HISTORY MIXTAPES - Austin McCoy Part II: Getting Meta about Creepy Music

Austin McCoy returns to think about how being a fearful child shaped his appreciation of his parents' music, as well as how reflecting on these early exposures makes him think about the role of context in music appreciation. 

Check out the full songs on this YouTube playlist.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the History Mixtapes, a podcast about when music and history meet. I'm Katherine Rye Jewell, a historian of the business and politics of culture, an author of Live From the Underground, a History of College Radio. In this episode, we're picking up where we left off before the end of the semester. Disrupted some of my ability to edit. And release podcasts. This is a continuation of my conversation with Austin McCoy, a historian and author of a forthcoming book on De la Soul. This is where we really get into how our own personal soundtracks shaped by the musical taste of our parents actually help us think more deeply about how to analyze music in historical context and to connect it to the kinds of broader social, political, cultural questions that we're interested in as historians.

Austin McCoy: 0:56

So the overarching story basically is my parents. There are, I would say many stories within it. The first story is more or less I was a incredibly afraid kid. And the first two songs are from the same album. This album is Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. These two songs"Off the Wall" and"Don't Stop Till You Get Enough." I remember my parents playing these songs. I was very young. Off the Wall is Michael Jackson's fifth solo album. We sometimes think about it as his first solo album, but it's really his fifth. Part of it is because, this is the album where he's not on Motown, he's not with the group with his brothers. And he's working with Quincy Jones for the first time exclusively. And yeah, we know Quincy Jones passed away right before the election. For several of my songs, or at least a few of them Quincy Jones is there. Off The Wall comes out a year before I was born in 1979. We're at the end of the disco era, but also in this transition from disco to, r and b and pop, right? Quincy Jones is also making this move into pop music. I think I said I was gonna start with"Off the Wall," but I'll start with"Don't Stop Till You Get Enough." The thing about this song is the sound of it. So my parents, I don't know what kind of speaker system and what kind of stereo system your parents had, I think my parents stereo system was probably pretty run of the mill in terms of, having the record player, the receiver, the tape deck, but then also the standing speakers that they felt tall when you're really young. They seemed like they're really tall things. yeah, the sound of these records were deep. The percussions on, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, and, I believe it's a keyboard, it just sounded sinister. This is a song that people dance to and it scared me. The strings scared me. Then there was this double time bass kick in these keys that are playing. And I just remember that sounding so frightening to me and I would just cover my ears and beg my parents to stop playing this song. Like I would just beg them to stop playing this and that is like my first music memory. It's incredible musically, but when you're like three, four years old and you don't know what's happening and you're just seeing your parents dance to this and the music just is very loud and it sounds really scary. Yeah, I didn't want any parts of it.

Kate Jewell: 3:34

That, that's funny. Do you have any memories, like later on where you re-appreciate it or was that like, like a memory that was like later reanimated.

Austin McCoy: 3:43

It was reanimated. I really don't listen to this album that much. Obviously Michael Jackson, there is the sordid history with him. I think there came a point when I was in my twenties when I would go back to older music, I really didn't feel like listening to him that much. But when I would return to his music when I was like a teenager it would be Thriller, which makes a whole lot, it's Thriller, right? It's quote Dave Chappelle's Thriller, right? That's what you're gonna come back to. I had no desire to listen to Off The Wall until really, in many ways, like yesterday, because yeah, it's like I remember getting to the last part of the song. It's like the last, 10, 15 seconds of it and just being like, oh no that's what it was. That was it. That was the thing that scared me. I appreciate the album musically a lot more. I've seen some internet chatter in the last couple years where there's this debate about Off the Wall and Thriller and there are people who will say, actually Off the Wall is a better album musically. After listening to it, I get it. It's the first time Michael Jackson and the quintessential musical genius Quincy Jones coming together and all the people that played on the record it just sounds impeccable. And I think there's something about getting a bunch of amazing artists into a room to do something for the first time. I think there's something really exciting about it. And then also there is the hipster element where it's like everyone likes Thriller, but the album you should be really listening to is Off the Wall, and also the crossover element. I think a lot of black folks appreciate Off the Wall because that was before quote unquote, we gave up Michael Jackson to the rest of the world. I hadn't really even thought about, how I would come back to this record until you asked.

Kate Jewell: 5:24

I mean it's interesting how this, we can have these formative musical moments but then the music does not stay part of our lives.

