Rhythm & Blues aka “R&B;” is truly ruling the music world and is currently the most popular music genre right now. Music fans are back to loving good old fashioned singing and it comes with results and the star power. R&B;’s biggest stars are very diverse in age and musical standing. There are the new R&B; artists like Rihanna, Chris Brown, and NeYo. All three of those artists already have two or more platinum albums under their belts. If they are the future then the future looks really bright. Chris Brown has shown outstanding dance ability and NeYo has exceptional songwriting skills. Then there are the veteran artists that in my book are already legends like Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and Usher. Obviously they are reaching a wide range of fans diverse in age, race, and cultures.
The success these R&B; artists enjoy is unmatched right now. Only Carrie Underwood (Country) and Kanye West (Rap) rival. For example, Usher’s new single “Love in this Club” featuring Young Jeezy already is the number one single on Billboard charts even without a video. Now that is what you call popularity. Usher’s is definitely is carrying over the Confessions success. He is quickly becoming my generation’s Michael Jackson. He and all the future artists named before are the few artists I believe that are guaranteed to go platinum with their albums. Going platinum is hard to achieve, especially in the age of iTunes. People can just downloads the songs that the like and not go out and buy the actual whole album. A strong loyal fan base is very helpful even if the music isn’t too good. Just ask Janet Jackson. Her last few albums weren’t very good however she still gets platinum status.
Even the most popular rap songs today feature artist T-Pain whose sing along hooks have made popular songs out of Flo Rida’s “Low” and Lil Mama’s “Shawty Get Loose”. The music business goes in cycles and currently people want to hear vocal ability. They want to hear carefully crafted lyrics instead of free styled phrases. They want soul and they want to hear emotion.
Oh and by the way, Justin Timbelake might be considered “pop” but his last ablum FutureSexLoveSounds was about 85% pure Rhythm and Blues. That’s a lot for the Music industry’s most popular male artist. FutureSexLoveSounds has now so far sold 8 million copies worldwide. Move over pop, rock, country, and rap. R&B; is here to stay.
