Just do it...........agreed.

Never going to happen. Hiring muscians is expensive. Labels don't respect R&B music. They are not willing to go back and make that kind of investment. Drum machines are way cheaper and as long as R&B artists are able to crank out 18 song CDs with that same, repetitive beat, record execs are saving lots of money.

kitbradley said:

kitbradley said:

Never going to happen. Hiring muscians is expensive. Labels don't respect R&B music. They are not willing to go back and make that kind of investment. Drum machines are way cheaper and as long as R&B artists are able to crank out 18 song CDs with that same, repetitive beat, record execs are saving lots of money.

Do artist really need labels in 2016?

Scorp said:

I'm a musician and I find his argument to be terribly elitist. What "happened" to R&B music is
what "happened" to rock/pop music: it was targeted towards kids. At least this is part of the
story. Think about it: who was buying albums in the 60s/70s/80s/90s? Adults. So, because
adults were driving the industry, there were adult themed artists that were charting. What
happened is that these adults' kids suddenly had access to disposable income because the
economy allowed for it: adults in the 60s/70s/80s who were middle class did extremely well,
as far as finances/the economy is concerned. So, the extra cash they had went to their kids,
who started buying a lot of albums. As soon as that occurred, there was a shift in the focus
of the music industry, which was now catered for kiddies, not the adults! I can provide some
anecdotal evidence:

Lately, I have been watching Al Jarreau music videos at Youtube. I find him to be an amusing
singer; he's not great at it, but there's something weird about him that I appreciate. But Al
Jarreau was fucking 40+ years old making music videos in the 80s. That shit would NEVER go
down today! No kid or millenial is going to buy that style of music directed primarily at an adult
audience!

I, too, think What's Goin' On is the finest pop album of all time. But the public's taste has
changed. Today, there is good music that relies mostly on sequencing and not strict musicianship
that are just as well produced and written as the R&B jazz dreamscape of the aforementioned
album.

So yeah; today's music, that charts, may not be as sophisticated in terms of composition that
its forebears contained, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is inferior to its forebears.

And finally, the guy in the video, who seems really intelligent and thoughtful, has to recognize
that music is so niche driven today so that even if what charts is not sophisticated as the
R&B music of yesterday was, it doesn't mean that sophisticated R&B is not being produced. So,
ultimately, the gentleman's argument has mostly to do with public taste as opposed to anything
related to the quality of today's R&B music that charts.

duccichucka said:

kitbradley said:

Never going to happen. Hiring muscians is expensive. Labels don't respect R&B music. They are not willing to go back and make that kind of investment. Drum machines are way cheaper and as long as R&B artists are able to crank out 18 song CDs with that same, repetitive beat, record execs are saving lots of money.

Big name R&B producers aren't cheap though (and neither are name beatmakers). Anyway like I posted in the Adele thread, 18 of 25 albums of a recent Billboard R&B albums chart were rap albums. So a major label is likely to spend spend more money on rap than R&B when it is not that popular with a mainstream audience. The R&B acts that are popular usualy has a hip hop image like Chris Brown. That image kinda started with Jodeci, Jade, BBD, and TLC in the 1990s. Before this R&B acts either wore suits, sequined clothes, or space costumes and didn't really look like the audience. The hip hop generation's R&B acts were often dressed like the audience, so it's less the "us & them" of the old acts. It probably helped that the old R&B acts had little media attention, unlike today's social media generation, which also helped to kill the "us & them". The audience did not know that much about them. Ebony mostly had features on superstar acts like Diana Ross and not Brick.

.

It might be costly to hire name session musicians, but it can't cost all that much to hire someone to play instruments. Chuck Berry often hired pickup musicians in each city instead of having his own band when touring. Genres like zydeco, polka, & death metal are not mainstream popular, but they generally are self contained bands or have session guys on their records. A symphony orchestra has dozens of people in it. Audiences go to see them in concert too although they might not sell a huge amount of records. People go to tribute band/singer concerts, in which a lot of them don't even record. Oldies R&B acts usually have a band playing behind them like The O'Jays & The Whispers. Even Beyonce has an all female band playing behind her at her concerts.

.

