"Should we be suspicious of hipsters’ newfound love of R&B?" or "Race and indie music, part 4762"

and I just thought Miguel was just an R&B guy doing R&B.

would you let through cocorosie? that, for everything that's wrong with it, is the forerunner to the stuff you're talking about.

I've only heard one cocorosie album and it sounded like My Little Ponies braying in a haunted house, so I don't really know. I know about their ugly "Kill Whitey" stuff though, so I guess in its own horrible way it could have something to do with it. I'd like to think (or at least hope) that at least some of the indie acts taking influence from r'n'b are doing it out of a genuine love and respect for the music though.

I've never heard the guy but, being an indie hipster of sorts, I will definitely check him out! (xp)

and I just thought Miguel was just an R&B guy doing R&B.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 19 December 2012 13:27 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No one's arguing this. The caveat is that there are r'n'b musicians who are taking influence from current trends in other genres. There's currently a heavy exchange going on between white hipster music and black pop music, but the trade is of a very specific kind, and I think that's why critics are latching on to it.

So you've got "Do You" with all these dreamy chillwavey sounds. The music is warm and enveloping like a hot towel, except with this explicit-as-you-like reference to drugs - perhaps kind of shocking. It's uncomfortable to hear someone sing about drugs in this way, as this innocuous, romantic thing, as though they were no different from fine wine or Italian food. And yet the vocal has been muddied up with a lot of reverb and overextended syllables with very little vibrato, which has been a key trope in a lot of Pitchfork-type indie over the last 8 or 9 years. The effect covers up the word "drug" so that the consonants morph and move around, sometimes it sounds like "drugs", other times like "hugs" etc... This is very reminiscent of something (I'm gonna say it) Animal Collective would have done circa Feels, and something that has been taken and run with by a gamut of Pitchfork bands from Ariel Pink to Dirty Projectors to whoever else.

The floaty comedowny feeling and explicit drug references are very similar to this track by JJ from a year or two back:

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

JJ were prime suspects in this debate when it first kicked off. You can see why people found them irksome - hipsters taking a Lil Wayne song, changing the lyrics so they're about ecstasy; I dunno, I remember a lot of people on ILX considering them a bit of a joke at the time.

But I just think it's interesting that there's this exchange going on - Lil Wayne -> JJ -> Miguel. Whether the JJ and Miguel similarities are intentional or not, I don't know. It's likely he never heard the JJ song. Still, trying to deny that there is nothing going on (for better for worse) on either side of the spectrum (assuming there is a spectrum) seems to be missing the point.

I've only heard one cocorosie album and it sounded like My Little Ponies braying in a haunted house

lol

the difference between "Do You" and chillwave is well-placed vocal reverb on certain lines to enhance the performance, instead of over the whole song to mask the performance's shortcomings or de-emphasize the performance element of the vocal

Vocals with a lot of reverb and overextended syllables with very little vibrato have been R&B trademarks forever.

also all the reggae and drum'n'bass and whatnot (xp)

What I mean here is that it seems as though there are only certain sounds and ideas being used as cultural currency. A lot of hipsters will have grown up in the early-mid 90s listening to chart pop and r'n'b before "discovering" alternative music in their late teens and 20s, and then wanting to incorporate their music with the music they loved as kids. Similarly, some r'n'b acts, for whatever reason, maybe they just want a different angle to the music they're currently making, look to recent trends (like those dreamy reverby washes prevalent in Pitchforky music over the last few years) and put these kinds of layers over their sounds. There's also an influence from electronic and dance music affecting both which could be a factor.

difference between "Do You" and chillwave is well-placed vocal reverb on certain lines to enhance the performance, instead of over the whole song to mask the performance's shortcomings or de-emphasize the performance element of the vocal

― some dude, Wednesday, 19 December 2012 13:51 (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Probably why I much prefer it to the JJ song.

A lot of hipsters will have grown up in the early-mid 90s listening to chart pop and r'n'b

Chart pop yes, but I am not convinced they grew up listening to r'n'b

Unless it was on the pop charts then

there weren't any rnb acts charting in the 90s?

which it was xp

Babyface the decade's top producer: don't think you could have listened to nineties chart pop without stumbling on a Babyface number.

yeah chart pop pretty much WAS r&b in the 90s -- mariah, boyz ii men, tlc, even celine dion was on the r&b charts regularly back then

It's no different from hipsters using 80s pop tropes in the 2000s I suppose.

the list of big pop vocalists of the 90s who weren't also R&B is basically Madonna and a bunch of quasi-alternative Lilith Fair types (xp)

and even Madonna worked with Dallas Austin and Babyface

true

Thinking about it now, Madonna jumping on the Austin-Babyface train in '94 looked desperate then but now looks damn canny: she knew what was coming.

it always seemed kind of natural and not too over the top to me, compared to some of her other career reboots

What was that Pitchfork April Fools thing (years ago now, I barely remember) where they announced they'd only be covering chart pop and r'n'b from then on, citing specifically Mariah Carey?

