D'Angelo: Voodoo (2000) Beck Does it Again (Originally Aired March 02 2021)

[00:00]Hey everybody, this is Rob from Beck Did It Better. This is Beck Does It Again, Beck Did It Again, it's one of those, I can't remember which one it is, but we are not able to get together to record this week, and unfortunately we heard about the passing of D'Angelo, so we are going to replay our 38th episode, which is us talking about his album Voodoo, and one of the things I've always loved about D'Angelo is, even though I wasn't the biggest fan, I think D'Angelo really kind of sums up the podcast, because I didn't know much about him, Russ had never heard of him apparently,

[00:34]and Aaron of course just loves him. So it really kind of is one of these early episodes where we're kind of talking about music and really exploring it, and it was back when the records were really, really good and we didn't know how good we had it. So the only thing I want to do before we start here is I have to explain, because we have the very rare Matt Parody song, and Matt is singing a song about Jenny's pie. Now, I should tell you, I had edited out the segment that I had talked about Jenny's

[01:04]pie-making class, and so the joke didn't hit for anybody, and Matt was mad about it, so let me explain for now, this is a long-lost Beck Did It Better mystery, this is literally 130 episodes later, but Jenny had a pie-making class where she was making, during COVID, she was taking a class and they just had to come up with their own recipe for pie, and it had to be a theme. And so Jenny's theme, now I should say, it was also a cookies-making class, her cookies

[01:33]were crazy good, like she made a theme of French bistro, and it was like espresso and chocolate chip, oh, it was so good, it was crazy. The pies, I think she kind of ran out of gas, you know, when you really like hit something hard, you take it easy, she was doing going out to the movies, so she made a popcorn-based pie that was full of hot tamales and Mike and Ikes or something, I should ask her actually, it was in the pie, but it was a crazy pie, well, we had talked about that, and back then

[02:03]I actually edited a lot of stuff out because I thought anybody cared, and so I edited out that segment, and then Matt comes in the next week over the top with a parody song about a segment that had been cut out, and looking back, I probably should have done this PSA like before that episode, but I think I didn't know what was going on. So anyway, that explains the parody song, and then we get into classic Aaron stuff, and I feel bad about it, so apologies to Aaron.

[02:30]In the future, or in the present, if you're listening right now, that's why they call it the present, okay, because my favorite present was when Randall McDaniel, who was classically, of course, not a quarterback, that's Randall cutting him, threw me the ball, and that's why for me the present is the past, and that was a good bit, that was worth it, and you might be thinking to yourself, Rob, are you going to redo this because it's kind of a bomb, just you talking to yourself, you thought it'd actually go good, but you're

[03:00]realizing that it's not going well, you just called it Voodoo D'Angelo, when really it's D'Angelo with the album Voodoo, which was number 38th on our list, and the answer is no, and you might say, Rob, why are you not re-recording this? Is it because you're doing this at the last possible second, Monday night, and you don't have time to do it? No, that's not it at all. So thanks for listening, everybody. We will see you next week with Bob Dylan, but this is D'Angelo Voodoo with Beck, does it again, Beck did it again, Beck does it again, I think that's what it is.

[03:32]In 2020, four friends decided to listen to every one of the greatest 500 albums as decided by Rolling Stone Magazine. This resulted in a text chain that celebrated the music, excoriated the order, and led us to making this podcast. We are far from experts, and we promise to do almost no research. All opinions are our own, unless you disagree. Please sit back and enjoy Beck Did It Better. Listen up, guys, I've got my crank up radio here. I've been cranking this thing all day long, so it is charged up.

[04:01]Let's get started. I thought we weren't going to talk about cranking. I know. That's right. We are going to set, so I've got some goals for the podcast. We'll talk about it after this intro. Just let me crank it a little bit more. All right, here we go. So off to a great start. We're good. We're good to go here. Here we go. Oh, I love this song. Get cookies. Sounds like a jam. We want pie up front on the stove, up front in the sky. Watch us all fly to NY for a slice of pie. To be part of Jenny's pie. Oh, you guys are going to NY.

[04:30]Strawberries, plucked off the vines. Cherries, apples, ripe with time. Bring them all to NY to be part of Jenny's pie. Is this D'Angelo? This is too basic. I want more junior mints, candy corn, Swedish fish, knickers, bars. Throw it all into Jenny's pie. Sour Patch Kids, Jujubees, Mike and Nikes, Sugar Babies, Bag of Skittles, Hot to Mollies, all part of Jenny's pie.

[05:00]Nice. What the hell is this all about? How can this be? Makes me shout. A pie with candy? I'd rather die. Bring me a real fucking pie. Lemon lime, banana cream, French silk, raspberry, pecan date, gooseberry. Please bring me some actual pie. I'm so hungry right now. Pumpkin, apple, huckleberry. I'll even take a little ice cream. Please. Don't mess with greatness, please. Just bring me some real pie.

[05:31]Fall in line, fall in line, for a slice of actual pie. In NY, in NY, a slice of real fucking pie. I'd rather die, I'd rather die, for a slice of real pie. Fall in line, fall in line, for a slice of real pie. Oh my God. When you want to hear about the greatest albums of all time. But you're just two years and then look it up online.

[06:04]If you want to hear four guys who chat and then they get off track. I've got the perfect podcast for you, Jack. Well, it makes no sense to anybody. It doesn't matter, Matt. You just got to roll with it. That's one of the pluses of you not listening is you can make all these jokes and make no sense to anyone. Welcome, everybody, to the Therapist Podcast. Welcome to the Therapeutic Davenport of Love. Just here for you freaks who want this exclusive content hanging out here with us.

[06:32]And with me, I've got three guys who are pretty much the opposite of D'Angelo in every single way I can possibly think of. Let's say hello. We've got Russ in Minnesota. Russ, how are you doing? I hope our listeners are enjoying this podcast in stereo from the left and to the right, the back, the middle, and the front. Pump it up in the club. A little bit of rub-a-dub. I know you love us because we're funky. We just want to show you some love. I'm assuming those are lyrics from this album. Which I understood none of for the whole time. So, I'm going to assume that's a great job.

[07:01]Matt in Minneapolis. How are you doing, Matt? Doing excellent. I thought I'd get in on this lyric game here. Oh, I love it. Drugs and thugs. Women whine. Three or four at a time. Watch them all stand in line to listen to Beck Did It Better. Yeah! Oh, yeah! Happy to be here, Rob. And I got Aaron out in California. Aaron, how are you doing? I don't like when Matt brings all this energy at the beginning of the podcast. I don't like when Matt brings all this energy at the beginning of the podcast. I don't like when Matt brings all this energy at the beginning of the podcast. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me tired. I'm tired. Don't make me do it, guys.

[07:30]Because if we're going to do lyrics from the album, you know I'm going to want to go straight to Li-Li, I Set Your P***y On Fire. So, there's already our bleep joke of the week. Well, there we go. We just talked about this five minutes ago. Fuck this pod clean. We talked about this. We had a state of the podcast address. And a state of the podcast address is always a time where I take the guys and I just give them a little spank. And I'm like, listen, this is when you've talked over me. This is when you haven't laughed at my jokes. This is how we're going to fix the podcast. So, I'm just going to tell everybody right now. I'm going to try to talk more slowly. And we're going to embrace the pregnant pause.

[08:00]I don't like that at all. And we are going to try to be less dirty. So, here we go. We are not off to a great start on that. But we are going to do it from here on out. I'm going to rub off the whiteboard. We have gone zero minutes without a dirty joke. All right. I don't like when my pauses cause pregnancy. I don't like pregnant pauses. I don't like that at all. Yeah. Normally, pauses cause people to not get pregnant. So, okay. So, I'm going to rub off the whiteboard one more time. And now. From now on. Now, I'm serious about this. Here we go.

[08:30]All right. So, let's get right into it. Today, we are talking. Oh, I didn't even say what album we're talking about today. We are talking about D'Angelo's Voodoo. And it is number 20. But anyway, we got a voicemail. Let's go to the Beck line. Hey, boys. This is Sarah from Minnesota. That sounds a little familiar. Calling in. I just listened to your Carole King episode. And had a couple of. Off the press. Things to react to. She sounds nervous.

[09:00]I was so glad to hear more Matt. Yes, please, Matt. Wow. Seems like a plant. He has been pretty quiet the last few episodes. So, I loved hearing more from him. I would say only about the last 35 or so. Hey, Matt's friends calling in to say. I'm excited to hear more Matt. Shocker. I'm sure. But cuts. Absolutely. Totally remember butt cuts. Thank you, Sarah. Police supported them at the time. See? Butt cut. It is a real thing, guys. I told you that's a real phrase. People know it. My wife yelled at me.

[09:30]She goes, you know all of these people from Richfield that have butt cuts. And we called them butt cuts. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. Is your wife listening to the podcast or not? Yes, she is. It's not good. Sarah, this Sarah, you wonder why I've been quiet the last few episodes. It's because all of a sudden my wife's listening. So, I've got to clean it up. Damn it. My favorite thing is how Matt's wife would initially proclaim she wanted nothing to do to listen. Random white dudes talking about their lives. And now she's one of our dedicated listeners.

[10:02]And yet, Matt doesn't even know that we've cut out major sections of the previous podcast in his intro song. The dang parody song means nothing. It turns out she doesn't like four white guys. But when it's just three and a half, because Matt barely says anything, she loves that. She thinks that's great. All right. Let's keep going with the voicemail here. Totally remember butt cuts. Thank you, Sarah. Police supported them at the time. Going back to college for just a day. I'd go for a week. Without a doubt.

[10:30]Did we talk about that? Aaron never hearing the song Wrecking Ball before? Huh? What? I've had numerous comments to this, Rosie. I was completely baffled by that. It's fucked. Anyways, Tuesdays are my best days because I get to see a new episode from you guys popping up on my feed. Thanks for all the laughs and Jim Horn for life. All right. Thank you for coming. Jim Horn for life. I'm back with more Jim Horn.

[11:00]I can tell you, the listeners are way back from where we're recording, guys, because she's talking about stuff I cannot remember talking about in the least. Between butt cuts and then Wrecking Ball and Jim Horn, multi-instrumentalist, of course, very famous. So, positivity, positivity. We're the new positive podcast. You know what time it is. It's time to make fun of Aaron. Oh, yeah. Don't worry. He likes it. I don't own a microwave.

[11:32]Still, I can't believe it. Still, the idea that you don't own a microwave. Every time I open my microwave, I think to myself, what does Aaron do in this situation? What's worse, the fact that he doesn't own a microwave or that he never heard Wrecking Ball? What's more baffling to you? Wrecking Ball. Wrecking Ball. I mean, that's, yeah, I don't understand how I never heard that one. Have you listened to Wrecking Ball since then? Have you checked it out? I've not. I'll be honest. I've not. No, because, listen, we're going to talk about Wrecking Ball. We're going to talk about Wrecking Ball. We're going to talk about Wrecking Ball. We're going to talk about this in real and gone. I've been very focused on this run of albums. How do we make fun of Aaron for not knowing Wrecking Ball when literally I've never heard

[12:03]of D'Angelo and he's got the 29th greatest album of all time? So I don't think we can make fun of Aaron for not knowing Wrecking Ball. Aaron is buying parts to his record player to help him listen to D'Angelo, and at the same time, he has not listened to Wrecking Ball. It's true. It's very strange. I'm guilty. Let's get into making fun of Aaron, by the way. This is what Aaron said. I just have one five-second clip, and I want to bring this up. This isn't so much making fun of Aaron. I just want to peer more into this. We do actually hang our laundry from the ceiling, but that's not that interesting.

