Ever notice how music was always better when you were back in high school? I can remember jamming out to Bell Biv Devoe’s Poison one day, my father walked in and rolled his eyes.
“Nobody is playing any instruments. That ain’t music”
As much as I tried to explain New Jack Swing, R&B styled vocals over hip-hop and dance influenced instrumentation, he just didn’t get it. I think Generation Z would probably say the same thing now. “What do you know about Justin Bieber…you barely understand the internet.” SIGH. The circle of life spins round and round…
I can buy the “They don’t make it like they used to” argument. I won’t go into tons of specific here about why today’s R&B sucks the big monkey balls but I want to point out one of the major differences between listening to Johnny Gill’s “Rub you the right way” and Jeremiah’s synthesized train wreck called “Down on Me” … the lyrics. You see we get an idea of what Johnny is talking about…oh yeah…but Jeremiah is in your face with the booty licking. Really? Do I need my porno sung to me? Here are 3 recent (and current) hits whose titles to me…make no sense.
F**in Perfect.
I love Pink. We can argue all day that she was able to get out from under the La Reid torture chamber. Yup…get it. The problem with her is that she cusses… a lot. Sure you can call me a prude or whatever; I don’t care about such things. What I do care about is trying to explain to my son what BLANK SPACE perfect means. Why is the F bomb in there? The song is beautiful. Could you use “Kinda” or “Sorta” in the title instead? That wouldn’t distract from the song. You wouldn’t hear me say…”You know what..that song could REALLY use the F bomb in it.”
No Bulls**t.
We know all about Chris Brown’s troubles. He’s still a hated man. My other problem with him is that he IS talented. The man can sing. He suffers from the Jeremiah disease. No it isn’t the oversynthed vocals .. it’s the singing porno. What happened to suggesting what you’d like to do? Maybe a little innuendo? Now it’s have some alcohol…come over… do the nasty to each other (IN FULL DETAIL). This is another song that’s excellent but why does the S bomb need to be there? How about “Don’t be on that thang girl.” or actually now that I think about it…what the heck does “Don’t be on the bulls**t” really mean? Dumb.
F**k you.
This is another great tune. Thanks Cee Lo. You’ve at least taken the time to release it under another name…Forget you. But why go through that? If you know you are going to release it on the radio why make the title something most people shouldn’t pronounce?
This is just the short list but it got me thinking…what if MY R&B..you know the New Jack Swing, the Marvin Gaye, the Otis Redding was to release a song in the year 2011? Would it have a different title? Here’s my list…feel free to add your own in the comments.
It seems even more ridiculous now doesn’t it?
Thanks to Flickr for the pic.
