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When did R & B go downhill in your opinion

mjprince1976

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I love me some phine R&B songs and every decade from the 1940s to the 1980s has its delights, but to me the arrival of new jack swing around 1988/89 saw an inevitable decline in which the genre has not recovered from.

From Louis Jordan in the 40s through to Michael Jackson and Prince in 80s, R&B was great music, all the legends like Little Richard, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Temptations, Jackson 5, Motown sound, funk, soul, disco funk, deep funk, 80s soul and dance - it is music that crossed over and defined a generation.

Then came Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat type acts, followed by the open shirt, sex you down type songs of that 1990 - 1995 period. Yes these guys could sing (Jojo etc) but all the songs were about sex. Take Freak Me by Silk, Gladys Knight when viral over the lines about licking you up and down and covering you in whipped cream.

Then you have virtually everything by Jodeci, H Town, R Kelly - okay they can sing, but its all about sexing people down, you have open shirts and gyrating and moaning in the songs and video hoes and rappers make their appearance and the line between R&B and Rap gets blurred. The only difference was none of these acts were calling women bitches and hoes until the late 90s (Various members of Jodeci were called out for referring to their female fans as hoes and bitches, but they were still ladiez in the songs). Some acts from the era were better like our man Michael, Prince (Sex R and B king, but there was something more dignified and professional about his sex jams, still 1994's Come is very crude) and of course Mint Condition and even Blackstreet, who could really sing and kept their jams above the waist line. In 1992/93 groups like Silk and Shai take over the charts with sex jam after sex jam. Even in late 1991 there was some song with the lyrics (Lets get naked and do what we wanna do, lets get naked and some rapper singing, baby kicking butt and baby doing shit, yo mfer sing this shit)

I think the songs got more blatant as time wore on, by 1996 you had Ginuwine gyrating half naked in a redneck bar singing about riding his pony (Penis, basically) and moaning while 4 or 5 leering young stud like men strode around the floor doing hand signals towards their u know whats. I cringed watching this stuff, knowing it did nothing to dispel the myth that Black men are oversexed. R Kelly sainging about Bumping and grinding pashing a girl whilst checking out another and then Missy Elliot it was basically just sex rap with her ooh aahh suck it to me with her full lips imitating the most lewd forms of sexual interaction. More emphasis on seduction than singing, one dude is singing the others are all moaning and going ooh aah!

I know this sounds puritanical, but R and B never recovered from this rubbish and now its more guest rappers and sex acts like Nicki Minaj and Megan da Stallion or whatever her name is. Each new artist is more depraved than the last, I though Minaj was the limit and then comes Cardi B with her songs about Washpopping and her Wet Ass P****. You know something is up when every word is bleeped out and its recalled and recorded as Wet and Gushy.

To me if its 1987 or earlier, I will listen to it. If its later I need to check the artist and the song and if its after 2000 - forget it.
 
While in the 90's there was alot of r and b groups not all of them was bad. some did had a few songs about sexual intercourse but not all of them. i say it went downhill somewhere in the mid 2000's. i'm not racist but more different artists was non black were doing r and b. it's still like that today. alot has been complaining about it. like one user said before r and b was call race music because it was black people singing it.

i love new jack swing.
 
One of my favorite RnB groups was All-4-One and their music wasn't all about sex. I mean, their biggest hit, "I Swear" (I know it was a cover) is so beautiful.
I really feel like that the best RnB groups from that time were very underrated (3T for example).
 
Good points, but All 4 One had a sex joint called "I can love u like that" its sounds beautiful - but in the lyrics "All that you need" are sex in disguise. Also All 4 One were a bit cheesy and the group was misleading, it was proved the 2 white guys (One was Hispanic and the other was Jewish) did not sing, merely bop along and lipsync - yes it was the 2 brothers doing all the singing.

3T were decent, but to most of us were a 1 hit wonder, apart from Why (Which has Uncle Mike adding big parts - why it became a moderate hit) I can't think of any other song of theirs that was a minor let alone huge hit. I live in NZ so we don't have a R&B chart, any music by a Black performer was in our standard chart which goes back to 1975 - but the Lux/Loxene hit parade goes back at least to 1952 (Yes it was a soap brand).

A lot of sexy R&B flew under the radar here and it did quite well (I had all 3 Jodeci albums which all went Top 20 here), but our country really had a problem with gangsta rap. There was an exaggerated moral panic over Copkiller in 1992 and Snoop Doggy Dogg in 1994 (Mainly fat angry women complaining about the "Obscene" lyrix), some of these panics were racial as well, with people referring to the acts as Negro singers and rappers bringing their filthy depraved culture to our Maoris and Islanders who had impressionable minds (This was in 1992 not 1892). The singer of the Bobdobalina song complained when in early 1993 the Police searched for drugs up his butt and called it racist. One offcier allegedly said that NZ did not need their filth and garbage music here.