[12:30]Let's keep going. Now, you cannot hear that in last week's show because we both talked over him and then ignored him after he said that. But Aaron, I got to hear, what the fuck are you doing hanging laundry up? Are you Loras Ingalls Wilder? What is your deal? We do have a- Loras Ingalls Wilder? Yeah, it's plural. It's possessive. Look it up. Dumb shit. I heard it on Sesame Street. I think we've had this thing in two different places we've lived now, and it's never fallen out of the ceiling. Is this thing a dryer? Because if this thing is a dryer that you're talking about, you do not need to hang them

[13:00]up. You have to vent out. Sometimes you've got to go through the ceiling to vent it. He's got like the 500-prong drying machine hanging from the ceiling in his basement. He's like, we've got to hang this dryer up. It's just like you can see the beams just bending every time it works. It's down there in some chains, and there's an anvil on the bottom. I'm going to start this dryer, and then I'm going to hang it up. And then we immediately have to run out of the room, because it starts swinging like a son of a bitch in here. I don't know how people use these things, but I guess hang up your clothes is what I've

[13:32]heard. It's swinging around like a helicopter, and Aaron's like ducking his head and running for upstairs. Yeah. So nothing about the truth is any better than the story you're telling. But we do own, and we've used it in two different places, a very cool apparatus that is a sort of pulley lever kind of system that has a piece of rope that is, you know, it's a little connected to the clothes hanger situation, and then that is bolted into the ceiling because

[14:02]we've always lived in small places. And so you lower it down, hang the clothes over it, and then you hoist it up to the top, and then you hook it around the little cleat that's in the wall to hang it up. Because, like, we got a lot of clothes that don't need drying, like all your cycling clothes, your exercise clothes. These don't need to be dried. Your sweaters, these need to be hung, hang dry, and we don't have an outdoor clothes line, so we hang them up inside the house. You also. You also wash your clothes with, like, a stone or some sort of grate where you guys, like, sit outside and rub them against the stone or not?

[14:31]No. I mean, this sweater does not need to be cleaned in a real washing machine hanging from my ceiling, so I'm just going to go outside and scrub it against this rock for two hours. No, there's no hand washing for the most part. I got to say, I got to say, Aaron's story doesn't add up at all. So his point is that he has a small house, okay? We've established that. Aaron has a small house. So he then fills it up with his. His clothes that are drying. How does that make any sense? Like, we're just supposed to say, oh, you have a small place, so you'd hang up your

[15:02]clothes inside. They're not on the floor. Side note, if we had a dog, the dog would not be eating these underwear because they'd be hanging from the ceiling. So it's a perfect solution, Rob. I'll send you one. So do you own a dryer? Yes, we own a dryer. Yeah, but some stuff shouldn't be drying. This whole thing's fucked then. This whole conversation is messed up. I don't get it. Some clothes are just better to not go in the dryer. They last longer. They, you know, you're. Your stuff doesn't shrink up too short, like in your, you know, waffle cut long sleeves,

[15:31]you know, like those things shrink up too short. And all of a sudden you get midriff shirts if you throw them in the dryer too many times. You guys understand. I think that's why I get to go champion reverse waves. Yeah, well, I'd not see. I'm still working. I'm building up. I'm building up my collection. Hey, Rob, I think we already have our make fun of Aaron material. I was going to come. I was going to come back to it. I was going to come back to it. Well, here. What can I can I chime in? Because I think I know what you've got. Okay. First of all, you chiming in about anybody doing the wash. It's totally fucked. I just want to point that out. But yes, I will allow you to speak. I'm the only normal watch guys on this podcast.

[16:02]Do the laundry. I just don't hold the laundry. No one has to put it. I get the laundry done. And we're embracing the pregnant pause. You guys don't even want to know what just happened over here during that. I was waiting for the joke. Don't wait for the joke. And don't talk about how I spilled some Diet Coke on my shirt here. And now that shows up on the zoom. I don't need to hear that either. Okay. Visual joke. Nine months from now. I'm going to have a major announcement for you guys. Well, it really, I mean, it really, it's like 10 months.

[16:34]Cause 40 weeks is closer to 10 months than nine months. It's kind of the, it's true. They'll let you know. Luckily I did my pregnant pause four weeks ago. It's nine months. Also appropriate for this album. I can't believe I spilled Diet Coke on the shirt. Well, well better hang it from the ceiling. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. I'm going to send you guys a picture. And then you're going to be jealous. You're going to want one of these apparatus. They're really there. They say, Oh, please, please do.

[17:00]I can't imagine what a clothing line looks like. I mean, what are you talking about? Like Aaron, I got to ask you, like when I've come, I've came out and visited you, you and your wife a few times over the last, you know, five, 10 years or whatever. I've probably been out there three, two, three times or whatever. Yeah. When I show up, do you guys like hide all this stuff? Cause you're like, Oh, Russell's going to lose his shit. If he sees like all our clothes hanging from the ceiling, do you hide, do you hide this, this deviant behavior that you guys have? No, I mean, I miss, this might be funny too. I mean, the clothes hang in our bedroom and I guess we didn't invite you

[17:32]into our bedroom when you came out to visit. So maybe, maybe we should have really taken our friendship to the next level. Guess what, Russell, you come visit me in New York. The first place we're going to go is my bedroom. I'm going to show you that I'm a better friend than Aaron for sure. I promised I will not show your wife the pregnant pause. I won't do it. Pregnant pause.

[18:00]All right. So this is not a sustainable bit. We cannot keep going. All right. So now that we're 50 minutes into this podcast with the pauses. It's time to see what everybody's up to. It's time for rolling. Go. Oh yeah. I picture Aaron like getting to his bed and he's like going through, it's like the jungle, you know, but it's just like a bunch of people. It's like a bunch of cycling shirts and sweaters and you know, who knows what else you can't drive.

[18:30]That's true. That does happen. Cause it's right off the corner where either you go through the jungle of clothes hanging from the top or you crank your art, like your knee on the corner of the bed. No. Yeah. You know what I mean? You end up with a bruise on that corner. Anyway, it's time to see what everybody's up to. So you have, you have so many clothes up that you run into the bed. Like you're just walking around blind. Honey, keep, keep clapping. So I can find where the bed is. Like this makes absolutely no sense. I love how the water is just like dripping all over his bed and everything. Like they just got puddles of water from their hanging clothes.

[19:02]And okay. While the dryer's down there hanging by itself. Once I go into the room, because it's usually dark, my lady goes to bed before I do. Usually maybe this is too much information. You might have to cut this out. Nice work. Uh, I like to try to get into my side of the bed with my eyes closed. Like I like to walk into the bedroom and see if I can make it with my eyes. I don't know why. I'm going to play this on a loop for the rest of the podcast. Oh, shut up. Shut up.

[19:32]So what you doubt now I'm not, I'm just going to point this out. What Aaron said is not that he gets into bed with his eyes closed and I didn't listen to why I don't care. What Aaron said was what I like to do is I like to try to get into the bed. So he, this is something he looks forward to. He's like, Oh yes, my wife is asleep. I'm going to, Oh, what should I do? I could do, I could do anything. I want, let's see, what can I do? I can go read some French poetry out in the tent in the garage.

[20:00]I can Rambo, I can go downstairs and ignore the dryer or I can close my eyes and try to get into bed. Ooh, I know what I'm going to do. This is so fun. Oh, wait, I've got a sweater stuck around me. Help me, help me. It's a fascinating life that I lead. I can't, I can't lie about that. Hey, back to the future. Volume two, make fun of Aaron. It really is. We can just shut this podcast down and do next week. So we can do it right after this is no problem whatsoever.

[20:31]Rolling. Go on, Rob. How's it going with you? Why don't we start with you? All right, let's start. Let's start with me. I do have a good one today because I felt very much like Russell at the post office. This is weak. I had a number of experiences where I was like, this is what Russell feels like at the post office. It completely incompetent. I got into, I got into the elevator in my building and all of a sudden, as the doors were closing, this extremely attractive woman got on. Okay. Even with half a mask, I could still tell she was very attractive and she got on or no, she was on first and then I got on the elevator and she looked,

[21:02]she was on first. She was on first. What do you mean by that? Well, you wait to get on. And then now the new thing is you kind of have to make sure people motion you on because getting on an elevator when people don't want you on the elevator is poor form. So she's on the elevator. I hop on, she goes, what floor are you going to? I said seven. She said, okay. She pushes nine. She pushes seven. She pushes nine. Very, very nice. Great. Great. Except for, I don't live on seven. I live on 14 and I forgot the building I work in.

[21:31]I work on the seventh floor. So then she pushed seven and I was with the dog and I was like, she was on nine. So I was like, well, I can't just tell her like, no, actually it's 14. You know what I mean? So I literally got off the elevator with the dog and then there's all these other people on the floor, like putting away the recycling or doing stuff in their apartment. So I had to get off, look around and be and do the big, like, Oh no. And then push up and go back into 14. I feel like a fucking idiot.

[22:00]- Did you at least wait for her to go back up? You got off and wandered around, right? - I got off. Cause I was like, what if, yeah. What if I push up and then get back on the same elevator that she's there. So the door just closes and then it immediately opens up and I get back on. I go, what if she did the same thing, Robin? She screwed up and she was only supposed to be at four or five. And she accidentally said nine. And you said seven. And it was just like, it was meant to be. - So then the elevator coming down is the one I'm getting into. Get up. And we're both like, eight minutes later, a few more false floors, a pregnant pause later. It was a grand old time,

[22:30]huh? - Maybe she got, is doing a podcast right now where she's like, listen, this really attractive guy got in the elevator. I got totally flustered. I went to the wrong floor. - Nope. Nope. Nope. I don't, I don't mean to burn it, Robin. Didn't happen. Didn't happen. - I was scared for my life. I didn't know what to do. I asked him about floor. He told me seven, then it immediately looked very confused and didn't know what to do. So then, I also, this week I ran out of deodorant. Okay. And actually, to be honest,

[23:00]I ran out of deodorant about two months ago and I have been using my wife's deodorant. Now I don't think there's anything wrong with using your wife's deodorant. I think that is fair game. I never ever tell her, I would never tell her she'll be pissed if she ever listens to this podcast. So I'm set for the rest of my life. Not worried about that. And the, so I go down to the Duane Reade, which is in my building. Right. And I go to get the deodorant. They now have the deodorant behind glass that you have to unlock and get the deodorant. So I have to go. Like razor blades where you have to have a lock to get them out. I don't know.

[23:30]I don't know if they're so expensive, but I have to go ask somebody to unlock the deodorant. And then I have to say to them, ah, yes, I would like the, you know, the extra sweaty man. Yeah. I would like the musk bear smell shark, man, like Superman deodorant. Cause I'm telling you one of my favorite days of all time. And I've said this all the time is growing up. I love it when I run out of deodorant and I get to go pick a new type of deodorant. It's one of the highlights of my week. I'm not weak. I don't buy deodorant that often, but whenever I buy deodorant, it's I love shopping because there's all these different fun kinds,

[24:02]kinds of deodorant and you can use all these different things. Yeah. I love it. I think it's great. I, I, I love all the new, like super masculine flavors. Is that the right term? Like the flavors? - I hope it's not a flavor, maybe a scent. - Well, anything's a flavor if you try hard enough. - Rob, are you a science teacher? You don't know like the five senses. - Listen, I don't have time for teaching that stuff. Okay. I'm much too busy at school listening to these albums. But it's so embarrassing because now I basically am not going to buy deodorant.