Austin McCoy: 5:30

Which is the power of music, right? Where you experience it in a very particular context. It could be a terrible experience, it could be a great experience, and you listen to that same song and you're taken right back to that experience. So there's one moment, especially when it comes to Michael Jackson, I'm not gonna say anything profound here. It's the of Motown 25 moment and watching that concert with my parents and seeing Michael Jackson moonwalk on tv. That probably converted a lot of people, especially a lot of young people who watch what he was doing and was like, oh my God, what is that? And my parents were like, he's moonwalking. He's moonwalking. One, just I the concept, the term moonwalk just sounds awesome, right? So you're like what is this called Moonwalking? And then just the way you watch him move, and it just seemed to come outta nowhere, at least to me, as a kid. And I think that was the point where it was like, yeah I like Michael Jackson now. And Thriller doesn't scare me as much anymore. And I began to become more open to liking more music in general. Seeing him moonwalk, watching my parents get excited about that, me getting excited about it, I think that was a moment when the idea of liking music became more tangible. From there it is, being in the backseat of my parents' car, especially when my mom was driving and watching her listen to music. Whether it was Janet Jackson, the Spinners, the Brothers Johnson Earth, Wind and Fire, of course. Not just September, their actual albums. Babyface. There was a point between 1983 and I would say 1989 when I discovered rap music for myself. I might not have been like dancing or anything like that because I was a shy kid, but I was into what I was hearing.

Kate Jewell: 7:11

So where are we going in your mix tape?

Austin McCoy: 7:13

We're still gonna stay on the scary side. I mentioned briefly off the Wall the actual title track, but the other song, and my parents were into this too, Rockwell,"Somebody's Watching Me." This is one of these songs that you've heard it before somewhere. My parents were really into it. I think there was a period in black pop music in the early 1980s that was just dark. It's not like how hip hop has been dark over the last 10 years and it's this slowed down more droning tempo. Pop music in the early 1980s was still pretty upbeat, and this song was really catchy, but it scared the hell out of me. I remember my parents listening to this song, but I also remember the video. The story of the song for those who don't know, it was recorded by Kennedy, William Gordy. So Barry Gordy's son. So Barry Gordy's son records a song in defiance of his dad, because he wants to become a recording artist, his dad obviously starts Motown, and he gives his dad a demo and his dad basically said, nice try. Keep your day job maybe one day you'll be able to write a good song. Coming from basically the godfather of soul music, the godfather of the music industry in the United States, right? That is going to sting a little bit. So he goes back and he starts working on this track that becomes,"Somebody's Watching Me" and he claims that he went back, prayed to God, which is also an interesting juxtaposition between religion and what becomes of this song, right? He goes back, he prays to God and then he claims that the lyrics came to him. So there's this divine intervention piece, but then there's also his childhood experience with, he used to look out of his window and he thought that his neighbors were watching his house, which on the one hand, it's that seems weird. But then also you might just be living next to the Gordy's who, started Motown and yeah, you're kinda interested who's over there? Who's in this house? What's going on? He takes all these experiences and then apparently he's working on this song, and the person that was supposed to get this song, or he wanted to give this song to was Lenny Kravitz. So he wanted Lenny Kravitz to sing the song, and Lenny Kravitz was like, this seems personal. Like maybe I, this fits you better. You should take this song. He decides to record the song Michael Jackson gets interested and agrees to sing the chorus. He takes on the stage name of Rockwell and signs to Motown, right? Like without his dad knowing. He's a one hit wonder, but it becomes a very big song. It's obviously a win-win for Barry Gordy because you're making a lot of money from your son that you had once told, keep your day job. It sounds like you're listening to, what am I thinking of? A score to a 1980s horror movie. And then the concept of somebody watching me, this paranoia, is on the surface scary. Especially when you're like five years old, and you're like, what is happening? And so then you watch the video, it starts out, the music is playing. And the camera goes into his house, presumably. And it's like a regular looking house. Like it's nothing extravagant. But then there are points where the lighting is weird. The camera kind of spans and it looks like it's daylight outside, but then it turns into the hallway and looks like it's dark outside. Like that was weird. And then it's, this horror movie callback. So he starts out taking a shower, because, the old slasher movies, if you're gonna get gut, it's gonna be, you're gonna be in a shower when it happens. So he's in the shower, and as you're moving through the house to where he's at there's like this crow that just comes out in nowhere in the house. Like, where does this girl come from? When you're four or five years old, everything is literal and you're just like, what am I watching? What? I am so scared of this. What is happening? And there's all this taxidermy in the house these animal heads that are supposed to give off this supernatural or spiritual or mystical theme. But it's his house. And he is like running around, like getting scared at the stuff that's in his house, and you're just like. Like when you're like in your forties watching this, it seems so ridiculous'cause you're like, you're scared of your own house. But when you're five years old, it's quite possible to be afraid of all the things in your own house. So I was a scared kid and that was just true. Like I was afraid of my parents' speakers. So I'm watching this and I'm just like, I'm afraid, the song is really catchy, but also sounds like Addam's family. And then they're like the lyrics, especially towards the end where, he's talking about somebody watching him and he is speculating who it could be. He says I wonder who's watching me now. And he exclaims the IRS. It has to be a three letter agency. This is post civil rights movement, post Watergate, and there were like real serious three letter agencies, especially that black folks were afraid of F-B-I, C-I-A. Right? If you're living in Detroit, Detroit police department. It's this paranoia endemic in his moment, there is this fear of the government. But it's hilarious that he picks IRS and it's not the FBI or it's not gonna be cointelpro. All these agencies that harassed, African Americans and other activists. I think what's interesting about that is it seems like a class issue. Where if you're part of a rich family, you're probably gonna be more afraid of the IRS than the FBI, right? In many cases, I think it's probably a reflection of this class. But then in the video it is the government, like there's like a government worker that presents themselves, or at least the director presents him as an antagonist. And this guy's kind of lurking around the house and in the camera work there's some, clips where he looks more sinister than the others, right? So there are these like moments where, it's the government, but guess who's the government official that is lurking around the house? It's the mailman. And at the end, like it's clear that this video is obviously surreal and he comes out and he sees this person that's quote unquote watching him. And it's really just the, the mailman is trying to give him his mail. That's basically what is happening. But like when I was five years old, you could have convinced me that the, that a mailman could also be a a psycho killer. And I'd have

