Anyone who has recently been on the Goldmine Website will have seen that they are offering to exchange new CD's for old records. Despite the fact most other Soulies collect the original vinyl I decided to take them up on their offer. It may seem odd to swap records which are likely to appreciate in value for CD's which will undoubtedly depreciate but I've always been a little strange like that. I may not have been making a sound financial investment, but I was making a soulful one. My reasoning was that I would receive more tracks than I was giving away and on a more robust medium.

Once I had selected all the 'Northern' compilations that I wanted I still had some credit remaining so I decided to take some 'Deep' and 'Modern' ones as well. Two which particularly took my interest were 'Deep Soul Inferno' and 'For Modern Millionaires'. For the purposes of this article I have not the slightest intention of reviewing either of them, but I do want to quote them as examples to illustrate points I make about both these styles.

The 'Deep Soul Inferno' album has only four of the tracks which are performed by females whilst seventeen are by males.  Eight of the tracks were laments for lost love of which five required the man to beg forgiveness for past infidelities.  Only one of the split relationships was attributed to being the fault of the woman.    Six tracks are whinges by one partner in a relationship about the way their lovers treat them but only in one instance does the victim have the strength of character to walk out the door.  Even this wasn't convincing as George Jackson tells his woman that he 'doesn't need her no more', which is actually a double negative and means that he needs her very much. Four other tracks are the ramblings of sad inadequates who are unable to cope with life. In two of the remaining songs Fred Briggs begs his woman to declare her love for him whilst Spencer Wiggins pleads with his mistress to leave her husband because he doesn't want to share her anymore. The final track by Donald Height is the only optimistic one on the entire compilation as he thanks his woman for making him happy. As such it stands out like a sore thumb.

I have always thought it bizarre that a race that has suffered slavery, poverty, social deprivation and has fought so many civil rights battles should be so obsessed with 'Relationships', but this is the central theme of every single song. The implied corollary is that unrequited love represents the most significant pain a person can feel. Despite the fact I think this is rather a shallow perspective this is what the music is about and it is on this platform which it should be judged. If, as is so often claimed, soul music is a reflection of human nature then any conclusions reached from this compilation leaves us with little to be proud of. Men are portrayed as unfaithful, sad inadequates with little sense of pride and who spend their time revelling in self-pity. Women by comparison are seen as both stronger and morally superior.

Sixties Soul was an amalgam of R&B and Gospel Music. It was Ray Charles who borrowed Gospel influences and began incorporating them into secular music. Techniques such as 'Soul Shouting' and 'Call and Response' are very evident on 'Deep Soul Inferno' but are wholly absent on 'For Modern Millionaires', indeed the basic R&B sound has given way to much more Jazz/Funk type backing.  The music of Modern Soul may have become more complex but paradoxically the lyrics have become much simpler. 'For Modern Millionaires' has none of the heart rending stories that are present on 'Deep Soul Inferno'. Instead they have been replaced by a kind of passionless chanting.

For Soul to be soul it must, by definition, have some emotional content, yet this is not present on any track on the 'For Modern Millionaires' CD. It's themes have become wholly neutral.  Sixties soul is either negative, (i.e. a lament for lost love), or positive, (the joy of a new-found relationship).  Eighties stuff by comparison seems to concentrate on an expression of the senses, i.e. a man telling a woman how he feels.    As his overtures have neither been accepted nor rejected he is experiencing neither joy or pain so his emotion is minimal.  There is certainly no trace of the guilt which featured so heavily on 'Deep Soul Inferno'.

Any father watching his son grow often fails to appreciate the effects that time has had because the alterations are so gradual and subtle. A long lost relative who has not seen the same boy for a considerable period of time sees the same changes cumulatively and can often be startled by them. So it is for someone like me, one of Soul's prodigal sons returning to the scene after a long exile. I totally missed the developments of the late seventies and early eighties and now find myself wholly shocked by what 'Soul' Music has become. Music is an art, and as such must be considered a living thing. It will grow and change according to the influences that fall upon it. With most living organisms the adult can usually be recognised as a more developed version of the child but in some exceptional cases the metamorphosis is so great that the developed adult bears no relationship to the child. So I believe is the case with Modern Soul when compared to traditional soul music. We are not looking at a calf that has become a cow, more at a tadpole has metamorphosed into a frog, or a caterpillar to a butterfly. The changes are so fundamental that it is impossible to recognise that one is a relative of the other. 'Modern Soul' is so different to traditional soul that I believe its 'Soul' tag should be dropped altogether and a new term coined to describe it. Who would ever suggest that a Frog should be called a 'Modern Tadpole'? Soul itself descended from the Blues but had become sufficiently different to justify a new terminology, sufficiently different to be considered a new genre. That time is now with us again.

I should make it absolutely clear that I am not a 'Soul Luddite' interested only in preserving the past. I do not dismiss all post seventies soul as rubbish, indeed I recognise that if anything Modern Soul is technically more complex and requires a higher standard of musicianship than its sixties counterpart. I can listen to it and I can enjoy it. I am not trying to deride it, I am merely saying that the music on 'For Modern Millionaires' is so different from 'Deep Soul Inferno' that it needs a new definition.

If, like me, you are a prodigal son returning to the fold then I am sure you will have noticed how much our music has altered. If however you have never strayed and have been involved throughout then try a little experiment. Take a sixties soul record and listen to it, take a Modern Soul record and listen to it. If you are able to identify any point of contact between them at all then you will have done a lot better than I could manage to do.