Can anybody explain to me what it means for certain music to “have no soul?” Every so often, I’ll crank something up and somebody will tell me that it’s “soulless,” “doesn’t have any soul,” “needs some soul” or some variant thereof.
As close as I’ve been able to figure out, having “soul” correlates closely with low production values, but I’m just going by empirical evidence. Anyone have a more concrete answer?
If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
No wait, that’s the blues.
Assuming you aren’t specifically asking about the genre soul music, then saying “this music has no soul” is usually equivalent to saying “this music is devoid of authentic feeling or emotion.” E.g. “his playing is technically proficient, but lacks soul.”
Go listen to some Cannonball Adderly, then pop in a little Kenny G.
It’s all the explanation you need.
Right on the money. Listen to Dizzy Gillespie and then Wynton Marsalis. Wynton Marsalis, in my opinion, is the most technically brilliant trumpet player to ever pick up the instrument. But there seems to be something lacking in the emotion of his playing; the indefinable “soul”, is my guess.
Well, it is of course all relative, but I can try to do a Nicomachean Ethics sort of thing here:
Soul: James Brown
No Soul: Barry Manilow
Middle-of-the-road: Lou Rawls
Soul: Shirley Bassey doing the theme song to the film Goldfinger
Soul: Paul McCartney doing the theme to Live and Let Die
No Soul: Rita Coolidge doing the made-for-Muzak theme to Octopussy
Hunt Her Down And Kill Her: Madonna doing the theme to Die Another Day
Soul: I’ve Got You Under My Skin, from Sinatra at the Sands
No Soul: I’ve Got a Crush on You, same album
Burn In Hell Sinatra, You Bastard: Count Basie putting up with Sinatra talking mush mouth on the same album. Note: Basie could have slapped the Chairman of the Board around in the dressing room, for all we know, so this might rate an “indeterminate.”
I leave it to the experts to line up Mel Torme, Tom Jones, and Tony Bennett. Perhaps they’re all walking the line between something and nothing.
Devo, is a classic, plastic, soul-less band. I believe that it was their intention to drain every last drop of life from their music until you start to think, “hey, maybe they are robots.” Nevertheless, I love them so.
Any pop music which slips a childhood “na-na-na-na-nyah-nah” scale into the vocals is by default contemptible bullshit.
A jingle makes you want to sway your shoulders and snap your fingers: I’m a Pepper, you’re a Pepper, he’s a Pepper, she’s a Pepper, wouldn’t you like to strangle Manilow in his goddamned sleep?
Music with soul makes you want to swing your ass.
I’m sure I’ve helped not at all, and annoyed others. What do I know anyway?
You’re in good company Colinmarshall, Al Gore has no clue to what “soul” is either. 
Soul: Frank Sinatra - Send In The Clowns
Soul on Barbiturates: Judy Collins - Send In The Clowns
No Soul: Barbara Streisand - Send In The Clowns
Soul: Jimi Hendrix
Soul[sup]2[/sup]: Stevie Ray Vaughan
No Soul: Yngwie Malmsteen/Eric Johnson
Soul: Johnny Cash
No Soul: Mark Wills/Toby Keith/Garth Brooks
Soul: Etta James
Soul x10[sup]23[/sup]: Eva Cassidy
Soul: Pieces of You - Jewel
Not Soul: Whatever the name of her shit third album is.
Soul: Sheryl Crow’s Sheryl Crow
Not Soul: Sheryl Crow’s third and fourth albums.
That was my exact, word for word reaction, when I first heard Clay Aiken. (I never watched American Idol.) All I could think was “This music has no soul. He has no soul…” Then I changed the channel because his eyes and the song itself was creeping me out.
And yeah, I’d define it as technically proficient, but lacking real emotion.
Top of Soul Peak: Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Erykah Badu
Climbing there, or died on way: Sade, Alliyah, Mary J Blige, Missy
Selling tour guides at the bottom: Brittney, Eve
I was with you 100% right to here. “Girl U Want” has no soul?!? “Mongaloid” has no soul?!? You lie!
OTOH, There are times when all the charge means is that “I don’t like it,” or worse, “I don’t think it’s cool enough for special little ol’ me.”
As with all things, if you asked 100 people to rate a series of records on whether they had “soul” or not, you’d wind up with 100 different responses.
All too frequently.
I have to agree with the definition of “techincally proficient but lacking real emotion” . “Emotion” is, of course, difficult to define but nevertheless it does exist. Of course different people may have equally valid ideas of what qualifies as emotion.
So on the one hand I believe it is a very real quality of music, but on the other hand it is so hard to define or come up with a good test for it that few people will agree %100 percent of the time and too many people will use the term to mean “I don’t think it’s cool enough for special little ol’ me.”
Eh, I’d say there’s some soul in Devo’s music, but it’s for the most part an expression of fear and paranoia, which is often communicated through the very soullessness of the music. I love it.
I’ve occasionally heard Frank Zappa, one of my favorites, referred to as creating soulless music. I couldn’t disagree more strongly. I’d say the soul is conveyed not by his lyrics, since he hated love songs, but by his compositions, including his guitar solos. Then again, he once said that making music that will cause people to weep is a cheap shot musicologically speaking, and that is at least somewhat true, so who knows whether he was joking or not in the “soulful” parts.
You said it…different things resonate with different people. Does “souless” mean it doesn’t evoke emotion? In that case, it would be souless for that one particular person. I don’t think we can that neatly classify music.
I know people who love Celine Dion…but it just doesn’t resonate with me, therefore it feels souless to me. Whether or not it evokes emotion in someone else isn’t for me to judge.
Band of my nightmares would have to include Kenny G. on saxophone and Joe Satriani on guitar.
Talk about empty…
BTW, my ex BF once described listening to Joe Satriani as listening to a really long intro, waiting for the song to start.
Oh, and one more-
Soul: Ritchie Blackmore
No Soul Yngwie Malmsteen
Bah, let those people listen to Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and then see if they think he has no soul. My guess is these uninformed “critics” have only heard Frank’s pop songs, like Disco Boy and Valley Girl.
To paraphrase from George Clinton on What Is Soul (warning: lots of pop-ups)
Soul is a hamhock in your cornflakes
Soul is the ring around your bathtub
Soul is a joint rolled in toilet paper
Soul is rusty ankles and ashy kneecaps
Soul is chitlins foo yung