I would say 95 when Neo Soul came in.

I'm with you, in terms of being a standalone subgenre. You could make the argument it happened earlier with R and 12Play. Or when Timbaland kind of reset the board.

What is R and 12 play?

scriptgirl said:

What is R and 12 play?

Those are both albums by R. Kelly.

New Jack Swing was pretty much dead by 1995. There was still a semi-decent amount of new jack swing records being released in 1994, but not many in 1995.

Whatever you consider the mid-90's to be, that's when. NJS was dated even when it was popular. I think everyone knew it wouldn't last. The style was cool though. Purple and turquoise forever.

May Guy's "Her" remain in our boomboxes for all time.

Shockedelicus said:

Whatever you consider the mid-90's to be, that's when. NJS was dated even when it was popular. I think everyone knew it wouldn't last. The style was cool though. Purple and turquoise forever.

May Guy's "Her" remain in our boomboxes for all time.

How was it dated?

I think it has aged better the non NJS R&B from that era.

I just played El DeBarge's Gemini disc, an it sounds more dated than NJS disc from around that era like Guy, B.Brown, ect.

BBD's Poison and and Calloway's I Wanna Be Rich were releasd in the same year. Which sounds more dated to you? Which would get more play in a club right now?

teddy riley!

When that shitty "Crunk" came in and ruined music completely!!!!!!!!!!

JabarR74 said:

When that shitty "Crunk" came in and ruined music completely!!!!!!!!!!

New Jack Swing had been dead already for a decade before crunk showed up.

scriptgirl said:

I would say 95 when Neo Soul came in.

Or as soon as Michael Jackson hoped on the wagon.

when Bobby Brown ot arrested?

namepeace said:

I'm with you, in terms of being a standalone subgenre. You could make the argument it happened earlier with R and 12Play. Or when Timbaland kind of reset the board.

.

I would agree with this. Remember when R. Kelly was considered an Aaron Hall clone? The days when he hung with Public Announcement? 'Vibe! Vibe! Vibe!' Straight up lifted from Bobby Brown's 'Prerogative' bridge.

.

But when he came out with the 'R. Kelly' album, it was a different sound altogether.

.

You could argue that the first signs of a trend that was going 'against' the New Jack Swing sound, was the emergence of Jodeci. New Jack Swing had a bit of an edge when it started out and when it was spearheaded by Keith Sweat and Bobby B, but afterwards, it was appropriated by some groups that had a really clean image. Jodeci instead presented themselves with a 'bad boys' image, and used a very different musical style to match.

.

R. Kelly may just have taken a couple of clues from Jodeci as well, by the time he released 'R. Kelly'.

.

when prince made the horrid Round and Roung

I wish New Jack Swing would come back!!! It is a great genre to dance to!!!!

I agree with everyone here insisting it ended around 94.

ginusher said:

namepeace said:

I'm with you, in terms of being a standalone subgenre. You could make the argument it happened earlier with R and 12Play. Or when Timbaland kind of reset the board.

.

I would agree with this. Remember when R. Kelly was considered an Aaron Hall clone? The days when he hung with Public Announcement? 'Vibe! Vibe! Vibe!' Straight up lifted from Bobby Brown's 'Prerogative' bridge.

.

But when he came out with the 'R. Kelly' album, it was a different sound altogether.

.

You could argue that the first signs of a trend that was going 'against' the New Jack Swing sound, was the emergence of Jodeci. New Jack Swing had a bit of an edge when it started out and when it was spearheaded by Keith Sweat and Bobby B, but afterwards, it was appropriated by some groups that had a really clean image. Jodeci instead presented themselves with a 'bad boys' image, and used a very different musical style to match.

.

R. Kelly may just have taken a couple of clues from Jodeci as well, by the time he released 'R. Kelly'.

.

I think you're right. You could make the argument that D'Angelo ended New Jack Swing in the same way Nirvana ended the glam rock era, but that wouldn't be a particularly strong argument. I think that, like you say, many different acts had a hand in "ending" the era (if not necessarily the influence of the sound). In addition to R, Jodeci, and others, I think Toni Tony Tone hacked away at NJS too. You could make the case for the early Mary J/Puffy collabos as well, which relied heavily on looping/sampling the best hooks of the 70's sound.

There were toooooo many bad NJS acts. Some of those songs were tooooo busy just stacking samples for no reason:whofarted:

DecaturStone said:

in 1992 when grunge step on it and kicked it out the door!

