The All-New STYLUS.

(also wondering if you'd get on a bus in south london and tell the teenage girls they're listening to their music wrong, that a white, middle-class, mid-20s gay male's interpretation of contemprary r&b is the correct one not theirs?)

What's this even based on?

why is it that so often i get the feeling that when critics or listeners say you have to 'accept genre on its own terms' what they mean is 'you shld like about this music what *I* like about it'

im gonna go with garden variety paranoia

i was gonna say, it seems obvious how it would not exactly be a welcome contrib 2 a discussion bout how rnb is treated in a patronisingly tokenistic by the indie press, to say "what those p4k douches don't understand is how awesome it got when it got all Glitch-ey." i don't think its really that much of a leap to say that each genre develops its own internal themes, reference points and ways of conversing with itself, and that to make primary the one that is really the hallmark of another genre, and not exactly a defining characteristic of rnb exactly, is treating it tokenistically and like a lesser cousin of the music you like. i mean to ignore the person whose name is what sells the record in the first place...?

i don't think this should be confused with a greenbergian type of logic whereby each genre can only operate within its own framework, and is successful in the ways it displays the defining characteristics of its genre, rather that by listening to rnb with ears only tuned to idm-ey production means that you are missing out on all the other things that are going on, which is kindof unfortunate, because they are awesome. I know that i have gotten into genres by hearing i dunno, metal that feels kindof noisey and electronic and that i can "get" on the terms of music i already like, but to not open my ears to the other things that are happening in the music and starting to appreciate them too seems pretty close minded. i mean, lex posted a bunch of pre-millenial rnb that has a very different emph production-wise but is still awesome, and it might be worth your while giving them a listen with an open mind because you might find something else to dig about them other than the things you already do.

At the same time, telling someone that they're treating rnb as a lesser genre than 'actual' favoured genres does smack a little of gatekeeperism. Let people enjoy what they enjoy, for the reasons they enjoy it, and encourage them to enjoy what you enjoy too.

yeah rnb is such an intensely guarded secret

At the same time, telling someone that they're treating rnb as a lesser genre than 'actual' favoured genres does smack a little of gatekeeperism.

i have no idea how you think this is the case also

At the same time, telling someone that they're treating rnb as a lesser genre than 'actual' favoured genres does smack a little of gatekeeperism. Let people enjoy what they enjoy, for the reasons they enjoy it, and encourage them to enjoy what you enjoy too.

Nick I think you're letting your broader position in the argument cloud your logic a bit. Broadly speaking I agree with the proposition that it's better to encourage people by suggesting them new things to listen to and new ways to listen to stuff, than to beat them with a stick.

However, I assume you're not seriously claiming that we shouldn't be allowed to criticise an article for offering a shallow, superficial (albeit positive) treatment of a genre, one that, by reducing its good qualities to one thing, suggests that all the other qualities we perceive are false or crap or meaningless? Whose "right" to be upset that someone is saying "x genre works like this" should we be protecting? Disagreeing with the article appears to trample on Karen's version of enjoyment of the music, but agreeing with it implicitly tramples on mine. I think we both have to accept from the outset that our mode(s) of enjoyment might be "trampled" in conversation. Karen does grasp this, I think - in other threads he's successfully reproduced the hallmark ILM tone of sneery dismissal of stuff other people like that he doesn't - so the outrage here strikes me as somewhat confected.

Of course it's not the case that there is one right way for listeners to listen and then all sorts of wrong ways that must be corrected. But when a person decides to write an article that seeks to establish (even if only by implication) what the right way is, they open themselves up to criticism, especially if their treatment betrays a lack of depth or breadth of understanding of the subject matter. This is true even with the caveat that there is no one right or "proper" argument. There is very little consensus w/r/t "what should be done" with regard to a whole host of social issues but that doesn't mean that a reader cannot distinguish between a bad argument or a good argument for adopting a particular course of action.

The end point of your apparent position here is actually (with respect, nick!) a kind of Fox News style anti-elitism, only applied to music: the claim that any attempt to criticise poorly thought-out arguments is GATEKEEPERISM, elitist sneering at actual people's lives etc. A justified response if the argument being made is really an attack on the original speaker's credentials, their right to have an opinion.* But not so justified if the argument is that the person's claims are founded on faulty premises.

