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

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.

the hits just keep comin!

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699156/frank-ocean-miguel-rnb-comeback-genre-2012.jhtml

In other words, rhythm and blues was still just that thing Drake did when he was in his feelings, and the genre known to some detractors as Ribs & Barbecue was still on the ropes

In other words, rhythm and blues was still just that thing Drake did when he was in his feelings, and the genre known to some detractors as Ribs & Barbecue was still on the ropes.

In other words, rhythm and blues was still just that thing Drake did when he was in his feelings, and the genre known to some detractors as Ribs & Barbecue was still on the ropes.

holy

Today we are all Alex Macpherson

Ribs and...

Channel Orange, Kaleidoscope Dream and Trilogy rescued the art form from the monotony of "baby, baby please," as Ocean, Miguel and Weeknd casually re-created it in their own images. Proving you could sing about dreams and drugs, make songs for women and men, and as long as it rang true, they would come. For their mighty efforts, we've crowned R&B the Comeback Genre of the Year.

what the FUCK

what's this, pop stars are singing about drugs now?

It took Miguel's second project for him to learn what Frank had already begun to discover on his self-propelled 2011 project, Nostalgia, Ultra, namely that it's always best to do like that old Fleetwood Mac song says, and go your own way.

can't believe Frank Ocean doesn't do more songs about girls

people who act like Miguel's first album sounded like an Omarion record are so annoying

we should be suspicious of terrible writers and their poor thesis construction

can't believe Frank Ocean doesn't do more songs with Girls.

haha

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4-yBZr5goc4/TTwP48JUdBI/AAAAAAAABDA/bzxKqiwv9X0/s1600/Go+Your+Own+Way.jpg

- Bob Marley

Ribs & Barbecue & Bottle Service

the ribs & barbecue assertion is kind of genius because it appears to be impossible to verify/refute

I assumed everyone who was paying attention was into The-Dream in 2010. Also Frank was 2011. And The Weeknd album mentioned is a repackaging of 3 2011 mixtapes. And what about Beyonce's "4"? R&B hasn't gone anywhere.

As for Miguel, from my perspective he kinda broke-through this year, even though as mentioned earlier his 2010 LP is just as good.

funny how the comeback arguments always fail to mention that R.Kelly and Aaliyah.

the ribs & barbecue assertion is kind of genius because it appears to be impossible to verify/refute

― GIMME SOME REGGAE (DJP), Wednesday, December 19, 2012 12:51 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha yeah it's pretty googleproof

this is all making me nostalgic for the days when prince was the king of rock and boy george was the king of reggae and new order made some of the best latin freestyle and midnight star were a top-selling new wave act.

i definitely think there are old guard people who don't want their ideas of what r&b means to them to be messed with? just like the oldhead jazz people and oldhead rock people who stopped moving years ago. and they just look funnier and funnier in post-everything internet world. do the young people know their history and what r&b means within the context of the african american community, etc, etc. and the young people (black and white) grew up with shiny rap and undie rap and timbaland and fancy swedish euro-beats and indie rock and dubstep and the list goes on and on. its all fair game. and young r&b artists grew up with all that too! whats funny to me is that i have ALWAYS felt like music was a big melting pot ever since i was a little kid in the early 70s (thanks sly and hey thanks blood sweat and tears too while i'm at it) and the whole THING - or a big thing anyway - of the 70's was going anywhere and everywhere with your sound. and this is the stuff that the oldheads revere! so any "suspicion" about the intent of new artists is mighty suspicious to me. like you are trying to bring old arguments into a place where there really haven't been a lot of arguments. i thought the black eyed peas taught us something about life in the future but i guess not.

I want to hug you for that post, scott

I think this debate - like nearly every debate on ILM - keeps getting shifted back to the music and the artists when really it's about the framing of those things.

The problem isn't with Frank Ocean or Miguel (who are good-to-great and excellent respectively) but with listeners wanting to hype up a shift in their listening (in 2012, for a variety of reasons, these people started listening to more R&B again) as some kind of seismic shift in the music itself.

Yes there's always a melting pot, which is precisely why the fact that some people can ignore it for years until suddenly their noses are shoved in it again by critical opinion, and then they can act like it's all because of animal collective or something, is so >_<