Izulde
04-25-2007, 11:17 PM
What passes for r&b today is really hip-hop with sprinklings of the old pure r&b like what we used to have back in the 90s, the golden age for that type of sound. Boyz II Men and Shai were the best groups, but even less sterling acts like All 4 One, Hi-Five, H-Town Boyz, etc (I know there's a lot I'm missing here) maintained that quality. Solo artists I'm much less familiar with, but Janet Jackson had some sterling ballads on the janet. album, particularly "Again".
It's funny, I was reading some of the comments on youtube earlier tonight and somebody remarked, "It seems like today's songs are a lot more gloomy and dark. Back in the 90s, songs were happier and brighter and they made you feel good."
That really struck a chord in me. I hadn't realized it, but along with the elegant voices of yesterdecade, we -do- seem to have lost a lot of the optimism and fun factor in a lot of genres (boy bands notwithstanding of course).
Yes, I know the cyclical nature of business dictates that which was once popular will become passe` with the passage of time and there will be evolutions, declines, and occasional renaissances, but it does seem that for the American music scene at least, things aren't as cheery as they once were.
I imagine a lot of it comes from the awareness of terrorist acts as an American problem now, rather than just "something that happens in other countries" and the ever widening gap between rich and poor in this nation, to say nothing of the gradual elimination of civil liberties and freedoms (at least as far as I see it). These create a fairly gloomy social atmosphere and world climate that in turn affects those writers and performers of music.
Maybe I'm just being a post 90s nostalgic here and maybe I'm talking out my ass, but I felt like bringing it up anyway to see what the good people of FOFC think (and inevitably wisecrack :D)
It's funny, I was reading some of the comments on youtube earlier tonight and somebody remarked, "It seems like today's songs are a lot more gloomy and dark. Back in the 90s, songs were happier and brighter and they made you feel good."
That really struck a chord in me. I hadn't realized it, but along with the elegant voices of yesterdecade, we -do- seem to have lost a lot of the optimism and fun factor in a lot of genres (boy bands notwithstanding of course).
Yes, I know the cyclical nature of business dictates that which was once popular will become passe` with the passage of time and there will be evolutions, declines, and occasional renaissances, but it does seem that for the American music scene at least, things aren't as cheery as they once were.
I imagine a lot of it comes from the awareness of terrorist acts as an American problem now, rather than just "something that happens in other countries" and the ever widening gap between rich and poor in this nation, to say nothing of the gradual elimination of civil liberties and freedoms (at least as far as I see it). These create a fairly gloomy social atmosphere and world climate that in turn affects those writers and performers of music.
Maybe I'm just being a post 90s nostalgic here and maybe I'm talking out my ass, but I felt like bringing it up anyway to see what the good people of FOFC think (and inevitably wisecrack :D)