Kate Jewell: 13:29

That's true. mean, it's an interesting with like the Billie Jean video. Where there's also, and I remember that like seeing that as a kid and being like, I don't really, I don't understand what's happening. Like, this seems very sinister, the guy who's like skulking around in the shadows and taking But I didn't understand paparazzi or the media like, I didn't have context to understand that. And so it made me think of Michael Jackson as being kind of creepy the song and the

Austin McCoy: 13:54

Yeah.

Kate Jewell: 13:55

was creepy. When your world is a very different size and shape from the media that's giving you these images they're gonna ring in interesting ways, shall we say?

Austin McCoy: 14:07

right, yeah, no, there was, yeah there was this surreality, about the Billie Jean video. And it's and there, and it's this paranoia that is very black working class. As a man, growing up in an environment where, no yeah, one of my parents was always like, if you're going to have any intimate relations with anyone, make sure you're protected. Because the fear was. And an unwanted pregnancy. And that's what Michael Jackson is singing about in Billie Jean, basically. But then, yeah, there's also the celebrity aspect with him as well, the paparazzi and, trying to dodge that, but it's no it's hilarious the ways in which black pop artists were talking about paranoia in the early 1980s. It's reflecting either this long standing history of, of, police surveillance or it's the respectability politics around unwanted pregnancy.

Kate Jewell: 14:59

The kind of the double-edged sword of achieving wealth and fame in a society that doesn't support very many pathways to that, to those forms of status. Like when you listen what's the Curtis Blow song that's like a total party song, but is actually a realistic portrayal of streets.

Austin McCoy: 15:19

I could think of obviously Grandmaster Flash Furious Five's"The Message," but then also"White Lines," right? Which is a party song, but it's about staying away from cocaine and Melle Mel actually having, abuse cocaine, right? There is this dark moment in pop music where, there's this juxtaposition between the darkness of social, economic, and political ills with a party song. Obviously this is De La Soul"Say No Go," where if you listen to the song, the,"I can't go for that sample," very catchy, but they're rapping about drug addiction, And you watch the video. It's this black and white video that is, not quite as sinister as Rockwell or the Michael Jackson, Billie Jean. Nor is it as, scary as the, Public Enemy's the night of the living base heads, which is also about drug addiction, but they turn all the addicts into zombies, right? But yeah, there is this juxtaposition between the the dark aspects of, living in the United States, especially during the Reagan era and the propensity for people to party. It's very interesting right, in that regard where it's you feel like you're under attack in society and you're still finding ways to initiate some collective fun. But still the messages are pretty bleak.

Kate Jewell: 16:40

It's interesting you say that this topic comes up because recently I had the privileges going to a talk at Hutchins Center at Harvard the person giving a talk uh, is a scholar Kevin Holt, and I think he's an ethnomusicologist, he's writing about Atlanta and the origins of crunk. And it was fascinating. I'm totally gonna butcher his argument, but essentially this genre often gets dismissed as kind of unserious party music, that it doesn't have political edge to it. Crunk originates because young kids in Atlanta were growing up in the midst of the Atlanta child murders. This is sinister events that were literally threatening children. And so they needed to find safe places for them to go and be kids. And they moved into roller rinks in these semi-private protected spaces, which also comes with new forms of policing, but they develop these dances on roller skates. And eventually the dance moves off the skates and it becomes this dance called yk. The music that accompanies the dance. And so it's this party music that's emerging in this context of child murder and increased forms of policing and the context of Atlanta in its urban crisis of the eighties and nineties.

