When New Jack Swing hit the charts a majority of funk artists jumped on the bandwagon,often with forgettable results,but some funk artist did make a good balance of funk and new jack swing,so who are those artists in your opinion?

I think Cameo was the best,they added njs sound around 1988 but funk was still there.

I think NJS worked well for so many artists. It made a household name of people like Bobby Brown. But if you go back a bit, Jam & Lewis wrote "Nasty," probably the first NJS song. However, a lot of Control has NJS influences on it; moreover it became an influence for folks like Teddy Riley.

It also put folks like Soul II Soul, Kid n' Play, Keith Sweat, Johnny Kemp, Whitney Houston, Club Nouveau, Troop, Al B. Sure, Johnny Gill, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Jade, TLC, and Jane Child on people's radars (although some may have been out there before a bit). Everyone from Paula Abdul ("Straight Up"), Bell Biv Devoe, and Michael Jackson used NJS in their songs. Dangerous, for me, is one of MJ's best albums. It was just very non-Michael Jackson at that point, when he could've easily went down a typical road of schmaltzy R&B. Listen to the demo of "Dangerous," and compare it to the album version. MJ was purposely trying to shake up his sound like he never had before.

Even Madonna dipped her toes in it with stuff like "Bye Bye Baby," "Fever," and "Erotica," all from a record arguably rougher in aural textures and aesthetic than anything she'd done before. NJS worked so well on that record, peppered here and there, but not dependent on it.

Also, Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 really incorporated R&B & NJS, almost putting Control in the category of "what happens if we put this with that?" a la a blueprint. RN1814 solidified any experiments on Control. And then some.

Then you fast forward to a couple of years ago and Bruno Mars is putting out NJS music. It's has a long shelf life.

The problem isn't that NJS killed anything. Anyone who knew a flip about music could see that much. The problem is that artists didn't really know where to go after that. What was the next big thing? What was the next trend in music?

There's an ebb and flow to music, some things rise to the top while others tread the waters, and some flat out sink. Even boy bands and pop princess wannabes hung around longer than something like a Ric Wake production in the late 80s; that large reverby echoey sound that gave Taylor Dayne, Kathy Triccoli, Whitney, Mariah, Celine, and Anastacia hit songs.

Or longer than the boy/girl groups of the late 80s, like Will To Power, Roxette, or Boy Meets Girl (who happend to write two huge hits for Whitney, btw); a duet like "I've Had The Time of My Life;" Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam with Full Force; or "where every song was dependent on a duet. Duets aren't bad, but they had a fad moment around that time.

NJS outlasted all those trends in music. Hell, it outlasted Jon Secada and Hootie & The Blowfish for fuck's sake, and you couldn't shake those fuckers to save your life for a long while.

I don't know what specific funk artists you'd wanna name, but I think R&B was its own thing and rap was its own thing, but NJS sorta fused the two together. Artists could have a harder beat, something more rhythmic, yet still lay out some silky vocals and production over that.

TrivialPursuit said:

I think NJS worked well for so many artists. It made a household name of people like Bobby Brown. But if you go back a bit, Jam & Lewis wrote "Nasty," probably the first NJS song. However, a lot of Control has NJS influences on it; moreover it became an influence for folks like Teddy Riley.

It also put folks like Soul II Soul, Kid n' Play, Keith Sweat, Johnny Kemp, Whitney Houston, Club Nouveau, Troop, Al B. Sure, Johnny Gill, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Jade, TLC, and Jane Child on people's radars (although some may have been out there before a bit). Everyone from Paula Abdul ("Straight Up"), Bell Biv Devoe, and Michael Jackson used NJS in their songs. Dangerous, for me, is one of MJ's best albums. It was just very non-Michael Jackson at that point, when he could've easily went down a typical road of schmaltzy R&B. Listen to the demo of "Dangerous," and compare it to the album version. MJ was purposely trying to shake up his sound like he never had before.

Even Madonna dipped her toes in it with stuff like "Bye Bye Baby," "Fever," and "Erotica," all from a record arguably rougher in aural textures and aesthetic than anything she'd done before. NJS worked so well on that record, peppered here and there, but not dependent on it.

Also, Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 really incorporated R&B & NJS, almost putting Control in the category of "what happens if we put this with that?" a la a blueprint. RN1814 solidified any experiments on Control. And then some.

Then you fast forward to a couple of years ago and Bruno Mars is putting out NJS music. It's has a long shelf life.

The problem isn't that NJS killed anything. Anyone who knew a flip about music could see that much. The problem is that artists didn't really know where to go after that. What was the next big thing? What was the next trend in music?