I think it's more that younger generations popular R&B generally has no bands in it, so they did not grow up with that. They grew up with a rap break instead of a guitar/sax solo. They also are more likely to go to a club to hear a DJ play CDs/records and not a live act. It's been said that that disco in the 1970s created DJ culture, so some clubs started to hire a DJ instead of a band. Rock, blues,death metal, & polka music were not as dependent on club DJs like dance music (in which some later R&B can be included) or even radio airplay, so the places those acts perform still hire bands or a singer with a band. There's also the "video killed the radio star". That created more dependence on an act being pretty in which some of the older R&B acts weren't. Although rappers don't have to be pretty. A pretty rapper is probably a minus and not a plus.

Here's a 2015 interview by The Whispers where they talk about music today

(2:31 - 5:10) (2:35 - 3:30)

MickyDolenz said:

Here's a 2015 interview by The Whispers where they talk about music today

(2:31 - 5:10) (2:35 - 3:30)

this a very good clip.....broad range of thoughts on the matter

the main issue I've had w/music across the board, what the pop ascension took away, not in terms of the lack of marketing that may have occured in generations past depending on what genre you performed.....the main issue I have is that youth or even adults stopped being presented the broad range of music

when I grew up in the 70s and early to mid 80s, we were offered so much more than what's being offered now, you had the soul, the rock, the pop, the hip-hop, the gospel, the country, jazz, blues, opera, the funk.......and it was healthy

we were exposed to all the genres, and that exposure permeated from teh artist, to the radio station, to the music listener.....

and even as we were enjoying the music of the time we were growing up, we were being taught about the great musicians of before, and new talents were being cultivated properly....there was balance where every genre was able to shine

that stopped being the case when the 90s hit and you could see how deliberate that move was

an artists have always spoken on the social ills of the time, which is one of the reasons why music is so important.....

I think allot of stuff needs to be scrapped and rebuild this thing from scratch

ummm, more recently. black folks decided they preferred their "soul" music from white artists, and radio decided only nostaglia songs or songs by artists 25 and under were worthy of airplay...

Well, you can thank the convergence of hip-hop and R&B towards the late 80s and early 90s. The New Jack Swing era I think started it and then Puffy Combs' discovery of Mary J. Blige and crafting her sound to include elements of hip-hop is what sparked it all. Today, I think record labels just want beats, catchy hooks and that's it. They're not really interested in having another Mint Condition, Tony Toni Tone or anything like that. But, it's strange that other artists are promoted as "soul music" but they're really pop artists but that's a different discussion for a different thread.

I never really understand why people comment on commercial R&B as the be-all-and-end-all of what's currently available. There's countless incredible artists out there making incredible soul/R&B music: D'angelo, Nigel Hall, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields, Charles Bradley, Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators, Emma Donovan & The PutBacks, Eclectic Blue, Incognito, The Nth Power, Amp Fiddler, Raphael Saadiq, Maxwell... I could list a hundred names.

IM001 said:

I never really understand why people comment on commercial R&B as the be-all-and-end-all of what's currently available. There's countless incredible artists out there making incredible soul/R&B music: D'angelo, Nigel Hall, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields, Charles Bradley, Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators, Emma Donovan & The PutBacks, Eclectic Blue, Incognito, The Nth Power, Amp Fiddler, Raphael Saadiq, Maxwell... I could list a hundred names.

Yeah I think this guy is probably wondering why he can't turn on mainstream FM radio and hear R&B the same way he would be able to back in the day. Where I live there are four main FM "urban" radio stations. One of them is an old-school hip-hop channel, the other is a new school hip hop channel, there's a station that plays 90 percent hip-hop with 10 percent so-called R&B which is basically trash pop (Beyonce, Rihanna) and the other station is an oldies R&B station that sometimes plays new R&B and is now starting to phase in old hip-hop songs every blue moon. They played Tupac once and I was shocked. So I guess there's also a bit of laziness on this guy's part as well because he's probably just longing for the days when he had the ability to just turn on the radio and be able to hear a vast array of R&B sounds from different artists. I do agree that programming does make a lot of the songs sound a like but even if you listen to music from the 50s, particulary 50s rock, a lot of the song kind of sound identical. Even if you listen to music from the 20s, a lot of those songs sound the same too.

