90s brehs. Why did new jack swing die off?

[OnlyInCalifornia]

Keith's 1st album was in '87 and has been considered the first NJS album... TR's first big R&B hits 'I Want Her', 'Make It Last Forever' are off that album.

And he didn't have a video really in rotation until the mid 90s (I am agreeing with what you are saying originally)

Far as MTV (and by extension, pop radio, and Billboard) Most R&B for a good part of the 80s/early-90s was put far behind pop and rock music, and I'd say they even put rap in front of it at a point as it was the "new cool thing" for a minute... it was everything to US... but most R&B acts had to go super-pop to get play during those days. It even reflects in the charts- there are songs that were #1 hits on the Billboard R&B charts that weren't #100 on the Billboard Hot 100- because they weren't getting played in those other markets (a direct result of that 'Disco Sucks' movement in '79 which made Black music a pariah... but that's a whole 'nother story). That's why there's a whole world of R&B songs from that era that we love and they don't even know shyt about.

Not disagreeing with all this but in context of what the original point was, MTVs affect on if something was popular or not at the time, if they did not play the videos they just were not popular nationwide and even worldwide in some countries.

As MTV removed time slowly for TV shows and fill ins that usually would go to non mainstream music which pushed out some of the exposure of the artists who would have continued on the New Jack Swing sound.

Ginuwine and Destinys Child went on to win awards and be big, in part of video support, heading into the 2000s.

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

Keith's 1st album was in '87 and has been considered the first NJS album... TR's first big R&B hits 'I Want Her', 'Make It Last Forever' are off that album.

Far as MTV (and by extension, pop radio, and Billboard) Most R&B for a good part of the 80s/early-90s was put far behind pop and rock music, and I'd say they even put rap in front of it at a point as it was the "new cool thing" for a minute... it was everything to US... but most R&B acts had to go super-pop to get play during those days. It even reflects in the charts- there are songs that were #1 hits on the Billboard R&B charts that weren't #100 on the Billboard Hot 100- because they weren't getting played in those other markets (a direct result of that 'Disco Sucks' movement in '79 which made Black music a pariah... but that's a whole 'nother story). That's why there's a whole world of R&B songs from that era that we love and they don't even know shyt about.



Guy's albums went plat, Keith Sweat went plat, Al B. Sure's first went plat, BBD went plat, a gang of singles went plat, etc... some even consider Janet's Rhythm Nation to be a NJS-esque album, that went multi. It was a pretty big thing between '88-'92.

I forgot about BBD
I never considered Rhythm Nation full on NJS
I had no idea Keith was sniffing more than Gold

 

[Big Mark]

Riiiiight

Where you from pimp? Exactly!

Anyway, somebody made a good point with the hip Hop R&B Bell Biv Devoe type shyt. I preferred that harder shyt so I may just be biased.

 

[Born2BKing]

Where you from pimp? Exactly!

Anyway, somebody made a good point with the hip Hop R&B Bell Biv Devoe type shyt. I preferred that harder shyt so I may just be biased.

I'm from Oburg Souf Cak. Aka Obilla, home of the killas.

 

[Big Mark]

I forgot about BBD
I never considered Rhythm Nation full on NJS
I had no idea Keith was sniffing more than Gold

I never considered those to be NJS either but again for me, I was just trying to hear what A Tribe was putting out. Native tongues and that West coast shyt was coming too.

 

[Big Mark]

I'm from Oburg Souf Cak. Aka Obilla, home of the killas.

Never heard of em but if you say so killa... if you real, then you should know that a real nikka ain't with being disrespected and even worse, being called a cac. I'm gonna leave it that brotha.

 

[Born2BKing]

Never heard of em but if you say so killa... if you real, then you should know that a real nikka ain't with being disrespected and even worse, being called a cac. I'm gonna leave it that brotha.

You disrespected the new jack era. That's a violation

 

[Big Mark]

You disrespected the new jack era. That's a violation

It had its time. Kane, I think Heavy D had got in on it but I just wasn't feeling it anymore.

 

[Born2BKing]

It had its time. Kane, I think Heavy D had got in on it but I just wasn't feeling it anymore.

Fair enough

 

[DANJ!]

And he didn't have a video really in rotation until the mid 90s (I am agreeing with what you are saying originally)



Not disagreeing with all this but in context of what the original point was, MTVs affect on if something was popular or not at the time, if they did not play the videos they just were not popular nationwide and even worldwide in some countries.

As MTV removed time slowly for TV shows and fill ins that usually would go to non mainstream music which pushed out some of the exposure of the artists who would have continued on the New Jack Swing sound.

Ginuwine and Destinys Child went on to win awards and be big, in part of video support, heading into the 2000s.

Yep... he didn't have videos in rotation on MTV and VH1 until the mid-90s... if we're talkin' about Twisted and Nobody and all that, sure... but go down the dial to BET, and he definitely had em rotating since '88. It's not like he had no hits that whole time, they just didn't fit the MTV/pop radio 'standard', nor did a lot of R&B music.

And this was the case for a lot of NJS-era artists and R&B artists in general... they weren't really big on MTV or pop radio... it was like a slow embracing as the years went on. By the time we got to MJB, Jodeci, Silk, SWV, Toni Braxton, Jade, stuff like that in '92-'93 as NJS was ending... then, you saw them all the time on there. Same way MTV was with hip-hop... you really only saw a handful of rappers in regular rotation, the rest were only on Yo!, if that... it wasn't until the mid-90s that they really started pushing it on the regular. Then, before you knew it, you couldn't get away from seeing something hip-hop related on MTV.

That channel was always an uphill climb for Black music period, and VH1 was even worse. Which is wild when you think about what VH1 is mostly known for nowadays.

 

[DANJ!]

I forgot about BBD
I never considered Rhythm Nation full on NJS
I had no idea Keith was sniffing more than Gold

Yep, platinum, sometimes even double, some of 'em have since gone on to accumulate sales over the years.

There's a lotta stuff back then that was moving big units, but you just wouldn't know it because nobody really paid attention or brought attention to that.

And on top of that, the same way pop radio treated R&B music, "black radio" treated rap... there were rappers going platinum that were getting no airplay.

It was an... interesting time.

 

[DANJ!]

Sayin' NJS was wack is a wild-ass take in hindsight, but it's also not strange...

Because even then, there were hip-hop heads who leaned further on the "purist" side that viewed NJS as being commercial and different from the "real shyt"...

There was never a time when everyone loved everything.

 

[How Sway?]

I thought the njs era ended in the mid 90s

Wasnt 'this is how we do it' the last major njs hit

 

[DANJ!]

I thought the njs era ended in the mid 90s

Wasnt 'this is how we do it' the last major njs hit

I've seen people say that before. Even that at the time felt like a throwback, strangely enough... most other artists weren't making songs that fast by then. New Jack was pretty much gone by '95. Even Teddy himself had moved on.

 

[Erratic415]

https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/05/teddy-riley-new-jack-swing-oral-history