There's an ebb and flow to music, some things rise to the top while others tread the waters, and some flat out sink. Even boy bands and pop princess wannabes hung around longer than something like a Ric Wake production in the late 80s; that large reverby echoey sound that gave Taylor Dayne, Kathy Triccoli, Whitney, Mariah, Celine, and Anastacia hit songs.

Or longer than the boy/girl groups of the late 80s, like Will To Power, Roxette, or Boy Meets Girl (who happend to write two huge hits for Whitney, btw); a duet like "I've Had The Time of My Life;" Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam with Full Force; or "where every song was dependent on a duet. Duets aren't bad, but they had a fad moment around that time.

NJS outlasted all those trends in music. Hell, it outlasted Jon Secada and Hootie & The Blowfish for fuck's sake, and you couldn't shake those fuckers to save your life for a long while.

I don't know what specific funk artists you'd wanna name, but I think R&B was its own thing and rap was its own thing, but NJS sorta fused the two together. Artists could have a harder beat, something more rhythmic, yet still lay out some silky vocals and production over that.

nice post,thank u,well which funk artists did njs but didnt embarass themself like Ready 4 The World who were terrible in njs era

Hey, maybe we should stop reminiscing about ~ 30 years ago and face the fact that it IS 2021, and we ARE now old.

domainator2010 said:

Hey, maybe we should stop reminiscing about ~ 30 years ago and face the fact that it IS 2021, and we ARE now old.

music i'm talking is b4 my time but what does that have to do with the topic

thebanishedone said:

TrivialPursuit said:

I don't know what specific funk artists you'd wanna name, but I think R&B was its own thing and rap was its own thing, but NJS sorta fused the two together. Artists could have a harder beat, something more rhythmic, yet still lay out some silky vocals and production over that.

nice post, thank u, well which funk artists did njs but didnt embarass themself like Ready 4 The World who were terrible in njs era

I don't think Ready 4 The World were NJS. If anything, they just put their finger in the Minneapolis sound pie. Maybe some of their later stuff had NJS in it. I don't know, I never followed them enough to find out. They also weren't funk artists, if you're using Cameo as a cornerstone.

thebanishedone said:

embarass themself like Ready 4 The World who were terrible in njs era

I liked My Girly. I still hear it on the radio occasionally

TrivialPursuit said:

thebanishedone said:

nice post, thank u, well which funk artists did njs but didnt embarass themself like Ready 4 The World who were terrible in njs era

I don't think Ready 4 The World were NJS. If anything, they just put their finger in the Minneapolis sound pie. Maybe some of their later stuff had NJS in it. I don't know, I never followed them enough to find out. They also weren't funk artists, if you're using Cameo as a cornerstone.

they were not new jack swing when Prince sound was hot,but check this 1991 stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP6tbX6p5co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-6qxK1yqBc

they start the swith in 1987

thebanishedone said:

TrivialPursuit said:

I don't think Ready 4 The World were NJS. If anything, they just put their finger in the Minneapolis sound pie. Maybe some of their later stuff had NJS in it. I don't know, I never followed them enough to find out. They also weren't funk artists, if you're using Cameo as a cornerstone.

they were not new jack swing when Prince sound was hot,but check this 1991 stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP6tbX6p5co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-6qxK1yqBc

they start the swith in 1987

RFTW hopped on the NJS train in 1988 with the Ruff N Ready album and 1990 with

Straight Down To Business. Both albums were busts. Fortunately Can He Do It Like This

from Straight Down To Business was their only gem from that album.

I remember a lot of RFTW fans were disappointed with My Girly.

Oh my God, I remember some funk bands did one last desperate attempt to hang on in either 1989 or 1990. I can't remember if it was new jack swing or not because the songs are totally forgettable and sound nothing like their previous work. Cameo did one. Not "Emotional Violence" but the album before that one. The Gap Band, Midnight Star, The SOS Band, and I'm thinking maybe Skyy. This was probably the last album by many of these groups. The Barkays usually do a good job of adapting through the eras but they did a horrible attempt at go-go during this time too. The only person I can think of that did a good job during this era, and he's not a funk act, was Boy George with "Don't Take My Mind On A Trip".

vainandy said:

Oh my God, I remember some funk bands did one last desperate attempt to hang on in either 1989 or 1990. I can't remember if it was new jack swing or not because the songs are totally forgettable and sound nothing like their previous work. Cameo did one. Not "Emotional Violence" but the album before that one. The Gap Band, Midnight Star, The SOS Band, and I'm thinking maybe Skyy. This was probably the last album by many of these groups. The Barkays usually do a good job of adapting through the eras but they did a horrible attempt at go-go during this time too. The only person I can think of that did a good job during this era, and he's not a funk act, was Boy George with "Don't Take My Mind On A Trip".