Austin McCoy: 18:03

There is something about the history of African Americans, whether it is going back to the blues, obviously, like using culture to try to one, articulate some sense of joy, but then also obviously this joy coming out of pain. I can also go back to the spirituals, where it's using music to cope with one's bleak reality. And there are various forms of coping, right? There, there is the solemn, grieving, mourning element to culture and music that people will engage in. There aren't too many oppressive structures that can contain joy, that can totally suppress it. And I think this is what we're seeing in the eighties especially, right? Is, coming out of the disco era where, yeah, there is still a lot of party music but this is also an incredibly bleak time for many African Americans. If you're living in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City: how many stories of either murder or police violence in general poverty, drug use, right? There's a litany of socioeconomic issues that many African Americans, Latinos, poor white folks are facing. But then those who have the ability and the access to music and to these spaces of joy to a degree, right? They're still also gonna participate. I feel like we can probably find a lot of examples going back to the 17th, 18th centuries, but then especially, post 1968. Where you're just, looking at, like Stevie Wonders Songs in the Key of Life. There's a lot of joy on that long record. But he's also singing about some, things that are about the underbelly of the United States. Some of the more celebrated albums, especially coming from black artists, are dealing with this tension. I was listening to a Wesley Morris' podcast about Stevie Wonder which is really good. And they were talking about love songs and he was just like, yeah, black artists, like going through all the things that they're going through. They're, they can sing about racism anytime they want, and and some, often will choose to sing about love. And what does that, what does making that choice mean? And I think that's a question that you can ask about many rap artists, black artists in general. There are plenty of terrible things to be singing about, and some of them do. And it's on a beat that's over a hundred BPMs, and people are going to, be skating along, dancing, break dancing. They're gonna be having fun. Meanwhile, the performer is going to be reciting lyrics about violence.

Kate Jewell: 20:45

You're giving us a perspective into the dailiness of having music around you, so, mom driving around and she's not driving around thinking like the plight of black people in Detroit, right. Is not like, and I need to have a party. There's not a latency, I guess. That thought process is not front and center. Um, but, it's, it's really interesting to see how quickly the conversation breaches the boundary of the car, right? That's your world as the kid watching your mom

Austin McCoy: 21:14

Right.

Kate Jewell: 21:14

who, probably has a wider world, but still that consumer experience remains contained. When we're trying to think about the links between how music shapes us, it's there in both those moments when we're thinking about it very clearly and unpacking its themes and its meanings and its layers, but it's also there in those moments where we're not. And I think that's why it has so much power for us, is because it connects the dailiness of our lives the ways that we can read these songs into their bigger contexts.

Austin McCoy: 21:49

Yeah. You are absolutely right. There are certain songs that, might speak to some of these realities that might, prompt you to think about them. It would be hard to listen to Marvin Gaye's,"What's Going On," every song on that album and not think about the sociopolitical context. But then there's"Billie Jean," right? And there's somebody's watching me and there's Don't stop till you get Enough. And there's, plenty of Janet Jackson songs or Anita Baker Sade songs where, they might have the one or two songs on their albums that are politically conscious, obviously can't leave out Prince, right? The eighties the, there might be songs that might be conscious, but a lot of them aren't articulating an explicit political viewpoint. And you lose yourself in that joy, right? You lose yourself in that joy in that moment as my mom's running errands to go pay some bills that she might not think she could afford to pay, right? But that, 10, 15 minute drive and you get a chance to listen to the Brothers Johnson's, greatest hits. You're gonna be singing, their songs while you're going to do some stressful things probably. As a, and as a kid, I don't understand at all. I'm just like, in the backseat. having fun, right?/The ways in which music provides some comfort, and some joy, and not in the this music is my life soundtrack, but in a visceral way, right? We can go to the seventies, where terrible things could be happening around you or you're really stressed out. But no, this time that I, either in the car driving to run this errand, I'm listening to this track, or I'm at home and I am just going to shut everything out and, give myself up, to the Jacksons right? Or Stevie Wonder, it's like that's, I think, yeah, that is, the, the ways in which, yeah. Music adds this yeah, this, I would just call it this layer of comfort.

Kate Jewell: 23:39

These Michael Jackson songs led us into a surprising conversation about analyzing the relational layers of music, especially considering how songs exist as part of our personal soundtracks, but also as historical objects in context. Next up, I asked Austin to suggest a pairing of songs to put into conversation.