SeventeenDayze said:

Well, you can thank the convergence of hip-hop and R&B towards the late 80s and early 90s. The New Jack Swing era I think started it and then Puffy Combs' discovery of Mary J. Blige and crafting her sound to include elements of hip-hop is what sparked it all. Today, I think record labels just want beats, catchy hooks and that's it. They're not really interested in having another Mint Condition, Tony Toni Tone or anything like that. But, it's strange that other artists are promoted as "soul music" but they're really pop artists but that's a different discussion for a different thread.

That's the general rule now; just look at award shows where pop artists are nominated for and win awards for genres they aren't a part of.

Technically, there isn't really a such thing as "pop music". It's just short for popular music in the mainstream Top 40. Bessie Smith was pop in the 1920s. In the 1930s jazz was pop music. In the 1980s glam metal was pop music. Depending on the decade, Bon Jovi, Harry Belafonte, Run DMC, The Coasters, Bing Crosby, Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, Boston, Kenny Rogers, The Temptations, Nirvana, ZZ Top, etc. were all pop music.

MickyDolenz said:

Technically, there isn't really a such thing as "pop music". It's just short for popular music in the mainstream Top 40. Bessie Smith was pop in the 1920s. In the 1930s jazz was pop music. In the 1980s glam metal was pop music. Depending on the decade, Bon Jovi, Harry Belafonte, Run DMC, The Coasters, Bing Crosby, Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, Boston, Kenny Rogers, The Temptations, Nirvana, ZZ Top, etc. were all pop music.

Interesting....so then why do award shows have all the music fragmented like that? I also notice that even up until the 80s they still had "best black album" or something like that which later became best R&B album.

SeventeenDayze said:

Interesting....so then why do award shows have all the music fragmented like that? I also notice that even up until the 80s they still had "best black album" or something like that which later became best R&B album.

Because those are the main genres. Kenny Rogers & Bon Jovi don't make the same kind of music, but they had Top 40 pop hits. They became mainstream popular because they crossed over from their main audience, which is country and AOR in this case, to the mainstream. Country & AOR were two different radio formats. Most country and rock acts don't crossover and mainly sell to the audience who primarily listens to their genres. Top 40 radio doesn't play a specific type of music like a R&B station would.

.

In Billbard, the main charts are the Hot 100 for singles and Top 200 for albums which tells the popularity of everything combined. The rest are sub-charts, which is the popularity of the individual genres (R&B, country, dance, jazz, alternative rock, etc) to their main audience. An act can be popular in their main genre, but little known in the mainstream. Jazz in general does not sell enough to place high on the Top 200 chart. But the people who listen to jazz can see what the popular albums are with their audience by looking at the jazz chart.

MickyDolenz said:

SeventeenDayze said:

SoulAlive said:

SeventeenDayze said:

Well, you can thank the convergence of hip-hop and R&B towards the late 80s and early 90s. The New Jack Swing era I think started it and then Puffy Combs' discovery of Mary J. Blige and crafting her sound to include elements of hip-hop is what sparked it all. Today, I think record labels just want beats, catchy hooks and that's it. They're not really interested in having another Mint Condition, Tony Toni Tone or anything like that. But, it's strange that other artists are promoted as "soul music" but they're really pop artists but that's a different discussion for a different thread.

Exactly.The late 80s is when "real" R&B began to die.All of that New Jack Swing stuff (mixing R&B with hip-hop elements) was so annoying to me.

You know what else is to blame? The excessive use of drum beats in "traditional" R&B. I swear, I can hardly listen to some R&B artists because it seems like they are using the same sappy, tired sounding beats in the background or whatever. I'm not a musician so I can't describe it but it sounds so dull and it hurts my ears. I enjoy trap music more than most R&B because at least in trap they have a bit more variety in the beats LOL Remember this song? This is a prime example of the convergence of the two genres that are now joined at the hip:

[Edited 1/18/16 20:41pm]

the Pop Ascension killed R&B music

SoulAlive said:

The late 80s is when "real" R&B began to die.All of that New Jack Swing stuff (mixing R&B with hip-hop elements) was so annoying to me.