[24:30]And in fact, I went to another Duane Reade in Manhattan. It was also under glass. So I just walked out. I mean, - What else is under, what else is under glass? - I don't know. - Pipes, right? - I think like, oh, you know, laundry detergent is. - Cigarettes? - Like Sudafed. - So just stuff that, stuff that gets stolen. - What would be the most embarrassing thing you would have to ever go buy and ask for them to open the glass to buy? Like, is it condoms? What would be the thing where you'd be terrified? - I would love to be buying condoms. I'd ask the lady at Duane Reade to open the glass to open them for what? - Oh my God. I would love to buy condoms. And I'd be like,

[25:00]what, give me your smallest, most normal size condoms that you have. Like that's what I want. Condoms are so big. I get condoms sometimes. I used to, when I used to get condoms. - Oh Rob, we weren't gonna do this, Rob. We weren't gonna do this. - I was always like, they're so big. And then there's that little tip on the end. I remember in health class, they'd always be like, oh, make sure you squeeze that tip when you put it on. Otherwise, yeah, otherwise. And I was like, how much do you think is coming out? Like, do you think there's so much coming out that if I don't squeeze that tip, this whole thing's gonna fly off like a balloon, like a water rocket? Like, I was like, this makes no sense.

[25:30]Like, even then I was like, squeeze the tip. That doesn't even make, how does that make any sense? But that was like the one thing I remember from health class was squeeze the tip. But the other day I had to go in, and Aaron, you might relate to this 'cause you were talking about foot care. Do you guys have toenail fungus? I've got to put some stuff on my toenails, like brush some stuff on. - Hey, Rob, maybe this was the other thing we shouldn't have talked about if we wanted to get listeners. - Yeah, this is a, I mean. - We should just cancel this now. There's no reason to go forward with this. - Okay, you guys can toenail shame me all you want, but all it does is make your toenails like a little yellow and a little thicker, you know, like old man toenails. So I get a thing where I brush it on

[26:00]and then my toenails are totally healthy. So then I can go get a pedicure. - Honestly, if you have something that's fixing this problem, Rob, I need to know what it is. - We're at 100 listeners. - We're losing, this is bad. - I think if I had to ask somebody to go unlock the toenail fungus brush, I would, that would be a bummer to me. - Rule number one for once we get into the 30s, we never let Rob go first on "Rolling Go Again" for again. - Matt, "Rolling Go Again," how's it going with you? - I feel like I'm being usurped here. - Usurped, great word. Were you done, Rob?

[26:30]I didn't want to interrupt. - Is that a constellation, usurped? Just kidding. - I was going to ask if you guys like to buy anything, but I think Russ's question was actually much better, so let's just move on. - I was going to introduce a new segment this week. - Oh, shit. - Called just effing quit it already. - Oh, just effing quit it, just effing quit it. - My question is this, I've had a couple of experiences this week where I literally, I just wanted to quit what I was doing

[27:01]and just move on with life. But like the thing, I don't know if it's from my parents or what it's from, there's like, nope, you got to see things through. So one of them, and I don't want to keep coming back to this, so I'm going to go over this. - It's probably his wife listening to the podcast. I just want to quit this marriage already. I can't listen, I can't handle her listening to this. - Is it squeezing the end of the condom? - Oh, no. - Keep going. - I was doing a Peloton ride and it was 90s country. And I'm like, oh, this will be good little 15 minute.

[27:31]I just needed a quick 15 minute ride. I'm like, this will be good. I like 90s countries, but the only country I like. And then literally a minute and a half in, the instructor was just painful. And I just wanted to be like, I'm out, I'm out. But like the whole counter thing and you know, like, is this going to mess up? Like my count? So I was, I was like, I just, I just kind of, I just gutted it out for 15 minutes and, and just, I will never take a class with that person again. And then. - Can't you just turn it on mute or take off your headphones?

[28:03]- Probably, yeah. That would have been a good, Russell. You're so smart. - So smart. - You like that, huh? - Yeah, that's very nice. I should have probably done that. - Couple hundred thousand dollars of school loans later and here I am. - Talking to us on Friday nights. - I don't like the way this looks and sounds. - Turn it off. - What? - Yeah. - Sounds good. And then the other one was, I was reading a book and I got it for my mother-in-law for Christmas and about 30 pages in, I was like, this just is not for me.

[28:32]But like, I have, I don't know if I've ever not finished a book or consciously not finished a book, but in, in, in all reality, if you don't like a book, you should just ditch it. Right? - And you're holding it up right now and the book title is why divorce is a good thing. Please divorce your wife. - That seems like a weird book for her to give you. I don't like that. - Yeah. - I hear you on the books, man. - So is there anything, is there anything you guys, now that you're, you know, adults, at least by age, I don't know about how you act or anything like that,

[29:01]but is there anything that it's okay to just quit and move on? - Well, every, every exercise regime I ever take up, I tend to quit it and I just feel like that's been okay for me. - Yeah. But am I, am I, am I irrational in my thinking? Like, like if, if a book's not good, just get rid of it and chuck it and, and things like that. Am I, am I holding on to a- - I think you're, you're, you're onto something, Matt. I think I used to read a lot and I've read a little less the last few years, but whenever I would get into a book,

[29:31]I would always say I have to finish it. And normally if I would get a quarter of the way into a book and I wasn't enjoying it, nothing would ever change by the end of it. That made me enjoy it. And Aaron's going to hate me for this, but one of the books that really was like this for me was Moby Dick. I remember reading that book and thinking, oh, this is one of these classics. I'm supposed to love it. And about, you know, a hundred pages in, I was like this, I'm not into this at all. I don't get it. This does nothing for me. But I said, I have to finish it. And I finished it. And I was like, man, I would have really read, rather had those like 400 pages back in my life.

[30:02]- Oh, really? When he staves in the, the Pequot and everything, he's not, not doing it. Spoiler alert for Moby Dick. - Uh, I don't hate you for that. - Oh, I was just at the part where he was determining where to stay. Oh shit. - But I'm, but I'm with you, Matt. I, I wish I would have given up on more books in my life because usually if something feels like it's not happening, it never, it never shifts and flips on the second half. - But then this, this whole conquest we're on, you know, of listening to the 500 albums, I have found numerous times where it's like, God damn it.

[30:32]Just end this album already. And it goes on and on and on. But you know, we we've set a goal for this one. So I think I can't, can't quite fully embrace it yet until we get done with this conquest. But I don't know. - I always think that applies. - Or whatever it is. - I always think that applies to people dating outta high school. I, I, and every time I say that, every time I say this very erudite, like very smart thing to somebody, I'm having a conversation with somebody I don't know, 100% of the time they go,

[31:00]well, I married my high school sweetheart. I'm like, shit, dang it, this is not good. But even when I taught high school, I would tell the kids, whoever you're dating right now, break up with them, go to college. If you still like each other, when you come back, you can still date each other like in the summer, don't worry about it. But I think there's something that people say like, oh no, you gotta stick with stuff. You gotta, I mean, I don't think anybody is happy dating their high school person into college. It's a huge bummer. You get to college and all of a sudden there's all these people who are attractive and they don't know that super dumb thing you did in eighth grade.

[31:30]It's like heaven. I assume that's why I didn't date a ton in college is that I had a girlfriend from high school, but. - Well, there goes about 10% of our listeners that are females and have Duluth accents that probably married their high school boyfriends, right? - Duluth accents. - Oh, hey there. - Oh, hey guys. - I got a fresh new set of bars. - Meet my husband/prom date. This is Richard. - What a dick. - The other 50% of the listeners we just lost are the ones where they're now convinced,

[32:00]well, I've never liked this podcast. Maybe I should stop listening to it so bad. That was a terrible piece of guidance. - Damn it. Oh, cut it out, Ron. - Everyone's crossing this. Now our podcast is on their spreadsheet of shit they want to get rid of. - Finish this podcast? - Oh, great. I don't have to go on the journey with these guys? - You shitheads have to finish this podcast. There's no escape for you. This is the way it is. - I'll be honest, Russell. The one thing I did quit was the Moby Dick podcast because I started being on this podcast. - That sounds just terrible. You're just lining up, make fun of Aaron's left and right,

[32:30]the Moby Dick podcast. Like, what are we even talking about here? - It's a really good podcast. They go, "Is Talia laughing?" They go chapter by chapter about Moby Dick. It's really great. But you can't, like you guys know, you can't listen to podcasts and be on a podcast. That's the whole problem with trying to market your podcast. - I'm gonna unsubscribe from my favorite podcast, "101 Condom Jokes." I just found that out. - What episode are you on? - Are you on number one? - I was on number one. It was the bit about the end. I don't know. Because of my girlfriend from high school,

[33:00]I'd never had to use a lot of condoms in college. And that's the only reason why. It definitely isn't my face or body. - Just thinking of pregnant pause. - By the way, you see, I didn't mention personality 'cause that's what I've got like crazy. - Roll and go on, Aaron. How's it going with you? - I'm a little bit stressed, guys. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm a little bit stressed. So I'm gonna talk about something that's been stressing me out. And then I'm gonna talk about something that eased my stress a little bit. So that's where I'm at tonight. - Keep it clean. - This run of- - Look it, I'm staying out of this.

[33:31]- Three albums that we're on. So folks at home who are listening, this is a music podcast where we're going through the Rolling Stone list of 500 albums. This run of three albums of... Wu-Tang entered the 36 Chambers. - Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang. - D'Angelo, Voodoo. And then next week with the White Album by the Beatles. These three albums are in my top five

[34:00]of all time most played albums. These are albums I know so well. And I feel a lot of pressure on myself to try to say something useful and intelligent about this art that has been so important to me in my life. - Good luck to you. - Let that go. - And I can't do it. And then with this one in particular, not only is D'Angelo one of my musical heroes in this album, one of my favorites, but as I've read more about the album, learned more about the album, Questlove, Amir Thompson was such an important part

[34:30]of making this album. He was my absolute, you guys know, he was my absolute 100% pandemic internet best friend and hero. He was doing DJ sets every night from 1st of April, maybe even earlier, all the way up through the summer. I watched him every night when I wasn't talking to you guys. I learned so much about music from him and he's such an integral part of this album that then to understand the encyclopedia of music that these guys were pulling from, I can't listen to enough music to try to understand this album. And I can't listen to this album enough

[35:01]to try to say something about this album. And it's got me stressing. So I can't do, yep, you got it, Russell. You know, you know, no. - Are we supposed to listen to these albums? - This is perfect. - Is that part of this podcast? - The thing that- - I want to know what you stress, what did you eat to get rid of the stress today, Aaron? - S'mores. - How many grilled chickens? How many grilled chickens? - You had a grilled chicken sandwich with a side of shirt that fell out from his s'mores. - How many salads? How many salads did you have today? - I did have salad for lunch. And actually I had salad for lunch with veggie chicken patty,

[35:33]which is like super delicious. I love those, but they interrupted him like seven times. - Then you're hungry after an hour. It just doesn't work. But for dinner tonight, for dessert, we had s'mores. And there were these beautiful mini s'mores that my lady ordered from the restaurant. From a person who she went to grad school with. So these are s'mores built on like- - Okay, be quiet for a second. I'm telling you right now, you are getting ripped off buying mini s'mores. I will sell you half a graham cracker, a tiny piece of chocolate and a mini marshmallow.