Austin McCoy: 23:59

Again, this is gonna be pretty straightforward. I mean It still has everything to do with my parents. And, I think, the car being another for, no pun intended, but being the vehicle for these songs coming together in my mind. The car being a place where I, got more music education and more music appreciation when I was really young and like these are love songs too, right? So we're out of the I'm afraid of music. So the two songs, the first one is Brother Johnson's"Strawberry Letter 23." And then the second one is Janet Jackson's Love Will Never Do Without You.

Kate Jewell: 24:38

that song so much.

Austin McCoy: 24:39

Yeah I think a lot of people do, right? These songs are about love. When I think back, and I think about my mom, I think there was nothing more nice or fulfilling than to watch her sing these songs. This is another Quincy Jones connection. They work together. And, there are other songs from them I could have chose. I was actually watching the Quincy Jones documentary last night, and there's this scene where they're all in the studio and they're recording"Light Up the Night." they both were guitarists. But the one that was in the studio was just playing the lead guitar. And it sounded so immaculate. And I was just like, oh my God. They're pretty underrated. But they're such great musicians and singers. You just listen to the music and you're like, wow. This is amazing production. But then of course you still have Stevie Wonder, right? Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, later on, There's a reason why people our age don't think of the Brothers Johnson as a staple group, whereas people who are older than us might and Strawberry Letter 23 was, it's, a song that has been covered by other artists. So it's very familiar and it is one of the first R and b songs. I think I knew the lyrics to because my mom played it that much in the car, right? I can't sing, so I'm not I'm gonna try to sing it, but yeah, this was like the first song, like I knew the lyrics to, and I think it's a beautiful love song. And it's nonsensical, the lyrics, like"in the garden, I see west purple shower bells and tea, orange birds and river cousins dressed in green. Pretty music I hear so happy and loud, blue flowers echo from a cherry cloud." And you're like, what are they smoking? This is, it's psychedelic, and you're just like it makes no sense. Like lyrics don't make any sense. But the musical arrangement is great. And the way that they perform the lyrics are awesome. And then I think I just come back to Wesley Morris's podcast about Stevie Wonder, where him and a guest are talking about, As which you know, is another love song that appears on Songs in the Key Life. And they were talking about how nonsensical some of the lyrics were and the way that they talked about how is it possible to capture a deep feeling of love in any language? Is that even a possible thing to do? And it's almost impossible. Love is one of those emotions that is often irrational. It's nonsensical. So it makes sense that if you were to try to write a very straightforward love song, it's probably gonna suck, right? It's not gonna be that compelling. If you've put together a mix tape or received a mix tape full of love songs, or you've tried to write a poem for someone, or you've tried to write a song for someone, it's usually going to be like, it usually gets very abstract. And then yeah, the Janet Jackson song Love Would Never Do Without You. And this, is on Rhythm Nation 1814.

Kate Jewell: 27:47

Which I had on cassette.

Austin McCoy: 27:48

Yeah, my mom has it on cassette. she wore that tape out in the car, like it was, when that came out, that's what was in the car playing all the time. The song starts out with someone with a deep voice singing the first verse, because the producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and Janet Jackson, they also thought they envisioned this song as a duet, they wanted to get a male artist. They weren't able to do it. So as they were recording the song, they told Janet, sing as if you were a man singing this verse. And that's what makes the cut. So like, when you hear the first verse, and it's a very deep voice, that's Janet Jackson, it is in, in the more typical realm of love songs, right? This us against the world, theme, That you hear when you hear her sing, sing the chorus even though. I guess this is a thing. But it's, it also sometimes feels like it's a little overblown. You're like, I don't know if anyone's really thinking about you as a couple that much. Either, it's just like, all right, whatever. But if you watch the video, like it looks like a fragrance commercial. Like it's very elegant. It's black and white. There's a lot of ballet style dancing. And I think the song and the video plays with gender and racial conventions in a sense of one, Janet Jackson's love interest is an Italian model and actor.

29:33

I am sorry, but at this point I have to interject and admit an egregious error, which is that I did not say that this person in the video was none other than Antonio Sabato, Jr., also known as Jagger Cates, who I was watching on General Hospital in the nineties, and it is just an epic fail that I did not come up with his name in the recording of this podcast. I just had to put that in there.

