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Music today and the decline of R&B Hello all
In the commercial music we hear today, there is virtually no R&B. Most songs sung by a black person are considered R&B, it seems. If the same song is given to Miley Cyrus it is considered pop.
Since the 50s through till about 2004 or so we heard black artists releasing music that related to the music before. It had it roots in blues/R&b/gospel/soul etc. Rock & Roll to Motown to Minneapolis sound to hip hop to the funk of James Brown etc. They were all very different, but they had some of the same origins. | |
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I made a thread some years back saying why R&B had died.
The church, the black church actually.
Think of most of the greast from back in the day. They grew up singing in the church.
James Brown, Al Green, Aretha, WHitney, ect PRINCE: Always and Forever
MICHAEL JACKSON: Always and Forever ----- Live Your Life How U Wanna Live It | |
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Black artists will forever be crowned "R&B" because of the separation of black music from the pop charts.
The "Black Singles Chart" and "Hot Black Albums" turned into the R&B charts. | |
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I've never heard of Johnny Mathis, Tracy Chapman, Charlie Pride, Joan Armatrading, or Denyce Graves being called R&B. You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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I doubt those people do commercial music. Denyce I know is an opera singer. | |
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Pretty Much.
They just seperate the black pop artists from the white ones.
I think its really unfair that they do this because just because their black doesnt mean they make R&B music.... the whole notion is really ignorant honestly.
It hurts the real R&B artists they exactly make R&B. | |
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It's been dead since the 1990s. They have made a little progress though. At least the trance "euro dance" sounds better than the shit hop they've been making for the last 20 years. It still sounds horrible though because it's a rhythmless "whitened down" version of house. Andy is a four letter word. | |
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This book was published in 1988: [img:$uid]http://images.betterworldbooks.com/045/The-Death-of-Rhythm-and-Blues-9780452266971.jpg[/img:$uid] According to Nelson George rhythm and blues died quite some time ago. | |
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A lot of R&B artists are on the pop chart.........Usher, Chris Brown, Rihanna, Trey Songs, Miguel, Frank Ocean, Brandy, Ne yo......all of these and more are all on the hot 100 on the Billboard charts. But just like there are some country artists that are on the country chart only...same applies to R&B. But R&B does well on the chart....all the artists in the Top 20 of the R&B charts have been on the Hot 100.
But as far as R&B declining....oh yes. Most artists have changed to be more hip hop oriented. Because straight R&B will get no airplay or sales Love God and I shall 4ever Love u | |
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But hip hop is declining too!
I know many people opposed the R&B/Hip hop crossover in the 90s, and at times it did get way too much, but at least hip hop had some roots in R&B. On the eastcoast you had soul and funk samples incorporated into the music, on the westcoast you had some funky compositions...but this trance/house/dance nonsense is not like that! | |
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Interesting. What would u call:
Mint Condition Anthony Hamilton Bilal Frank McComb Eric Roberson Badu Jill Scott Maxwell Raheem Devaughn...........2 name a few?
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I remember hearing Pretty Wings on the radio. Other than that, I haven't heard a song from any of the others on radio in a few years, maybe the last I remember was ''Everybody'' by Anthony Hamilton. (I am in the UK) | |
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Radio is DEAD. | |
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Of course, I was talking about radio/tv i.e commercial music. | |
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Johnny Mathis is one of the biggest selling acts of all time. He popularized the greatest hits album and the Christmas album. If he's not commercial, then no one is. You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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People talking about black acts not being played on pop stations must haven't listened to the radio after the 1950's. I've heard way more black acts on it than I've heard Arab, Chinese, Indian, or Mexican music and performers being played. You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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This thread is preposterous. How in the world did the Black church assist in the decline of R&B? How in the world is a musical art form itself declining?
Y'all are straight trippin': music will NEVER decline. It cannot do such a thing. TASTE is what y'all are talking about. And again, if you look book at all the Billboard Chart 100 Hot New Songs Played on Pop Radio List, you'll see that taste in pop music has ALWAYS been questionable.
