djregular

Spare me the Hallmark Karl Marx.

Game and Music Lover. Writer. Unfortunate optimist.



Still wrist deep in my Year In Review for What's Good (should be out by the end of the week at the latest, but I might finish it tonight because I'm a Very Cool Person who parties), and it occurs to me that when R&B fans of a certain age (mostly Gen Xers and older millenials like myself, but I've seen some Zoomers do it too) complain about how "the girls can't sing" anymore, or how there's no good R&B that's based on vocal strength rather than a vibe (see: SZA), there's an implied or overt blame placed on the fact that "the girls" aren't being raised in church anymore.

Which is extra funny, because one of the first complaints I saw about the Cleo Sol albums that dropped this year is that she baited the 'grown and sexy' crowd with the sort of musical production and strong vocal performance they spill their Henny over, then released a bunch of praise and worship songs. I'm not going to begrudge anyone who doesn't want to listen to overtly Jesus-y stuff, but I do gotta chuckle at folks whose whole deal is wanting music from folks that sound like they were in choir practice three days a week, but also they never want any evidence of that beyond the vocal runs. It's like that comic with the dog and the frisbee. "Church sangin'?" "No Jesus! Only sangin'!"


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