[36:00]You do not need to order that from somebody. I will literally show you where to buy that stuff at a store. - You could easily fit three marshmallows and a couple of chocolates into those bags. - I don't know anybody who has a s'more and is like, "You know what I wish this was, mini." I wish this was way, way smaller. - But yeah, I mean, but with like a little, you know, 3.75 year old kid, he's like warming up the mini marshmallows over the candle. It's beautiful, it's perfect. But what I need to know- - That's almost child abuse in my book. - What I need to know, because I don't want to do the thing where I talk for my entire rolling going and I don't involve, I'm not inclusive of you all.

[36:33]- Where you're trying to start conversations here, yeah. - That's what I'm doing. I need to know what your marshmallow style is because I typically am a very patient, slight light golden toast marshmallow guy, but I need to know what your marshmallow styles are. - As an uncle, I'm the guy who shoves that marshmallow right into the fire and lets it flame up as big as possible. - Yeah, that is sick. - And then watch my nieces and nephews go crazy over the flaming marshmallow. And then you kind of hold it up, let it flame up for a little bit, and then you blow that sucker out. I stick it right into the fire.

[37:01]- You know, that's what my wife does too. And I think that's real psychopathic stuff. I think that's- - I like that. That should be my nickname, the show. - Oh, it's just so gross to watch. Just you destroy this perfectly good ball of sugar and just totally burn the outside. It's disgusting. - I've taken a car, like a new sports car, and just hitting it a couple of times with a brick on the outside. Matt, what's your style? And then I'll get back to me. Don't forget about me. - You have to start out by getting the top done first. So you don't stick the marshmallow all the way down. You get it just so that the stick is sticking out just very,

[37:30]you have to get that first. If you don't get the top first, you get the sides first, it melts. And then you try to get the top, it falls off. So you gotta get the top first. That's the key. - Oh, shit. - Hey, Matt. - Wrong one. - What are you doing in there? - That was Matt's mark. - Why is it so hard? What's going on? What's going on? - Matt's smart comment of the week. Ooh, that's some smart shit. - That literally is the smartest thing I've ever heard anybody say. You're totally right. You cannot, you cannot. - You can't. You gotta get the top first. And then from there, you find a spot. - A cuter obtuse angle.

[38:00]- That you can rest your stick on, right? - It's gotta be acute. - You find something, because if you're holding it over there, you're gonna start shaking. You're gonna get all over the place. You've gotta have constant source of heat at the exact same spot at all time. And then you rotate to get it almost perfectly, I would say a good, a little bit more than golden, a little bit darker golden is how I get, just before it starts blistering a little bit. As though you get all the sides and the top, and then you're good to go. - You know what I used to do when I was younger is I used to put it in,

[38:31]and then I would cook the outside. And this might surprise you guys. I would then eat the outside and then cook the next layer, and then eat the outside and cook the next layer, just right off the thing. Looking back, it's probably not the greatest. My parents should have probably stepped in at some point. What were you gonna say, Russell? - I got nothing. Move on, I don't know. - I would guess that Aaron's, I think Aaron's, that Aaron's kid's style of marshmallows was severe disappointment because he's cooking a small marshmallow over a candle. - On a candle, yeah. - Like one of those real tiny ones on a toothpick.

[39:03]- He smells like cinnamon apricot. - At some point he's gonna have a real s'more from like some real parents, and it's gonna blow his fucking mind when he gets like a real marshmallow and it's big, and he's not doing it on his kitchen table over like a candle, and they're trying to avoid setting the 300 shirts he's got hanging up on fire. Like it's gonna be so good for him. - Instead of like hiding adult magazines from his old man back in like 10 years from now, he's gonna be a teenager like hiding s'mores

[39:30]underneath his bed and stuff like that. - Mountain Dew and s'mores. - Aaron's gonna walk in and be like, "Who's regular size marshmallows are these under this bed? Who showed you how to cook these marshmallows? You did, dad. You showed me how." You cook them in the microwave pretty quick too, can't you? - He's gonna go buck wild. He's gonna have a microwave like underneath his bed. - That was Matt's smart comment. - That's the second smart comment of the week. That's some smart shit. - Aaron walks in and he's like, "What are these ultraviolet rays going on in here? I can tell. I've got my measuring stick for these ultraviolet rays."

[40:03]- He has a sensor, a microwave sensor. I know you're using a little microwave in here. - So that's it, that's me this week. A lot of stressing about this podcast? - This room is for two things. It's for sleeping, and it's for hanging up all your laundry. There should be no microwaves going out of here. - Didn't Uncle Buck in the movie Uncle Buck, didn't he dry his laundry by putting it in the microwave? - Oh, yeah. - You don't have a zipper, right? Like, you can't get a zipper, you're screwed. - I'm your Uncle Buck.

[40:32]Do we have an Uncle Buck? - Aaron, were you gonna cap that off? That was a good one, Aaron. I gotta give you props for that. - Thank you. I was gonna say that was my week. I was stressing about trying to say something interesting about this album, and then I was relieving that stress by eating s'mores. - Let me help you with your stress. Nobody gives a shit what you say about these albums. Nobody cares. They just wanna hear you laugh, they wanna hear Rob call them dumb shits, they want me to be quiet, and they wanna hear Russell with all of his wisdom that he comes up from the backside,

[41:01]and then some of his dating stories, too. - And I've gotten some emails about condom advice, so I don't know. I think that's... I delete 'em, though. You guys don't go look for it. - You gotta pinch that tip off, Rob. Pinch it off. - Ross, I don't like what you say. That is, you know what? I'm sorry I said that, actually, 'cause now that you said that, I do realize how gross that is. Okay, so we're gonna move on. Russell, roll and go, and how's it going with you? - Well, I've gotta ask for dating advice. If the people want dating advice, they gotta ask for dating advice, right? So I better go to the corner and get some advice. - Get 'em in the corner. - God damn it. It's been a long time. - Rob, you and your soundbites. - Come on.

[41:30]- Get, get, get, get to the corner. It's time for- - You haven't been in the corner for a while. - It's true, it has been a while. - I'm going, oh, yeah. - Going back to the corner. - I like it. I'm out of here, man. - Matt, Matt, I just can't believe you have a paddle like that. Put that away. I don't know why you have that for, bud. - Yeah, he's gonna use that book- - With the holes in it, so you get a look. - Ooh, that's filthy. - Is that the drag on it? - Filthy, filthy. - He's gonna use that book he got called "How to Kiss Your Mother." - Oh, jeez.

[42:00]- What? - I'll cut that out, but it's funny to me. - What's going on? I don't even know what's happening. - The book is called "How to Kiss Your Mother-in-Law," and that's what he got. Okay, keep going. I'm sorry, Russell. - "How to Kiss Your Mother-in-Law" from my mother-in-law? - Subtle hint. - Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. - Well, there goes my ruling going from a year from now after this pregnant pause occurs. - No, we can't reference that anymore 'cause it's gonna cut out. We can't do it. - Oh, you know it's not getting cut out.

[42:30]- That's staying in. You know it's staying in. - Rob never tells us if we're allowed to talk about when we're taping this or if we're supposed to be talking about two or three weeks in the future when we release it. So we're taping this two days before Valentine's Day. I believe. And so I don't have any specific Valentine's Day plans, but I was wondering, as a single guy, if you start to meet someone and you hang out with them a little bit, when do you acknowledge Valentine's Day? Do you have to go on so many dates? Do you have to have like a three-day buffer around Valentine's Day where you try to not hang out with each other because you worried

[43:01]there's too much pressure? What's the Valentine's Day advice for the single guy in the world? - First date on Valentine's Day, Russell. Straight up power move. Just do it. - All the biscuits in the basket at one time. First date, you're right out there, everything. Like they bring over champagne, the whole thing. You're like, "Oh yes, this is very good." - I do the whole explanation about how I got the condoms behind the glass case at Target. My buddy Rob showed me how to pitch off the tip of them or not.

[43:30]- Oh, I see in the receipt, you also got toenail fungus paint, and I was like, "Oh no." - And a book on how to kiss your mother-in-law. - At least he's got Moby Dick on audiobook or whatever it is, right? - She gets in the car, you're listening to, "Call me, Ishmael." "These doors are locked, I can't get out." - She crawls in the backseat and she's gotta climb over the stack of Herbie Badd albums. It's a complete disaster. - "Thanks for going on a date with me on Valentine's Day." "What? Valentine's Day is not until tomorrow."

[44:00]"Oh God, let me out of this car." - I mean, I would say in regular times, like the world is so weird now, I don't even know what you can do on a date. But in regular times, that seems like the perfect excuse to go to a dive bar, right? You're like, "It's Valentine's Day. "I don't want to be out there with the amateurs "at the two-for-a-couple special night "at the silly restaurant. "Let's go get a shot and a beer and a plate of nachos "and let's hang out at the dive bar." That's, I feel like that's- - Listen to some D'Angelo on the jukebox.

[44:30]- Exactly. - That's how you know Aaron is a good looking guy, when that's the advice he gives. - Wait, what? - All right, Aaron, best place you ever went for Valentine's Day? I got a good one, but what's the best place you've ever gone? - Oh, man. - Most memorable? - You know, I think we did a Valentine's Day date at Ordinaire, which is a great wine bar here in Oakland, and there was a guy named Chris Kroener who used to do pop-ups there, and Kroener does the best burgers in America, but then he would do these crazy pop-ups with,

[45:00]that's funny you mention that, Matt, 'cause actually the other night I was looking back at old, like I was searching old emails to see like when we had been at Ordinaire for one of those. - Searching old emails? - Searching old emails. - Fuck. - What the fuck? - What the fuck is that? - I was like, I was trying to remember, like when did we go to the Bistro at Ordinaire for Kroener? And he, it was in 2014, he did like an Ooni and buckwheat. - Emails, risotto thing? - 2014? - Wait, don't you use Gmail even like? - Give me the food, give me the food. - I don't, we gotta get into this next week

[45:30]for the Making Fun of Aaron segment. We do not have time to get into why you have so many old emails. - Matt asked. - And why in your emails do you have listed what you've eaten? Like, do you email yourself every night? Like, add a burger, so good. - Russell, I'll do two quick things. - Matt, I wanna hear it. - Yeah, one, my senior year of high school, I think my girlfriend had dumped me like a month before. - Smart, that's a good move on her part. Taking my advice. - It was great, it was great, but. - And then she started dating Rob and she had to dump him when she decided to drive home fast.

[46:00]- Ended up going, ended up figuring out that White Castle takes reservations. - Oh no, this sounds terrible. - On Valentine's Day. - I love where this is. - This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. - So me, and I'm trying to remember who it went with, it was with another couple, like a friend kind of thing, but we went to White Castle on Valentine's Day. They had waiters, waitresses, they put tablecloths on the, they had candlelit dinners at White Castle. It was the greatest thing in the world. - How many sliders did you order, Matt? I'm gonna fire up like two dozen text messages,

[46:30]invites for this tonight, right now. - I gotta make a phone call real quick. - But you had to make reservations. You had to call, I think it was someplace, there was like a central spot in Minneapolis, you had to call, there used to be one on Lake Street, I don't know if it's still there, but we went to the one in Bloomington. - Did you walk in and did they immediately say, hey Matt, regular table? And you're like, oh no, oh no, don't act like I come here every weekend. - No, we're moving up tonight. - Sorry, Jerry, we're taking two Crave Cases tonight, thank you very much. - Ooh, the Crave Case, oh yes. - Hold the onions on.

