The marriage of indie-rock and contemporary R&B

I figured this deserved its own thread, since it seems like every week there's a new indie-rock release that garners comparisons to contemporary R&B. Last year's Discovery, XX and Dirty Projectors albums were the most prominent examples, and the new Pit Et Pat album is draws even more deliberately from modern R&B than any of those. All are interesting efforts, though to my ears none of these albums quite capture the candied thrills of most of what's on the actual R&B charts. I'm wondering if there are any other indie bands pushing the boundaries farther, trying to replicate the polish and energy of modern R&B without hiding behind artiness.

The marriage of trollers and ILM.

stoked for the madness

Three's a trend.

First post should have been a wedding invitation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3LyBaLYOWU

Ugh, you guys. I think there's an interesting conversation to be had here. I just have nothing to say to it at the moment.

glad i'm not the only one who noticed this with the pit er pat album.

Oh, Contemporary R&B.

I was thinking you meant Plan B or something.

What does "hiding behind artiness" mean?

This is less a marriage and more a dude dressing up in ladies clothes while she's blissfully unaware of his existence.

its a long-long-long distance relationship.

and its based on deceit.

Goes the other way too. "Apologize" by Timbaland showed the Coldplay influence he had been talking about for years.

the thing here is I think a band can signify R&B with a production element or a vocal style or a songwriting approach or a cover choice, but unless they do more than one of the above it's probably not going to be a very prominent element, at least not enough to justify making it that act's marketing hook or critical hot topic. there's a lot of great role models for mixing R&B with rock and more eccentric/esoteric sounds, Prince being chief among them, but I get the impression that a lot of these bands haven't integrated it into their musical DNA that much and kinda want a pat on the back for covering an R&B song or doing something with Timbaland-ish drum patterns or female vocal harmonies.

electrosoul the thread part 2

xpost very otm. these bands are magpie-ish, r&b not a full-time fetish, has to share w/ afro pop&uk funky even.

"i knew tynan delong and you sir..."

I don't think the bands mentioned are even trying that hard to push any R&B resemblances (have not heard Pit Et Pat though). Magpie-ish tendencies are so engrained in indie-rock that they become reflexive.

The Pit Er Pat track that delves furthest into R'n'B territory is called "Water", off the new album The Flexible Entertainer. It's not that there's a serious influence, in fact the PR mentions no such thing, but it's definitely there, especially when compared to their previous stuff which is firmly entrenched in mania/noise/post-rock.

there's a lot of great role models for mixing R&B with rock and more eccentric/esoteric sounds, Prince being chief among them

otm - kind of galling to see the contemporary artists who actually do try to engage with both r&b and rock on both genres' terms, like meshell ndegéocello, get passed over in terms of critical attention

it's definitely becoming a trend among a certain contingent of lo-fi/glo-fi bands. Maybe started by the Gang Gang Dance album from a couple of years ago? I dunno, I keep meaning to give that one a proper listen. Maybe it's something to do with the embracing of melismatic vocals and how they can bounce around unorthodox rhythm patterns a la Dirty Projectors.

Goes the other way too. "Apologize" by Timbaland showed the Coldplay influence he had been talking about for years.
'
It's not a Timbaland song – it's by OneRepublic.

Hey, I understand that that Elvis guy is covering Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog"

Big Mama Thornton's betraying the Elvis influence she hadn't got yet.

I get a thousand hugs from a thousand lightning bugs/I smoke the dank nugs/I shop for Persian rugs

― Herodcare for the Unborn (J0hn D.), Saturday, December 26, 2009 11:41 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRj4cL2sNqg

It's not a Timbaland song – it's by OneRepublic.

Well, originally by OneRepublic, then remixed by Timbaland. The main problem with Geir's statement, though, is that Coldplay has never been an "indie rock" band. Maybe "indie" in the UK sense of the word, but no more "indie rock" than Maroon 5, whom we'd otherwise be talking about in this thread.

it's definitely becoming a trend among a certain contingent of lo-fi/glo-fi bands

hm, which ones? (not to snark or anything, it's just not something I'd noticed.)

also, timbaland's coldplay influence had been apparent in his work for years prior to "apologize" (and in any case is just an update of, idk, rappers sampling phil collins in the 90s and probably a ton more antecedents)

I'm wondering if there are any other indie bands pushing the boundaries farther, trying to replicate the polish and energy of modern R&B without hiding behind artiness.

Indie bands usually attempt to be "arty" by their very nature, especially when stealing from genres that aren't indie-approved across the board (see also: afropop). Once you remove the artiness from the indie band, they would theoretically cross the boundary from hip to self-parody, hence what's the point in even trying to be successful? I'm afraid the buck stops here with the good (the xx) and the bad (Dirty Projectors).

