Ne-Yo isn’t letting the lukewarm response to “Closer” get in the way of his ambitions to “switch it up, try to add to the ‘urban’ sound, expanding the minds and outlooks of music lovers.” He wants you to know that he’s bored (bored!) with R&B and, frankly, can’t understand why anyone else isn’t. “Me, I have a very short attention span, always have, so I get bored EXTRA easy. So with everybody doin’ the same ol’ thing, wearing the same ol’ thing, sounding the same……….MY question is, how is everybody else NOT bored??” Good question, Ne-Yo! Some answers, based on my favorite R&B tracks of late.
1. Some singers just want to make awful pick-up lines, and some of us are puerile enough to enjoy hearing them.
You get more points for a memorable bad line than for something respectable, but totally anonymous. Chris Brown putting a Wrigley’s reference (“double your pleasure, double your fun”) inside of an oxymoron (“we’ve only got one night to…dance forever”) is some sort of masterstroke. As is the concept of making love in a club.
2. Some people just ignore the nonsense on top and focus on the beats.
R&B is just as likely as rap or any other genre to bring us novel sounds (pretty much anything recorded by Tricky Stewart) and interesting twists on past ones (“Girls Around The World,” “Run”), and it’s easier to ignore a self-impressed R&B lothario than some thug with a blocked colon whose naked materialism and received hate speech holds a mirror to society or something (for rock, just take out the naked materialism). It’s also fun to hear the latest in technology married to songform rather than treated as an end to itself, which is why old Timbaland productions still get played and Goldie’s don’t.
3. Mary’s pain is not boring, and never will be.
Really, Ne-Yo. To even remotely suggest this is vain and piggish. You’ve worked with her, and you need to make clear that when you mock R&B, you are not mocking Mary. Show some grace.
Mary J. Blige – Stay Down (Official Video) [YouTube]
Ne-Yo This… And Ne-Yo That!!! [YEAR OF THE GENTLEMAN Blog]
Since when did “bored” become a synonym for “clueless”?? Did I miss something?
I’m sorry, would this post have me believe that modern R&B is not boring? Because I’m pretty sure that there is a “Girl R&B” and a “Boy R&B” preset on ProTools, patented in around 1999, and they just use that over and over and over. Leaving out R Kelly, of course.
other than the rihanna/ne-yo/the-dream/stargate mafia, and a few outliers like mary j blige and a couple of bobby valentino/mario tracks, yes, ne-yo’s claim is pretty on point.
I got bored with the Ne-Yo/Stargate formula a lot quicker than most of the other things going on in R&B rightn ow.
Ne-Yo isn’t Chris Brown?
also, sometimes, mary j.’s pain IS boring.
I will never, ever, EVER be bored with R&B. Sorry. I can take a break from hip-hop and/or rock, or whatever is topping the playlists at college radio stations [also known as "indie"], but me and R&B, we stay cool. Sure I can do without the occasional R&B retreads and the like, but some of my favorite discs of the past 6-12 months have been R&B discs, and they stay in heavy rotation: Exclusive, Growing Pains, Love/Hate, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Because of You, Go, Discipline, E=MC2, As I Am, Here I Stand, Lay it Down…; Hell, I even bumped B’Day over the weekend and got down with my bad self.
@Tauwan: Sorry, confused for a second….did you mention Danity Kane in the same category as Mary J Blige, referring to both as R&B?
I also noticed you (unfortunately) left out Keyshia Cole…
@HONEYBFLY:
Until the album reaches it’s final third, Welcome to the Dollhouse is a highly serviceable -if faceless and/or generic, whatever you want to call it- and well produced “pop”/R&B album, track for track. Do I believe it’s better than Growing Pains? Of course not. Does it succeed in getting me to dance, sing along, and actually know all the words to a few Rick Ross bars? Yes. [The ONLY Rick Ross bars I know by heart. Thank God]
As far as Keyshia Cole goes, she’s another one of those artists where I am familiar and/or in love with a few of her singles, but have yet to push play on a full length CD. I hate to say it, but I think a lot of this may have to do with the fact that upon her introduction to the Hip-Hop/R&B scene, I initially dismissed her as another Cheri Dennis/Brooke Valentine here today, gone tomorrow female R&B singer. I soon grew to regret that sentiment. If anyone wants to make me a Keyshia Cole mixtape and catch me up, I’d greatly appreciate it!
@pantycrickets: Ja!
Yeah but Ne-Yo has a salt water pool.
@Tauwan:
“The ONLY Rick Ross bars I know by heart” – Huh??
“Cheri Dennis/Brooke Valentine” – Who??
@cosmiclove: oooh, that one feels so good!