retro-klepto R&B

Hilarious story in the Hollywood Reporter about Robin Thicke and Pharrell and the other "Blurred Lines" writer suing Marvin Gaye's family in a preemptive measure against threats of potential suits for the song's resemblance to "Got to Give It Up". 

Extract from the suit:  "Plaintiffs, who have the utmost respect for and admiration of Marvin Gaye... reluctantly file this action in the face of multiple adverse claims from alleged successors in interest.... Defendants continue to insist that plaintiffs' massively successful composition, 'Blurred Lines,' copies 'their' compositions... Gaye defendants are claiming ownership of an entire genre, as opposed to a specific work.... But there are no similarities between plaintiffs' composition and those the claimants allege they own, other than commonplace musical elements.... Plaintiffs created a hit and did it without copying anyone else's composition.... Being reminiscent of a 'sound' is not copyright infringement. The intent in producing 'Blurred Lines' was to evoke an era."

Raises interesting questions to do with when does a song, or an artist, become a genre  unto itself, and thus up for grabs. 

Perhaps any really distinctive or original performer has the potential to spawn a genre fashioned in his or her image (the Stones, Sabbath Led Zep, Lou Reed, Prince, Kate Bush,  Siouxsie Sioux, too many examples to mention).  Many of these these went through an initial phase of being heavily indebted to a few precusors, perhaps doing mostly cover versions, or writings songs based heavily on other earlier songs or riffs. Then they crossed the threshold, from imitative/indebted to the possessor of a unique style. So it's almost the definition of originality, or rather its confirmation: the trademark infringers, the biters, start to appear.

In the first decades of pop/rock,  biting was overwhelmingly a real-time syndrome: new bands copied their more innovative contemporaries, and at its most intense (Beatles) this created the synchrony of the musical all-change that transformed the sound of the radio. (Timbaland is actually a great latter-day example of this: his template, widely adopted, installs a new BeatGeist).

But as time goes by, as the archive accumulates, there's more and more options for retro-klepto.

Hence the paradox of the freshest song on the radio in 2013 being a "evocation" of the mid-Seventies. 

back-to-the-future R&B

"In the most direct way, we're trying to be post-Timbaland," says Kelela Mizanekristos, one of several new female artists operating in the realm of what could be termed experimental R&B. "We're taking that sound and pushing it. I remember the day I first heard what Timbaland and Aaliyah did -
– that intersection of her pretty voice and his weird, resonant production. I remember where I was and what I was doing. It was a major situation. We're trying to continue that legacy." -- from Paul Lester's Guardian article "Beyond Timbaland: the future stars of experimental R&B"

So if the last thing Timbo did of even half-note was this -

and of actual full-note was this, from 2002,

Is that effectively an argument that R&B has been more or less static for a decade?

It wouldn't take a lot to convince me. Jaw-drop moments, prior to the big Euroclub whiteout of last three years (which has been jawdropping more for the early-90s-Ibiza-LoveParade flashback factor) would for me comprise  "Umbrella", "Single Ladies" and...  nah, not even The-Dream albums really, which struck me as a baroque-ification of already established production and vocal arrangement traits.

Well, there's been the dubstep-meets-R&B tunes...  like that nasty but desolately weird Chris Br**n tune "Look At Me Now". Odious but undeniable jarring on the radio.


But back to that other 'orrible little man, Mr T....

So really what Kelela is talking about in terms of "restarting the future" is that period when T used Aaliyah as "a probe" (as he put it):

and

1998 and 1996

That's the high point that they are trying to be "post", to be build from.  The late Nineties. Chiming again with Jaron Lanier's (in)famous challenge "find me some music from the late 2000s that's distinguishable from the music of the late 90s"


What does it sound like, though, this future-R&B, this R&B restarted, the pause button released?

"Enemy" by Kelela, is pretty good -  a song draped over a grimestrumental from 2003-4 or an early track by Plasticman.  Gets a bit more adventurous, like screwed-footwork, further in.  But there doesn't seem to be much relation between the vocal and the beat.   (Whereas with something overtly retro-nuevo, e.g. "Blurred Lines", the vocals weave through rhythm, form a funky warp 'n' weft that breathes. [Or perhaps pants is the operative word in this case]. As such an anachronism, yes).

Most of the other candidates are bit cloud-y for my tastes. Taking the name Kid A is a bit of a give away. I was about to write like "Shek'spere if he recorded for Morr Music" but then saw the Guardian's own description, "Ciara if she had been on the 4AD label in 1985"