zabrak

So...


Is it possible to still be innovative in Soul music anymore? I mean , I know there's fee lo green, frank ocean , etc...but I'm talking about more traditional soul, like Otis Redding and what have you, you know.


So yeah, has there been innovative soul music in a more old school Soul fashion?

Thanks!

EDIT: I meant soul music, but it bizarelly won't allow me to edit the title for this thread

Surell

well if you want traditional you get traditional. you want innovation, you go for the forward looking stuff. It's kinda hard to get it both ways.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

Are you just going to keep asking the same question over & over?

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right-track

I don't think it is possible to be innovative in soul music. I don't think it ever truly was.
Certainly not in a musical sense.
Lyrically, maybe. I think Amy Winehouse managed something in that respect by changing the lyrical content, but thats about it.
Soul should be left well alone for what it is and its better for it.

jackhammer

You can certainly make it musically more intriguing but that is the same for every genre. Is it innovative? I personally think Jamie Lidell has put a new spin on the genre whilst still retaining the core values of the genre.

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Gavin B.

The answer is yes. Modern day Soul/R&B artists like Janelle Monae, Alicia Keys, Eryka Baduh, Eli Reid, Frank Ocean, Jamie Lindell, Jazmine Sullivan, Mayer Hawthorne, Nenah Cherry, Jose James, Nicolette, Raphael Saadiq, Sharon Jones, and Seal have added elements of jazz, trip-hop, dance music, rap music and rock, but their music remains within the framework of classic soul music.

Modern day soul music is radically different from the classic sounds of Stax & Motown of the Sixties and very different from funk & disco music of Seventies R&B music.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

right-track

Some good points from Lee and Gavin B.
What can I say....I'm a purist.
For me, modern day soul along with added elements of jazz, hip hop etc, isn't soul.
There's been some good examples of old style crossovers, resulting in a blend of soul thats passable to my ears.
Other than that, it just aint soul.

Like I said...I'm a purist, but like the old saying goes. "Its whats in the groove that counts."
*personal opinion

Gavin B.

I am also an old school hardliner on soul music, but that doesn't exclude me from appreciating the some of the more innovative modern day R&B artists.

It's similar to the blues. I love the raw intensity of delta blues musicians from the 1920s and 1930s but I also appreciate the electrified sound of post-WWII Chicago blues. It's not an either/or proposition from my perspective.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

stu123

Of course it is... look at Plan B, defamation of Strickland Banks. Whatever you think about that album, it's a soul album plain and simple, and a very different one at that!

Soulflower

Janelle Monae and Erykah Badu are not "soul" artists. Erykah started off as a soul artist with "Badiusm" but her other albums after that have been very eclectic and hard to categorize. Janelle has always been eclectic. They do make soul music but I wouldnt call them "soul artists" because they experiment with many different genres. They are soul, rock, funk, hip hop, alternative, rap, jazz, blues, etc

Prince did alot similiar things in his music as well as other artists before them so I wouldnt call their the fusion of many genres "innovative"... creative? YES

Alicia Keys is just an R&B singer. Her first album was more "blues" than soul in my opinion but she seemed to have moved to a more pop sound with her R&B music

These bunch of artists specifically
Frank Ocean, Miguel, The Weekend etc They make alternative contemporary R&b. Frank is by no means a "soul" artist. He does display alot of emotion in his singing but I wouldnt call the type of music he makes "soul"

The reason why its radically different from the past is because most of these artists that are labeled "soul" are not soul artists. Most R&B artists are NOT just soul and alot of these artists experiment with other genres. There are not alot of new generational "soul artists" within the pop world.


A soul artist is someone like Anthony Hamilton or Amy Winehouse who makes traditional R&B music and some of the other mentions you named