Blue Eyed Soul

My food has settled in my stomach, and I’m feeling good. Almost at the end of this hump day and when the workday is over I’m gonna hit up this boot camp to see just how hardcore they can get. Wish me luck.

My boy Lamont told me that the new Robin Thicke is, in his words “Toooooooooo bumpin!”  He suggested I do a post on blue eyed soul, so I figured this would be interesting enough to talk about. 

Now me and Lamont’s taste in music is about 90% dead on.  Where it differs is he likes really funked out stuff more than me like Plant Life, and in his words, I like “soft singing white folk” like Zero 7 and Santessa more than he does.

Now understand this…I am a HUGE music snob. I claim it and I would emblazen it across my chest.  I am a music junkie and I don’t really listen to the radio or tune in to 106th and Park or MTV.  I relish discovering an underground artist not yet tainted and watered down by the mainstream. 

For me, it starts with the music. By music I mean the instruments. The underlying music must grab me and hold me.  Now listening to just music may get a little boring and you’d probably have to be in the mood to listen to it unless it was more dynamic like Jazz, so the vocals complete the package.  What comes to mind is that Lauryn Hill acoustic double CD.  We all know her voice is super, but since she only knew like 3 notes on her acoustic guitar, every song sounded the same. BUT, and I stress this, having NO singing ability KILLS the entire song for me. I don’t care how tight the music is, if the artist can’t sing, I’d rather not listen. 

There are plenty of artists that made money off of not being able to sing well, and at the top of that list goes Janet Jackson. Sure, she can dance her ass off for a 42 year old lady, and she’s a treat to the eyes, but do you think you’d ever see or hear a Janet Jackson “unplugged”?

Methinks not.

Even if she did an accapela performance in a microphone, you best believe that audio was compressed to even out all the quaking and weakness in her voice before it got to your ears. 

When I think of the mid 80s, there were a handful of artists that come to mind that absolutely could not sing. Bobby Brown, Al B. Sure, and Keith Sweat.  Yet they sold millions of albums.  You should be able to see the pattern. These “singers” had gimmicks that enabled them to sell to millions of people that didn’t care that they couldn’t sing. Janet has the looks and dance thing, Bobby, the edgy bad boy thing, Al had the pretty boy thing (I hear that lightskin dudes went out of style long ago), and Keith with…..sh!t I don’t know what he had, I guess it was the begging thing.  The funny thing is, when you’re purchasing a CD (or a tape back in 88), you don’t buy the dancing. You don’t push play and a hologram of Al B. Sure doesn’t pop out of your tape player and go “Woo!”.  You don’t put the needle down and the thick pleasure principle Janet Jackson (my favorite Janet) doesn’t show up in your living room.

 One thing that is common in those artists in the mid 80s is that the music hit HARD. That was the sound of the times, and it more than made up for their weak singing ability.  Also understand that when I say weak singing ability, I do realize that Keith and Bobby sang strong, but they prove that you can sing strong and BAD. Just like this fella right here:

Oh yeah, back then, my taste wasn’t as discerning and I didn’t care much about their singing ability because I didn’t know any better.  I was like 12 years old!  So yep, I have all those 80s cds in my collection.

Now today you have Ciara who is pretty much Janet Jackson Jr.  That tenderoni is a treat to the eyes, and man, can she move! But when she opens her mouth she sounds like a 14 year old trying to sing her heart out in a school play.  Rihanna now is the gimmick queen, cause that punk rocky robot sounding voice ranks at about a 3 on a 10 point scale.  I know I may raise some eyebrows with this, but Alicia Keys, to me, is really not that good. She sounds like she’s straining, hollering, and pleading for her life in just about every song, which is not singing to me. I mean, she sounds OK, but nothing to write home about.  Yeah, that piano gimmick is cute, but so what? There are plenty artists that can play the piano.  It’s not like Alicia Keys is playing some Tchaikovsky! 

