It's terrific how R&B has been off the charts throughout this decade. It's honestly a shame though today's scene didn't become mainstream until sometime last year. It would have made the current music arena much better. I will say, however, I began tuning in to today's R&B as it was changing starting with Miguel, Frank Ocean, Jeremih and Janelle Monae. It was like a breath of fresh air. I remember when I heard "Thinking About You" and "Sure Thing" back in 2011-12, they sounded different from the typical R&B. Now today, it has achieved a ton of success to the point where it could be either the next music standard of the 2020s or one of the defining genres. Either way, Alt-R&B has been the bomb :)

It's terrific how R&B has been off the charts throughout this decade. It's honestly a shame though today's scene didn't become mainstream until sometime last year. It would have made the current music arena much better. I will say, however, I began tuning in to today's R&B as it was changing starting with Miguel, Frank Ocean, Jeremih and Janelle Monae. It was like a breath of fresh air. I remember when I heard "Thinking About You" and "Sure Thing" back in 2011-12, they sounded different from the typical R&B. Now today, it has achieved a ton of success to the point where it could be either the next music standard of the 2020s or one of the defining genres. Either way, Alt-R&B has been the bomb :)

Back in 2010 - 2014, I complained about R&B not being mainstream. And the "R&B" that was mainstream was heavily influenced by that techno sound. I remembers celebs like Erykah Badu, saying that R&B was turning into "cornball" techno music as well.

However, looking back maybe it was a good thing that R&B took the backseat for a while. Perhaps that is what allowed it to flourish and evolve into what we have today. I attribute a lot to platforms like Soundcloud and Tumblr for allowing R&B artists to share their craft and create large fanbases in online communities. But I would also say Frank, Miguel, and Janelle were among the first to release experimental R&B projects into the mainstream. I don't like calling it alternative r&b so I just call it experimental lol.

I remember when I heard "Thinking About You" and "Sure Thing" back in 2011-12, they sounded different from the typical R&B.

Damn, you beat me to it. Haha I have found memories listening to Sure Thing.

I first heard Tray Songz's Say Ahh recent and its a fun tune also.

Y'all have no idea how many great memories I have listening to Frank and Miguel in 2012 and how much they mean to me. They both dropped game-changing albums that year, only several months apart from each other. It was my 2nd/3rd semester of college too. Such great memories lol. The first two albums I bought with my own money.

Back in 2010 - 2014, I complained about R&B not being mainstream. And the "R&B" that was mainstream was heavily influenced by that techno sound. I remember celebs like Erykah Badu, saying that R&B was turning into "cornball" techno music as well.

However, looking back maybe it was a good thing that R&B took the backseat for a while. Perhaps that is what allowed it to flourish and evolve into what we have today. I attribute a lot to platforms like Soundcloud and Tumblr for allowing R&B artists to share their craft and create large fanbases in online communities. But I would also say Frank, Miguel, and Janelle was among the first to release experimental R&B projects into the mainstream. I don't like calling it alternative r&b, so I call it experimental lol.



You all have no idea how many great memories I had listened to Frank and Miguel in 2012 and how much they mean to me. They both dropped game-changing albums that year, only several months apart from each other. It was my 2nd/3rd semester of college too. Such great memories lol. The first two albums I bought with my own money.
Yeah, I remember the transformation of R&B during that time. In 2010, Usher had two albums called Raymond V. Raymond which were traditional R&B and another one where it featured the song "DJ Got us falling in love," and it was a dance-techno track out of nowhere. That was a sudden change. Then in 2011, I heard Motivation by Kelly which sounded different from anything she released over the years. Chris also changed his sound where while he did have some that were R&B, others were a different genre such as Yeah 3x, Look at Me Now, Fine China and Loyal.

I guess R&B with leaving the mainstream gave us the best thing we needed by fusing old genres and creating something brand new. Just imagine had it continued, it would have gotten stale and most likely reusing the beats and lyrics over and over.

No denying that. I had great memories listening to them during that time too. I downloaded a ton of songs from Channel Orange, and it was a blast!


Damn, you beat me to it. Haha, I have fond memories listening to Sure Thing.

I first heard Trey Songz's Say Ahh recent and it's a fun tune also.
Same here! I had that track on repeat for days as well as "Thinking About You." :)

Yeah, it was, but it seems more like a club song rather than R&B.

Man....I heard ArchAndroid in 2010 and desperately searched for similar artists. That album lead to me discovering Miguel about a month or two later....which lead to Frank Ocean...which lead to The Internet.....they were exactly what I was searching for.

Other artists I followed during the early to mid 2010:

SZA, Rochelle Jordan, Kelela, Ro James, BJ The zChicago Kid, Tinashe, Jhene Aiko, Elle Varner, KING, Yuna, Anderson Paak, NAO, Ella Mai, H.E.R., Dornik, R.Lum.R

I could go on and on. Some of these artists lost their buzz and faded away, some grinded it out and are finally getting their props after almost a decade of being overlooked.

R&B never died, it just went underground to get away from the commercial tactics of the industry. (What happened to Tinashe is the perfect example of what they mostly tried to avoid). SZA kicked the door in 2017 down and the floodgate is wide open now...I'd love for this to be the new sound of mainstream R&B and it looks like that's happening.

Same here! I had that track on repeat for days as well as "Thinking About You." :)

Yeah, it was, but it seems more like a club song rather than R&B.


I was desperate. The statics is saying Trey Songz's Say Ahh was released in both 2009 and 2010. I almost went with How To Love by Lil Wayne but it sounds nothing like R&B to me.

I was desperate. The statics is saying Trey Songz's Say Ahh was released in both 2009 and 2010. I almost went with How To Love by Lil Wayne but it sounds nothing like R&B to me.

Say Ahh is from his from his album "Ready" which came out in 2009. So people were already listening to it by then but it was still popular in 2010. Ready was his ' true' breakthrough album and his best one imo. It's what took him from average R&B singer to a force to be reckon with.

R&B being blended with Hip-Hop kinda killed it, R&B catered too much towards teens which made it more manufactured and auto-tune. R&B lost that slow-jam feel it had from the 70s,80s,90s and early 00s.

R&B being blended with Hip-Hop kinda killed it, R&B catered too much towards teens which made it more manufactured and auto-tune. R&B lost that slow-jam feel it had from the 70s,80s,90s and early 00s.

That only applies to mainstream though. I made this thread so we could focus less on mainstream R&B, because of course, mainstream has too much trap and ambient influence.

R&B is in a similar position as Rock, whereas they're both are considered dead by 2018 standards, both genres were influenced by blues music and teens aren't as into them like they were 5-10 years ago; on the flipside Rock was a genre that meant to be rebellious while R&B was meant to be danced to. R&B was the established genre that deemed accepted by mainstream America once you get past a certain age (particularly by Blacks when they felt they outgrown hip-hop) whereas Rock while Rock definitely has an older crowd most teens either listen to hard metal or classic rock.

Jon Vinyl
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This guy reminds me of Frank in some ways.

This is the song I was telling NerdyGamer about y6j4BYmSgaE

I don't know. I want Mariah Carey to make a comeback. It'd be interesting.

Yassss, this thread slays. Alternative R&B is definitely the genre to not sleep on

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Yassss, this thread slays.
Thaaanks lol