* Obv. this happens a lot in music writing and within online music fan communities, and it's worth calling out when it does.

NB. Should stress that I don't think you're a kneejerk anti-elitist Nick - just that when terms like "gatekeeper" are flung around indiscrimianately that kind of thinking is always invoked.

To my mind gatekeeperism involves the control and privileging of knowledge and/or status, e.g. do you own (or know) the right records, have you seen x person play live, have you been into this stuff since a certain point in time.

i.e. it creates barriers which cannot be overcome simply through enjoyment of the music.

This is different from saying "a defence of R&B based solely on high production values is wrongheaded" - anyone can listen to an R&B record and (theoretically) enjoy the performance, the lyrics, etc.

This is a terrific thread - I'm really enjoying Tim's posts especially!

Haha, the last thing I am is a "kneejerk anti-elitist". The way the "there's more to ebb than IDMish production" argument (which is a fine and right argument) is occaisionally phrased, and especially by Lex, on this thread very much comes across to me as "you're liking this wrong, idiot" rather than "this is also great, try and get into this side of it". The side effect of "this is wrong, idiot" being that people who maybe were finding a way into a genre now feel criticised by the specialists, ie gatekeepered out. It doesn't matter squat if that's not what's intended by the specialists; if it's perceived by the entryists, and turned them away, then it's a bad thing and can only prevent the increase in discussion of rnb that escapes rock crit modes of thought.

Anyway, rnb did pretty damn well in the Stylus singles list, suggesting rock crit types do like it and want to write about it. Or at least dance to it. Why it didn't do well in the albums list is almost certainly connected to the "right way" of listening to it; ie I doubt many people sit down and take in a Beyonce or Aaliyah or Amerie album in one sitting because that's an old fashioned method of listening, maybe even a redundant method. If you take a genre on... Not it's "own" terms but it's "best" terms, then you have to do the same with a format, surely? Whether that be mp3s or "the album" or the EP or the 7" single or whatever, and some genres simply don't have much in common with some formats; Karen's not moaning about there not being enough IDM in the singles list.

Posting from my iPhone in bed so excuse the flow of this.

sorry dude i dont buy that indie rock or whatever is a 'better album genre' than R&B

yes, and I'm skeptical about the claim that listening to an album in one sitting is an old-fashioned method of listening. I mean: if you're listening to your ipod on a 45 minute train or bus commute, surely that counts as one sitting. Are you really sure that people don't choose to put on whole albums instead of just their custom playlists or just shuffling?

also, it always feels to me that ppl who try and turn modern pop production into "weird avant garde production" are trying to distort it so that their knowledge of weird electronica or whatever gives them this privileged insight into the music that its fanbase don't appreciate, which is another reason i find that line of argument kinda icky, and i think thats only partly my own prejudices.

Anyway, rnb did pretty damn well in the Stylus singles list, suggesting rock crit types do like it and want to write about it. Or at least dance to it. Why it didn't do well in the albums list is almost certainly connected to the "right way" of listening to it; ie I doubt many people sit down and take in a Beyonce or Aaliyah or Amerie album in one sitting because that's an old fashioned method of listening, maybe even a redundant method.

I do not think this is true. I think many people sit down and take in a Beyonce or Aaliyah or Amerie album in one sitting - r&b albums are certainly paced and sequenced as if people are expected to listen to them in order. I think that's still the "right way" of listening for the large numbers of people who buy R&B records, who will put the record on while they're doing something and not want to be distracted by shuffle or by picking the next hit to play.

All you can say is 'there's r&b on the singles list but not on the albums list because rock crit types relate to rnb as a singles genre and not as an albums genre', and we kind of knew that already.

