Who Stole The Soul?

Take a good look at Beyonce's blank stare. That stare perfectly captures the state of modern Soul music. Modern R'n'B. Contemporary Urban. Call it whatever you like, the genre is a sad and pathetic shadow of its former self.

If you wanna call it Soul, well, it's soulless, plain and simple.

If you wanna call it R'n'B, well, the rhythms have very little groove or funk, and good luck finding even the slightest bit of the Blues.

If you wanna call it Urban, well, that's really just a polite way of saying Black music, but the bottom line here is that "Urban" doesn't really stand for anything because I live in a fairly big city (Madison, WI) but you wouldn't call Sufjan Stevens an Urban artist, would you? What about Man Man, or The Fiery Furnaces? These artists all live and create in large metropolitan areas, and most of their fans do as well. By the same token, most Country artists don't live in the Appalachians, and neither do the majority of their fans. Of course, most modern Country music isn't really Country, but I digress...

Modern Soul music is as empty and soulless as Beyonce's zombie countenance, and no amount of Melisma (the garish kind of "scat" singing one can hear in so many modern Soul songs...Think Christina Aguilera) changes this fact.

Of course, a huge part of the "problem" is the music, which seems to be increasingly created and produced by a short list of people, people like Jermaine Dupri, Timbaland, Pharrell Williams, Scott Storch, and Rodney Jerkins. This fairly insular group has naturally led to a very homogenized sonic landscape in contemporary R'n'B. It doesn't help that these producers also do Hip Hop, and of course, the fact that so many contemporary Hip Hop songs utilize melismatic diva vocals from the likes of Beyonce further blurs the line between Hip Hop and R'n'B, and has led to a similar homogenization in Hip Hop.

Timbaland is probably the most responsible, as he was at the vanguard of the current style(s) found in contemporary R'nB, but please don't misconstrue my thoughts on Timbaland. He's an original, he's unique, and he's a master of this music. As Missy Elliot's main producer, he was/is brilliant. The problem is, there's only one Missy Elliot, and while Timbaland's strange and wild sounds perfectly compliment Missy's style and personality, his work becomes diluted and loses much of it's power when a half dozen artists on the Billboard charts at any given time are singing over his production, or production work by others that are merely biting his style.

Technology is also to blame for the sad, soulless state of contemporary R'n'B. Why bother with a horn section when one can punch up a synthetic approximation of a horn section on a Korg Triton synthesizer? Why bother giving the funky drummer some when one can program beats on a Roland 808? In essence, how can we expect to find even the slightest glimmer of soul in this music when it's being made and played by machines? We can't. Should we?

I've been thinking about the sad state of modern Soul music for quite awhile now, but my lamentations have been brought to the fore in my thinking lately because I've been listening to Aretha Live At Fillmore West quite alot lately. The difference between Aretha Franklin's singing and Beyonce's singing are startling, as well as the musical accompaniments. If you aren't familiar, or interested, in Aretha Live At Fillmore West, all you need to do is take a look at the cover of that album, and then compare it to that Beyonce cover.

Now THERE'S a woman who's obviously overflowing with Soul Power. A natural woman. By comparison, Beyonce is...what? A robot? Borg? Whatever she is, it ain't natural, and like I've been saying, there is no soul, and she's just one artist among many, and they all add up to something less than awe-inspiring.

Hotcha!
Hank