Well written Skuttle.

I totally agree with you.

I never liked Jay’s last 3 albums to be honest, although they seemed to get decent reviews, I hated them!

So what recent albums do you play at home? Or do you just play whatever single is hot for the week and wait for a new one to replace it as music is easily disgestable like fast food these days?

Take Jay-Z for example: soon as Jay became more involved in the business side
of the industry and pursuing his own endeavors (let’s go down the line: wifing
Beyoncé, selling RocaWear, part owner of NJ Nets NBA team, elected president of
Def Jam, presently finalized a deal with promotion company, LiveNation, to
handle all his music and business ventures, now he’s starting his own label!)
his music quality waned (not to mention he made a lot of enemies!) and he
disappointed many fans with some of his latest works, i.e. “Kingdom Come”, even
American Gangster was “iffy”. The fact is that, these men are no longer the
hit-after-hit sensations they once were. I’ll admit this about Usher’s new
album, from what I’ve heard, its not him. Just the sound and energy isn’t the
same. I don’t know, maybe my ears have been reprogrammed to digest stuff like
Chris Brown and j holiday after all these years, but for some reason, Usher
(now) is hard to stomach!

I know, it sucks that it has come to this because both Jay and Usher are great
artists who, in lieu of a weak album-selling industry, have demonstrated
consistency with their music; however at the end of the day, for both these
men…its all business. Music isn’t what it used to be (meaning it no longer
pays the bills!). Luckily for me, and my fellow 80s babies, we’ve seen the best
of both these men and can always go into nostalgic thinking to bring up the
best, and last days, of Usher and Jay. :)

I mean in all honesty,its tough to make a track that\\\’s gonna be a classic or even last a year without using a corny but fun gimmick i.e. Crank Dat

Since MP\\\’s and ipods the consumer has been bombarded with every type of R&B song possible from every angle…just like Usher there\\\’s only 1 way for R&B music to go as its peaked.

Even artists like R.Kelly try to be creative i.e Trapped in Closet but again, consumers don\\\’t get time to digest that creativity, because we are spoilt (Real funny to think of spoilt B1ack k1ds huh???? LOL)

I think the way forward for R&B is mixing it with dance music…do I like it NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And yes i\\\’m gonna be ch1dish and say its g@y!

However, it actually sounds ok in the clubs and has been a running success in showing how diverse Rhianna is as an artist, now Chris Brown has jumped on the bandwagon with Forever and so has Ne Yo with closer…only time will tell if this is the New Era of R&B.