[47:00]- Hold the cheese. - Matt, you know what's sadder than going to a White Castle with a reservation? - Nothing. - Is going there, going there with a date and then not having a reservation and getting denied at a White Castle. - They're like standing out in line like it's midnight on like a Friday night in downtown. - Russell, I would say, and then my advice is this, if it's anywhere inside of like three or four months, if you haven't been dating them for like a while, like if they haven't met your parents yet or like, you know, your brother or something like that,

[47:30]if they haven't met family, then you just make up some excuse like, oh, you know, for the last 23 years, I've been spending Valentine's day with my grandma and then just completely-- - I really feel terrible, that's too close to home right now. - Sorry grandma, I really enjoy spending every Valentine's day with you. - Russell's grandma is like, Jesus Christ, I want to go to White Castle, get this guy out of here. - Those candy flavored pies you make for me every Valentine's day are fantastic grandma, don't stop downloading this podcast, we need your downloads. - Russell, I heard this talk about the pies,

[48:00]Valentine's day is canceled, bring somebody else to White Castle. - But I think Valentine's day, New Year's and Halloween are just, I've never, never had fun on them and they never end up taking-- They never meet expectations and you're always trying to have like this great time and it never lives up to them and so just avoid it at all costs. That's my, that's my take.

[48:30]- So there you go Russell, there you go Russell, put on a smile, head forward with that advice. - Avoid communication with people for like 10 weeks around that time frame, I'm down with that, I can handle that. - I think if they have seen you naked in the light of day, then you can go on a Valentine's date with them, otherwise you can't do it. - What if they've seen me naked at White Castle? - They're still talking to you, put a ring on it. - Yeah, you got it. - Holy shit, that's such a good bet.

[49:00]I'm not gonna lie right now, this might be the best episode we've ever done. I think the condom stuff to White Castle stuff and some other stuff I did, so funny, so good. - And some other stuff I did. - And two out of the three things there were stuff you did. - You did. - What are you guys getting your old ladies for Valentine's Day? - Old ladies. - I need some advice, please help. - Rob's gonna order it like two weeks late. Rob, you need to order this a long time ago. - I was gonna get her some deodorant. I'm lost now, I'm screwed. - Like the manly musk flavor as you would call it.

[49:34]- Oh no, if I unlock the case, maybe that's what I should do is unlock the case and get one female scent and one male scent and I'll be like, oh yeah, this is for my stinky wife. - Yes, that's a great idea. - Do you think she'd want to make out with her mother-in-law by sending this book, would that be a good? - What's going on? - This is bringing up all sorts of weird feelings for me. Russell still doesn't get the book. I'm gonna write this book for you, Russell. I'm gonna show you this book joke. So what are you guys getting for Valentine's Day?

[50:00]Anything, any good ideas? - Nothing. - So yeah, Jenny's on a cut right now. So if I get her chocolate, she's gonna rip my head off. I'm totally lost, I don't know what to do. - Yeah, I ended up with some, some body wash. - Body oil, like some massage oil. - Oh yeah. - And then a linen towel. - As well with tortellini and onions. - All right, well that's the bottom of the podcast. We'll take it from there. - I'll take it from there. - You piece of shit, I talked about being married. We talked about being married. - Are you gonna say that's not for your wife, that that's for you?

[50:30]'Cause that's what you say with the body oils. - I don't have any ideas. - And then a nice pink linen towel that I thought looked pretty. - Oh geez, Aaron. - I don't know. - How are you married? I don't get it. He's like, sweetie, this towel cannot be dried. It will shrink. So we do need to hang this up in the bedroom. - Matt, how about you? Are you doing like a certificate for your wife where she gets to like make dinner for a few days or what certificate is she getting from you? - She can fold the laundry. - Oh my God. - It'll be good.

[51:00]- My mom, my mother could stay home for a few days while you do the laundry. Here's your certificate, laminate it and everything. - I'm gonna combine those ideas and I'm gonna give my wife his certificate book and a bottle of body oil. Just see where it goes, I don't know. We'll see what happens. Happy Valentine's Day, rub me. - You're gonna get like a little box of those little candy at Valentine's with just a bunch of inappropriate statements, aren't you, Rob? - Yeah, I'm gonna bring it all together because it's gonna smell like White Castle, so.

[51:30]- Oh yeah. - Oh. - Real oniony. - Well, Russ, great advice. - That's it. Time's up. - As always. Get out of the car. - These are the three people I go to for advice. This is what I got. This is my life. - That's your first mistake. - Guys, I just Googled it and White Castle turns into Love Castle. - Oh yeah, oh. - Under the 20, and, but. - Wait, when's Valentine's Day? - You can reserve a, you can, on Sunday,

[52:02]you can reserve a parking spot this year, not a table, but a parking spot, and they will serve you out at your parking spot this year. So it's still on if you wanna make a reservation. - That's such good news. - Well, for all the girls that have been swiping on me today, reservations made. - Russell's doing that classic movie thing where he's reserved two parking spots, he's got two different cars, and he's gotta go back and forth and change shirts each time. All right, guys, let's get into something. - Speaking of a guy who had a lot of dates. - Huh?

[52:31]- I'm doing Rob's thing, where we segue. Speaking of a guy who dated a lot of ladies. - Did he? - Caused a lot of pregnant pauses, I'm guessing, too. - There we go. I mean, how could he not? - I'm telling you, if D'Angelo did not date a lot of ladies, he really must've screwed up big time, 'cause I wanna date him after listening to this album. Let's give a little bit of history on this album. D'Angelo is originally from Virginia, went up to the Apollo in New York City, won a couple weeks in a row of whatever contests they had. He literally just dropped out of school and moved to New York City after that. And in 1995, he released the album "Brown Sugar"

[53:02]that had, sorry about this, it had his only Billboard Top 10 hit. Is that true? Is that fact true? This is his only Billboard Top 10 hit? This is his only Billboard Top 10? - I think on the pop charts, yeah. I think "Untitled" from "Voodoo" went to number two on the R&B, but yeah. - This is a very '90s R&B song to me. Doesn't this sound like you're knocking the boots or it's like- - Yes. - And I wouldn't be a guy who lives in Oakland if I didn't mention that a lot of "Brown Sugar" was recorded in Sacramento at Rafael Sadiq's studio,

[53:33]Rafael Sadiq of Oakland, California. You can edit that out, Rob. - No, now I have to edit you saying that out. And so this is a whole complicated thing. - Right, so basically, D'Angelo came out and people were kind of big on him 'cause he was fusing soul and R&B. And this was a time where he really, this album was so big, this "Brown Sugar" opened the door for Maxwell and Erykah Badu, and even the aforementioned Lauryn Hill on this podcast. Now, after that album came out,

[54:00]he kind of went through a rough time where he said basically he had total writer's block. He just couldn't write a song. He felt like you can't write a song without going out and living his life. So instead, according to Wikipedia, he spent most of his time lifting weights and getting stoned. And I was like, "What a life, that sounds awesome. "That sounds like the perfect life. "Like, why release another album? "I totally get it." - I think that's everyone's goal in life to get to that point, right? So, and then he said in the 2000s or late '90s, he really hated where R&B was going. He felt it was really derivative of just basically R&B

[54:31]from a couple years earlier. And he really wanted to bring back soul and funk, and he was talking about Prince, he was talking about Parliament, he was talking about the Ohio Players. And so he went into New York City and recorded this album at Electric Lady Studios, which we have already talked about with Patti Smith. It's the same exact place where that was recorded. This is a studio I found out that was bought by Jimi Hendrix a year before he passed away. And Jimi Hendrix recorded there, and there's a lot of other great albums that have been recorded there.

[55:00]And so he really felt like this was a connection to music from the past, which is what a big part of this album is about, is connecting it to kind of black music and soul music, and then fusing it with this kind of groovy, R&B. This album came out of four years of sessions. And basically, they said that, from what I've seen with interviews, they said the first couple of years were easy, and then the last year they were really stressed 'cause they were like, "We gotta put out something." And we're gonna find out as we go through the songs, I'm gonna tell you the singles he released off this album did not do well initially.

[55:30]And they actually pushed back the release date of this album 'cause they were really worried that it was gonna be a bomb. But what's interesting about this album as you listen is that there's very little verse chorus. Like even me listening to this at work, there was never a part where I was like, "Oh, here's the chorus. "Here's the chorus that I remember. "Here's the hook that I'm gonna sing along with." It was just kind of a lot of these funky grooves. And then every once in a while, he'd repeat some phrases, and I was like, "Well, I guess that's the chorus." And then like Aaron said earlier, a huge part of this album was Questlove on the drums. And Aaron, can you explain what you mean when you were talking about him dragging the beat on this?

[56:01]I think that's a huge part of this album. - Yeah, Questlove talks about this a lot, about how he had, and I've been watching interviews with him recently and reading things he said about it recently, so the Roots were a live hip-hop band, which was not cool in the mid-late '90s. So Questlove grew up in Philadelphia, exposed to a lot of music, jazz. Okay, I'm not gonna talk about Questlove 'cause I could do that all night. But he talks about how he had trained himself-

[56:30]- Again, the point of this podcast. - He had trained himself to play like a drum machine, where he was on the beat all the time, and he took it as a compliment when someone would come up to him and say, "You sound like a drum machine. "You're like a robot." - Thank you for the compliment. - Yes, he started playing with D'Angelo, and D'Angelo was like, "No, no, no, no. "Let it lay behind the beat." And I can't do the things that he would do in his interviews where he gives examples, but yeah, basically it was just consistently playing

[57:00]somewhere behind the beat, and it was about the interplay between the drums and the bass. And Questlove talks a lot, D'Angelo not as much, talks a lot about how this was influenced by J Dilla, who was a producer out of Detroit. Dilla worked with Tribe Called Quest most famously, was the only producer for Slum Village on their first album. And Dilla is not credited on this album in any way, but I know he was around the studio at the time because he was working with Common and Erykah Badu and all those other folks who were around

[57:31]Electric Ladyland at the time. And Questlove talks about how a lot of what they were going for was Dilla's, he calls it drunken drumming. And then the one other thing I would say about it is that D'Angelo talks about how he was influenced by hip hop and early hip hop where samples didn't always line up with the beat or the bass. And so he was emulating that sound where it just wasn't perfect. But the thing about that is it wasn't perfect,

[58:01]but it was perfectly imperfect and it can't be recreated because no one else has ever done this since. - Note to self, don't ask Aaron about that drumming dig at. - Holy shit, that was a lot. - Sorry. - It's awesome. - It was brilliant. - No, it's awesome, man. It's brilliant, it's awesome. - I somehow have to make fun of you with also complimenting you. No, too hard, just gonna make fun of you. - I've been so immersed in this stuff for many years and this album's 21 years old, buy it a drink. And I've been listening to it for 20, 21 years now.

[58:30]And I still haven't fully grasped it. - So when D'Angelo goes to the beach in Mexico, he goes, "Oh, I'm going to the Playa Playa." That's the first time. - Yes! - Playa Playa. - Playa Playa. - I read that this song was supposed to be for the movie "Space Jam." - Right. - And so there's a lot of basketball themes in this song. But if you listen, the basketball themes are kind of off. Like no wonder they didn't put it in "Space Jam." The lyrics don't make a lot of basketball sense. It's like, I'm cutting behind the blocker.

[59:01]It's like, I don't know if D'Angelo's ever played basketball 'cause his lyrics don't really make basketball sense. - I don't think he has because I also watched interviews with him recently where, I don't think he's more than 5'8" and he grew up only playing music in the church. He was, this was his thing, was playing music. I don't think he ever played basketball. So it does sound like fish out of water kind of stuff when he's trying to sing about basketball. - One of the coolest things I saw about this opening song is that the guitar player was Mike Campbell, who is the guitar player for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

[59:31]- Oh, that's cool, wow. - And so the guitar player in this was that guy. And he's also played on, you would know him, you would probably know his face from being, you know, the Tom Petty guitar player. But he's also played with Johnny Cash on the American Records. He played on Rusty Cage and Hurt. He also played with the Wallflowers on Sixth Avenue Heartache. You guys remember that song? - Oh God, that's, Wallflowers were like a huge band for me. Russ, I gotta say, you must have a great list if that wasn't your list that you came up with.

