should a 'soul on CD' guide book include hip hop?

erm, no. that would be ridiculous.

"Soul" has always had very elastic perameters -- it was a feeling before it was a genre, and seems to have reverted back in that direction. So, yes, if you want them there, hip hop and dionne get in."

no, its only elastic because you get people writing platitudes that will never die like 'soul is about feeling, not forte' and 'its all about feeling man, you cant describe it". it might have been a feeling first, but rock was a rather large stone once too before it became a musical term.

rock has as many elastic peramaters as soul does really. i think MOP and public enemy and screwball rock or at least they give me a similar feeling of aggression, but i know they dont make rock music.

ill probably get called a genre fascist but i still dont think they make rock music. its like saying carole king should be included in a soul book cos shes soulful, or joni mitchell.

x-post

absolutely spot-on. soul isn't just about shouting. also, of course hip hop can be soul - provided it doesn't involve lauryn hill.

Otherwise I can safely assume that DVD is unable to define "soul" and should therefore stop pontificating about it until he can.

you know you got...

and before you say it, no, im not a student of the soul school of thought that says you must let it all hang out, ramble and scream all over the place in the name of 'real' soul singing, or that you have to sacrifice melody for impassioned grit (e.g - donny hathaway's cover of steveland morris' superwoman), but all dionne has in her favour as a soul singer are the soulful properties in her voice. but if thats all that's needed to qualify her as a soul singer, then karen carpenter is a soul singer too.

if you want to hear a genuine soul vocal performance of say, walk on by, i would go to aretha's version. but the thing is that both hers and dionne's are still pop songs, theyre not soul songs, despite aretha giving it soulful vocal treatment.

if you dont like aretha's work in the last two decades then so be it, but if you dont like her singing say a little prayer or walk on by, you must not know what a good singer is.

listen to til you come back to me, the stevie-penned song sung by aretha and tell me she a) hasnt got soul b) isnt a damn good singer. i really cant get my head around anyone who hates aretha (unless you just hate her because of how she looks now, the fact shes so overrated or that she hasnt made anything brilliant in years - although her last two albums have had some gems).

Anyway, his unneccessarily harsh critique of Aretha aside, Marcello is right. And DVD is being far too pedantic in his argument. I mean really, who gives a fuck?

People ought to get hold of a copy of the Soul On Top album that James Brown did in '69 with the Louis Bellson big band, arranger Oliver Nelson. Listen particularly to those screams of his towards the end of the remake of "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" - if JB's soul, then so must Albert Ayler be, because they sound pretty damn similar to me and they both come/came out of gospel and the blues. On the sleevenote there's even a quote from Cannonball Adderley underlining this: "When Archie Shepp screams through his horn it's exactly the same thing as James Brown screaming "Please, Please, Please"."

so what if shes african american? i dont think that automatically instills the gift of soul singing in her DNA. she might have come from a church background but that doesnt mean she was particularly suited to singing in church. ive got no idea what dance records youre talking about though.

pigeonholers didnt nail the coffin shut on the whole genre, rather, or equally at least (i cant decide, its a toss up between the two), critics thought everything sung by a black artist was soul and so the term as a category lost most of its meaning.

djdee, i give a fuck, if you dont, then dont bother replying.

i beg to differ. christina milian and ashanti are no soul singers!

"that doesnt mean she was particularly suited to singing in church
Off the soul train AND out of the choir, then?"

not at all. dionne's family were in gospel already so she would no doubt have been pressed to go that route, but it doesnt mean it was her strong suit though.

"ive got no idea what dance records youre talking about though.
All of 'em, really."

name what 'dance' records she made.

"critics thought everything sung by a black artist was soul and so the term as a category lost most of its meaning.
Broadening the definition didn't kill rock, or jazz. There are no "soul" records today because purists refuse to accept anything as such."

that's silly, you have dangelo, bilal, erykah badu, jill scott, fertile ground, omar, lauryn hill, adriana evans, teedra moses, all these artists make soul records. i dont know who is contesting that.

nu soul, neo soul, whatever, i know plenty of old soul boys who like a lot of the neo soul brigade, and wish the neo prefix would go away. but look, fuck the purists! you get purists in every genre. i dont see why soul purists always get such stick over all others.

i totally agree, kevin.