You're talking about the Real Men Wear Black album. I remember liking the 1st side of that

album and snoozing through the second side of it. Til this day I can't name one song off

the second side of that album. They only had 2 singles from this album I Want It Now and

Close Quarters. The Barkays came out with 48 hrs I think in 1994. It was a nice mix of Funk and NJS ballads but it was a Funk/rock tune called X N Yo Sex that caught my ear the most.

phunkdaddy said:

vainandy said:

Oh my God, I remember some funk bands did one last desperate attempt to hang on in either 1989 or 1990. I can't remember if it was new jack swing or not because the songs are totally forgettable and sound nothing like their previous work. Cameo did one. Not "Emotional Violence" but the album before that one. The Gap Band, Midnight Star, The SOS Band, and I'm thinking maybe Skyy. This was probably the last album by many of these groups. The Barkays usually do a good job of adapting through the eras but they did a horrible attempt at go-go during this time too. The only person I can think of that did a good job during this era, and he's not a funk act, was Boy George with "Don't Take My Mind On A Trip".

You're talking about the Real Men Wear Black album. I remember liking the 1st side of that

album and snoozing through the second side of it. Til this day I can't name one song off

the second side of that album. They only had 2 singles from this album I Want It Now and

Close Quarters. The Barkays came out with 48 hrs I think in 1994. It was a nice mix of Funk and NJS ballads but it was a Funk/rock tune called X N Yo Sex that caught my ear the most.

I've got "48 Hours". "Slide", "X N Yo Sex", and the Megamix they had are the only things I liked on that album. About a year or two prior to that, they had a cassette single that wasn't from any album called "Put A Little Nasty On It" that I loved. The go-go song I was referring to was called "Struck By You". It was decent but very weak compared to previous Barkays stuff. It was from their album "Animal". The title track was the strongest thing I remember from that album. And if you notice, there are only three of them on the cover. Hell, there used to be about ten of them. That's another thing that fucked up music, cutting down the band members and it showed in the weakness of the music. I'm also thinking when Allen Jones died, that they became weaker.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/15/21 1:38am]

vainandy said:

phunkdaddy said:

You're talking about the Real Men Wear Black album. I remember liking the 1st side of that

album and snoozing through the second side of it. Til this day I can't name one song off

the second side of that album. They only had 2 singles from this album I Want It Now and

Close Quarters. The Barkays came out with 48 hrs I think in 1994. It was a nice mix of Funk and NJS ballads but it was a Funk/rock tune called X N Yo Sex that caught my ear the most.

I've got "48 Hours". "Slide", "X N Yo Sex", and the Megamix they had are the only things I liked on that album. About a year or two prior to that, they had a cassette single that wasn't from any album called "Put A Little Nasty On It" that I loved. The go-go song I was referring to was called "Struck By You". It was decent but very weak compared to previous Barkays stuff. It was from their album "Animal". The title track was the strongest thing I remember from that album. And if you notice, there are only three of them on the cover. Hell, there used to be about ten of them. That's another thing that fucked up music, cutting down the band members and it showed in the weakness of the music. I'm also thinking when Allen Jones died, that they became weaker.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/15/21 1:38am]

Cuting dow the band because in reallity you don't need 15 piece band like an early Cameo.u technology changed

regarding Cameo I Want It Now frm the album you mentioned is a jam.its a good mix of funk and njs

btw i've just heard X N Yo Sex.guys u noticed that bass line is a total Jungle Love by the Time ripoff

At first NJS was trying to bring some funk. I recall somebody in Billboard I think. They said Keith Sweat's I Want Her is officially the first new jack record. They talked to both him and Teddy Riley and they said they were attempting to recreate an update on the grooves of Funkadelic's Knee Deep.

Foster & McElroy's Nation Funktasia seemed to be a band designed to bring the funk back to the game. I felt their album was hit or miss. ALthough I did dig Anti-Funky World and Move Me.

[Edited 1/15/21 15:26pm]

Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Bernie Worrell & Stevie Wonder are the BLUEPRINTS to "New Jack Swing"

vainandy said:

mrwiggles said:

They said Keith Sweat's I Want Her is officially the first new jack record.

That might be the 1st record officially called New Jack Swing, but I think Alice by Full Force from 1985 is one of the first songs with the sound. Full Force also did Latin Freestyle with Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam.

MickyDolenz said:

mrwiggles said:

They said Keith Sweat's I Want Her is officially the first new jack record.

That might be the 1st record officially called New Jack Swing, but I think Alice by Full Force from 1985 is one of the first songs with the sound. Full Force also did Latin Freestyle with Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam.

