Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 Just read an interesting article on CNN about R&B music... which I think can be translated into most pop music today. Some interesting quotes from the article below to get your interest... How are you going to write about love when you don`t know what it is?-Larry Dunn, founding member of Earth Wind and Fire Looking for love in todays R&B Music We had so much harmony, so much purpose in our music. -Kenny Gamble, Producer/Songwriter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Goobers Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 How are you going to write about love when you don`t know what it is?-Larry Dunn, founding member of Earth Wind and Fire "I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is." -Forrest "Shake Your Booty" Gump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 I assume the demand in what music must be today, what it should express changed. About that love thing, to me it seems that the messages hidden in the lyrics are unimportant, and what perceived as sweet & nice, putting us in the mood back then, is a generations thing which doesn't work with todays listeners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philbo Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 This article was about 1000 words too long... But as always, art mirrors culture. As culture declines and degrades, so does its music. This is what rap & hiphop are reflecting. No use blaming the mirror for what you see! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stomias Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 This.............................................. "There's been a lot written about the narcissism of young Americans. They don't want to pay their dues. They are self-absorbed -- tweeting, texting, posting asides on Facebook -- and they are constantly immersed in their private worlds." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockViolin Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 I get the red x when I click the link, so, a shot in the dark. I'ts been done. Folks seem to think that genre bestowed with big labesl like Rock, Metal, R&B, etc. are streams full of gold nuggets that never end. But really they're not. There may be something there still to find, but one has to be quite lucky, or very highly motivated and ready to do a ton of sifting to come across something that weighs. Maybe somebody comes along and does R&B/Metal and then there's another log on the fire, for a while. Edit: Nevermind. I get the gist. It's bigger and easier money catering to an urge. It has been for quite some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 3, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 This article was about 1000 words too long... But as always, art mirrors culture. As culture declines and degrades, so does its music. This is what rap & hiphop are reflecting. No use blaming the mirror for what you see! Yes, I wrote a response on CNN, pretty much stating the same thing. I also pointed a finger at labels and radio programmers continuing to push the sexually driven material. To me it comes down to the chicken and the egg again... does popular culture drive radio or does radio/movies, etc.. drive popular culture? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 I can sympathize with Blake's lamentation about the seeming loss of innocence in today's pop. Kids today really are pushed to grow up too fast -- by all kinds of parties, from mass marketers, the entertainment industry and, all too often, parents themselves. But, after mentioning the Donny Hathaway/Roberta Flack song from which he drew his article title, what's the very next song he mentions when he's talking about all the "love" R&B used to have? "Let's Get it On." Now, I remember when that song came out. For mainstream pop, it was considered blunt. Getting it on, of course, only meant one thing: having sex. But just to make sure I wasn't forgetting something, I went back and reread those lyrics. They are utterly insipid begging-for-sex lyrics. Don't get me wrong, by the time Marvin Gaye wrapped his smokey vocals around those trite lyrics, he had a proven pantie-removal concoction. And he certainly made it sound erotic and sensual -- unlike, say, Creedence Clearwater's paean to the same subject, "Keep On Chooglin'." But, nonetheless, the lyrical content is not just trite, it's kind of pathetic... Gonna get it onBeggin' you, baby, I want to get it onYou don't have to worry that it's wrongIf the spirit moves you, let me groove you goodLet your love come downOh, get it on, come on, baby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockViolin Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 "I Pledge My Love" - Peaches And Herb or "Shake Your Groove Thing" - Peaches And Herb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scarecrowbob Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 Yah, but "What's going on." I don't think that people have gotten any baser or shallower or lest artistic or more obscene or more manipulated by media or whatever. A lot of folks in my generation (I'm 33) are fairly cynical, and I wonder if that is a big shift. Most of the people I know either are outright cynical or loudly clinging to beliefs (evolution and climate change are myths, the president is an alien, there is a war on our Christmas holiday, etc.) in ways that make me think they are just whistling past the graveyard. Maybe past generations actually thought they could improve on the world; that would make for a different kind of music in which questions have a serious weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" Now, that song made me utterly crazy. I despised it as the most backazzwards, sexist baloney I'd ever heard, even before I'd ever heard the word sexist. (Don't get me wrong, I don't strictly blame Carole King and her co-writers. I'm sure the cigar-chompers figured it was sure-fire.) And, as these things will, the simpering, powerless, pliancy implicit in those lyrics probably actually pissed off the women of my generation as much as anything... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 3, 2011 Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 The new Amy Winehouse album release this week sounds like a Ruben & The Jets parody Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 3, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 3, 2011 I can sympathize with Blake's lamentation about the seeming loss of innocence in today's pop. Kids today really are pushed to grow up too fast -- by all kinds of parties, from mass marketers, the entertainment industry and, all too often, parents themselves.But, after mentioning the Donny Hathaway/Roberta Flack song from which he drew his article title, what's the very next song he mentions when he's talking about all the "love" R&B used to have?"Let's Get it On."Now, I remember when that song came out. For mainstream pop, it was considered blunt. Getting it on, of course, only meant one thing: having sex. But just to make sure I wasn't forgetting something, I went back and reread those lyrics. They are utterly insipid begging-for-sex lyrics.Don't get me wrong, by the time Marvin Gaye wrapped his smokey vocals around those trite lyrics, he had a proven pantie-removal concoction. And he certainly made it sound erotic and sensual -- unlike, say, Creedence Clearwater's paean to the same subject, "Keep On Chooglin'."But, nonetheless, the lyrical content is not just trite, it's kind of pathetic... Yeah, the more I think about that article and then when I actually look up some of the lyrics from that period, they were pretty blunt. I think its just another generation putting down another... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted December 3, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted December 3, 2011 Without reading the article, I'd guess two things. Rhythm and blues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Goobers Posted December 4, 2011 Members Share Posted December 4, 2011 Who listens to the words anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 4, 2011 Members Share Posted December 4, 2011 Who listens to the words anyway? me not Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gabriel E. Posted December 4, 2011 Members Share Posted December 4, 2011 It Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 4, 2011 Members Share Posted December 4, 2011 I think there are a number of things going on: -Education cuts. Not just cuts to music education ( which has obviously resulted in a populace who have no idea how to connect to music other than as end consumers). But overall education funding has eroded since the Reagan era and a very large segment of the population are not educated enough to work anything other than menial, dead end jobs. Lack of hope for upward mobility leads to cynicsm which in turns leads to instant gratification. The mentality that I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 4, 2011 Moderators Share Posted December 4, 2011 I understand the need for cynicism in music. I love Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys. And I love Billy Paul, The Chilites and The Manhattans. For me, the issue is, there is no balance... Modern R & B has taken the cynicism and self centered POV and left behing the heart. Shallow passion as opposed deep soulful passion. And that is fine for a time. But after a while, one longs for the sounds of pure love. Sans cynicism. It'll come again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 5, 2011 It Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted December 5, 2011 Members Share Posted December 5, 2011 Not much innocence in these lyrics from 1973: [video=youtube;YlhCYC_TEFw] Or in these NON-lyrics from 1972: [video=youtube;7OvBYnITKtc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OvBYnITKtc&feature=related Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 5, 2011 Members Share Posted December 5, 2011 The problem, for me, with some of the stuff I hear isn't that it's dirty -- it's that some of it takes the cleverness and fun out of being dirty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 5, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 5, 2011 I`m just saying that kids today are just a couple of clicks away from completely something shocking or beyond their understanding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 5, 2011 Members Share Posted December 5, 2011 I don't miss a thing in contemporary R&B, because I know that stuff isn't produced for me, but for another clientele, and I don't waste a second for comparing yesterday and today when I produce R&B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted December 5, 2011 Members Share Posted December 5, 2011 I miss the funk. Gotta have that funk. Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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