If you listen to a lot of the most popular
R&B songs nowadays, you might notice a rather interesting trend.
Hit songs like “Boyfriend #2,” “Birthday Sex,” and “Imma Put It On
Her,” are some of the biggest hits on radio and on video channels like
MTV and BET. More and more, R&B is being dominated by songs that
are more overtly sexual and cynical than even some of the hip-hop fare
that makes it onto the charts. Romance and sentimentality are in short
supply, as more songs are brazenly sexual and aggressive. Songs like
the aforementioned “Boyfriend #2” details a romantic tryst with what is
technically, someone else’s woman, and while cheatin’ songs aren’t
anything new, in the current climate in popular music, songs that trade
in plain ol’ “I love you” and “let’s be together” aren’t that hot right
now.
More artists and fans seem to be
preoccupied with seduction as opposed to courtship. And the seduction
isn’t even … well, sexy. It’s callous and cocky — and it’s not just the
men. In the past, genres like rock ‘n’ roll and hip-hop have been known
for brazenly sexual lyrics that often objectified women. As
controversial as these genres were, they were dominated by men, and
typically reflected the way men talked to other men about women — not
the way men actually talked to women. R&B and pop music were the
genres more traditionally dedicated to romantic themes, i.e.
boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl and vice-versa. And when things got
sexual, it was usually on the basis of two people making love, not a
late-night “booty call” with a shorty.
The
current themes that dominate R&B are indicative of the way that
this generation views love and relationships. The romantic pessimism is
evident in songs that champion cheating, one-night stands and never
even acknowledge commitment to the other person. When so many so-called
“love” songs reference the club, how much romance is really being
celebrated? R&B’s primary audience is still women, and as we all
know, young women swoon over singers that they imagine are singing to
them. But, what happens when an entire generation of girls decides,
instead of becoming “My Girl,” they’d rather just make “Love In This
Club?” –dusty culpepper
