Real boring soul, that is. In the last 20 years, R&B has been one of the most omnivorous genres around, eagerly consuming —in some cases wholesale — pop, rap, rock, Bollywood, and a long list of etceteras. In the meantime, neo-soul purists have been the elderly relatives with bad digestion, muttering darkly about moral decay and gas pains. Indeed, as R&B has methodically conquered the world, neo-soul fans have longed wistfully for a purer past, when rhythm was rhythm, blues was blues, and musical crossbreeding had not yet whelped its foul and mongrel breed. Never mind that Ray Charles opportunistically appropriated country, or that Prince loved the Beatles, or that R&B acts from the Coasters on up have been all about relentlessly gimmicky pop music. Since when has logic gotten in the way of righteous breast-beating about kids-these-days?
Sunshine Anderson’s sophomore album, “Sunshine at Midnight,” is as good an example of neo-soul’s wrong-headed crotchetiness as any. Sure, it’s listenable enough,. The lyrics are routinely sassy and strong-minded — without ever latching onto a quirky metaphor or inspired detail. The beats, melodies, and production are all professional — without ever turning into memorable songs. Her singing is strong — without being distinctive. There are one or two exciting moment (like the weird pseudo-classical chorus at the beginning of “Trust”), but they’re abandoned quickly, as if Anderson’s worried that the fogies might catch her having fun. This is soul music as cultural museum piece: tasteful, reverent, and ossified. If Wynton Marsalis did a musical interpretation of “Waiting to Exhale,” or Brian Setzer did an Aretha tribute album, this is what it would sound like (well, okay, maybe not *that* bad, but you get the idea.) It’s all yet more evidence that cred can be a millstone, which is why pre-fab, plastic pop R&B clothes-horses like Ashanti, Cassie and Danity Kane consistently make more innovative music than Mary J. Blige or Macy Gray — and, yes, more soulful music,too.
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This review first ran in Bitch Magazine a while back.
you should write more about music on here. i think you’re criticisms of neosoul are pretty legit, that stuff’s mostly pretty dull. i’m not sure it’s fair to lump mary j in there, though. maybe her later stuff, but not her first album at any rate. there’s too much pop and rap in there. even if rap is the only genre that neosoul’s really allowed itself to assimilate, i think blige’s music has a different relation to it than, say, lauryn hill or erykah badu. when they reference rap it’s always within a oldschool framework. mary j blige on the other hand i think shows a real relationship with what’s going on in contemporary rap in a lot of her music.
But…but…but what about Erykah Badu? She’s bubbling over with inspired ideas and uniquely skewed viewed on everyday affairs. Mamma’s Gun, Live, and Worldwide Underground are all great!
Oh, and to flyclinches:
Your observation about Blige’s relationship to modern hip-hop is too true. I feel stupid for never having noticed it before.
I find Erykah Badu pretty thoroughly unlistenable. I tried to get through her most recent album and couldn’t hack it…I think I turned it off when she started talking proudly about how cool disco was. I just felt like, yeah, thanks for letting me know that this music too is now ready to be legitimized and borified.
I find Mary J. tough to listen to as well. I find her first albums with Puffy really thumb-fingered and dumb, in the way a lot of his production is (there are a couple of nice moments with Chucky Thompson production, admittedly.)
It would be fun to write more about music. I tend to concentrate on comics just because I’ve got more of an audience for it, honestly. But encouraging comments are certainly a good way to goad me. I’ve started doing some more music reviews for Bitch, at least, so those’ll show up here again at some point….