In 1994 some city authorities were blaming a rise in tagging and drive by shootings in the poor south Auckland suburbs of Otara, Mangere and Glen Innes on gangster (Sic) rap songs performed by Black American rappers. This trope has carried on to today - a spate of late 2020 shootings were blamed on gang culture and various songs by so called "Trap" and "Mumble" rappers like Gucci Mane, 69 and Lil Pump (They incorrectly referred to Pump, a Hispanic as a Black artist).

My country is very sad even last year NZME our biggest media network which controls most of our newspapers (Including the one I deliver every day) and radio stations, stopped playing Michael Jackson songs between March and October as they said they were "A family and community network, that keeps its listeners safe and will not play music performed by a suspected paedophile". They never retracted this statement, but Billie Jean and Stranger in Moscow crept back on the airwaves a few months ago.

As for mid 2000s, all the chart R and B by that stage was rubbish, it was hard to blur the lines between it and rap. 2004 the only decent group was Outkast, the rest was stuff like Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, Beyonce (Most overrated singer of all time), Hollaback girl, Usher, ne Yo (Okay those two had some great cuts) and then 2007 which saw the rise of Rhianna and Gaga.

Non chart R&B and legacy artists like Prince were still great though.
 
Michael had some songs that was about sexual intercourse. but his was about making love to a woman he loves. not just making a song about sexual intercourse. Michael wasn't a fan of those type of songs about calling woman bad names etc. he wasn't that kind of dude he was more of an gentleman and classy. so glad his mother his taught him good.

Michael music is now being played on radio stations now. he never stop playing were i live. trying to mute Michael was an silly idea.

i hardly listen to the radio anymore. if i do it's mostly the oldies stations. i loved outkast and the black eyed peas. fergie was okay. hollaback girl was hilarious. usher was awesome i love some his songs. i like neyo too. neyo and usher was both inspires by Michael.
 
i love some of rihanna and lady gaga music. let's be honest every artists has at least one song about sexual intercourse. rihanna and lady gaga are also inspires by Michael too as well.
 
Mjjpikagurl said:
One of my favorite RnB groups was All-4-One and their music wasn't all about sex. I mean, their biggest hit, "I Swear" (I know it was a cover) is so beautiful.
I really feel like that the best RnB groups from that time were very underrated (3T for example).
Click to expand...

i love this song. i miss the 90's. 3T was okay. i like some of their songs too but i think like mjprince said made the group big was Why because of Michael.
 
Prince and Michael was still releasing music in the 2000's. expect in 2001 Invincible was Michael last album. he was planning making more music before he pass he was working on some in the early 2000's and before he pass.

the 2000's was kind of awkward it was kind of half of the 90's with a new millennium artists like Michael and Prince was still releasing music. it was mixed with an older generation with a new one with a even older generation with it. then 9/11 happen. the early 2000's was pretty good but like i said kind of awkward.
 
Definitely, their later music was all fine and some was great. But to me the golden age was the 80s for both artists and maybe the early 90s for Michael as well.
There will never be any better albums than Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, HIStory, 1999, Purple Rain, Parade, Sign o the Times or Lovesexy. Those albums are all untouchable classics.
 
Their legends. their music is timeless. but as michael i think what mess him up was media etc. i think if the media never ruin him he probably would had more success. not saying he didn't but you get what i mean.

i guess it really up to the person to deicide what artists are on their peak. i agree michael and prince was at their peak in the 80's. but not saying their later music wasn't good either.
 
OP, I absolutely agree with you in regarding the music timeline between 1940s-1980s.

But to answer your question when rhythm and blues went downhill? The early 90s easily. Why?

1. Every act of that genre sang about 1 topic which was just about sex sex sex sex sex. Nothing else but sex.

2. They no longer played instruments and majority of the acts for Rhythm and Blues didn't even write their songs.

3. Sampling every song from the 70s.

4. It was no longer rhythm and blues. It was rap and blues

Prior to the 90s. Every act would sing about many many things, sex, religion, war, race, politics, saving the world. They actually played their own instruments, produced their own records and wrote their songs... They broke colour barriers too and it was innovative stuff.

It died around the early 90s and hasn't recovered since.
 
Around the early 90s as well and I agree with your timeline music between the 40s-80s was incredible.
 
mjprince1976 said:
Definitely, their later music was all fine and some was great. But to me the golden age was the 80s for both artists and maybe the early 90s for Michael as well.
There will never be any better albums than Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, HIStory, 1999, Purple Rain, Parade, Sign o the Times or Lovesexy. Those albums are all untouchable classics.
Click to expand...