Yeah, that one is brought up a lot. Jam & Lewis called Full Force & told them it was their favorite song. Just after that they worked on Control, and that "Alice" influence is in there. I wouldn't say Control is a fully on NJS album, but it certainly set the parameters and guidelines for it.

"I Want Her" was out late 1987. While Don't Be Cruel was out the next spring, it started recording in late 1986, so it was picking up NJS influences already. (As was Sweat, obviously.) But "I Want Her" certainly wans't the first NJS record, whoever "they" were that said it.

TrivialPursuit said:

Yeah, that one is brought up a lot. Jam & Lewis called Full Force & told them it was their favorite song. Just after that they worked on Control, and that "Alice" influence is in there. I wouldn't say Control is a fully on NJS album, but it certainly set the parameters and guidelines for it.

"I Want Her" was out late 1987. While Don't Be Cruel was out the next spring, it started recording in late 1986, so it was picking up NJS influences already. (As was Sweat, obviously.) But "I Want Her" certainly wans't the first NJS record, whoever "they" were that said it.

I think New Jack Swing had elements of go-go music from Washington DC, at least the percussion parts of it. Go-go itself never really caught on. A few songs became radio hits. It's been said that studio recorded go-go generally doesn't have the same energy as live in concert since it's based on call & response.

I used to love njs, still do.

Just think the "newer" artists were better at it instead of the older ondes trying to jump on the bandwagon.

Cameo's Real Man is a good example of the last one.

MickyDolenz said:

I think New Jack Swing had elements of go-go music from Washington DC, at least the percussion parts of it. Go-go itself never really caught on. A few songs became radio hits. It's been said that studio recorded go-go generally doesn't have the same energy as live in concert since it's based on call & response.

And just my theory, but go-go feels like it has strong roots in reggae. That's probably why it never caught on in the mainstream. Reggae still seems to be a niche genre to the vast majority of anyone listening to radio. It's a bit too specific to get on radio on a regular basis.

thebanishedone said:

TrivialPursuit said:

I don't think Ready 4 The World were NJS. If anything, they just put their finger in the Minneapolis sound pie. Maybe some of their later stuff had NJS in it. I don't know, I never followed them enough to find out. They also weren't funk artists, if you're using Cameo as a cornerstone.

they were not new jack swing when Prince sound was hot,but check this 1991 stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP6tbX6p5co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-6qxK1yqBc

they start the swith in 1987

And why does "Cowboy" sound like "Centipede" with a little "Wild Wild West" by The Escape Club?

TrivialPursuit said:

thebanishedone said:

they were not new jack swing when Prince sound was hot,but check this 1991 stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP6tbX6p5co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-6qxK1yqBc

they start the swith in 1987

And why does "Cowboy" sound like "Centipede" with a little "Wild Wild West" by The Escape Club?

well at least the song u mentioned is more on the funk side and not on the new jack swing side of things despite the cheesy song title

TrivialPursuit said:

And just my theory, but go-go feels like it has strong roots in reggae. That's probably why it never caught on in the mainstream. Reggae still seems to be a niche genre to the vast majority of anyone listening to radio. It's a bit too specific to get on radio on a regular basis.

Hip hop has some origins in Jamaican music, the rapping MC was similar to toasting. Grandmaster Flash & Kool Herc are both Jamaican. That's probably why dancehall such as Shaggy, Shabba Ranks, & Sean Paul did become popular in the US in a way regular reggae didn't other than Bob Marley. It might have something to do with the race of the reggae artists because acts like The Police & Culture Club had reggae sounds & Blondie had a hit with the remake of The Tide Is High. No Doubt was ska based. Just like The Rolling Stones & Eric Clapton were blues based and got Top 40 airplay but blues artists got little attention. Also dub versions of songs came from reggae and dubs later became popular on remix 12" maxi singles.

thebanishedone said:

vainandy said:

I've got "48 Hours". "Slide", "X N Yo Sex", and the Megamix they had are the only things I liked on that album. About a year or two prior to that, they had a cassette single that wasn't from any album called "Put A Little Nasty On It" that I loved. The go-go song I was referring to was called "Struck By You". It was decent but very weak compared to previous Barkays stuff. It was from their album "Animal". The title track was the strongest thing I remember from that album. And if you notice, there are only three of them on the cover. Hell, there used to be about ten of them. That's another thing that fucked up music, cutting down the band members and it showed in the weakness of the music. I'm also thinking when Allen Jones died, that they became weaker.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/15/21 1:38am]

Cuting dow the band because in reallity you don't need 15 piece band like an early Cameo.u technology changed

regarding Cameo I Want It Now frm the album you mentioned is a jam.its a good mix of funk and njs

btw i've just heard X N Yo Sex.guys u noticed that bass line is a total Jungle Love by the Time ripoff

I went and listened to "I Want It Now". I remember that one, it's decent. It's not the forgettable track I was referring to hearing on the radio at the time. I don't know which one it is, because like I said, it's forgettable. But I do remember it's from that same year. But you do need a big band like previous years, not 15 members, but you still need several members. Yeah, technology changed but if you still want to sound good, you need those members. Technology is good when it's an addition to music, not a replacement. If you want to sound weaker, you drop the members and let the technology take their place.