Stop the kneejerk reaction to what you hear on the radio, as if it's indicative of ALL the R&B music that is being produced today. | |
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I have to agree with ducci. | |
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R&B itself still exists, but barely on radio. You can listen to the ''R&B'' shows on UK radio and you will hear Jason Derulo, Tinchy Stryder and Usher. OMG! How is this shit R&B? Because the singer is black? I tell you, give the same song to Lizzy McGuire and it's considered pop!
Maybe it is different in the US, I am not sure, I should have a look at the US R&B charts and radio playlists, but in the UK if the song has a black vocalist, it is R&B. Is Rihanna's Disturbia R&B? Clearly not!
Of course there has always been questionable music on the pop charts, but there was diversity on the radio before. You would hear an indy song, followed but house, followed by R&B, even if many of them were slightly watered down and commercial. Now 90% of songs are house, it just depends on the image and race of the artist whether it will be on the POP chart or R&B chart. | |
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Its pretty obvious we are talking about mainstream R&B declining and not the genre in itself | |
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Oh you didn't know you're required to turn off the radio and "search" for it? Folks around here don't want to hear nothing bad said about what's on the radio because they get major erections and have sexual fetishes about the "search". Andy is a four letter word. | |
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haha of course, I search all the time, otherwise I wouldn't listen to music lol. Damn, I used to hate that house shit in the 90s, but there was diversity so it didn't matter! | |
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Please cut the bullish
I dont listen to the radio and I find alot of acts that make R&B music and have no problems in searching.... but whats so wrong in discussing the decline of R&B in popular music? Just because people discuss it doesnt mean people rely on the radio..... I mean its just music discussion | |
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When I was really little I didn't hear the radio at all. I just heard the blues records my grandfather had, the soul & gospel records my grandmother played, and whatever was on TV. They didn't even own a radio at the time, except the one in the truck. You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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Stop discussing the decline of R&B in popular music on the radio! If more people start talking about it, they might start playing the good stuff and I wouldn't have anything to search for.
Don't be threatening my fetishes. I just love wading through a lot of bullshit to finally find that one song that sounds good and then I sit alone and listen to it and jack my dick off, thrilled to death that I'm the only other person on the face of the earth that has heard the song except for the people that made it. Andy is a four letter word. | |
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Y'all bitter as fuck lol | |
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But that's the real issue.
What's really died?
a. R&B (or Soul) as a viable "genre"?
b. "Radio" or so-called "black radio," which does not feature what is considered "R&B" (as seemingly defined here) on its airwaves?
c. The R&B audience, due to its overreliance on radio/black radio to deliver "R&B" and its complacency?
As I've said in other threads, I think the answer is really "c." If R&B is in decline, then the audience has put it there. If R&B is dead, the audience has killed it.
This site, okayplayer and numerous others prove that there's really no excuse not to hunt for "R&B," and those who refuse to do so have no room to complain.
I gave up on "R&B" for years, until the so-called "neo-soul" movement and development of internet sites came along. I learned that I have to do some of the legwork on my own. So I'm not knocking anyone on anything I didn't actually used to do myself. But I learned.
Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016
Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder | |
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Technically R&B "declined" in the mid-1950s and just began to be appropriated by rockers in the '60s and '70s. R&B's "decline" was due to rock and roll and its subgenres (doo-wop, soul, funk, hip-hop). Meanwhile the original R&B hasn't been "popular" for years. "Contemporary R&B" is not even a good name for the music that came between 1979 and 2002. It was more of a hybrid of jazz, soul, hip-hop, pop, etc. By the end of the 1950s, R&B was typecasted as just being "black music" and not an actual genre. Some other folks later on even called R&B "real black". So if you think about it, what we heard in the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s (you know what people call "real R&B") was actually not R&B but a hybrid of it. | |
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You do have a point.
I do think their are some people that still want to listen to R&B tho but its become a obscure genre that is only on certain radio stations and not the mainstream ones. Overall, I think music listeners should go out and find the music because their is R&B still out there and not rely so much on the radio | |
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