RJOrion said:

R.Kelly wasnt "soul music"...R.Kelly was Pop

He was R&B, a new R&B in the 90s. Let me explain:

I sorta feel like R&B and pop really became more divided (just vastly different) in the 90s. In the 80s, it wasn't unusual to consider MJ or Prince or even New Edition on the radio next to White Snake, Van Halen, or Motley Crue.

But in the 90s? Metal sorta disappeared and grunge showed up. R&B and pop music all went on very different paths. More and more R&B songs had a rapper on them, I sorta think Mariah made that a trend. Although you have moments like "Walk This Way" which sorta made people sit up in their seats. But pop and R&B went their own ways in the 90s. Pop was gentrified because by 1998 you had groups like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, NSync, Backstreet Boys, O-Town, 98 Degrees etc come to the forefront. Of course there are minor exceptions.

That said, R. Kelly sorta delved deep and redefined R&B. A lot of acts took his lead and made music very much like this. Wasn't he the "king of R&B" or something? I never dug his stuff, at all (except that "Gotham City" song, for a hot minute), but his influence went wide.

Music comes and goes in ebbs and flows. You can look back at disco being a reaction to war/protest music of the 60s and into the 70s, and the yacht rock of the day. Punk was a reaction to disco. New wave was a redefining of pop and borrowed a lot from reggae (same with ska later, which hadn punk roots). Metal was a reaction to pop and new wave. That big open echoy Taylor Dayne type music of the late 80s was a calling to metal to GTFO. Then grunge showed up and kicked all of its ass. Pop struggled to find new footing in part of the 90s. Then the boy bands and girl pop acts showed up and grunge sorta faded a bit. "Decline" is an opinion. The charts opinion, based on sales, said something very different. Don't like 90s R&B? Don't fucking listen to it. I still play TLC records, as much as I'll play a Taylor Dayne album or Dr. Feelgood from Motley Crue. Taste is relative, not fact.

I'm not saying any one genre killed a previous one. I am saying music goes in waves, albeit trends or whatever. So, to think R. Kelly did something different and people jumped on that isn't far-fetched.

TrivialPursuit said:

Soul music may have "declined" but again, we got spoiled. Used to be great soul music was only a flip of the radio station or television, or trip to the record store, away. Hasn't been that way for a long time. We're no longer spoon-fed quality music. We. Have. To. Look. For. It.

And it's there, though not in the volume it used to be.

^^So true, the greats deserved so much more than they got. Compared to those of today's music world, the greats were definitely cheated and robbed......big time! The musicians back in the day were so talented, and created great music on nothing but the talent given them.

"Bump 'N Grind" and early R. Kelly in general was New Jack Swing.

What soul music?