[60:00]- That was the opening track. You don't do lists on the opening track. - Oh my, I'm learning, I'm learning all these. - I've done all this on the opening track, but Russell's- - If I had Tom Petty's guitar, if I had Tom Petty's guitar player, the only thing I would do the whole time is be like, play the intro to "Running Down a Dream." And he'd be like. He's like, should we play this on "Play a Player?" And I'm like, no, play "Running Down a Dream." - Do it again. - God, that rocks my face off. - Do it again. - All right, it's moving on. Devil's Pie, here we go. So he released this as,

[60:30]I think it was the first single off the album. I mean, listen to this groove. God, this album is so thick and like chunky and funky and sexy. - Yep. - But when they released this single, it didn't do very well because it wasn't real hip hop like we were listening to at the time in kind of the late 90s, early 2000s, where it wasn't about, you know, a lot of excess and- - Well, it's not a radio play. We've talked about it often that, you know, kind of this whole album, it's not made for radio, right? But I, you know, the first time you hear this song

[61:02]and what drew me to it, you know, what drew it to it, it was the fact that it's not a radio song. You're so used to hearing all of these songs that, you know, I don't know, it just, it hooked me right away. - I think for, to play a song on the radio, right? You need a couple of things. You need a song that's under six minutes. No, you need a, you need a singer who you could understand what the hell they're saying. No, you know, I mean, it just, it just doesn't, it doesn't happen on the song, but I mean, listen to the end of this song. Listen to how funky this is.

[61:30]This is six minutes. It's just so, like, I did not know what this album was. And when I put these headphones on at work and I started listening to it, I was like, oh my God, like, this is- - I think this, this song has the holy trinity of sounds, including bad-ass drums, horns, and scratching of records. I want more of those three things. I love it. - Oh, Russell, so you're, oh, you're setting me up. I gotta talk about this because this is the one track where he brought in a hip hop producer. So he's got DJ Premier on this beat. Premier of Gangstar. And he talks about how Premier and Marley Marle

[62:03]were his, his favorite producers. So you can hear how this one's a little bit more straightforward in terms of just hitting the drums on the one and going, going for it. And then if we're going to talk about horns, we got to talk about Roy Hargrove, who was the horn player for this album, which we'll probably get into later. But you're a hundred percent right. Everything you guys are saying about this one, it's a, it's a great track. - So now we have left and right. Now on this one, D'Angelo was a multi-instrumentalist. He played all the instruments on the song.

[62:32]The song was originally supposed to go have Q-tip rapping over the top of it. But at the time, Method and Redman were the hot, Method and Redman were the hot ones. So they were doing this. I gotta say this was my least favorite song of the whole album. I, I know that rap lyrics being disrespectful to women is nothing new, but this was just such a derivation from the rest of the album. It was like, like I would listen to this and be like, I don't really like what they're saying. Am I, am I too sensitive? - I can't disagree with you. I, I have this, I mean, as you guys know,

[63:00]I own this on vinyl and these first three tracks comprise side one and I'm not a side one guy. I feel like the, the record doesn't really start until, it gets to the line. And also I feel like the, the album actually loses something on vinyl because the transition from left and right into the line is one of my favorite transitions and you only hear it on CD or streaming. - So now that we're out, we're in, we're in the, we've done with side one, who's listening to this album? Let's get back to my segment that I'm bringing back for this album. - You know, I was thinking,

[63:31]I was actually thinking about this, Rob, and I thought this bit was dead. So I didn't have a very well thought out answer. - No bit left behind. - Top of my head. You know, it's, it's somebody who, who loved jazz, who loved kind of old school R&B, who loved, you know, maybe some, some eighties kind of soul music. And they were, they just, they haven't seen it. And all of a sudden in the late nineties, Erykah Badu and D'Angelo and Maxwell and Lauren Hill

[64:00]are bringing this stuff back. And this is like their, their, I don't know their, their golden chalice of records that they're going to put on. - Ooh. - You know, they're, they're just thanking the good Lord above that somebody finally brought all of this back together in modern times. Now this is 20 years ago, but at the time, and this just kind of brings it all back to, to what happened, you know, from sixties, seventies, eighties, and kind of brought it together. So, I mean, you can, you can throw Prince in there, you know, they're, they're, they're big Prince fans

[64:31]in the eighties. And that there was just, like you said, there was this huge gap of like radio R&B and clubbing R&B and the rap game that came in. And this just was a kind of brought it all back to much more of a soulful song. So that's who's listening. - All right. So now we have The Line. - Ooh. - This is the one song I could understand where he's threatening me in a sexy ass way. I'm going to lay it on the line. I'm going to beat your ass. I'm like, yeah, I kind of want you to actually.

[65:01]- I think the other people that are listening to this are people that are watching like old school seventies, pornographic movies, like the, like the Wawa, the funk. This is like, this is like if there's an album we've listened to that, that so far it sounds like it could be the bow chicka wow wow. That it's this album, right? - Yeah. - Yes. And it is amazing. - Eric knows what I'm talking about. - Well, it's amazing you talk about seventies videos because the people who made this album talk a lot. So this album was recorded a lot between what? 97 and 99, 96, 99.

[65:31]- Yes. - And they talk about how they would sit and watch Soul Train videos when they weren't recording. Like that's what they would use as inspiration, which to us seems like, oh yeah, you just watch a bunch of videos. But in 1999 to try to watch a Soul Train video meant that someone had that shit on VHS or DVD. And it was Questlove, of course, the second love of my life, third love of my life, who was like going to Japan and bringing back treasure troves of Soul Train videos

[66:01]for them to watch live performances of all of these people. So you're not that far off, Russell, that they were, you know, watching seventies Soul. If it's anything like VHS tape from the seventies that I had in my house, you had to find a spot in your basement to hide it where nobody would ever find it. Oh my God. - You got to definitely stay away from the dryer that's hanging from the ceiling and whizzing around down there too. Don't want to get hit in the head by that. It'll cause a concussion. - What's that noise I hear downstairs? That's the dryer, mom. Just ignore it. All right, here we have "Send It On."

[66:30]Whoops, forgot to put a timestamp on this one. - I mean, it's great from the start. It doesn't matter. Listen for five and a half minutes. - Okay, everyone enjoy us. - The beginning of the song is fantastic. This is awesome. - Yep. This is Ray Hargrove on the trumpet. Rest in peace. I know you hate when I do that, but. - Aaron, what do you think of D'Angelo as a singer? So he's kind of busting out the falsetto here. What would you rank his singing abilities at? - I would rank D'Angelo 10 out of 10 on musicality.

[67:01]You know, the weird thing about D'Angelo and this album, I do want to mention Russell Elevato, who was the engineer on the album, who I think was pretty instrumental in the overall sound. They tend to bury his voice in the mix. And I think that's part of him. - He's going to ask that, yeah. - You know, going for the mystique. But I think he does have a great voice and he does things that not anyone can do. He's clearly influenced by Prince. You know, he doesn't have a voice like Otis Redding or Sam Cooke that's going to like bring you right out of your seat with power.

[67:31]But I think it's sensitive and I think it's flexible. But yeah, I think they do some things to kind of obscure him. But his voice that are interesting and it's interesting that he's willing to allow that to happen. - I'm going to edit this out, Aaron, but in future episodes, I wish you would do a little bit of research on these albums. So you would know a little bit about what's going on. It's kind of embarrassing. This album makes me want to kiss my Zoom camera. Should we all kiss our Zoom camera at the same time? - Yes. - Okay, nevermind. - Sorry about the onion breath, guys.

[68:00]I had a date at White Castle earlier. I apologize for that. I know it fogged up the whole, the Zoom camera. I apologize. That was my bad. - Okay, we'll talk about this after the podcast, get to see the Zoom camera. "Chicken Grease." - Oh, I love this song. - I can't imagine how Aaron loves this "Chicken Grease." This is like right up Aaron's alley. - This is my favorite combination of movies, "Chicken Run" and "Grease." I'm sorry, edit it out. So here's the thing. - "Chicken Run" is pretty good. I remember watching that one. Shout out Mel Gibson. - So here's the, no, no, no.

[68:30]That is getting edited out. We are not shouting out Mel Gibson on this podcast. - Are you fucking serious? - You just shout it out, "I want you to go to the hot tub and blow me." - Wait, what? - What is going on? - Is this like the Hulk Hogan tapes you've been watching or not? - Yes, one of those Gibson tapes where he called his wife on the voicemail and he's like, "What?" And she goes, "I don't like you." 'Cause she knew she was recording it. So she just baited him and she's like, "You are a piece of shit." And he'd be like, "What, what did you just say?

[69:01]"I want you to come out to the hot tub and blow me." - You know what, I'm gonna put in a clip of the Mel Gibson tape. Below this saying, "Below me." It's so good. Aaron, you're not shouting out Mel Gibson on this podcast. I know you didn't mean it like that, but that's sick. So "Chicken Grease," I'm gonna start this song again. I can't handle this. I'm not gonna think about Mel Gibson every time I think about this song. "Chicken Grease" was a term Prince used when you're playing a chord with like a seventh note in it and 16th notes. So like a fast, that's what he called the "Chicken Grease," which is why they called it this.

[69:32]But this was originally supposed to be a song for Common and D'Angelo traded him this song for a different song. Like just straight up traded a song, which is brilliant. - When I heard this song, I couldn't stop thinking of Aaron and his bucket of chicken. And then I started thinking of, you know, how Aaron and I do chicken differently. And you know who else sings about chicken differently? It's our guy Beck. You guys gotta check out this song. Beck also sings about chicken, but Beck does it Russ style. He likes deep fried chicken and deep fried love. Check out "Deep Fried Love" by Beck.

[70:01]- Oh yeah. ♪ My heart in a bed of love ♪ ♪ Gettin' off ♪ - It sounds like "Velvet Underground." - It does a little. ♪ Deep fried love ♪ ♪ Come on, give me the grease ♪ - Ooh! - See, see, Beck likes deep fried love. - We're supposed to keep it clean. - The thing was that Russ just accidentally found this song. Just type it in. - Beck Grease Sog. - Beck Grease Sog.

[70:30]Answer, result, done. So when it comes to doing deep fried chicken sogs, who does it better? - Beck. - Beck did it better. - All right, we are getting in now to, this is one more gin? - I think so, yeah. - So one more gin. I've been wondering about how long it's been with me and my gin and tonics. And I hoped I'd get a chance to see it once again. I'd love to kiss your lips, baby. Once again, I'm holding you tonight. I'm enjoying another gin and tonic. I'm having one more gin.

[71:01]- It took me about three fourths of the way to realize you weren't just talking to me. And I was like, all right, this kissing the zoom camera thing is gonna work out for me. - Oh, great. God, listen to this though. I mean, this reminds me of when I worked at a train yard and there's a train that was so big, we couldn't push it. And we needed one, one more engine. - You worked at a train yard? - Well, no, I needed one more engine, Russ. It's the, yeah, it was a- - Have you seen Robb's soft baby hands? He's never done a bit of manual labor. - I was in charge of shaking the caboose.

