What exactly killed real R&B?
 

I hate contemporary R&B I have always thought it sucked and I think Disco may have killed it.In the mid/late 1960's soul music became popular because of influences from the Civil Rights Movement and the time period 1965-1975 had the greatest and best R&B/soul ever made and in my opinion it went downhill after 75 with Disco and 1980's R&B had a lesser feeling compared to what was released in the early 1970s like Marvin G,aye "Whats going on" when was the last time I heard a R&B song like that.I dont think we will ever hear REAL R&B again because for the last 25 years it has sucked and very soulless.Alot of rappers have sampled old school 70's soul songs.

Nostalgia

usher

R&B already sucked when Usher came out cause 90's R&B sucked just as bad as 80's R&B did!

It was 80's pop, for the most part, that killed R&B. the infusion of electronic and synthesized music with the R&B vocal aesthetic created a flourishing niche market in the industry that sent R&B in a completely different, and wrong, direction. I think the market for stereotypical overproduced R&B is starting to wane, there is also a resurgence of the old school in the neo-soul genre taking place right now. Just look at Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Mayer Hawthorne, Lee Fields, et al. for evidence of the old sweet analog sound being kept alive and made original for this millennium.

70's Funk sounded out the death knell for old school R&B/Soul, along with major artists having more musical expression than before. It replaced the dance styles along with the sound and converted many a soulie.
Following that, everything SATCHMO said.
I'm beginning to hear more and more old R&B creeping in, especially with some of the British artists.
In the recent past with Duffy and Winehouse and even more recently with various artists not usually noted for that old analogue sound.
I'll be definitely checking out those recommendations of yours SATCH.

This.

Changes within society, with the gospel-influenced in both style and content 60s/70s generation being seceded by first the hedonistic Disco generation and the upwardly mobile 80's one, who had different ideas and tastes to the Motown/Stax era artists.

And nothing is authentic anymore. You're either this market friendly piece of **** that sounds hollow, light, cheap, vapid, and mailed-in or you try to be old school, authentic, real, and soulful and you come off like museum music.

The Blues don't sound like the blues anymore. The existed because of musical limitations. With the nations progress no one person is still limited to the pentatonic scale.

If anyone shouldn't be accused its Usher. At least he took his career seriously. I don't like the music but by and large Usher wasn't your typical Black Street, Mark Morrison, Montell Jordan, or Sysco.

Actually you know something, I bet one of those "Now thats what I call R&B: The 90's" would be pretty ****ing good.

No! No it fucking wouldn't!

Hey maybe you weren't a child in 1996 at Mulcahey Middle School in Taunton, Massachusetts but I sure the hell was, and I know a god damn jam when I hear one. No diggity.

Someone needs to press charges against your teachers for child abuse.

Just our DJ, Al Martinez, bro.

Hey listen, my old man play Motown constantly. And there was no sharing the radio - he owned the truck the radio was in. Therefore the 4 tops > Bone, Thugs and Harmony whenever I went anywhere.

I was exposed to all sorts of ****, I'm just saying its not a bad idea to mix in some flavor once in awhile. Its not going to be on the Big3 top 100 but I'd spin it on those summer nights where we're way too drunk.

I think it's because a lot of r&b singers nowadays are trying to incorporate different styles into their music. For example, Usher has been sounding like a pop singer more than what he used to put out. They are trying to fit into the "norm" now, which is pop music. I honestly wish they would just stick to their own style, that's just my own opinion.