Btw, it's [retty easy to tell just from discussions in the xx thread re: their influences that there is something more going on there than "indie meets r&b" -- there must have been 50 different influences/artists cited when trying to describe their sound. Whereas the Dirty Projectors conversation stops at "OMG they are injecting r&b into indie rock"...

Anyway. Just my two cents, you guys can take over now.

somebody please reassure me that we are not allowing "glo-fi" to be a real actual thing

I think there are just one or two worse genre names, and one is its alternative, 'chillwave', so soz bro I think we're stuck.

I think dance music has been influencing indie way more than R&B if the influx of completely useless nitpicking subgenre tags is any indication.

dance music has influenced indie since the days of postpunk and baggy. r'n'b has always been approached a little more cautiously. the two don't make ostensibly natural bedfellows.

i'm really struggling to think of many non-recent examples of modern r'n'b influencing indie - certainly hiphop, dance, afropop but not r'n'b.

I know some postpunk bands circa 81 were likely listening to some r'n'b. A Certain Ratio I bet

Maybe Liquid Liquid too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmIWkiTZ8qM

I hear Usher's influence very clearly in the music of Liquid Liquid and A Certain Ratio.

/sorry couldn't resist./

Rnb before Usher...But since "indie" got called indie---hmmmmm, there's got to be someone--Afghan Whigs and Rebecca Gates from the Spinanes who also did a TLC cover

wasnt this all covered in that reynolds c or d thread? indie bands talk a good game about being influenced by r&b and hip hop (anything urban and oh so cool cos you know these guys are not just corny indie dudes ok etc) but youd have a hard time hearing it in their music, a few examples excepted. and when you can hear it loud and clear, it ends up being hadouken or limp bizkit.

obv not saying durst is 'indie' n/m.

urban should have been in scare quotes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfPUvy3YkGo&feature=related

It's shaping up to be a big 2010 for Neon Indian, just as SPIN predicted. The band is set to make its network television debut this Thursday night, Feb. 11 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. from a press release

I predict no glo-fi/chillwave covers of the Dream

Btw, it's [retty easy to tell just from discussions in the xx thread re: their influences that there is something more going on there than "indie meets r&b" -- there must have been 50 different influences/artists cited when trying to describe their sound. Whereas the Dirty Projectors conversation stops at "OMG they are injecting r&b into indie rock"...

that's just not accurate when it comes to dirty projectors. I'm not really a fan of theirs, but they're in no way a conventional, standard indie band, and the R&B influence is only really apparent in one song. perhaps the reason few bands are mentioned as obvious influences is that DP really don't sound like too many other artists - I'd bracket them alongside people like kayo dot and extra life...slippery, fragmented, self-consciously arty stuff, high on drama. DP are nowhere near as heavy or intense as those bands, but there's a similar feel.

if anything, I hear them as more strongly influenced by a) progressive rock and b) highlife.

the first le tigre album (1999) mixed rawk electric guitar with a funky alesis sr16 to great effect.

actually, ever since "Hey Ya" I think hip hop has been more 'indie' than indie...

imo, the two best indie albums of the decade were Madvillainy and 4th World War...meanwhile St. Elsewhere, "Lollipop," and Soulja Boy Tell' em are more indie than, say, Beach Boys harmonies or Police retreads with Congolese guitar...

wtf does that mean?

The perfect marriage of indie rock and contemporary R&B happened already:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FigutC1HClM

haha contemporary is doing a lot of work in that sentence

i don't get what's wrong with discovery -- it's just synthpop

it sounds much closer to 3oh!3 than anything you'd hear on r&b radio (aside from maybe jeremih)

there's a lot of low budget r&b btw, but rather than shiny wizardry ppl tend to go the soul-influenced Chrisette Michele/Erykah Badu route over hip hop beats, or experimental a la Muldrow. suggest that way is barred to indie ppl bc they don't have the voices or they come off hopelessly retro and corny.

yah indie plus badu prolly sounds like simply red in practice

you know, i tend to shy away from hyperbole, but if there is anyone out there who thinks that ANY indie rock or indie pop or british "indie" music of the last 15 or 20 years has come anywhere near the greatness sonically/song-wise/production-wise/idea-wise of even third or fourth tier rap or r&b chart pop of the last 15 or 20 years then you are fucking crazy. this wasn't always the case. but it sure is today. you've got the one dude from lcd/dfa and...who? as far as people who can credibly and successfully create hybrid sounds that don't sound completely half-assed or excruciating. just bringing this up cuz its rare when i hear an indie rock band that can even make compelling indie rock now. let alone a band that can juggle two or three balls at once and combine genres in a way that works. (sorry. too much coffee. i don't really have a horse in this race. i just listen to old hard rock records and old freestyle 12 inches anyway. and i actually DO see a glimmer of hope in a band like vampire weekend. they do MOVE somehow. in an itchy white boy way, but that's the first step. if you at least TRY to move all kinds of cool things can happen.)

skot otm

Saying that even "third or fourth tier" rap still always beats indie rock/indie pop of the last twenty years sonically/song-wise/production-wise/idea-wise really is hyperbole.

