Is R&B Making a Come Back?

So flying back to Rome from Greece yesterday I was shuffling through my iPod looking to mix up my music selection and I came across Toronto R&B artist The Weeknd’s mixtape, House of Balloons. After listening to the track, “Loft Music” I was hooked enough to decide to roll through the entire mixtape. When I was done my initial reaction was that I was blown away. To me this mixtape was one of the coolest things I have heard in quite a while. Now I know mixtapes usually are ordered in a way to construe a certain type of feel or message, but from “High For This” all the way through “The Knowing,” the tape had this unbelievably cool feel to it that I ,until now, had never felt when listening to a mixtape.

Reflecting on this experience also after listening to Frank Ocean’s mixtape, “Nostalgia/ultra,” I began to think, is R&B remerging as a major part of the music scene? And if so, is it reemerging in this reformed new subgenre of “hipster/indie” R&B that currently is gaining such a positive response from the public? You might be asking yourself why I am even taking the time to write so much about this subject. Well if you have followed the site you know I have a soft spot for R&B. This is mainly because ever since I was 6 or 7 I remember growing up to the music of Al Green, Earth, WInd & Fire, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston and so overtime I had become one of only a few of my friends who when at a party is down for a good slow jam every now then.

I then thought to myself “well you still have likes of artists like Usher, Ne-Yo, Lloyd, John Legend, and Bruno Mars who are popular in the music scene, so hasn’t R&B always been in the spotlight?” After more thinking I realized that although these artists might have started out on the scene with a break out R&B track and at one time known as R&B artists, I cannot say that all of them hold the same status. Most of these artists are now catering more to the “electro-pop” genre, lending their vocals to beats produced by big-name DJ’s in order to cater to what the mainstream is currently craving. In the cases of artists such as John Legend and Bruno Mars who are blessed with golden pipes, it is clear from both of they’re most recent projects they’re songs are being manufactured by their respective record labels in order to project a specific image to the public created by labels when they attempt to determine what kind of music the American Public will listen to and eventually invest in.

Not to take away from the artists above who are all extremely talented and am personally a fan of, but when I listen to the likes of The Weeknd and Frank Ocean I get the feeling of the rawness of the old school R&B but in a package that is such a breath of fresh air it is like a sensation. Is R&B back on the rise in the form of this cool new indie genre? I am not completely sure. All I know is that I am fully endorsing these artists as well as artists following their path because every time I now listen to songs like “The Morning” or “Wicked Games” I get the same feeling I get when I was a kid listening to EWF’s “September” on a warm summer night, and I don’t hate it.

I know I am more than a couple minutes late on this one but here is the link to The Weeknd’s website to download their mixtape “House of Balloons,” you won’t regret it: DOWNLOAD

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• Posted by The Dean
 ·
• Monday, Apr 25, 2011 @ 6:58 pm

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• · Artists: The Weeknd