school districts have altogether done away with music programs, particularly in commuinities where money is tight -- and we know that in the U.S. at least, those communities are often those of color. I don't see many parents taking up that slack either, forbiding playtime until after an hour of piano, guitar or voice practice, for example. I don't see the appreciation for the power of poetry and verse that we saw through the '60s and '70s. Churches, as someone has mentioned, have widely taken up a contemporary worship style and musical sound utterly devoid of anything organic, much less soulful. (At my wife's childhood church, for example, where they used to tear the house down with soaring gospel and gritty spirituals accompanied by live musicians, they now sing [if we can call it "singing" ] to prerecorded pop/R&B-sounding crossover instrumentals cued up on a laptop.) Too many would-be acts are spoiled by the ease of sampling and Pro Tools, etc. And I just generally don't see the same relationship between Black folk and music that once was. Once upon a time, we needed music to survive: It gave us voice where we had none elsewhere. It consoled us. It enraged us. It rallied us to do substantial and magnificent things. And that intimate relationship bred music with some serious heart. I listen to R&B these days and it seems like we employ this "music" anymore primarily to cosign how crappy the opposite sex is, how cool we look on the dancefloor, and how hot sex with Stranger X is gonna be. That stuff is occasionally fun to some, I guess; but it's hardly life-giving.

I think we need to teach our kids (and maybe re-teach ourselves) to appreciate how important music is to a people and reward those who demonstrate a real, painstaking devotion to it as cultural art over a commodity poised simply to keep a party going. Maybe then we'll see an upswing not only from the underground, but in more mainline R&B acts as well.

[Edited 7/16/11 15:01pm]

Mostly agree with you there, but it's not just communities of color. It's mostly class based. Obviously, the poor inner city schools have seen their creative arts departments cut from district school budgets, but so have rural communities. If you listen to country music right now, most of it is basically inane pop music with a country twang added to it, and in some cases, they just take out the country elements (slide guitars, banjo, fiddle) and remix it so it can cross over to pop radio. The musicianship that used to be displayed by bluegrass artists and the lyrical skills that were dipslayed by artists such as Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Steve Earle, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, and Dwight Yoakam is all but nonexistent on country radio. And all of that can be traced to Clear Channel and the corporatization of music.

But back to R&B. A lot of R&B began going downhill in the mid-1980's because artists began using synthesizers and drum machines to replace the drummers and horn sections they previously used to record their albums. Granted, this saved a lot of money in production but it bgean making the music more generic and soulless. It really went downhill after the New Jack Swing era took effect, and started killing off R&B once the hip-hop element became commonplace in R&B music. Soon the guitar or sax solo in the middle of a song was replaced by the guest rapper, and before long the music was swtiched around.

[Edited 7/16/11 17:36pm]

Right. I've turned off the radio since 2006. I've stopped hoping for a "resurrection". Times changed and I'm okay with it. It don't deserved to get swallowed up by the monopolized corporate system anyways.

Timmy84 said:

Right. I've turned off the radio since 2006. I've stopped hoping for a "resurrection". Times changed and I'm okay with it. It don't deserved to get swallowed up by the monopolized corporate system anyways.

I turned it off back in later 1986-1987 thats when things started to go wrong, i started really studying playlists of radio across the country and also mtv's playlist because Billboard actually printed that stuff every week instead of the 100 charts that they waste time with now. When i started seeing good songs just not getting play i looked around at how long songs would stay on a playlist, and as the decade went on the amount of time a playlist hung onto a song was closing in on 6 months, which is insanity. And this is more than RB, this is across the board, what once was pop back then suffered long before, because it suddenly became this very straight and narrow thing, people say we are more OPEN with things today, but its more strict and there are more labels and seperations now more than ever.

BlaqueKnight said:

rialb said:

Haven't "old white guys in stuffy suits" been picking what music the public likes since the late '70s/early '80s with the popularisation of rigid playlists and the elimination of independent minded DJ's? It is hardly a new phenomenon.

The short answer is "NO"

There was a counter-culture going on outside of mainstream radio. The way things were done pre-Clear Channel was different. Playlists were a lot more diverse in the 70s/80s than they are now and the radio didn't control what was "in"; it followed. When you wanted to hear new music, you went to house parties, clubs, skating rinks, etc. and that is where you got turned on to the new stuff. From there, people would start to request it and radio DJs would start to play it. DJ payola started in the 80s but it wasn't until Clear Channel came into power that playlists became corporate and TRULY rigid.

Now corporations SPONSOR the parties in order to promote their new artists. Its all a big game to get people to buy shit.

There is a huge counter-culture in its growth stage right now and we are on it. The internet is going to kill mainstream radio and video off altogether eventually. That is why corporate entities buy up every new online trend site - it is because they want to retain control and they want in on whatever might be next. MySpace an Youtube have brought about the next generation of celebrities and soon they will all come from online.

