SoulAlive said:

alphastreet said:

Me neither

The late 1980s and early 1990s is when I was buying a lot of remix maxi singles and some remix albums too. In the early 1990s I was more into dance rap like C+C Music Factory, Snap!, Gerardo, Kid n Play, Betty Boo, Salt-N-Pepa, Technotronic, & 2 Unlimited than gangsta. I did like some Geto Boys songs and 100 Miles & Runnin by NWA.

MickyDolenz said:

In addition to the comments about rap, soudscan, and NJS, another movement that was promising but ultimately undermined R&B was the neo-sould movement in the late 80s and 90s. This type of singing was decidely more focused on artistry rather than singing in a traditional way. Included in this were D'Angelo, Badu, Jill Scott, and Lauryn Hill among others. I actually liked most of these artists, but their artistic visions tended to veer away from traditional R &B music andsinging. They shared with some of the other trends listed here a movement away for traditional song structure and melody. None of these artists would ever be accused of trying to have a pop hit like the Mowtown era artists often were. The problem is that most of their careers fizzled out fairly quickly and those that followed them were not nearly as artistic yet maintained the emphasis of non-melodic music. I really miss good old fashion melody in modern music, especially in R & B. It is a shame that the genre that traditional drew some of the best voices in music now can't use those voices to make beautiful melodies. Well, every rant has to end at some pont......

Whatever that guy above me said, I agree wholeheartedly (sorry, a dupe).

[Edited 1/3/21 6:28am]

alphastreet said:

Dance music was awesome in the 90s for sure

My favorite was Cathy Dennis. I never thought I would hear Tammy Wynette on a dance track and singing about "mu mu land".

[Snip - luv4u]

MickyDolenz said:

kitbradley said:

SoulAlive said:

I agree,it was the late-80s New Jack Swing sound that ruined “real” R&B.Also,adding hip-hop elements and guest rappers to R&B songs became an annoying trend.I remember James Ingram had an embarrassing New Jack Swing song during this period (“It’s Real”).Even he hated it,but said it’s what the record company wanted.

Yes. I remember that James Ingram song. It was awful! I also remember cringing when I heard Gladys Knight's solo debut on MCA, I believe 1990. I understand labels wanted to keep up with trends but it didnt make any sense, to me, to put established artists like Gladys Knight, James Ingram or Vesta Williams in that kind of setting. I dont know if it won them any new fans.

My favorite band,Earth Wind and Fire,did an album like that too : Heritage,released in 1990.There were some new jack swing sounds on the album,plus two songs with MC Hammer.Needless to say,many longtime EW&F fans don't like this album very much.

I remember that with EWF...I think R&B started to get too slick and watered by the mid to late 80's...A lot of the big r&b/funk bands from the 70's started to either strip down their sound, remove members down to three or four people or the lead singer would split and try to find life on the "pop tart charts"....The "neo-soul" (I hate that term) sound was cool because it reminded me of the r&b musicmanship and style of the late 70's/early 80's (Marvin/Stevie/Sly/Prince/Chaka).

SPYZFAN1 said:

I think R&B started to get too slick and watered by the mid to late 80's...A lot of the big r&b/funk bands from the 70's started to either strip down their sound, remove members down to three or four people or the lead singer would split and try to find life on the "pop tart charts"....

yeah,I agree.Also,many of these bands stopped using horns in favor of synths.Some of them had major success with thse changes (Cameo and Bar-Kays come to mind) but I felt like it was the end of an era.

phunkdaddy said:

R&B took a hit in the 90's with these aforementioned groups like Shai, Silk, Jodeci, etc and female

groups like SWV, Total, etc. These groups were often produced by lab coat technicians with very little to no live instrumentation. Some of the material was good but it eventually broke all the way down to bland and boring because it became a cookie cutter model that just ran it's course. The guy groups definitely became a bore with all the sex you down overkill. Also as mentioned before there was only one R&B band during the 90's that brought something different to the table Mint Condition. There were also the Tonies who came around in 1988 as well but internal conflict ruined the band by 1996.

Agree with everything you said.Things were getting ridiculous in the 90s with all those boy bands.Most of them had the same type of image/sound and they were singing cookie cutter songs I liked Tony Toni Tone....they were an actual band and they were one of the bright spots of 90s R&B.Their 1996 album House Of Music is absolutely superb.

