Is anyone anticipating the new Diddy album?

lex......

It is impossible to have lived for nearly 30 years in a developed nation without having heard Ain't No Stopping Us Now.

Lex also what do you think of the BEP's awesome new song "The Time of my Life"?

you are joking aren't you tim? :?

He is a) joking, and b) teasing you for being totally clueless about any music that happened before you consciously started paying attention to new music, b/c 'Dirty Bit' samples a fairly well known song from the movie Dirty Dancing.

i know that! i've SEEN dirrty dancing. and i know about lots of old music.

not knowing tears from a clown or aint no stoppin us now is bonkers

- hence why he's clowning you, Lex

not knowing tears from a clown or aint no stoppin us now is bonkers

― *gets the power* (deej), Thursday, January 20, 2011 1:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Also, this.

i'm sure both of you haven't heard of many songs others would consider standards. who are those songs by, anyway.

david byrne, i think

Tears of a clown is Smokey Robinson. Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now is by McFadden & Whitehead. House is not a home is Luther Vandross.

sorry

thankyou!

xp hang on were those jokes? :(

all three of those songs are ones that probably every R&B artist you have ever interviewed knows as a classic

house is not a home was sampled for 'slow jams'

mine was a joke

lex I'm not trying to be snarky in anyway, but I think it will help if you start listening to some old school (anything before 1995) r&b albums or a compilations of famous songs. Also, what was the starting year when you started to listen to music in a fandom way?

I'm very young, and I even know those songs and who did them. But then again I came from an area where soul music was part of the history of that city. Yet anyway, it would be good for you especially for a historical context in listening to contemporary r&b.

yah i mean i know these songs cuz they were huuuge on R&B radio here

altho 'tears from a clown' my dad used to play too

ok i feel like i've said this a million times but i didn't have a very pop culture oriented upbringing at all - the idea of my parents listening to any pop music at all, ever, is a total lol, the radio was barely on when i was growing up. started listening to the pop charts myself in '91, discovered the music press in '95 BUT immediately rejected it for its indiecentrism. i've gone back to discover a shit ton of old music myself over the years, but rarely talk about it. and i do it on my own terms, and if i sense anyone being didactic about something, it gets ignored.

I would really like a version of this album that emphasised the great pop hooks as opposed to the rapping.

Yeah that's suspiciously geirish...but just my own listening preferences talking. This isn't an ideological attack against hip-hop no no no.

Did you buy a copy of Press Play by mistake?

ok i feel like i've said this a million times but i didn't have a very pop culture oriented upbringing at all - the idea of my parents listening to any pop music at all, ever, is a total lol, the radio was barely on when i was growing up. started listening to the pop charts myself in '91, discovered the music press in '95 BUT immediately rejected it for its indiecentrism. i've gone back to discover a shit ton of old music myself over the years, but rarely talk about it. and i do it on my own terms, and if i sense anyone being didactic about something, it gets ignored.

― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Thursday, January 20, 2011 1:43 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well diddy's not being didactic so go peep 'tears of a clown'!!

i don't feel like the album really emphasizes the rapping

i listened to those songs the other night cuz i'd never heard them

i don't think it's a rap album

i listened to those songs the other night cuz i'd never heard them

― hard as a markers (J0rdan S.), Thursday, January 20, 2011 1:56 PM (23 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cant decide if this is more ridic than you not having heard madonna

ill give u a pass on 'house is not a home' cuz thats a quiet storm / black radio exp. staple

j0rdan not hearing those songs either is like "case closed" against lex

i would have probably listened to each of those songs today but i accidentally spent the whole morning rediscovering old kate bush and biggie, then i had work to do, and then this thread got my back up - also i'll have you know that i've added 155 new songs to my itunes this week already

there is really not very much rapping on this album, and what there is i consider absolutely necessary to how it works

HAVE LIFE EXPERIENCES THAT DON'T INVOLVE READING YR BLOGS

board description for board "I Love Real Life"

i'm pretty sure not knowing madonna is more ridiculous

i dunno 'tears from a clown' feels like about as classic of a pop music staple as can exist, just a generation or 2 earlier

well diddy's not being didactic so go peep 'tears of a clown'!!

but diddy says he hates that song!

he's not saying it's a bad song, he's saying he doesn't like the feelings it conjures for him

bcuz its a powerful emotional experience not cuz its bad!

xp

I know it's so cliche/rockist to say this but Smokey Robinson could write a great song. "Tears Of A Clown" is a masterpiece. (Another fave is "Hunter Gets Captured By The Game") Alot of those sophisticated r&b cats owe a lot to him, but then again Smokey owes a lot to Sam Cooke and Nat King Cole. It's all cyclical man :P

honestly - I know all of these songs, having grown up in a house where grown R&B was played all of the time, but I never have to urge to actually listen to "Ain't No Stoppin Us Now" or "House is Not A Home" ever so I don't really fault lex for not knowing them... songs like those I place alongside, like, "Before I Let Go" by Frankie Beverly & Maze or something like that . Those classics that get played at every family gathering and are sort of "lived in", but not something I'd listen to on my own accord. Yeah, it is good to know them just as a fan of the music, but I don't think knowing McFadden & Whitehead's catalog really helps to put, say, Cassie in any particular context.

Smokey's singles run with the Miracles from Shop Around to Baby, Baby Don't Cry is the greatest thing ever

actually, second greatest thing ever. after Ain't No Stoppin Us Now

not knowing tears from a clown or aint no stoppin us now is bonkers

― *gets the power* (deej), Thursday, January 20, 2011 1:13 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You defended him not hearing Licensed To Ill early today, what the fuck

honestly - I know all of these songs, having grown up in a house where grown R&B was played all of the time, but I never have to urge to actually listen to "Ain't No Stoppin Us Now" or "House is Not A Home" ever so I don't really fault lex for not knowing them... songs like those I place alongside, like, "Before I Let Go" by Frankie Beverly & Maze or something like that . Those classics that get played at every family gathering and are sort of "lived in", but not something I'd listen to on my own accord. Yeah, it is good to know them just as a fan of the music, but I don't think knowing McFadden & Whitehead's catalog really helps to put, say, Cassie in any particular context.

― The Brainwasher, Thursday, January 20, 2011 3:48 PM (2 minutes ago)

that's not really the point, though. lex and j0rdan not knowing those songs is like some politics thread regular one day going "wait, who's this nixon guy you're talking about?"

I guess! Except if they thought me about Smokey Robinson on history class

In

i'm considering putting forward a Tim F-style "theory" about people who have pored over every note The-Dream has ever released and how familiar they are with the Smokey Robinson songbook

but I don't think knowing McFadden & Whitehead's catalog really helps to put, say, Cassie in any particular context.

Obviously when I was talking about listening to old school r&b, it wasn't to make a broad comparison between old school and new. It all depends on what the song/artist reprsented and the traces of influence they have to modern artists. For example, Smokey Robinson -> Babyface -> Ne-Yo.

A person may not need to know "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" for Cassie, but they could use that song for context in talking about say The Roots and John Legend's Wake Up album or talking about if and how dance music lyrics can imply something political or about social identity.

And for shits and giggles

Diana Ross -> Janet Jackson -> maybe Freestyle -> Cassie

I see what you're saying, I mean - obviously they should totally check those songs out, but I don't think it is a necessity for them to be familiar with them.

Not listening to Madonna is criminal though! O_O

tears of a clown is in the ether to the extent that there's really no telling what it has influenced

And I see what you are saying also. Sometimes it is good to not be bogged down with history of a certain genre. That way their analysis/thoughts are more interesting. I just lived with music snobs as parents.

xp