This is where Lamont and I differ. He really enjoys listening to Pharrel and Andre 3000 do their “singing” thing.  Now Pharrel’s voice ranks at about a 1.5, but Andre is not even ranked.  Lamont knows this but appreciates his artistic expression.  Me? Not so much.  I’m one tough cookie. If you can’t sing, you should NOT sing. It’s kinda like these rappers that are all of a sudden serious about becoming actors. I wish they could just stay in their lane and do what they do best. I think Andre got that, cause he’s back to rapping. He’s not singing anymore (hopefully) and if you saw him in Five Brothers, Idlewild, or Be Cool, you’d send him a thank you card for getting off the silver screen.  For all you people out there that would be quick to call me a “hater”, I’m only a lover of music with really strong opinions. Sorry, but no hater here.

So blue eyed soul….We have Robin Thicke and Justin Timberlake who are the white dude flavors of the period.  Now to me, they can’t sing all that well. If you notice, they both have this falsetto, falling off of a cliff, barely a whisper voices.  That’s not strong singing to me.  When I think of white dudes that REALLY can sing, I’m talking Michael McDonald and Michael Bolton.  Those white dudes go for theirs.  This “soul” white dude stuff that Justin and Robin claim is kinda lame.  Now I think assigning categories and labels may have its faults, but most of the times it makes things simple for people to digest.  For Robin, I give him credit because he pretty much had the same flavor even on his first cd when he was just “Thicke”.  He’s been pretty consistent and just makes good music, despite his so so voice.  He also has a banging black wife!!  Justin on the other hand…gimme a break.  I’m of the opinion that he plays up this “white boy with soul” thing because the media makes people believe it’s just so ultra cool and hip to be as black as you can be and not be black.  He got with a pretty hip black producer (Timbaland), and the rest is history.  Remember when he was with NSync? He looked like Johnny White Boy to me:

Now he’s the soul man….gimme a break. The only thing that compels me to listen to this guy is that his foundation is strong. The MUSIC.  Thank you Timbaland.

Another dude that comes to mind is a guy who has disappeared into obscurity. Remember Remy Shand?  He came around the beginning of the “Neo Soul” explosion.  Now he had one of those falling off the cliff falsetto voices too. His voice was about a 2. Just in case you were wondering about my scale, Michael McDonald and Michael Bolton are at a 9 and a 9.5, respectively.  For me, this is where that Remy Shand dude went wrong. That “Take a Message” video.  It turned me completely off. So he, a white dude, walks into this club, and gets the once over by this fat Donnie Hathaway knockoff looking black dude, and later on in the video, they show all these black chicks grooving to him, and then the broke Donnie Hathaway nods, as if to give Remy a stamp of approval.  HUH?!?  I think it would have been better if he didn’t have all that in the video.  It was like a blatant statement of “Yeah I’m white…but I got sooooooooooooul.  See? Even the ghost of Donnie Hathaway thinks I’m alright!”  When you’re good, I don’t think you need to make any other kind of music other than letting the music speak for itself.  Here’s the video:

If you’re at work and can’t watch youtube, here’s a pic of him.

He's Oh So Soul

So to sum this up, I’m not trying to hate or say that white folk can’t sing soul music.  Artists are quick to say “music is universal”, “music is music” and all that jive, but when it comes to the music that we black folk created (soul, rap, jazz, blues…..even rock and roll, but not so much), it is only natural for us to feel some kind of ownership and be highly judgmental of non blacks who try to do what we’ve BEEN doing for YEARS.  However, I give credit where credit is due.

Eminen can rap his ass off, although he’s not my cup of tea. 

Michael McDonald and Michael Bolton can really blow, but with them, they aren’t trying to be soul, they just make music and the soul comes out in their voices. 

Amy Winehouse, although cracked out, can sing, even though I think early on she tried to play the vintage soul thing a little too hard, but discovered that because we all can see how talented she is, she doesn’t have to do that. 

Joss Stone has a voice on her too, but the jury is out on her. 

I really like Pink.  She can sing, and even though they tried to paint her in that R&B corner, she got out of that and stayed true to herself to just make good music.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.  I know you all might have plenty to say, so fire away. 

And remember, we all have our own opinions!