Austin McCoy: 29:57

In the first verse it's referencing opposites attracting, and of course, race is a social, and political construction. But people tend to think of race at, black, black being at the one end of the racial spectrum and white folks being, whiteness being at the other end. Or, at the top of the hierarchy or the bottom of the hierarchy. There is this, conception of interracial love as possible, like quote unquote opposites attracting. There's that aspect of the video, but then also there's a black dancer and then there's another black actor and everyone is wearing contrasting colors. The black dancer and actor they're mostly wearing white, which pops out onto the screen. And then there's this flickers of color where Janet will appear singing in color. But it's also just a song that, I posted clips of the video onto my Instagram stories and people are like, I love that song! That's one of my favorites! So I think it is also a universal track that fits in with the theme of Rhythm Nation 1814 that is in some ways colorblind. It is a colorblind message of bringing a lot of people together, under the banner of music and like what we were sort of talking about, the emotional power of music, but also the potentially organizing power of music. Music that can create political constituencies, that's what Rhythm Nation 1814 is all about. And that's what we see with Beyonce. That's what we see with Taylor Swift. I think they are the the beneficiaries of the legacy of Janet Jackson in that regard.

Kate Jewell: 31:21

That's the album where she's really playing with genre, isn't it?

Austin McCoy: 31:25

Yeah,

Kate Jewell: 31:25

the song Black Cat is on there, it's very rock and roll and she's very much playing with fusion. But I think in a way where it's, it's not fusion like the Band is fusion. It, it becomes different. Like you are very conscious of her using these different modes throughout the album. Genre

Austin McCoy: 31:46

Yeah.

Kate Jewell: 31:46

they're, invoked in specific ways.

Austin McCoy: 31:48

Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right about that. Using her aesthetic of, black womanhood as a way to advocate for this inclusivity within, music, and part of that being pulling in different genres of music.

Kate Jewell: 32:02

I remember listening to this album in my dad's office, in the church, at that point, parents were very much not into my music. We did not share a lot of tastes. I also had, um, the band Nelson on tape, their hit song."I Can't Live without Your Love and Affection." I will sing that. I could sing it now. Every single word. My parents were not real fans of that. But I remember my dad like, it looked like he made an appreciative move. I was like, you like, it, you like it? And he's like no, I don't,

Austin McCoy: 32:32

Yeah.

Kate Jewell: 32:32

We did bond later, over different types of music. But yeah, my parents are not listening to Janet Jackson. or

Austin McCoy: 32:39

So what are some bonus tracks that I want to, how many do I get?

Kate Jewell: 32:44

I'll be generous.

Austin McCoy: 32:45

So the first one will still be parent related, and the second one will actually be me, right? The first one is Quincy Jones, 1989. Back on the Block is the name of the album, but the name of the song is"Jazz Corner of the World." Obviously I had heard Quincy Jones before, right? Like Off the Wall, Thriller, Brothers Johnson. But I didn't really know who he was. So I remember my mom getting this tape, and it's a Quincy Jones solo album, which is more or less him bringing together all kinds of artists from various genres to produce music, some of which he had already written before. This is the first album that I can recall that has hip hop elements that my mom liked, right? There's the title song"Back on the Block," Ice T's on that track, right? So it's part singing, part rapping and the song I'm choosing"Jazz Corner of the World" is more or less it's, it feels like it's a freestyle song and it has Big Daddy Kane and Kool Mo D and they're rapping about jazz, right? It is the first four rays of hip hop artists beginning to take on the jazz aesthetic. They're rapping about, Charlie Parker and and Ella Fitzgerald and, all these huge jazz artists. And amidst these lyrics, some of these artists are performing, so it's like you have an album with Big Daddy Kane Kumo D, Ice Tea, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn all on the same record, right? These are all these people, like these, all these people are still alive and they're all appearing on the same record. At the time I had no clue what I was listening to. But then when I was thinking about my own experiences as I was, as I've been working on this De La Soul book, I was like. Wait a minute, like this is this is completely ridiculous to think about, right? Where it's like you have nearly a hundred years of black music represented on this one album. This song is this history lesson of jazz, done by two rappers that are at that point, at the height of their powers. And then it goes into a performance of"Birdland," which is a jazz composition that was first, right? Performed by Weather Report which in Quincy Jones's version is awesome. It's funny that one of the songs where like my mom and I would overlap in terms of taste would be on, Quincy Jones's album. He was this very central, figure in, music, right? Not just, one genre jazz, other iterations of jazz and pop music. And he was also interested in incorporating hip hop in, so he wasn't one of these, elder artists who did not try to understand what the artists in the genre were trying to do. He was very much invested in mentoring rap artists. My mom couldn't recite the lyrics, but she never skipped the song. That's where I also learned that, yeah, my mom wasn't anti Rapp, but it had to have some sort of message. It had to, she didn't like anything vulgar. Me in my twenties would've been like, that's the point. I don't care Now. I'm like, I understand. It's a history lesson too, right? I mean, like in me becoming historian, which is, also an interesting connection. It's a song that I've played in my world history classes when we get to the jazz moment, even though this is recorded 60 years after the 1920s. It's again, a history lesson. Then, soon after you get Gang Star, their song"Jazz Thing." And then obviously A Tribe Called Quest's, Low End Theory, De Las Souls Balloon Mind State, Diggable Planets, first album, and, having, Rebirth of Slick, right? You have all this jazz rap that is coming onto the scene in the early 1990s. This is the ground zero for that this song. Even when I was, in my late teens and I was, reading more and learning more and listening more, I didn't put that together because this was the album my mom liked, so it couldn't have been that cool. But you go back and you're like, oh wait, like you go back, put it in historical context. Oh, this is one of the first popular performances that is melding these two genres together. And you have this composer doing this deliberately to demonstrate to an older audience that rap does have a place within this American musical canon. But then also demonstrating to a younger audience that we should do more to understand our history because of our place. We need to understand those who came before us and understand the types of struggles that these jazz artists and these bebop artists went through. Because they also encountered racial segregation, violence and harassment and et cetera. Quincy Jones was very committed to that, in a way that it took me a long time to even really understand.