SoulAlive said:

By the time the late 80's came around I was already pivoting to hip-hop and away from R&B. Oversimplifying things, by the time New Jack hit the scene, I considered it a pale imitation of "true" hip-hop, so I chose what I considered to be the "real thing." It stayed that way through most of the next 2 decades, because by the late 90's/early 00's, outside of neo-soul, I was revisiting a lot of the soul/R&B music of the 70's and building a jazz collection.

I think R&B is still alive today, with a lot of creative artists taking it in new directions that have closer ties to the golden age(s) of R&B than New Jack did.

But R&B simply isn't as prevalent as it used to be, because hip-hop supplanted it 3 decades ago.

SoulAlive said:

kitbradley said:

SoulAlive said: Yes. I remember that James Ingram song. It was awful! I also remember cringing when I heard Gladys Knight's solo debut on MCA, I believe 1990. I understand labels wanted to keep up with trends but it didnt make any sense, to me, to put established artists like Gladys Knight, James Ingram or Vesta Williams in that kind of setting. I dont know if it won them any new fans.

My favorite band,Earth Wind and Fire,did an album like that too : Heritage,released in 1990.There were some new jack swing sounds on the album,plus two songs with MC Hammer.Needless to say,many longtime EW&F fans don't like this album very much.

Oh yes. I forgot about that one by EW&F. It was hideous! So much that I could not get rid of it at a used record store. No one wanted it. I finally ended up just tossing it in the garbage can.

alphastreet said:

I think the 90s had a lot of good vocalists, but that started going downhill in the late 90s/early 00s. I couldn’t stand Britney Spears voice and other artists that sounded average

Maybe you should listen to gospel since it has always been more about big voices than secular music. Many of the earlier R&B/soul singers came from a church choir or gospel music background. Some even had preacher fathers (Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Charlie Wilson, Marvin Gaye). That is less so with later R&B singers.

MickyDolenz said:

alphastreet said:

I tend to enjoy songs with gospel elements, so maybe will check it out at some point

Faith Evans sounds similar to Karen from the Clark Sisters.

MickyDolenz said:

alphastreet said:

It’s almost like a certain style of singing of r&b doesn’t seem to be in style anymore

You can say that about any mainstream popular music. It's not like you hear someone on today's Top 40 that sings in a crooner style like Johnny Mathis or Perry Como or The Ink Spots. There's no doo wop either. Even the current popular hip hop has little in common with the Sugarhill Gang or Whodini. Some people call in "mumble rap". 1970s & 1980s R&B sounds nothing like R&B from the 1940s & 1950s. That's really when it was "rhythm & blues". The "blues" part left when soul music became popular in the 1960s. Soul had more string arrangements and it was somewhat watered down from the original R&B. The 1960s is when it began to get more crossover rather than mostly being in juke joints and the chitlin' circuit. The stuff on Checker Records during the 1960s was closer to the older style than Motown or even Stax.

MickyDolenz said:

JayCrawford said:

alphastreet said:

MickyDolenz said:

alphastreet said:

Me neither

The late 1980s and early 1990s is when I was buying a lot of remix maxi singles and some remix albums too. In the early 1990s I was more into dance rap like C+C Music Factory, Snap!, Gerardo, Kid n Play, Betty Boo, Salt-N-Pepa, Technotronic, & 2 Unlimited than gangsta. I did like some Geto Boys songs and 100 Miles & Runnin by NWA.

I was into most of them also. I was also into Musto and Bones, The Adventures of Stevie V, 2 Live Crew, 95 South, 69 Boyz, Dis N Dat, Mario, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Mr. Lee, Gino Latino, Cartouche, etc. As for Geto Boys and NWA though, that's the kind of shit that I hated.

MickyDolenz said:

alphastreet said:

Dance music was awesome in the 90s for sure

My favorite was Cathy Dennis. I never thought I would hear Tammy Wynette on a dance track and singing about "mu mu land".

They called me up in Tennnnnerrrrsseeee and said Tammy, stand by the jam. Yes, I've got that one in my collection too.

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[Edited 1/5/21 8:06am]