'94 sounds about right. There was a period around 93-94 when the twilighting New Jack Swing and the dawning Hip Hop Soul kind of crossed paths and meshed with each other (SWV's "Right Here," Mary J. Blige's "Love No Limit" and "My Love", BLACKstreet's "Booty Call," Black Girl's "90's Girl") which then completely overtook it. The last NJS song that I remember making noise was this...and even it had some lite early Hip Hop Soul elements infused...

I will say that I think when MJ jumped on the NJS bandwagon - late - that effected it negatively. His work with it became too grandiose and OTT, and sort of triggered its end. That being said, I agree that NOW seems like a perfect time for Teddy Riley to reemerge and reinvent NJS. His recent work with Girls Generation was actually pretty solid and sounded very 'modern,' and not dated -- like you would expect from a producer who peaked 20+ years ago. High energy, danceable R&B like pre-What's The 411? would do the music world some good right now.

[Edited 4/1/14 7:52am]

I only like a few NJS songs.When it began,I felt it was sorta like the end of "real" R&B.It was the merging of R&B music with hip-hop beats/elements and I wasn't too fond of that.What really ticked me off is,when many legendary R&B artists and bands jumped on that bandwagon,too.

Still,like I said,I liked a few of those songs.Guy's first album is a classic.I also like the song "Right And Hype" by Abstrac

it never ended, it just evolved into something duller and slower

JoeTyler said:

JoeTyler said:

Artesian said:

'94 sounds about right. There was a period around 93-94 when the twilighting New Jack Swing and the dawning Hip Hop Soul kind of crossed paths and meshed with each other (SWV's "Right Here," Mary J. Blige's "Love No Limit" and "My Love", BLACKstreet's "Booty Call," Black Girl's "90's Girl") which then completely overtook it. The last NJS song that I remember making noise was this...and even it had some lite early Hip Hop Soul elements infused...

I will say that I think when MJ jumped on the NJS bandwagon - late - that effected it negatively. His work with it became too grandiose and OTT, and sort of triggered its end. That being said, I agree that NOW seems like a perfect time for Teddy Riley to reemerge and reinvent NJS. His recent work with Girls Generation was actually pretty solid and sounded very 'modern,' and not dated -- like you would expect from a producer who peaked 20+ years ago. High energy, danceable R&B like pre-What's The 411? would do the music world some good right now.

[Edited 4/1/14 7:52am]

.

Thank you so much for even remembering Eternal! I still listen to those UK girls from time to time. Here in Holland, they were always vying with En Vogue on the charts.

.

Also, it's nice to see someone else who's familiar with Girls Generation. Maybe they're a bit too standard K-Pop for the average ORGer, but I'll be damned if Taeyeon doesn't have a set of lungs on her, and Hyoyeon can move with the best of them out there right now.

.

SoulAlive said:

I only like a few NJS songs.When it began,I felt it was sorta like the end of "real" R&B.It was the merging of R&B music with hip-hop beats/elements and I wasn't too fond of that.What really ticked me off is,when many legendary R&B artists and bands jumped on that bandwagon,too.

Still,like I said,I liked a few of those songs.Guy's first album is a classic.I also like the song "Right And Hype" by Abstrac

.

I can understand that, SoulAlive. At the same time, and looking at it in hindsight, I do feel that Keith, Teddy Riley, and Jam & Lewis among others were injecting some life into the mainstream R&B of those years. Before too long, dime-a-dozen NJS acts were being churned out of the record studios, but the beginning of NJS seems, imo, to have been very welcome. A lot of pre-'88 chart R&B/soul I've heard sounds... kind of stale and formulaic to me. Funk groups and soul multi-instrumentalists (like Mayfield and Wonder) were being subplanted by synthesizer productions, and the popularity of the music video brought us a lot of pretty faces who didn't have all that much to say musically.

.

One thing I would pick out as a negative in the trends that NJS brought with them, is that R&B 'belters' were being phased out of the scene. Sure, every once in a while you'd hear a Keith Washington or a Christopher Williams, and Vandross sustained his massive crossover popularity; but one thing I must hand to 80s R&B, is that the quality of the vocals was consistently stellar. Whereas NJS also brought with it a lot of boys and girls who had moves or the face, but couldn't deliver a convincing singing performance live.

.

katamari said:

wrong

that was the APEX of New Jack

Around 94-ish when "HipHop Soul" took over.

I agree that the arcade synth and drum machine Midnight Star-Kool & The Gang-Cherrelle period of R&B between the years of 1983 and about 1986 hasn't aged too well. NJS, I think, was right on time in overhauling the genre by the late 80s.

[Edited 4/3/14 5:00am]