Originally Posted by
soulster
You may recall the way Shalamar's "Dead Giveaway" came about. The Solar label was starting to struggle in 1983, so owner Dick Griffey commissioned the producers to write and produce a pop song specifically for Shalamar because he thought they had the most youthful appeal and the most potential to crossover. It worked. But, it just wasn't enough to help the label recover. The album "The Look" was a mismash of pop and solid R&B tracks. As soon as "Dead Giveaway" fell off the charts, what was the next single? The usual R&B fare - a ballad led by Howard Hewitt. The album didn't do all that well on the Billboard Top Album chart, probably because of that stylistic mixture. It is upsetting that Shalamar's final hit was from the film "Footloose" the next year, and wasn't even on the Solar label! It was on Columbia.
Solar didn't go under, but they stopped having top 10 hit singles. R&B was being co-opted by hip-hop, and, frankly, there were more exciting sounds in the pop/rock segments at the time. But, if they totally went in those directions, they risked alienating their aging R&B base. Solar went on to have scattered hits from Lakeside and Klyymaxx, and one from The Whispers, but it was never like the years between 1979-1982. Had Solar not been isolated in Los Angeles, and adopted the youthful sounds that Prince and his proteges were enjoying, if they had started incorporating hip-hop, perhaps they would have done better. Klyymaxx was the best they could do at that point. Even Rick James was finally getting more of the crossover sales that he desired, especially through The Mary Jane Girls and Eddie Murphy.
Speaking of "Footloose", Denise Williams must have been quite happy. She was able to get a pop hit "Let's hear It For The Boy".
Denise Williams never claimed to be an R&B singer. That may have been the way she began in the Columbia label in late 1976 under the direction of Maurice White, But, by 1980, she was doing pop, and being successful at it. In 1983, Larkin Arnold was placed in charge of the Black Music Division at CBS Records, and decided that Black artists should be doing R&B and be marketed towards Black radio. This interrupted Williams' gradual course toward pop fame. She did the best she could with "approved" producer George Duke, but she was no longer really getting pop singles. "Footloose" may have reversed her fortunes, but it didn't last. Williams moved on to Christian music.
There are tons of stories about what happened with R&B in the early 80s. Some people blame hip-hop. I don't. A generation gap had definitely emerged for the first time in R&B music. A new voice came that was more powerful than the one that occurred in the late 60s or in the mid-70s. The urban streets were finally being heard on their own terms.