The suits have gotten more agressive about observing and controlling trends. The problem with the younger generation is that they are conditioned at a much younger age and in more ways than previous generations ever were. Companies used to have to earn "brand loyalty" and when I was growing up, that wasn't even a term. Now its a common part of daily society. That's a problem.

Paying off DJ's has been going on alot longer than the 80's, Tommy Shaw of STYX talks about this in the Behind the Music special, when talking about "Come Sail Away" losing its bullet at number 34, he said "that was it" but they all went into PROMO mode, they started doing radio interviews wiht dj's and tkaing them out to dinner buying them gifts, drugs etc...and suddenly "Come Sail Way" was a top 10 hit, this wasnt invented with Styx, this was going on alot back then way before things like MTV entered the picture.

Now when MTV entered the picture that was basically the end, because now you had another form of getting your music out there, radio almost didnt matter at that point, if you had a flashy video that could get some traction more than radio could, and alot of artists rightfully so used this advantage and benefits, we cant act like these things didnt help the Prince's MJ's JJ's and Madonna's of the world have long iconic careers and now suddenly we want to kill the beast. When MTV was sold that was when it all ended, it this was right when Eddie Murphy hosted that MTV awards show back in the 80's that was when it was sold, and that was the beginning of the end.

As for playlists, well back in 1984-85 a radio station like a z100 had a 50-60 song playlist, now it has a 20 song list at best, MTV actually had a 40 video list, now it hasnt played 40 videos in the last 10 years.

I'm a biased musician/songwriter, but I also have to highlight Lammastide's point about our connection to instruments.

I didn't learn about this awesome project from contemporary R&B stations. I was listening to my city's jazz stations and noticed they kept spinning cuts like this:

Cuts like this one would fall in the R&B category. As do the Lalah Hathaways, Chrisette Michelles, Ledisis and so on. I don't think it's about resurrecting the genre as much as it is about rewarding the acts that are out there doing solid work and about ignoring the Beyonces, Diddy vehicles and R. Kellys dreck.

Subjective, I know. But, whatevs.

[Edited 7/16/11 22:31pm]

ThreadBare said:

I'm a biased musician/songwriter, but I also have to highlight Lammastide's point about our connection to instruments.

I didn't learn about this awesome project from contemporary R&B stations. I was listening to my city's jazz stations and noticed they kept spinning cuts like this:

Cuts like this one would fall in the R&B category. As do the Lalah Hathaways, Chrisette Michelles, Ledisis and so on. I don't think it's about resurrecting the genre as much as it is about rewarding the acts that are out there doing solid work and about ignoring the Beyonces, Diddy vehicles and R. Kellys dreck.

Subjective, I know. But, whatevs.

[Edited 7/16/11 22:31pm]

Told you those monopolized radio stations don't know shit.

lastdecember said:

Paying off DJ's has been going on alot longer than the 80's, Tommy Shaw of STYX talks about this in the Behind the Music special, when talking about "Come Sail Away" losing its bullet at number 34, he said "that was it" but they all went into PROMO mode, they started doing radio interviews wiht dj's and tkaing them out to dinner buying them gifts, drugs etc...and suddenly "Come Sail Way" was a top 10 hit, this wasnt invented with Styx, this was going on alot back then way before things like MTV entered the picture.

I stand corrected. What I meant was that it peaked in the 80s. That was when it became more of a standard, expected thing.

I agree with Lammistide (great post, BTW) that a lot of our musical culture is dwindling due to the abandonment of real instruments and learning musical structure. Schools have all but abandoned teaching music. Also, because companies have taken a greater interest in controlling trends and manipulating the tastes of the youth, they were successfully able to pass off R&B as jazz (after all, anything with real instruments on it must be jazz, right?), force rap into R&B (your song is good mr. singer but it needs something extra - how about we get a guest rapper to "spit a hot 16 on your song" as you guys say?), push rap to the forefront of black/urban music while convincing the youth that this is "their way to be a voice" in music, all the while still keeping it in basically the same box by getting R&B producers to produce rap songs so that it all sounds the same. Well played, execs. Well played.

Still, there are a large number of independant artists who now have a voice via the internet and are free to push their music without having to answer to some suit who is trying to manipulate them into formatting their work to fit into a box. Of course, quality control has gone out of the window but still, there are more avenues than ever to hear new music. There's a lot of R&B out there and a lot of talented people doing it. As a culture within a culture, we have to continue to nourish it and at the same time, keep setting a standard within that so that the music that is truly great doesn't get lost in the mix.

Peoples' focus on populartiy has to shift, also. At one point, because there was less desire to be mainstream, artists trendset and experimented with R&B while keeping a quality level. With rap being so mainstream now, in order to stay popular, one has to "dumb it down" and that is a huge problem. The obvious solution is to understand and accept the monetary and popularity ceilings of how far a good/great R&B artist is going to go and create for the love. As long as people are creating from the heart and for the love of music, real music willl never die.

You just wait. James River will be released by early 2012.