As with the 80s thing, it started as an ironic touchstone; tongue-in-cheek - "Look at us, we're doing synth pop, look at our big shoulder pads and make up" before turning into an almost standard issue sound with very little irony - the continuum starting with Fischerspooner and ending with La Roux, I guess. The Cocorosie thing feels a bit like that, but it doesn't mean that others are also treating r'n'b pop with the same kind of unpleasant disregard.

(indie appropriation of black pop sounds, that is).

Is this the same situation as post-punk in the late seventies, with arty punk bands incorporating funk and reggae elements, until it formulated into a very specific sound of its own exemplified by Talking Heads and the Pop Group? Not sure..

So you've got "Do You" with all these dreamy chillwavey sounds. The music is warm and enveloping like a hot towel, except with this explicit-as-you-like reference to drugs - perhaps kind of shocking. It's uncomfortable to hear someone sing about drugs in this way, as this innocuous, romantic thing, as though they were no different from fine wine or Italian food. And yet the vocal has been muddied up with a lot of reverb and overextended syllables with very little vibrato, which has been a key trope in a lot of Pitchfork-type indie over the last 8 or 9 years. The effect covers up the word "drug" so that the consonants morph and move around, sometimes it sounds like "drugs", other times like "hugs" etc... This is very reminiscent of something (I'm gonna say it) Animal Collective would have done circa Feels, and something that has been taken and run with by a gamut of Pitchfork bands from Ariel Pink to Dirty Projectors to whoever else.

But I just think it's interesting that there's this exchange going on - Lil Wayne -> JJ -> Miguel. Whether the JJ and Miguel similarities are intentional or not, I don't know. It's likely he never heard the JJ song. Still, trying to deny that there is nothing going on (for better for worse) on either side of the spectrum (assuming there is a spectrum) seems to be missing the point.

http://www.chud.com/community/content/type/61/id/137973/width/350/height/700/flags/LL

I'm imagining that paragraph as part of a David Brooks monologue.

Paul Young invented chillwave and then Al B. Sure! ripped him off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEn6amCRQfI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlHq3n3hy0

animated gifs, great.

Stepping back a bit and making sure I've got this straight -- so Jason King is among other things being zinged for apparently not knowing his Maxwell. Gonna go back in time to his stellar EMP presentation on said musician and be sure to let him know that. (Also like the Rev noted there's something else about Jason a few folks apparently have missed.)

The music is warm and enveloping like a hot towel

i like Slate's 'music club' thing but linking an individual entry w/o the context of the whole exchange usually doesn't work well as standalone reading

It's uncomfortable to hear someone sing about drugs in this way, as this innocuous, romantic thing, as though they were no different from fine wine or Italian food

it is?

you obviously don't get the artisan-grade tuscan ecstasy i do.

do you like ravioliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Seriously doglatin drawing all these tenuous connections between Miguel and chillwave or Animal Collective that are maybe there if you squint a lot is missing the point massively when there are overt and obvious references to the Zombies and Dylan and, y'know, 60S ROCK in there, that's where the exchange comes from not fucking JJ.

Do you believe in aioliiiiiiiii

What about cheese-wrapped prosciutto
angel hair pasta, stuffed cannolini
Rock, paper, scissors, wait best out of 3
Mama said Tuscan food just for me

I don't hear a smidgen of Zombies or Dylan in "Do You". Sorry.

Have you listened to the album?

he interpolates the Zombies on another track.

Haven't had a chance to listen to the whole album, but I'm talking about the song as an example for a lot of different things going on ATM. Maybe on other songs Miguel sounds like Care of Cell 44, but I'm not talking about those.

And I made it clear that it's maybe not that likely that Miguel has even heard the JJ song, but the correlation is there, even if its just a coincidence. I wouldn't put it past Miguel, Frank Ocean etc to be well aware of, and influenced by, what's going on in current alternative pop/rock though.

Have you heard the JJ song, Matt DC?

i wish i hadn't this morning

You're reminding me of the time SPIN in '98 or '99 actually devoted a small story to the alternative acts that R&B and rap acts loved. Why on earth would anyone be surprised Missy loves Bjork?

it's not surprising, that's my point.

so why mention it?

I have heard the JJ song and it has nothing to do with Do You other than the fact they both use a bit of reverb and there are black people involved somewhere along the line. But you're talking about an album you haven't actually listened to and getting it wrong - while as I said it's predominantly a soul album it's also steeped in 60s psychedelia. If there's any link between Miguel and Animal Collective it's that they have the same source material but you're approaching it from 45 years in the wrong direction.

both use a bit of reverb and there are black people involved somewhere along the line.

And both have explicit references to drugs in a VERY matter of fact way, but that's beside the point. Fine, have it your way - there is no correlation between current r'n'b and current indie. The two are completely different. The two sides are not listening to each other.

And again, I'm only comparing Do You and Ecstasy as examples of a whole load of things from the Weeknd to Frank Ocean to Dirty Projectors to Discovery to JJ, if only because that's immediately what I thought of when I heard the Miguel song. If he's going for a sixties aesthetic on other tracks, so be it.