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After the glorious era of the ’60s and ’70s, soul music found itself in a bit of a rut in the ’80s, and has never recovered from it. Where in the golden age the public standard bearers of soul were the likes of Aretha Franklin and Al Green, in the ’80s it was Whitney Houston and Lionel Richie. I am referring to popular perception, of course. Still, the soul giant of the 1980s was Luther Vandross; rather a step down from Al, Ike, Marvin or Curtis (soul singers are always referred to by their first names). Much of ’80s soul was too smooth to be sexual, even as the lyrics promised total sexual gratification, or your money back. The more the singers sang about makin’ lurve to you awawawawall nighyeet, the more sexless the genre became. Things were called soul that weren’t much soulful. Like Whitney Houston, like Lionel Richie (though both made some excellent soul records).It is not surprising that ’80s soul has acquired such a bad reputation. And it is unfortunate that the excesses in jheri-curled smoothery have tarnished much great work.
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5 comments:
I have to agree with your Paul Johnson comments... brilliant. I must dust off my vinyl
Gordy
Hey, you might be interested to know that one of the singers from the SOS Band has a regular gig at a piano bar in Nagoya, Japan.
Your Chaka Khan tale certainly ran the gamut of emotions.
Why haven't I heard any of these songs? I am way too white for my own good.
There were some good soul tunes in the 80s, but there was some crap too. Listening back to a lot of it the funk has gone out of the music as producers stopped playing and started programming.
The other thing that I can hear in a lot of 80s soul is that jazz funk thing going on, which frankly I'm not too keen on as an adult. Liked it as a boy. Where I grew up there weren't many nights out, despite it being central London. One of the pubs near me had a soul/groove night on a Saturday. It was the only place that had a mixed race crowd, so me and my friends who were a mix of white and black went regularly. I can't listen to 80s soul without seeing shiny shoes and Farah trousers. And stripey shirts. The whole place was filled with that.
The place was firebombed a couple of years later. Nobody was saying if it was racist arseholes or an insurance job...
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