Also, your "listening to an album in one sitting is old-fashioned so r&b listeners don't do it" is a weird use of the 'indie = old-fashioned', 'r&b = modern' canard! People don't relate to R&B in a more modern way than they relate to indie!

mr mouthy let me shake your hand

you nailed it in one:

the "there's more to ebb than IDMish production" argument (which is a fine and right argument) is occaisionally phrased, and especially by Lex, on this thread very much comes across to me as "you're liking this wrong, idiot" rather than "this is also great, try and get into this side of it". The side effect of "this is wrong, idiot" being that people who maybe were finding a way into a genre now feel criticised by the specialists

tim and lex may be brilliant writers and critics and rhetoricians (only i'm too thick to know) but they suck at understanding what other people are saying, and they suck at understanding what motivates other people in their listening

if i'm listening to a new/unfamiliar genre and dipping my toes in ponds and deciding 'i like this song' / 'i don't like that song' and 'this artist consistently pleases me' or not- it's really fuckin off-putting to be told by someone who claims to know better than me YOU DOIN' IT WRONG

that makes me wanna run back to my aphex twin records coz no one ever told me i was listening to them wrong

it also makes me as a reader lose confidence in your critical assessment of *any* kind of music since you don't understand and even diminish the things that i like the most in music of all kinds

you projecting when you say that i 'like these records coz they sound idm-ish' - that isn't what i said at all. i said i liked the production. you extrapolated coz u know i like idm that it was something idm-ish that i liked about it. for a start the correct term is braindance. and i like these r&b records because they're an example of really interesting sonically intriguing production that sounds *different* to me from a genre like idm whose tricks i've already worked out

your right. i have no allegiance to r&b. i have no allegiance to any genre. i'll switch my listening habits at the drop of a hat if i find something that makes my brain and ears go OM NOM NOM NOM more than what i was listening to before

i'm a simple man in my tastes. everything i like can really be boiled down to two things - chicks and synths. ok perhaps synths is too reductive a term. what i mean is sounds that tickle my ear and bend my brain and make me wonder 'how did they *do* that?' so that my ears are going 'chewy chewy' and my brain is trying to figure out how all the layers fit together. the chicks part is pretty self evident. i'm a heterosexual male and the sound of a lady-singer (or better yet a lady-synth-player) gives me a big fat boner

this stopped being about that stylus list long ago. sorry bout that x-posts

that makes me wanna run back to my aphex twin records coz no one ever told me i was listening to them wrong

this has not been my experience of talking about aphex twin.

also, it always feels to me that ppl who try and turn modern pop production into "weird avant garde production" are trying to distort it so that their knowledge of weird electronica or whatever gives them this privileged insight into the music that its fanbase don't appreciate

totally fuckin projection mate

doesn't matter to me one sausage what other people appreciate in the music they love. i'm not the one trying to draw conclusions about other ppl's listening habits here but it sounds to me like you totally are and your gunning for that straw man of 'ppl who like weird electronica'

this has not been my experience of talking about aphex twin.

that's why i spend more time talking *to* mr twin and less time talking 'bout mr twin but ymmv

ok so i just reread this thread and i think that there is an extent to which we both misunderstood each others position and that i was largely set off by ur use of the word "cheesy" in the post where you joined this partic part of the conv. that is not to say that the position i thought u were speaking from is one that doesn't exist just that u weren't guilty of that partic prejudice, so for assuming ur motives yeah im wrong, but i also think ur wrong for your own sake to close urself off to anything other than production values or at least assuming that production that doesn't cohere with ur idea of what is "good production" is necc cheesy or whatever.

also

you projecting when you say that i 'like these records coz they sound idm-ish' - that isn't what i said at all. i said i liked the production. you extrapolated coz u know i like idm that it was something idm-ish that i liked about it. for a start the correct term is braindance. and i like these r&b records because they're an example of really interesting sonically intriguing production that sounds *different* to me from a genre like idm whose tricks i've already worked out

in this case it does feel kinda weird to me that the moment you feel like you can learn new tricks off of rnb production is the moment it is learning new tricks off stuff u already like, which is a great argument in favour of the cross pollination of genre but it doesn't really sound like ur really as promiscuous with genre as ur selling urself