Kate Jewell: 37:49

It sounds a lot like what the band did with the Last Waltz. They were playing everybody's songs. It was more of like greatest hits

Austin McCoy: 37:57

Yeah.

Kate Jewell: 37:57

then, couple ensemble pieces. Whereas this is, and I don't know the album, but it sounds like much more of like creating something new of the old, which is very much a hip hop kind of sensibility in and of itself. Or a jazz influence, traditional way of making music and connecting it to the present in a very particular way.

Austin McCoy: 38:20

Right. Yeah. When I would hear this song, I thought when Big Daddy Kane and Kumo de were referencing folks like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, I thought these were samples, because in my mind I'm just like, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Von, they they, it's like when they were performing, it seemed to be such a distant past to right? So then no, when I was like, reading the credits, like last year, and I was like, wait, these folks were alive. Like they actually went and did this. So what's interesting about him pulling from this hip hop sensibility of sampling was that, when you listen to it, you hear it, it feels like it's sampled, but it isn't. And he was able to mix the voices and the instrument playing together. Now there were some samples, but there were people that I thought were, long gone and I'm happy that they weren't long gone at that time. So it is meta right in that Quincy Jones is using a technique that hip hop producers later would use, which would be, recording original music and then going back and sampling it. Whereas what he was doing on songs like this was, he wasn't, he was recording it in a way that it might sound like it's being sampled to someone who comes across this album maybe 10, 15 years later who might've been already immersed in hip hop culture. Whereas, then, I would need to go back and read more, more of the reviews of the album, but there wasn't this meta sense because there was a little more awareness around what it meant to sample, especially in a hip hop or rap song. So yeah, it's what he was doing on that song and what he was able to accomplish in terms of organizing all these people. Yeah, just nothing short of flabbergasting.

Kate Jewell: 40:03

Yeah, so what's the Austin song?

Austin McCoy: 40:07

So the me song De La Soul,"ring, ring ring. Ha Ha. Hey," and this is off of De La Soul is Dead. And De La Soul Is Dead is one of my, it's like one of my favorite rap albums, music albums, is just across the board one of my favorites, right? So a lot of people might say Three Feet High and Rising, which is their first record which is obviously legendary and, breaks all the rules in rap, especially when it comes to sampling. I think Ring is a song. On the one hand, I feel like my mom would like it, I feel like, because it is a play on the popular R and B songs of the time. Everything that De La Soul was doing, especially on their first three albums, was tongue in cheek. You couldn't tell whether or not they're being serious, and this song is incredibly catchy. It's about the group basically pranking each other. They would get aspiring artists who'd want them to listen to their demo, and like there were songs about please listen to my demo that would be these more earnest songs, right? Whether it's like from EPMD or other groups. But this one was about them avoiding listening to people's demos. Someone would, contact them or try to give them a tape and they would just say Pos de Neus, would say, go to Maceo with that. Go to Maceo or go to Prince Paul with that. Call him up, he'll listen to your demo. So what they were doing is like engaging in this game of, hot potato when it comes to these demos and just giving everyone the run around. It's obvious as a joke too, in the sense of, like De La Soul was, I think one of the reasons why people love the group so much is one, their music is, I won't say it's unserious because there's a lot of serious songs on all their records but they are also fun-loving and they're pranksters in their tongue in cheek, and they are hipster in many ways, right? And I think that what happens with this group is, De La Soul is dead as a reaction to Three Feet High and Rising. And all of the ima the flower daisy aesthetics the hippie aesthetics, it's, you had Tommy Boy and you had fans, and you had critics who were very invested in De La Soul living out this aesthetic. But the group, they got tired of this aesthetic. And, for various reasons, whether it was, they thought that, it caused them more harm than good when it came to their physical wellbeing. As the stories go, there would be folks who would try to fight them because they thought they were quote unquote soft because of dressing up in a very colorful way. And, so there were some real tensions around black masculinity with how they were presenting themselves and how they were being presented in marketing. But then also they just felt like they needed to be able to grow as artists. And they felt that we can't grow as artists if we're constantly being, put in this box of the daisy. So of course you look at the cover of De La Soul's Dead, it's a knockdown flower in a flower pot that's broken. And this album becomes a way to try to depart from the image that made them incredibly popular. So the other piece of this that they were responding to is Tommy Boy Records wanting another"Me, Myself, and I" wanting another"Say No Go." They want more pop oriented singles and"ring, ring ring. Ha Ha Hey, hey." Becomes a, another joke song in the sense of they, this is supposed to fulfill the single but in a way that is totally anti single. So this is how, an artist or a group is really good is when they can make a parody that is rather earnest in some ways, but also very tongue in cheek and very sarcastic, and it's incredibly good. It's a song that I think as I've grown older, I've grown I've appreciated it a lot more. Because I think when I was in my late teens, I would, I like the song, but I was like, I like the harder songs more. And now I'm like, no, this is, I like the song a lot, and then when true Go to Dove, David Jalaur passed away, it was either the first or second song I listened to after he passed away. I think there's just something about this song that brings a lot of joy, but also in a way that, my sarcastic self when I was like 18 years old, would would've appreciated more if I'd have thought about

