BSAT Round #1: Burial vs. Ray Charles - Games

Guest

I don't know about "popularized (sic) soul music". He was certainly one of its forebears, arguably its most important, but I don't think what he was doing was soul music as we know it today. I always thought of Solomon Burke and Sam Cooke as being the artists who really set out and defined what came to be known as "soul", although there are fine lines where R'n'B, gospel, doo-wop and rock'n'roll are concerned, particularly when performed by black musicians. Anyway, regardless of whether his music was "soul" or not, he was undeniably talented and undeniably important. But I've just never particularly been able to get into his music. Certainly not as much as the aforementioned Cooke and Burke, and not as much as James Brown or Etta James either. He was a master of his craft, but to me it feels too safe, too by-the-numbers, obviously incredible but also rather textbook, like watching a polished comedian perform a mass-appeal stand-up set. His voice doesn't quite have the same sense of individual struggle that I hear in those aforementioned peers of his, his music just doesn't feel as personal. And when we're discussing soul music, the most important element is in the name itself. To me, Charles is too much sheen and not enough soul. That isn't to say he wasn't capable of moments of true beauty or that his music is impossible to connect with on a base human level, it's just that I struggle to find in the music of Charles the "soul" that appears so effortlessly in the music of Sam Cooke, of Solomon Burke, of James Brown, Etta James, Jackie Wilson, early Otis, early Curtis. I am extremely grateful to Charles for his huge influence on most, if not all, of those artists and countless others whose work I love, but unfortunately influence isn't enough by itself and the truth is that I've just never connected with the work of Ray Charles.

sp4cetiger

lethalnezzle wrote:

I don't know about "popularized (sic) soul music". He was certainly one of its forebears, arguably its most important, but I don't think what he was doing was soul music as we know it today. I always thought of Solomon Burke and Sam Cooke as being the artists who really set out and defined what came to be known as "soul", although there are fine lines where R'n'B, gospel, doo-wop and rock'n'roll are concerned, particularly when performed by black musicians.

Obviously there's an element of opinion here, but many artists and historians have acknowledged Charles' early music as soul, so I don't think I was out of line there. It certainly sounds like soul to me, though with a different tinge than that of Burke or Cooke.

Admittedly, Charles' later work got a bit formulaic, but his late '50s and early '60s stuff was trying to create new formulas by mixing "white" and "black" music. It was these experiments that ended up distancing him from his contemporaries in soul music, but that was the point. He was trying to show that music wasn't white or black and that it all ultimately came down to rhythm and blues.

Of course, the vote all boils down to taste, I just wanted to defend my summary text.

Guest

sp4cetiger wrote:

Obviously there's an element of opinion here, but many artists and historians have acknowledged Charles' early music as soul, so I don't think I was out of line there. It certainly sounds like soul to me, though with a different tinge than that of Burke or Cooke.

Admittedly, Charles' later work got a bit formulaic, but his late '50s and early '60s stuff was trying to create new formulas by mixing "white" and "black" music. It was these experiments that ended up distancing him from his contemporaries in soul music, but that was the point. He was trying to show that music wasn't white or black and that it all ultimately came down to rhythm and blues.

Of course, the vote all boils down to taste, I just wanted to defend my summary text.

I didn't think it was out of line either by any means, just a difference of opinion. As you say, Charles is or isn't soul depending on who you ask. I don't see his music as being soul music particularly.

EDIT: Not to say that it isn't of merit or isn't often fantastic. Just that to me it isn't soul. But it's like arguing whether a panini is a sandwich or not (except for the fact that a panini is definitely a sandwich, but you hopefully you get the gist).

SuedeSwede
Ognoo

Gender: Female
Age: 26
Location: On a cloud

It's a difficult situation when you've heard an album by one and not the other.

However, from what I've heard from Charles (i.e. his hits), he's got nothing on Untrue, so Burial...
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sp4cetiger

lethalnezzle wrote:

EDIT: Not to say that it isn't of merit or isn't often fantastic. Just that to me it isn't soul. But it's like arguing whether a panini is a sandwich or not (except for the fact that a panini is definitely a sandwich, but you hopefully you get the gist).

Yeah, I get you. I really respect what he was trying to do with his country+R&B work, but I sometimes do wish that he had gone further in his explorations of soul music. There's no question that the dude knew suffering -- he grew up poor, watched his brother die in the bathtub when he was four years old, and then started going blind at five. Music must have been a spiritual experience for him, probably more than most. I watch the early video recordings of him and I feel the passion just flowing out... by the late '60s, it's almost like he lost interest in expressing himself.

nutso42

I was going to vote Burial, but sp4cetiger convinced me. Ray Charles.