also i think a big thing that has been pissing lex off on these threads is that despite all the poptimist rhetoric that has been thrown around pop crit circles in the last ten years, when it comes down to it the pop music of the last ten years can only be canonised in its more "disposable" format as a single. I would apportion some of the blame for this seeming reversal of attitude to the strategies used to reclaim respect for what has always seemed a less critically worthy genre like rnb into the critical sphere and the main one is the lionising of the producer, by shifting appreciation of the music away from vocal and lyrical themes, which are what are pretty much the cohering traits of the genre and relying on rhetoric that points out how supa dupa fly sounds a lot like Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives, you peg all its critical kudos on the passing moment whereby one genre reflects another and gets praise for doing a good impression. its not hard to see at this juncture why a bunch of rnb stans on a msg board might easily get snipey abt the re-use of these platitudes esp when words like cheesy are being used to designate parts of the genre that fall outside of this designation.

i'm a heterosexual male and the sound of a lady-singer (or better yet a lady-synth-player) gives me a big fat boner

wow you are so bad at this

You gonna tell us the right way to have a boner now?

Don't be a gatekeeper of boners, steve.

my new album How To Be A Man vol 1 is out Monday, produced by Miss Djax & Leila

guess it's impossible to like r&b around here without yr sexuality being called into question?

my apologies if the word 'cheesy' rubbed anyone the wrong way. i like a lot of super cheesy music - stadium house, big electro anthems, even the occasional andrew lloyd webber choon (dont kno what the boner police will make of that one)

but yeah your right i meant it in a negative way there and i should have clarified what exactly i don't like. certain rhythm guitar sounds with way too much tight chorus on them. that one fucking preset on the yamaha dx7 that is like fingernails on a blackboard

the big switch not just in idm and r&b but in *all* music in the late 90s early 00s was in bringing onboard protools and other digital recording technology. and using it not just to duplicate the sound of 'live' musicians but using its tricks and glitches and the odd sounds and effects it made possible to create a whole new way of thinking about music and how it worked and how to make it

soz if i'm falling into technological progression rock crit speak here but technology drives change not sayin that's progress just change

it's wrong-headed to say 'you started liking r&b when it started sounding like idm.' a more correct thing to say would be 'you liked it when idm and then r&b started pushing the technology of digital music to explore new ways of producing music'

i'm not privileging idm or 'weird electronica' over r&b. maybe in 1995 the only people who had access to that music technology and the techniques associated with it were 5 dudes on rephlex and warp who wrote their own software. by 2000 everyone had it in their bedrooms and studios & were using it to do fun things in many genres, r&b and pop included - that's the bit i like regardless of whose twiddling the knobs

Of course people are meant to like RnB for the swirling expensive electronic sonic elements. That's why the producers put them there in the first place. But at the same time I get the feeling that people who only listen to rnb for "weird avant garde production" are outnumbered by people who are just digging the procution as a vehicle for the tune and the peformence. EVEN IN ROCK CRIT CIRCLES.

I think it's a little unfair to criticise individual listeners who have come to rnb through techno for listening to it in a techno way, because techno (not to mention ecstacy) encourages you to fixate on individual elements of music and follow them through. I'd imagine if you'd been brought up on that way of listening it's virtually impossible to get out of it.

That said people shouldn't be WRITING about RnB in that way - it strikes me as the equivalent of effects pedals and chord progression nerds thinking they're writing incisively about rock music, and no one in their right mind has believed THAT to be the case for something like 30 years.

The lines being drawn here amuse me given the way I rolled my eyes massively when I saw the Lex talking about "the most avant-garde beats on offer now" in his Dream interview. The Dream isn't avant-garde, he's just better at what he does than everyone else.

(I know it's unfair to isolate that Lex quote from the rest of the sentence let alone the wider piece and he certainly wasn't emphasising that aspect over everything else, but I did wonder why he felt the need to say that in the first place, especially in FACT).

