The R&B Thread

Bobby Bland - "Two Steps from the Blues" (1961)

The highly regarded debut album from this soulful Texan rhythm & blues singer that I find to be a little too inconsistent & (perhap unsurprisingly) bland for my liking.

For fans of Syl Johnson, Freddie King & Little Milton.

3/5

Robin Thicke - Sex Therapy: The Session (2009)

Genres: Con-R&B

I must emphasize... I am not really a Robin Thicke guy.  I only turned him on to complete another catalog.  The third album is where I left off when I first checked him out some time ago, so this was next in line.  What hit me a couple tracks in is how effortlessly smooth this album is.  There's not a moment spared on it, and there's no struggle to maintain it.  But the first four or so tracks are pretty typically written and sparse in instrumentation.  As well, the lyrics are standard cheese romance with no real adventure or revolution attached.  But this changes in the middle section with some surprisingly clever instrumentation that turns the album into a real jammer, starting once an excellent rapper / crappy solo artist Nicki Minaj comes into play.  Even after a cheesy spoken intro, Elevatas is a surprisingly rough and industrial track that has a number of clever choices in its ever-progressing intrumentation.  I'd even go as far as to give that track an 8/10 minimum.  The album goes back to some of the more typically written con-R&B after the middle section, but god was that middle section worth it, despite the lyrical content only showing a slight upgrade from the first act.  So in short, this is a surprisingly creative, consistent and smooth album, but it has some very noticeable weak tracks and standard lyricism.  Still, this is easily his best of the four.

68

Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop (1973)

Genres: Prog Soul, Soul-Funk, Funk Rock, Psych Soul

So if that genre-tagging wasn't boner-inducing enough, we're dealing with Funkadelic in general.  This is during that understated period where the psych aspects of their rock side have transitioned to the soul side, allowing for a much more spiritual side to the band, one that remains as catchy and spirited as ever.  This is obviously the step forward into evolving into a p-funk band, one that bases itself on the raw trippiness of the psychedelic age.  Honestly, the third track, March to the Witch's Castle, relaxed every fiber of my body, putting my subconscious into a total state of euphoria.  It's a real shame that this side of the band wasn't explored very much during the late 70's, focusing mostly on the p-funk side we're familiar with on albums like Mothership Connection.  This is probably their most soulful album.

96