The 80s were without a doubt Prince in his prime... His Downfall in the 90s made feel depressed.

Michael Jackson... I'd say the 1970s - 1991
 
mjprince1976 said:
I love me some phine R&B songs and every decade from the 1940s to the 1980s has its delights, but to me the arrival of new jack swing around 1988/89 saw an inevitable decline in which the genre has not recovered from.

From Louis Jordan in the 40s through to Michael Jackson and Prince in 80s, R&B was great music, all the legends like Little Richard, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Temptations, Jackson 5, Motown sound, funk, soul, disco funk, deep funk, 80s soul and dance - it is music that crossed over and defined a generation.

Then came Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat type acts, followed by the open shirt, sex you down type songs of that 1990 - 1995 period. Yes these guys could sing (Jojo etc) but all the songs were about sex. Take Freak Me by Silk, Gladys Knight when viral over the lines about licking you up and down and covering you in whipped cream.

Then you have virtually everything by Jodeci, H Town, R Kelly - okay they can sing, but its all about sexing people down, you have open shirts and gyrating and moaning in the songs and video hoes and rappers make their appearance and the line between R&B and Rap gets blurred. The only difference was none of these acts were calling women bitches and hoes until the late 90s (Various members of Jodeci were called out for referring to their female fans as hoes and bitches, but they were still ladiez in the songs). Some acts from the era were better like our man Michael, Prince (Sex R and B king, but there was something more dignified and professional about his sex jams, still 1994's Come is very crude) and of course Mint Condition and even Blackstreet, who could really sing and kept their jams above the waist line. In 1992/93 groups like Silk and Shai take over the charts with sex jam after sex jam. Even in late 1991 there was some song with the lyrics (Lets get naked and do what we wanna do, lets get naked and some rapper singing, baby kicking butt and baby doing shit, yo mfer sing this shit)

I think the songs got more blatant as time wore on, by 1996 you had Ginuwine gyrating half naked in a redneck bar singing about riding his pony (Penis, basically) and moaning while 4 or 5 leering young stud like men strode around the floor doing hand signals towards their u know whats. I cringed watching this stuff, knowing it did nothing to dispel the myth that Black men are oversexed. R Kelly sainging about Bumping and grinding pashing a girl whilst checking out another and then Missy Elliot it was basically just sex rap with her ooh aahh suck it to me with her full lips imitating the most lewd forms of sexual interaction. More emphasis on seduction than singing, one dude is singing the others are all moaning and going ooh aah!

I know this sounds puritanical, but R and B never recovered from this rubbish and now its more guest rappers and sex acts like Nicki Minaj and Megan da Stallion or whatever her name is. Each new artist is more depraved than the last, I though Minaj was the limit and then comes Cardi B with her songs about Washpopping and her Wet Ass P****. You know something is up when every word is bleeped out and its recalled and recorded as Wet and Gushy.

To me if its 1987 or earlier, I will listen to it. If its later I need to check the artist and the song and if its after 2000 - forget it.
Click to expand...

What did Gladys Knight say about it lol? Because I remember Prince did an interview in the 90s and he said it sucked.
 
RNB is alive and well but people seem to think melodic rap is rnb for some reason.
the problem is no one cares to elevate real rnb acts,ill give some examples for contemporary rnb:

a little older songs first one samples michael:
h.e.r bruno mars kyle dion and much much more

rap was always dirty and blunt to begin with its just that at this moment in time cardi b song is popping but men have been doing this in the rap game for decades its not a big deal at all

also music in general got much more blunt as time went on its nothing specific to the present its just represented a little more in mainstream music at the moment bc of rap, the whole point of art is to keep pushing the mold which for music was worship music(religious music) at the beginning .
and the youth is getting more blunt in conversation and i believe it has nothing to do with the music at all its more about slang and a bigger appreciation for honesty instead of being afraid to hurt peoples feelings so young songwriters mirror that in their writing.
 
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NatureCriminal7896 said:
While in the 90's there was alot of r and b groups not all of them was bad. some did had a few songs about sexual intercourse but not all of them. i say it went downhill somewhere in the mid 2000's. i'm not racist but more different artists was non black were doing r and b. it's still like that today. alot has been complaining about it. like one user said before r and b was call race music because it was black people singing it.

i love new jack swing.
Click to expand...

Some did a few songs about sexual intercourse? Some? What the OP is saying are facts. The majority of them sang about bedroom music. They weren't versatile with their song writing.

Pre 90s R&B era majority them from Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston etc etc were singing about multiple topics and NOT just bedroom music.

That wasn't the case in the 90s.
 
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