Soul music killed the popularity of rhythm & blues in the 1960s. R&B was originally an offspring of the blues, particularly jump blues/boogie woogie or "race music". The Stray Cats sound more like Joe Turner era R&B than Luther Vandross. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is closer to Louis Jordan than Trey Songz. R&B is just a default term today like Soul Train in the later years when it was mostly the "Rap Train". The blues part ceased long ago on hit R&B radio stations. ZZ Hill had brief radio popularity in the early 1980s on Malaco Records.

.

There were R&B/hip hop hybrids years before New Jack Swing like The Sequence, Force MDs, New Edition, & Stacy Lattisaw. Bohannon released Let's Start II Dance Again. Then there was Teena Marie, Debbie Harry, Cameo, & Stevie Wonder doing raps and Herbie Hancock's Future Shock album. Stevie cowrote and played on The Crown by Gary Byrd. James Brown did a collabo with Afrika Bambaataa. Hall & Oates Big Bam Boom album had a few hip hop elements on it because they worked with Arthur Baker and that was 1984.

And there are many classic artists still adding to the genre in addition to newer artists who are keeping the tradition of soul/R&B going.

.

[Edited 1/19/16 0:58am]

SeventeenDayze said:

SoulAlive said:

SeventeenDayze said: Exactly.The late 80s is when "real" R&B began to die.All of that New Jack Swing stuff (mixing R&B with hip-hop elements) was so annoying to me.

You know what else is to blame? The excessive use of drum beats in "traditional" R&B. I swear, I can hardly listen to some R&B artists because it seems like they are using the same sappy, tired sounding beats in the background or whatever. I'm not a musician so I can't describe it but it sounds so dull and it hurts my ears. I enjoy trap music more than most R&B because at least in trap they have a bit more variety in the beats LOL Remember this song? This is a prime example of the convergence of the two genres that are now joined at the hip:

Exactly! I know what you mean Those type of songs are lazy and boring.And as the 90s wore on,R&B songs became slower.Vainandy has said this a million times (lol) and he is absolutely right.

SoulAlive said:

SeventeenDayze said:

You know what else is to blame? The excessive use of drum beats in "traditional" R&B. I swear, I can hardly listen to some R&B artists because it seems like they are using the same sappy, tired sounding beats in the background or whatever. I'm not a musician so I can't describe it but it sounds so dull and it hurts my ears. I enjoy trap music more than most R&B because at least in trap they have a bit more variety in the beats LOL Remember this song? This is a prime example of the convergence of the two genres that are now joined at the hip:

Exactly! I know what you mean Those type of songs are lazy and boring.And as the 90s wore on,R&B songs became slower.Vainandy has said this a million times (lol) and he is absolutely right.

Ok, so it's not just me then Yes, those songs seem so slow and dull to me sometimes. Maybe I am just not listening to the right groups or whatever but there's a lot of sappy R&B out there and it hurts my ears. I don't understand why it has to sound so dull and one dimensional! If anyone knows of any R&B singers that aren't doing this PLEASE let me know so I can check them out. I must say that Maxwell is an exception though, I think his music is much more varied in that regard. I also think John Legend likes to change it up a bit....John Legend isn't necessarily the guy with the greatest voice but his songs are different I think.

SeventeenDayze said:

SoulAlive said:

SeventeenDayze said: Exactly.The late 80s is when "real" R&B began to die.All of that New Jack Swing stuff (mixing R&B with hip-hop elements) was so annoying to me.

You know what else is to blame? The excessive use of drum beats in "traditional" R&B. I swear, I can hardly listen to some R&B artists because it seems like they are using the same sappy, tired sounding beats in the background or whatever. I'm not a musician so I can't describe it but it sounds so dull and it hurts my ears. I enjoy trap music more than most R&B because at least in trap they have a bit more variety in the beats LOL Remember this song? This is a prime example of the convergence of the two genres that are now joined at the hip:

[Edited 1/18/16 20:41pm]

There is no connection between the proliferation of R&B artists using drum machines excessively
with its purported demise. There are TONS of great R&B songs that feature a drum machine that
are really great pieces of art. This means that the converse is true: there are shitty R&B songs
that feature live drumming. So, I kinda disagree with this.

And what is "real" R&B" anyways? What does that even mean? Nothing has "happened" to R&
B music other than what happens to most pop music: taste changes over time!