[71:30]I mean, listen to this breakdown at the end of this song. Like. It's like, it totally switches gear at the end. It kind of, a little funky fusion jazz. - This is track four of "Songs in the Key of Life" for sure. I mean, he's definitely referencing Stevie here. - Absolutely. - Oh, I hear that. Very cool. - By the way, Stevie Wonder recorded that album. He recorded another one at that, at that same studio. - Right. - So there's, that's my facts. That's my facts compared to Aaron's facts. I said, Stevie Wonder recorded some album at that studio.

[72:03]So Rob, doing the research. - Aaron, you always talk about the funk. So is this considered funk? Is it R&B? Is it soul? What, what is the, what is this album considered? - So, yeah, no, that's a, that's a great question. I think people typically refer to it as neo soul. I think he's taking elements of funk, but. - That reminds me of the shoes in the matrix. - Ah, yes, yes, yes. I couldn't. - Aaron, Aaron, you're allowed to use a pregnant pause.

[72:31]You don't have to acknowledge Rob's terrible jokes. You can just pregnant pause. - I used that same joke on the Lauryn Hill episode. I personally wouldn't classify this as a funk album. And I don't, I don't want to speak for the artists involved. I don't think they would classify it as a funk album because funk has an element of precision that I think this album, I don't want to say forsook or rejected because that sounds negative, but they were going more toward the funkadelic than the parliament end of things

[73:00]where they were looking for some more, I think it's a jazz album, to be honest, and a soul album. But they were going for more improvisation, a looser feel. Funk to me has. - It's more grooves, right? I mean, we're talking grooves rather than like synchronation, like synchronation, God damn it, Rob. - No, Rob, you're totally right. And funk has a groove, but it's a precise groove. You land on the first beat and then you do what you want after the one. But for, I don't know, and maybe if we, you know,

[73:32]if D'Angelo listens to this podcast, he might think differently, but I, I wouldn't, I don't know. I wouldn't call it funk, I would call it soul, but highly influenced by jazz. That's a longer answer than you needed to wrestle. - D'Angelo, if you're listening to 802-277-2325, okay, we'll let you leave a voicemail. If it's any good, we'll think about having you on, okay? - My favorite part is if he sends a text and instead of having his beautiful voice, we get to use the computer voice for D'Angelo's back next week. Excuse me, guys. This is definitely influenced by finding the funk.

[74:00]- Here's a picture of my feet. All right. Here we have The Roots. This was influenced by a Jimi Hendrix jam, believe it or not. They'd been jamming on a Jimi Hendrix song for a while and this song came out of it. Is this the dragging drum? I wrote down dragging drum for this. This sounds like it to me, right? - Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, I definitely think it is. The guitarist here. - Matt, what's your favorite song on the album so far? - Devil's Pie. - Devil's Pie? - Yeah.

[74:30]It's in my top 100. - Ooh. - Ooh. - This was a tough album for me to listen to at work because the nature of my work is not to be listening to sexy songs and then immediately go talk to kids about how to write down notes. But it was a fun song to listen to because you could just zone in and zone out. And by the end, I just had the album on random and you would just hear these grooves and you could focus. You didn't have to listen to the music. It's so good. - We've talked about it before, but I tend not to listen to the words a lot of times

[75:01]on a lot of these albums. - I do the same thing with this podcast. - Yeah. - I don't listen to the list. - But I think, to your point, Rob, you can just have it on. And even with, he's singing, but you're not really hearing what the words are, but you hear kind of the instrument of his voice, if that makes sense. And you can just have it on in the background and it makes complete sense. It works, I guess, is the best way to say it. And so that's why, to your point, are you focusing when you're always listening to these albums?

[75:30]I'm not always focusing on the albums. I'm just kind of feeling the vibe. And this album has that definitely. - This album, I think almost more than any album we've listened to, the vibe is constant throughout this album, which is why I don't like that Method Man, Red Man song, is that it's so different, but the vibe on this album is so strong of just juicy, chunky, sexy grooves, which was also my nickname in high school. So think about it. - It's perfect for every occasion. It lends itself to putting on in the background. It lends itself to deep study of what they were doing.

[76:02]It lends itself to, you know, hanging out with someone special to you. It's, you know, it has all kinds of purposes. - This one reminds me when I wanted to buy El Marijuana, Spanish joint. - Spanish for the marijuana. - I love this song. - I didn't want to steal Russell's bit, but now Russell's already done his bit. I will say I opened some Spanish wine tonight because I had to have a Spanish joint, so.

[76:31]- Nice. - I wanted to be just like Russell. - I played the beginning of the song because listen to how this builds. - No wonder that Houston guy called you out for being high as hell. - If this isn't jazz, I don't know what is. - I think my favorite part of this song is the conga drums. We've talked about conga drums maybe once or twice before. You guys hear those? - Yep. - What is a conga drum? Is that the tall boy? - Actually, Rob, I have a description of the congas for you guys tonight because we're doing a list on the greatest songs ever that feature the conga drums. - Mmm, this is good, this is good, this is good.

[77:03]- One, two, three, four, three, two, one. - I should do this sound clip and make the countdown from like 30, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26. - You should do it from 30 and make a pregnant pause between each number. - So funny. - Can you imagine how many of our listeners would have pregnant pause events while they're listening to this D'Angelo album right now? - And I know there's some listeners who are ignoring the pregnant pauses

[77:30]'cause they're listening to it at 1.5 or it's the sick, like freaks who are doing it at 2X speeds. You fuckers, listen to this in real time, you losers. - Or it could be the people who accidentally didn't pinch off the tip of that device that they were using too, right? - Provalactic. - I like that you call a condom a device. I think that's very good. - All right, so congas, they're also known as a tumbadora. It's a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba, and it's often known for being used in Latin music, jazz, salsa, merengue,

[78:02]and Latin rock. And so I was kind of wondering first, what's the difference between a conga and a bongo? Do you guys know the difference? - I don't, I hope you're gonna tell us, I don't know. - I think a conga is a long, tall one, right? And the bongo are two, 'cause my grandmother used to have a couple of bongo drums, which we would play with all the time until mysteriously they disappeared. They were no longer in my grandmother's basement somehow after about the 10th time we went over there. - Rob, you are spot on. The bongo is a higher pitch, thinner,

[78:30]and it's shorter than the conga. The conga's bigger. It has a different sound to it. You're right on. - What's the Spanish name for the conga again? - The tumbadora. - Ooh, that makes me want a whiskey drink and a cider drink. - That's about as close as you can get. I'll give you credit for that. - Songs that remind us of the good times and songs that remind us of the bad times. - Let's just play that instead of my list. I would totally be happy if we listened to that. - Don't worry, it's playing in the background right now because I hate future Rob. ♪ Try for me ♪ ♪ That's your paper ♪ - No, I'm excited for this list.

[79:00]I know what's on here. It rocks, rocks my face. - All right, so the first song, I think we have to call this out. This is probably where they might do a conga line at a wedding where they're not playing Rob's, what do we normally hear at weddings? - Thriller. - Rob's Thriller? - Yeah, we normally hear Thriller. - Yeah, if they're not playing Thriller, they might be doing this. This is Miami Sound Machine, Gloria Estefan. This is the song "Conga". ♪ If you want to ♪ - You hear that conga in the background? ♪ You've got to listen to the groove ♪ - Oh yeah, it's that kind of constant ooh.

[79:30]It's gonna be hard to do. You could do worse than spend like a whole day listening to the Miami Sound Machine, right? Like if you put this on all day, you'd be happy. ♪ Don't you fight it ♪ ♪ Do you try to do that conga ♪ - All their songs are conga. If you Google like famous conga songs, it's Miami Sound Machine across the board. - Yes. - Oh, it's so good. - All right, number two on the list. We've covered this one. It's the greatest album of all time and it's unimpeachable at this point. This is Marvin Gaye, "Inner City Blues". We've talked about this before. You guys remember this one?

[80:01]- Yep. - A little more laid back. - God. - And I'll tell you what, Marvin Gaye, huge influence on this album and you can hear it. I mean, he's probably the number one influence on this album, right? Listen to it. - You can hear it. - So similar. - He also, in fact, Rob, that's a perfect segue. When D'Angelo was looking for a bass player, he was looking for his own James Jamerson. He was looking for a bass player to be like this. - I've been looking for like three or four shots of Jameson before I take my date to White Castle.

[80:32]- Jamesons Day, we all just want our own James Jamerson, I think. - Yeah. - You know, but Russell, are you gonna mention the apes that come out and kill all the people? Oh, that's right, we're not talking about Congo. Congo, it was a Michael Crichton book and movie. Okay, movie then. - Well, there goes my number three song. I was gonna do a whole rip off on Congo. - Okay. - Instead, I'll move on to one of the greatest bands ever. How about Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil"? This is the opening. You guys will all know this part. - Let me introduce myself. - Dang, this is an opening.

[81:01]I can't wait till we get back to Stones. - I played this song once in my car and I was so proud of my kids because I was playing this and I just hear them in the background when they were like two or three, they're going, "Whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo." And I was like, "Hell yeah, whoo-hoo." Listen to that, "Whoo-hoo." God dang, this list rocks, Russell. - Yeah, Russell, crushing it again. Oh, it's about to get better. - Would it be stressful to play the Congo, do you think, in a drum? 'Cause it sounds like they're not playing on a rhythm.

[81:31]Do you think they're kind of like, there's a lot of syncopation going on? - Well, actually, Rob, I was hoping to share with you guys, there are four different strokes that come with the Congo. Can I share a few of those with you guys? - You can hear the strokes, yep. - Different strokes. - Is that what the show Different Strokes was about? - This is way better, Rob. I know we're not allowed to have dirty jokes, but if you guys keep your mind out of the gutter for a little bit, the first one is an open tone where it's played with four fingers near the rim of the head. - Okay. - Pregnant boss. - I get it.

[82:00]- The second one. - - Is a closed or flesh tone or simply a muff, like an open tone. It's made by striking the drum with four fingers, but holding the fingers against the head to muffle the tone. - Doing great, doing great, yep. - The third strike is called a bass tone. It's played with the full palm, Rob. You play with the full palm. In a slightly cupped position, somewhat off center.

[82:31]And the final one, Rob, the final, the final way to play the conga drum is called a slap tone. It's the most difficult technique, but it produces a loud and clear popping sound. The muted or pressed slap tone is played with an open tone while the hand rests against the drum head. - Oh, oh, is there one where you're crying afterwards?

