It’s Not That R&B’s Gone Soft

Vibe's Sean Fennessey recently argued that contemporary R&B music has gone soft. He's onto something—there are too many emasculated, blue-ballsed crooners on the radio right now. (Hell, whispering whiner/platinum sensation Lloyd's last name is "Polite.") But Fennessey overlooked a larger point. R&B isn't just ineffectual right now—it's crummy and pointless, derivative and boring. In terms of social relevance, innovation, and pure originality, no one approaches titans of earlier generations like Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, or even Michael Jackson and Prince. R&B is missing a transformative star, but seems unlikely to find one right now because, as a genre, it barely exists.

Though always something of a hodgepodge, R&B was once a formidable format, a combination of soul, gospel, and funk whose best artists didn't hesitate to experiment with style. But in the '90s and '00s, R&B has become pigeonholed. Attempting to piggyback on hip-hop's popularity, its artists use rap beats and hire MCs for guest verses, resulting in a sound virtually indistinguishable from rap. (Try turning off the vocals of Ray J's "Sexy Can I," for example, and see if you can tell the difference.) One of R&B's biggest names, Akon, in fact, is so strongly associated with hip-hop that he's sometimes mistakenly referred to as a rapper.

Fusing genres was traditionally a big part of rhythm and blues—hell, Ray Charles made a career out of it. But since New Jack Swing injected a street mentality and rowdy backbeats in the 1980s, R&B has shown little desire to evolve or take creative risks. Its crooners have become largely segmented onto urban radio stations, inspiring one mildly successful, format-following clone after another. If you know who Pleasure P or The Dream are, well, I'm guessing you're not white.

The watering-down of the genre is one reason R&B has been disparaged as "Rap & Bullshit" by everyone from RZA of Wu-Tang Clan to rap bloggers at Cocaine Blunts to the now-defunct music site Stylus. Another is because it's artistically moribund. The vast majority of R&B lyrics are sappy, disingenuous, corny, and clichéd. Enough already with testaments to mothers, to promises of everlasting fidelity sung by men sleeping with King models, and to female-empowerment anthems written by women with multimillionaire husbands. The contrast with hip-hop is especially stark considering rap has made great creative strides of late. Lil Wayne, Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and plenty of others are breaking new ground; for proof look no further than 808s & Heartbreak, West's top-selling experimental elegy.

The most successful R&B artists, meanwhile, aren't particularly compelling. Take Ne-Yo, a decorated singer/songwriter who has become the new face of the format. His recent album Year of the Gentleman is a commercial smash and has been well-reviewed by the likes of Rolling Stone—which gave it four stars out of five—and the Los Angeles Times, which gave it three and a half stars out of four. Self-important music critic Michaelangelo Matos called it "a tour de force," and even I didn't totally trash it.

And yet...were we not so starved for even a whisper of creativity from R&B, we might have more soberly assessed this banal work. Monster hit "Miss Independent" is arguably the most derivative piece of pop all year. (And this is a year with two Plies albums, Definition of Real and Da REAList.) Profoundly asserting that women who have their own thing going on are cool, the song rips off a concept espoused by Webbie and Lil Boosie earlier this year, by Destiny's Child in 2000, and by Susan B. Anthony in 1852. The track's beat is stolen wholesale from Justin Timberlake's hit "My Love"and any number of other Timbaland joints, while Ne-Yo's singing is filled, like Chris Brown's, with grating melisma. I'll give him credit for collaborating with NKOTB—even I can't resist "Single"—but let's be honest. If Ne-Yo stopped making records today, would anyone remember him in five years?

In truth, Ne-Yo and R&B's other reigning king Usher are little more than bland, well-dressed Michael Jackson wannabes with good choreographers. Neither has done as much to push the genre forward as sexual non-offender R. Kelly, who's at least got a stack of undeniably addictive singles to his credit and is willing to take musical chances. (Unfortunately Kels doesn't qualify as a respected R&B icon because he hasn't made strong albums and his legacy is tied up in his perversions.)

As for queens Mary J. Blige, Beyoncé, and Keyshia Cole, they offer little more than overproduced girl-jams that only discerning fans can tell apart. None seem to take any pleasure in craft. While all three women have fascinating life stories—Cole's mother was a prostitute and drug addict—you'd never know it from their bland discographies, full of boilerplate love-lost laments and CVS-friendly stay-strong anthems. The music from second-tier soulstresses like Ciara and Ashanti, meanwhile, doesn't hold up without the benefit of gruff male vocals to contrast their meek deliveries. (If you've heard Ashanti's latest album The Declaration you know this, but like most everybody else in the world, you haven't.)