Having said that, I'd totally agree that, while IMO there's been a lot of great indie rock/indie pop over the last twenty years, I think R&B and hip hop definitely have been better overall.

if there is anyone out there who thinks that ANY indie rock or indie pop or british "indie" music of the last 15 or 20 years has come anywhere near the greatness sonically/song-wise/production-wise/idea-wise of even third or fourth tier rap or r&b chart pop of the last 15 or 20 years then you are fucking crazy.

well, either fucking crazy or, y'know, into different stuff to you, with different ideas about what constitutes song-writing/production greatness...

good RnB > shit indie rock
good indie > shit RnB

(repeat with any two genres)

are DP indie rock? are black dice? are battles? I dig all those to varying degrees, more than whatever counts as lower tier rnb, but wld agree there has generally been a significant gap 'sonically/song-wise/production-wise/idea-wise' and just generally in confidence in identity, less of a healthy scene or whatever, speed&quality of change w/'indie' often shit. rare that something that vast is total shit imo.

yah black dice are maybe my fave band ever just fyi

glad i lived long enough to see indie rock saved by vampire weekend

yeah i think u should def hear it before you die

black dice speak to me on the heart-level, brain-level, spleen-level and pancreas-level.

i thought that was joanna newsom
xpost

yeah im compiling a list

gonna play it to terminal patients, hoping to get it up to 1000 and make a book

black dice aren't indie though they are rolling non-indie underground type stuff

pro tip:

in general, all indie rock that sucks is indie rock now and all indie rock that's actually good or rocks is non indie rock

idk they tour w/animal collective, ducktails or whatever. there are a lot of haircuts at their shows.

on the verge imo

animal collective are only indie rock now, early on they were noise because noise is a social group not a genre

they always had those vocals, shit like "april and the phantom" is not really noise.

Discussions like this just make me want to listen to the hum of my thermostat.

junior boys first album btw

lol

No wonder I'm so contemplative.

not sure thermostat fans are really the same as merzbow fans. there's a grey area, it's just a question of where you draw the line.

The former might prefer drones with rhythms. But who can say.

pretty sure usher was on the same bill as a thermostat when he was starting out fwiw

timbo liked cone toaster iirc

if ned starts listening to more thermostats because of ILM then the world is better off imo. can't wait to read the AMG reviews.

Hey Ya seems very indie-rock to me, with its tricky time-signature, its unusual instrumentation, the way it sets up a song structure only to abandon it halfway through the song (though that might be reaching back more towards soul or funk), the mental dissonance implied by the simultaneity of the sex-crazed emceeing of Andre 3000 & the mournful Hey Ya's almost in the background...not to imply that deliberate complexity is the exclusive domain of indie rock, but it seems to me that the objective of indie rock's self-marginalization was to create a space where one could make music that, like 'Hey Ya', reached in so many different directions at once...

plus, Gnarls Barkley covered The Violent Femmes.

Andre 3000 has said repeatedly that the Buzzcocks and Smiths inspired it.

sex-crazed emceeing of Andre 3000

I must have missed this, or are you referring to a different song?

Andre 3000 has said repeatedly that the Buzzcocks and Smiths inspired it.

is this b.s.?

sex-crazed emceeing = the part about lending him some sugar, he is your neighbor and sundry...

maybe simultaneity is the wrong word...

scott's post upthread is bummin me out. i probably listen to more rap and rn'b than indie rock but they're both really great wtf.

is this b.s.?

No! He said this in several interviews.

André 3000 first began work on "Hey Ya!" in December 2002 at Stankonia Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.[2] He used an acoustic guitar for accompaniment,[2] inspired by bands such as the Ramones, Buzzcocks, and The Smiths.[3] Already having visualized most of the song, he recorded the introduction, the first verse, and the hook. André began recording the vocals during this time, doing several dozen takes. He returned to work on the song several evenings later, with session musician Kevin Kendricks performing the bassline on a synthesizer.[2]

i still think it's way more impressive that big boi likes kate bush

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QP6tO3Cq2no&hl=en_US&fs=1&";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QP6tO3Cq2no&hl=en_US&fs=1&"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Hmmm... that's humbling. I apparently lack the skills to embed a YouTube video. Anyway, here's a link instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP6tO3Cq2no

that's pretty bad!

this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but i couldn't help but think the other night that beyonce could knock this song out of the park. so funky. at the very least could someone make a good edit/remix for it? thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shYLzHLCNgg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHpf6cGFmLo

that priest song is good! kinda bizarre to hear priest jacking the riff from "mountain song" though o_O

that jay z comment was just what the doctor ordered imo