[83:01]that's the best joke i come up with robbie dumb shit oh god that's so good listen hey this is a musical podcast i'm talking about the way that this was direct off wikipedia rob i use your way this is how you play the conga the good news is when you're working with i'm working with one-handed strokes are your only option otherwise you want to just grab an air dang it i relapsed i was doing so well i gotta all right next up on the list let's see if you

[83:33]guys remember this one this is eric burton and war spill the wine you remember this one yes there used to be a wine shop called spill the wine in minneapolis dig that girl eric burton's erin who sings this song eric burton and war yeah let's keep it that way shut your mouth wow walked right into that didn't he actually the singer on this song is terrible if i remember correctly yeah i don't think he's into singing so erin i do want you to sing the song

[84:03]yeah listen those congas i would say he's doing that what what what stroke do you think he's doing on that one that sounded a lot like a slap that sounded difficult i i think he was definitely doing the muffled tone he was he was he was striking the drum with four fingers on that one sometimes you get too close at the end of the song before you want to so you have to muffle it down and what this is this is a music podcast if you think about white castle that beat just gets a little

[84:32]quick yeah you gotta slow down that beat you gotta keep the tempo slower because you can't you can't end the song when you're looking at steven tyler doing a flip you gotta wait until they're at the strip club erin was talking about how he didn't like the slow tempo on carol king a few weeks ago he likes a faster tempo i'm never gonna live that one down i made a mistake i'm gonna have to make a apology three favorite albums in a row are like walking through a i know i still love that rob rob started out this whole zoom call by saying guys do you think we're

[85:00]a little too dirty well he should have told me that before i looked at all the strokes for the bongo the conga drum that was my fault i didn't get that instruction next week's list is gonna be all the strokes for the bongo drum i can't wait for that but we gotta stay on this week's list here's the number one song because they're shorter there's two of them all right here's the number one here's the number one conga song ever and this is a rosy favorite this is curtis mayfield we are the people darker than blue check this out

[85:31]this is awesome i know we've all got problems that's why i'm here to say i do love curtis mayfield indeed and i'm with you let me love in my own way i mean listen to those i mean there are no jokes to make here it's just beautiful music this is badass isn't it yes i was gonna play a santana song but i remember at some point someone made a rob thomas santana joke

[86:01]and i thought i would get made fun of so i didn't put him on the list and i think they use bongos on those not congas that's why i didn't put it on the list so they're shorter they're shorter drums they use different strokes oh love the curtis mayfield shout also because i think uh unsung influence on this album so russell you once again just incredible kudos on your list making nailed it boom nice too bad it's gonna be edited out because it's so dirty but all right let's get into feel like making love oh

[86:33]what is this song about aaron well it's about uh when uh when two people really man i was gonna go straight into the birds and bees and now you have to like really try i can't wait for aaron to give his birds of the bees speech to his son aaron's just gonna put on this album and let his son listen to it say do you understand that's all you need and he'll be fine deal russell that's so smart deal i'm gonna invite you to come out for that you just like uncle russ is gonna read you about the different conga strokes i learned today this song so originally recorded by roberta flack who's one

[87:03]of our podcast faves uh was written by eugene mcdaniel and eugene mcdaniel uh had a really influential psychedelic funk soul album called um headless horseman of the apocalypse uh that was people talk about it as the the aloe black said this in an interview that it was the what's going on but he wasn't asking what's going on he was telling you what's going on and he was like what's going on and the nixon administration asked his record label to scrap it so um eugene

[87:31]mcdaniel ended up being pretty uh you know kind of tossed on the the the funeral pyre of history but he's a great uh funk soul pioneer and he wrote this song and then roberta flack recorded it and then uh d'angelo did his own thing with it it's great tune can you imagine being d'angelo and saying that you feel like making love and then you can actually like do something about it that is such a foreign concept i don't think i've ever said like oh i feel like making love and then like gone and done it i'm always like okay well i'm gonna go to bed a little early tonight we'll just see what happens that's

[88:04]like i'm i'm tired i'm going to sleep i'm like yeah me too i'm very tired i've always been way more successful when i say i feel like eating white castle and then i just pound that crave case i'm batting a thousand hall of fame it's me at night yeah i'm tired too what are you doing nothing why does it smell like onions hey why are you walking around with your eyes closed in the bedroom eating white castles that's it podcast over perfect callback guys this is a perfect

[88:36]episode i'm gonna call it right now best episode ever here we go oh that means it's gonna be the worst always listen this song sums it up great day and morning great groove no idea what he's saying he could be talking about like q anon stuff and wanting to go storm the capital i would have no idea what he's talking about that would be surprising all right this is the big boy how does it feel it's called untitled this was the song that put this album absolutely on the map the

[89:07]song or the video and it was 100 the video if you look up in fact i'll put in the show notes i'll put a link to this video okay this will probably get us kicked off apple podcast but this was a video where and i made these guys watch it beforehand because this was a video where literally it was just is zooming to different parts of d'angelo's naked torso all the way down to like the hip bones those v-shaped muscles which oh my god i got those yeah i have those two down there

[89:36]not even a big deal it's more like a u but it works this hit number 25 on the charts because of the video they played this video so many times before this the album was thought to be a bomb and this came out and it was a juggernaut of a video it played over and over and over and over i do think it's a great song i tried your uh your experiment rob you know we put the kids read read books put them to bed and i said oh rob's got this video he wants you to watch sarah oh no

[90:03]and put the put it on like yeah that's kind of cool and then just put the phone down and went so it didn't work it didn't work for me i think that did work though because if she would have been like oh my god this is the hottest thing i've seen in my life you'd be sitting there like wait a minute what rob you sent us this video and if you guys if you guys scroll down a little bit just in case and looked at the youtube comment i love this quote about this it said halfway through this song and i'm already pregnant i thought it was

[90:33]just an amazing comment for whoever the youtuber is that put that out there i i applaud you for skipping the pregnant pause and just going right for it it was fantastic the weird thing is is that that first commenter on this video is alicia silverstone doesn't make any sense and the thing about this right is that this is the song that absolutely buried d'angelo the tour for this album was a disaster because he would go out he'd be singing in 30 seconds later they don't care about you know the people coming that would

[91:04]see this video and then go to his concert they didn't care about prince they didn't care about the funk they didn't care about any of this stuff they would literally be yelling to him take off your clothes right now that's what i want to see he this this video was so sexy that it pretty much ruined his life for like three years can you imagine something so sexy like all people can think of when they think of you no no no rob i can't imagine i can't imagine it but i think thank you for bringing it up but no i can't but i think it's real for him i think

[91:30]it's real for my life i think it has to do with where he how he grew up he was a true church musician that's how he was raised that's how he was steeped and then when he left church music he was devoted to learning new music and learning the funk and learning soul and he says it on black messiah 15 years later if you've asked him where i've been i hope inside my abdomen that you're referring to and we as brilliant we as dudes who haven't looked like him can't imagine

[92:00]how that feels but he it really messed him up to be a sex symbol he didn't he didn't like it and you know i mean props to him for feeling that that his music was the most important because he had something to say yeah whatever that's like rich people saying oh it's hard it's hard like give me give me a break yeah how many times has he had to take anyone to white castle and act great date give me a break i have no pity for him the idea of somebody's face looking happy when i take my shirt off is such a foreign concept to me it boggles my mind

[92:31]it doesn't stop you from writing shirtless throwing all those pillows just imagine right now on the job you have right now right that you go in and they say i'm sorry but you're too sexy you can't do this anymore you'd be like wait what this is the best day of my life i'm so happy this is awesome can't imagine now we have the last song on the album africa kind of a letdown i would say i read that uh i read that there are some reverse guitars on here

[93:01]so i think this is another thing elevada was doing where he was what is the reverse guitar i think it's when you hold it upside down okay and then uh okay there's apparently a drum sample i'm gonna edit in one of your laughs that was bullshit okay i mean i was thinking he's probably playing him backwards it's like a beatles type thing i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i mean i do think the beatles are an influence on this album too which i haven't even mentioned and i'm remiss in mentioning this late but absolutely this this song i think

[93:30]encapsulates the simplicity and complexity kind of balance that he was striking all all through there was a song and i want to say it's great day good morning where they actually ended it because they ran out of tape and the engineer was like hey this is just like you know she's so heavy so we're going to keep it in there just like that tape for this album yeah yeah i mean i think that's part of it too the noise all right so that is it for voodoo and i gotta tell you aaron i i i can't give a real rating to this obviously because i've painted myself in this

[94:01]corner of only giving joke ratings this was one of these albums where this list has really been enlightening for me i first listened to this album i was like i don't get it by the third listen i was like this is so fun to listen to it was just it was just unbelievable so i guess thank you for being a fan of this album get out of here aaron what are you trying to bring that bullshit into my podcast for all right here we go all the positivity in this town get mad at aaron for thinking about something oh my god it's late so late this episode went so

[94:31]long it was worth it rating system double album double episode it's true all right so let's get into our rating system russ let's start with you what do you think and the rating system before i forget is is this album this is at 28 is this album rolling well tone means it's perfect at 28 just where it should be did this album get rolling boned okay that means it should be higher than 28 it should not be so low on the list or is this a rolling groan this album is too high on the list

[95:02]which means that it should be uh it's too low of a number it should be a higher number therefore later on the list but sooner uh if you're going reverse numerically which is what rolling stone did going reverse i i had never heard of d'angelo before we started this quest i'd never heard of that d'angelo jump from like 400 up to 30 i'd never heard these songs maybe i've heard these songs but i'd never recognized them and the only thing i knew is aaron was super excited about this

[95:32]and this really shocked me i really like this way more than i thought it i would to me it's a little bit one note it's kind of like the same slow drum it's the same kind of beat the whole time so it's a little bit one note but it's also the first album that i believe referenced the word mojo so i gotta give it credit that we're referencing the word mojo so i'm gonna give it rolling well toned i you know it is only one note but it is a slap note and so i think that's that's a good one uh man i think it was i think it was a four four-fingered cuff slap

[96:02]i just get it right you don't want to let yourself down there's better ways to do that i am not ever going to say the term a four-fingered muff slap thank you matt what do you think i uh you know i'm not going to pretend to be as well versed as rosie in this album but i i definitely listened to a lot of angelo uh late high school early college and you know this was just a perfect time to kind of

[96:30]trying to figure out like what jazz was you know and try to figure out like why some of the stuff from the 80s was so popular the the prince you know i never really got prince but now listening to this album um and kind of going through the jazz phase i just went through and all that you know this is just a great uh kind of newer age jazz tone i think and i'm kind of struggling to get to the exactly how i feel about it but i think it's just it's not radio um it's easy listening you have like russell said you've got

[97:03]horns you got rhythm you've got vocals and it all comes together uh to a bunch of bangers we haven't used the word bangers in a long time but i think these songs are bangers personally you know i i i can understand why you think there's it's kind of a one note thing but i just absolutely love going through this album and so i think it got rolling boned meaning it's too low on the list rob right i once again once i've done my initial bit i cannot remember i mean it depends what you

[97:35]mean low on the list i'll show you a diagram later i got a diagram where the list goes up or down i i think matt you might have meant it got bass tone which means it got played with the full palm the full palm the full palm matt yeah man it's like that book that you got the list is really relative it's all relative uh so i know i think i think you got rolling boned and um you know it's hard for me to say which ones we should jump ahead of here but i just think this is a great album and

[98:05]it came out at a great time and yeah i thoroughly enjoyed it uh all right so aaron uh what did you think of this i think the song sucks oh aaron why would you say that about d'angelo two albums come on d'angelo even on the old list he was a top 500 artist and you're just gonna rag on him damn uh would you say this is a big album a big album that's what i'm gonna start calling my penis oh aaron

[98:32]you dummy here's what i have to say about this album i've already said more than anyone cares to hear about my thoughts on this album in the context of the list i feel that this is our first sort of throwback album on the list right and yes i could be wrong the album is derivative in a good way in a great way and it took older

[99:00]ideas and made them his own um and so for me as i've said it's one of my top five favorite albums i listened to it so many times this week i'm not gonna stop listening to this album when we're done so i will love this album forever i'm gonna surprise you and i'm going to say i feel like it's rolling well toned as far as i can tell i'm not gonna stop listening to this album as far as a specific number it is to me better than many of the albums that we've heard that rank higher on the list above it but i think we might hear albums that come after it that

[99:34]this album borrowed from and so i'm gonna say it's rolling well tone as a number 29 but for me as you know personally it's one of my all-time favorites the predecessors aren't getting their credit you're saying i'm saying yeah this album you know would is looking to the four mothers and fathers and so i those people should also get their due as well get their flowers as they say you guys are close but the correct answer is this album gets a rolling hip bone all i can think about are his hip bones when i think about this album