The natural evolution of the R&B genre has seen its rhythm component gradually triumph over its counterpart, the blues; singer Noel Gourdin has taken a different approach. While his voice may sound like a mid-90’s R. Kelly, his approach to music is stuck somewhere in the early 70’s, when greats like Al Green and Marvin Gaye ruled the charts with their heartwrenching crooning and down-home melodies. In his debut single, The River (presumably referring to the Mississippi), Gourdin combines the themes of love, loss, and faith to create a track that could be just as readily performed from the pulpit as it could from the club stage. Aided by former Naughty By Nature member Kay Gee, The River and the rest of Gourdin’s debut album, After My Time (out July 22), will surely please vintage R&B fans everywhere.
Man. This is a hot batch of songs tonite Z! Never heard of any of these guys, from the performers to the producer, but they all put it in! New favorite. I'm finna look for more from Noel. I was digging the whole joint. Real soulful!
A very good soulful rnb track, a bit old since I'm sure quite a few people have heard this a while ago. Good voice, but I don't think his throwback style will catch on well. At least that's not what the trend of popular rnb is going towards...
I think going back to the basics has been catching on lately for R&B artists; for example, Amy Whinehouse, Pure, John Legend, Janelle Monae, and Joss Stone have revitalized the traditional R&B/Soul sound. It's a great sound and I hope it continues. I thought this was going to be a duet with Arama brown like Marvin Gaye used to do with Tammi Terrell (those were classic duets). Anyways, Ms. Brown has a nice voice. Let me go check Noel's myspace page.
Aren’t you guys overrating this?!? 0_o Ok, he can sing, but that’s the only good thing I found in the song! The background music (violins) sounds exactly like a song I heard 8 years ago on a brazilian soap opera, the whole melody is just clichéd (I could anticipate every chord and the fluctuations on – someone already done them all). Too formulaic! This guy is only as soulful as his picture: not genuine (and yes, he could have that style and still soulful, but in this case, the style matches the artificial feel I got from this one)! One star for the vocals (good voice and singing potential) only.
Holy, he does sound like R. Kelly. This is great stuff right here. This is much better then normal R&B songs nowadays. It's all club, a bit of soul in it always is nice.
i'm really feelin this old school style.
I can say i listen to old R&B because, although im young, my MOM loves al green, so since i was born i've been hearin him lol.
anyway, i like the sound of this. its good 2 hear a NEW song with an OLD feel to it. So yeah. 4.5 stars.
This is one of those "its too quite in the house, I need to throw some calm and relaxing music on" type-of-songs. I promise you paying bills, cleaning or doing homework will never be more relaxing... (if I am wrong, don't ask me to try any of them).
This is an amazing song! The old school vibe and great vocals make it such a smooth and easy song to listen to...how can you say this sucks? give me this over 99% of the stuff i hear today! hopefully this catches on with R&B; we need a passionate track like this to drown out the usual garbage
(4.5...but since ingrida gave it a 1, im giving it a 5 instead of a 4)
He has a really good voice, he does his thing for sure...but sorry I don't like the song, it's boring!! it could not be bad, but it's not my type at all!
This is beautiful it has such a great vibe.... sounds like that boy grew up singing in the church like a dirty south hardwood floor no air conditioned church this is a great song
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