im worried that race might have something to do with everyone being so vehment that dionne represents soul in some way, though. i hope not.

re: dionne, forgetting what label she was on - noone says the velvets were jazz artists because they were on verve do they?! - im not sure that career paths have all that much to do with the music being produced.

its true that aretha was being steered towards the same audience as dionne - by that, im assuming youre saying it wasnt a soul audience - but the fact that it didnt work out says a lot. she went on to make her name in soul, as that was where she blossomed, while dionne went on to make her name in pop, as that was where she was best suited.

i dont get how anyone could say lauryn hill isnt soulful though (thats kinda insane to me, and i didnt even love all her album). her vocals on ex-factor were the mark of a great soul singer in my opinion. i mean, if that wasnt one of the best soul performances in the last decade (what was better?), i dont know know what is.

I'm interested in genre discussion, too, obviously, and I'm sometimes surpised by my own contradictory positions. While I somehow WANT "soul music" to be a big, broadly-defined genre, I have a hard time establishing the case (pisses me off that just about ANYTHING gets to be R&B, but loungey "soulful" music doesn't get to be Soul). Conversely, I'm a purist on Punk Rock -- no WAY Avril gets in!

i dont think so, actually. songs by james taylor, bacharach, etc etc have all been made into all time classic soul records by artists like the isleys, issac hayes while the rhythm guitar genius steve cropper was white and contributed to virtually all the greatest stax records and those arent being kept out of the soul canon due to his involvement.

i dont think so, actually. songs by james taylor, bacharach, etc etc have all been made into all time classic soul records by artists like the isleys, issac hayes, steve cropper was white and contributed to virtually all the greatest stax records and those arent being kept out of the soul canon due to his involvement.

If race wasn't a factor in defining Soul Music, then the term "blue-eyed" would be unnecessary.

i think this might explain a lot of the positions that are being taken in this thread. the way you seem to feel about punk, i generally feel about soul and R&B.

as far as the term R&B, that's just come to classify any sort of post-new jack swing black pop. i dont get what or who you mean about loungey music not being called soul though.

oh that we are. i already knew that from when you said dionne's 60s records were 'dance'.

"If race wasn't a factor in defining Soul Music, then the term "blue-eyed" would be unnecessary."

well, yeah. same for rock and 'black rock'. i just thought i was sensing a 'shes black, she must be soul (or soul-related)' line of thinking.

i happen to think she was super duper soulful on the psychic friends network though. i know its a frowned upon sentiment in psychic circles, but damn if her predictions didnt take me to church! ;)

Early Scepter stuff that springs to mind as particulary dance-y or soulful: "Always Something There to Remind Me," "The Look of Love," "This Little Light of Mine" (churchy!), "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," "Make It Easy on Yourself." Probably plenty more, if I consulted the albums.

Later, of course, there's Then Came You - great duet with the Spinners on the hit, bumpin' all the way through.

Oh, thanks DVD.

OTM x 1,000,000.

if you write a book called "music in waltz time on cd," then you're gonna have some explaining to do if you start including music that isn't in 3/4 time.

but if you assign yourself a subject as subjective as "soul" (or "rock" or "country" or "hip-hop" or "dance") then it's entirely up to you to define that subject, so if you decide to include hip-hop AND dionne warwick AND dusty springfield AND creed, then you are automatically right. if you are also eloquent and entertaining and persuasive and gripping and funny in your book, then you will probably be a bit MORE right than somebody else who isn't. which is to say, the question shouldn't be, "should the book include this or that?" but rather, "is the book any good?"

- Dave Godin, R.I.P.

Can't for the life of me remember the group, but there's a mid-60's party record called "Whole Lotta Soul" that tosses shout-outs to the big names of the scene, along with such WTFs as Sammy Davis, Jr. & Hank Williams.

'hey its all soulllll man'.
'its all rock n roll maaaaaan'
'its just music, why do we need to call it anything?'

Everybody has his own taste--I do agree with those who find Aretha somewhat overblown at times, but I sure think "Spirit in the Dark" is a great record. A little restraint does help.

I don't agree. It's typically English-soul-fan shit, so he gives some people more space than they need, and makes some judgements that *I* don't agree with--but as someone who knows a little bit about the genre, I find it a good book. Anyway, that's a strong statement, "he knows nothing"--how so, soul man?