People who think singles are less worthy than albums are fucking mental.

who is saying that

I know it's unfair to isolate that Lex quote from the rest of the sentence let alone the wider piece

indeed

that's like saying "people who think sentences are less worthy than paragraphs are fucking mental" - what's it supposed to mean?

xposts

deej/euler/cis/ikr totally otm wrt r&b albums anyway - it's as much of an album genre as anything else but as cis says, rock crit types seem only to want to relate to it as a singles genre - which it is, as well as an albums genre - but the difference is that getting into r&b albums generally involves a) spending more time with the artist and the genre b) dealing with eg ballads and non-immediate songs - which are both as important to the genre as any massive "crazy in love" style hit (and often superior)

plus, half my albums of the year for the past decade have been r&b! bollocks it's "not an albums genre" - what u mean is u can't be bothered w/the albums, ie the problem is ALL YOURS

Dudes it's also possible that reviewers have listened to the albums at length and in depth and still find them annoyingly inconsistent. That's a perfectly valid viewpoint. The irritating difference is that inconsistency in, eg, Hot Chip albums tends to be "ah there's a few duff tracks, let's knock a point off the rating" whereas inconsistency in Beyonce albums tends to be used to illuminate an alleged failing of the entire genre.

It was plaxico who mentioned Lex's problem being that rnb only gets celebrated in pop music's more disposable form.

some favourite r&b album cuts from the past decade...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcRtHvk8k8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U00kRM0NbvA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcb99XDF-s8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOnXAYN8OQw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9C018dA-Q4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IG5UsNwGls

Hot Chip are a singles band. A pop band. Nothing wrong with that.

and this is just the more commercial r&b artists - haven't even touched upon artists like erykah badu, meshell ndegéocello, maxwell et al who explicitly make ALBUMS rather than singles

Half your albums of the year etc may be rnb albums lex but not many other peoples are which suggests that consensually rnb isn't thought of as an albums genre. AND THERES NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

Or it suggests that rock crits tend to pay more attention to rock albums. Which is understandable. And what catches their ears in R&B tends to be the big singles.

nick you are being so dense on this thread.

not many other peoples are

by "people" you AGAIN mean "rock crit types"!!!! r&b albums sell fuckloads to their core constituency, a demographic that rock crit types essentially ignore because it doesn't tend to get involved in rock criticism and WHO CAN BLAME THEM. but i'm sure the people who buy r&b albums think of it as an albums genre!

and there's nothing wrong with singles genres if it's actually applicable, eg in techno, but just as you wouldn't write off a genuinely great techno album qua album if one happened along, responding to people saying "there have been some amazing r&b albums released in the past decade and it's a shame they haven't been recognised" with "LALALA IT'S A SINGLES GENRE SO IT DOESN'T MATTER" is wilfully obtuse

At this point I'm just trying to cause you an aneurysm.

But Erykah Badu and Maxwell in particular have a sort of muso-cred that sits them outside this debate really. They're not really thought of in the same way as commercial rnb. I can't imagine the Nick Hornby's of the world having any issue with either, except they'd call them "soul" to separate them from the rest.

(Also arrangement, production, etc is a massive point of difference here that can't be ignored)

(xpost - but these 'consensuses' are such a limited snapshot of the wider picture, that's why this whole argument is taking place! Consensuses that are essentially self-selecting don't reflect anything other than themselves)

x-post

That exclusion isn't unique to R&B and hip-hop, Lex - country and metal are commercially and socially important genres that tend not even to make it to singles lists, with maybe the odd token inclusion on album lists, with Metallica as Jay-Z, Mastodon as Rihanna, and so on ...

I mean, I could go round the Tory party conference and come back with a "consensus" on public spending but it wouldn't be an accurate reflection of public opinion.

i agree - i wish more country and metal fans would join in with this, ao it could be made obvious just how narrow these supposedly authoritative lists really are! though r&b has so much more mainstream visibility than either that it seems extra weird when it's overlooked

xp

Mastodon as Rihanna

I'm imagining them doing "Umbrella" now...

yeah see also ppl who go 'the production on this r&b track sounds like aphex twin' meaning it's a bit squelchy & has some weird backwards edits coz the only twin song they've ever even heard was windowlicker

x-post Not in the States, Lex! Plenty of mainstream visibility for both there!

There's as much mainstram visibility for country as there is for rnb, in the States at least. The difference is maybe that country and metal have their own critical infrastructure, hip-hop too, in a way that rnb seemingly never has. Why that's the case is an interesting tangential question.