.

It's like sex. You can still achieve an orgasm alone with masturbation. But a better orgasm requires another person. And an even better orgasm than that, requires several people.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/16/21 10:38am]

MickyDolenz said:

It might have something to do with the race of the reggae artists because acts like The Police & Culture Club had reggae sounds & Blondie had a hit with the remake of The Tide Is High. No Doubt was ska based...

Also dub versions of songs came from reggae and dubs later became popular on remix 12" maxi singles.

I tell people this all the time, that all these New Romantic or new wave type bands in the early 80s were doing reggae music. So much of the underbeat rhythms were straight up reggae.

"The Tide is High" is a more obvious example. But if people took note of songs like, "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me," "Time (Clock of the Heart)," "I'll Tumble 4 Ya," and even "Karma Chameleon," there's a not-so-subtle reggae aesthetic.

Even with that so strong with Culture Club, Police pretty much made a career out of playing reggae music.

Ska musid had reggae tendencies as well, I believe, just a lot faster. It was almost a hybrid or a mutation of sorts.

vainandy said:

thebanishedone said:

Cuting dow the band because in reallity you don't need 15 piece band like an early Cameo.u technology changed

regarding Cameo I Want It Now frm the album you mentioned is a jam.its a good mix of funk and njs

btw i've just heard X N Yo Sex.guys u noticed that bass line is a total Jungle Love by the Time ripoff

I went and listened to "I Want It Now". I remember that one, it's decent. It's not the forgettable track I was referring to hearing on the radio at the time. I don't know which one it is, because like I said, it's forgettable. But I do remember it's from that same year. But you do need a big band like previous years, not 15 members, but you still need several members. Yeah, technology changed but if you still want to sound good, you need those members. Technology is good when it's an addition to music, not a replacement. If you want to sound weaker, you drop the members and let the technology take their place.

.

It's like sex. You can still achieve an orgasm alone with masturbation. But a better orgasm requires another person. And an even better orgasm than that, requires several people.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/16/21 10:38am]

lol,very colorful description.I think for a good Cameo concert they need electronic drum pad (cause 99% of drum sounds were simmons electronic drums played by Blackmon himself),guitar ,bass and 2 synths.they dont need horns Early Cameo was high class virtuoso musicianship but still a rehash of what was already going on,in the 80s Cameo found it's niche.

thebanishedone said:

vainandy said:

I went and listened to "I Want It Now". I remember that one, it's decent. It's not the forgettable track I was referring to hearing on the radio at the time. I don't know which one it is, because like I said, it's forgettable. But I do remember it's from that same year. But you do need a big band like previous years, not 15 members, but you still need several members. Yeah, technology changed but if you still want to sound good, you need those members. Technology is good when it's an addition to music, not a replacement. If you want to sound weaker, you drop the members and let the technology take their place.

.

It's like sex. You can still achieve an orgasm alone with masturbation. But a better orgasm requires another person. And an even better orgasm than that, requires several people.

.

.

.

[Edited 1/16/21 10:38am]

lol,very colorful description.I think for a good Cameo concert they need electronic drum pad (cause 99% of drum sounds were simmons electronic drums played by Blackmon himself),guitar ,bass and 2 synths.they dont need horns Early Cameo was high class virtuoso musicianship but still a rehash of what was already going on,in the 80s Cameo found it's niche.

My favorite Cameo era is Secret Omen, Cameosis, Feel Me, Knights Of The Sound Table, Alligator Woman, and Style.

.

As for horns, it depends on the particular artist for me. For instance, I think Prince sounded much better before he started using horns. His replacement of horns by synths gave him a futuristic sound so when he started using horns, he sounded like he was going backwards to a more tradional sound instead of being in the future. Rick James, on the other hand, sounded weaker when he dropped them. I don't know if it was necessarily the elimination of horns in Rick's music because synths sounded great in his music too. But beginning with the "Glow" album, something was just lacking. Actually, it started a little on the "Cold Blooded" album, which was still great, but it didn't get bad until "Glow".