Kate Jewell: 44:54

Yeah. We all move through a world where we have identities that we create for ourselves, and then people come to expect them or people create an identity that they think we have and put that onto us. And being able to have that kind of ironic stance on your own. Irony while navigating these expectations is a, is a very sophisticated mode to be in, that you can continue to have a conversation with from your own perspective.

Austin McCoy: 45:27

Yeah, it's, to be able to go meta times multiple, and do it well, it's hard to imagine.'cause obviously there's a lot of sarcasm in music, especially in the 1990s, among our alternative artists. But then also stretching into our particular moment. I think the early odd future Tyler, the creator stuff is in that vein as well. But there's a difference between being able to just be sarcastic and meta on one level being able to be meta on multiple levels with yourself. It's hard for me to even put it into language, right? What they're doing with some of this stuff, which is, obviously, illustrates how important they were and are, to the way that we think about musical art.

Kate Jewell: 46:12

Absolutely. It's making me think about Lou Barlow and the Sedo. Is it Sedo or Dinosaur? It has a song called Indie Rock, which is kind of doing the history of indie rock. It's got like this, like super, like hard driving chorus. And I, I remember seeing an interview or reading an interview about how he's so mad that he recorded this song because now people are taking it seriously when it was really just like this stupid thing that he did

Austin McCoy: 46:36

Singing composing something that's very ironic and a joke and then, that's the thing that catches on because, it's like I don't, you don't want to say anything derogatory about audiences, but also the part of popular music is a lot of it is low comma denominator, right? Like a lot of it it is, it is catchy. It is formulaic, and that's what people respond to, so then, yeah, you can be an artist that does it tug and cheek meta on multiple levels, and guess what? People are gonna like it. And then you're sentenced to performing it at every single show

Kate Jewell: 47:09

Yeah, I think REM did a good job with coming out of a certain milieu that was very university of Georgia. They were very anti frat party, let's just say. And then five, 10 years later, their songs were all being played at frat parties. But I think they were able to kind of navigate like De La soul does, still not alienate some of their new fans with what they were doing and keep in the conversation, while also saying like, no, we never played a party at a frat at UGA. Like if anybody tells you went to a frat party where we played, they did not.

Austin McCoy: 47:43

Exactly. If you compare the REM approach the De Lasso approach to even like the Beastie Boys who turned their backs on their first album more or less, but they, the way that they did it was less tongue in cheek and just more direct. We're done with this. We're gonna go totally left on Paul's Boutique, and then we're gonna go alternative and hip and boom, back hip hop on Check your Head and Ill Communication And if our fans from the first album are gone, we're fine with that. The Beastie Boys in a funny way, even though they're also jokesters and pranksters and they can be meta at times.

Kate Jewell: 48:19

Thank you so much for doing this, for introducing us to your mom and her musical habits.

Austin McCoy: 48:25

Of course. This was fun.

48:34

Thank you for listening to this episode of History Mix Tapes. Please like us, rate us, send us any comments, send us your personal mix tapes, and of course, as always, bear with me as I continue to keep this one woman podcast alive, uh, fueled mostly by my DIY aesthetic. And sound editing abilities, as well as deep library of mix tapes.