Transcript
music
“Crown Ones” off the album Stepfather by People Under The Stairs
oliver wang
Hello, I’m Oliver Wang.
ernest hardy
I’m Ernest Hardy, sitting in for Morgan Rhodes today. You’re listening to Heat Rocks.
oliver
Every episode, we invite a guest to talk about a Heat Rock. If Morgan was here, she would say, “flammables.” I always liked that. Today, we return once again to the purple one. Prince, and his 1986 album, Parade.
music
“Do U Lie” off the album Parade by Prince. The track begins with a capella spoken word, then adds a delicate and sweet accordion as Prince begins singing. CHILD: [Spoken] Les enfants qui mentent ne vont pas au paradis MAN: [Distantly] Ok, Ok, Merci PRINCE: When I lie awake in my boudoir I think of you, dear Do you think of me, or do you lie, do you lie? [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
Perhaps this comes as no surprise, but no artist has appeared on Heat Rocks as often as Prince. Today marks number four, and he becomes our first-time quadruple crown winner on the show. Obviously it speaks to his legacy as one of the greatest musical talents in American history, but it’s also because he seemed to use every new album as an experiment to tinker with his sound and style, and perhaps no album represents that mercurial spirit more than Parade. Ostensibly a soundtrack for Under The Cherry Moon, Prince’s cinematic follow-up to Purple Rain, Parade, came out a full three months before his movie did; which is just as well, since the film was universally panned. In contrast, Parade became one of Prince’s most critically and commercially successful albums; and it helped that its lead single, “Kiss”, was a mega-smash. But more than just one hit tune, Parade found Prince and the revolution at their eclectic best with an effort that jumped from jazz to soul to a touch of French pop to, of course, funk. [“Do U Lie” begins fading back in as Oliver speaks] It’s been described as an album that doesn’t fit into the rest of Prince’s catalog, which feels like the most Prince thing that you could say about it.
music
[Music fades back in completely] When I need someone to talk to, you're not around When I need another human's touch, I wear a frown ‘Cause you're uptown [Music fades out again as Ernest speaks]
ernest
Parade was the album pick of our guest today, Gabrielle Civil. Miss Civil is a poet, a scholar, and a historian, all of which fuse in her performance art. Born and raised in Detroit, she’s travelled the world amassing information and asking questions about the politics of identity, and how identity—that of race, gender, sex, sexuality, class—is made, fractured, and remade against the canvas of the larger world. Currently a professor at CalArts in the critical studies department, which is where I first met her and began exchanging playlists of old school Detroit house and techno.
oliver
Mm.
ernest
What strikes me about her work is that the intellectual rigor is matched by boundless empathy. Her first book, Swallow The Fish, published in 2017, is described by Miss Civil as, “My memoir in performance art. A hybrid critical, creative text. The book tells my coming of age story as an artist, with meditations, images, anecdotes, and performance text.” Her second book, Experiments With Joy, published earlier this year, celebrates Black feminists’ collaborations and solos in essays, letters, performance text, scores, images, and more. I want to read a passage from the book that I think really captures Gabrielle, her goals as an artist, and how she moves through the world. The passage is taken from a series of letters she exchanges with poet and playwright, Zetta Elliott. In one letter, Gabrielle responds to Miss Elliott by writing, “In performance art, it’s not about how you look, it’s about what you do. It’s not even about acting so much as it is about being, and specifically, being in your body. What does that mean, to be in your body? Especially if you’ve been taught that your body is the enemy, its desire a main threat to you having a future. What does it mean to feel and show your own body and breath to activate your presence, to turn audiences from spectators to witnesses? What actions could you make? What power could you claim and hold from that space?” Gabrielle, welcome to Heat Rocks.
gabrielle civil
Thank you so much. I’m so thrilled to be here.
ernest
Gabrielle, when we first asked you to be on Heat Rocks and give us your selections, you were torn between Prince’s 1978 debut, For You, and Parade.
gabrielle
Yes.
ernest
Why did you finally settle on Parade? What makes that a heat rock to you?
gabrielle
I mean, so you had this incredible mega-success in 1984 of Purple Rain, then you have Around The World In A Day; which, I mean, for me, as a deep, long-time, hardcore, growing-up-with-Prince-Prince fan, I love that record. I mean, I used to rollerskate at the Y to “America”. I loved it. But it was not a success for him. I mean—
oliver
Surprisingly, yeah.
gabrielle
—what could have been a success after Purple Rain? I mean, that was such a monster. And then he came back with this, and there’s something about the way that he reclaimed his spirit, changed his look, changed his sound, and played with both a kind of minimalism in songs like “Kiss” and “I Wonder U”, but then this lushness of all these orchestrations that Clare Fischer did for him, along with, you know, all of a sudden you’ve got the arrival of these horns. You’ve got Eric Leeds, you’ve got Atlanta Bliss. So there’s something about that relationship between the minimal and the funky, and then that richness and that opulence. So, that really appealed to me, and the cinematic quality is also something that’s very interesting to me as a performance artist. The way that he built worlds within the record, and that the world within the record, which is ostensibly supposed to be related to the world of that movie, is actually, I think, somewhat distinct. You know, it’s very different and there’s something about cosmopolitanism, and there’s something very romantic about this record. So all of those things, you know, when I start to think like, what album—I mean I could talk about almost any Prince album for an hour—but what album really do I think, can I say some things about. For me, especially as like, a Black girl wanting to be an artist, not having a lot of models, and then seeing certain kinds of work come into the world that help me think about things differently, I think Parade did that even more for me than the Prince record.
ernest
You know what’s interesting to me about Parade, what you were saying about, you know, its predecessor not having been that successful, especially in comparison to Purple Rain. One of the things that’s interesting to me about Parade is it almost feels like Prince is recalibrating in a lot of ways. On one hand, he’s sort of cleansing the palette and saying, “If you couldn’t get into the other one, you’re not gonna, you know, here’s some real challenges.” Yet, at the same time, he’s giving you something like “Kiss”, which is such a pop classic. So he’s doing both. He’s both issuing you challenges and saying, “Okay, I’ll give you what you want, to the extent that I can give you what you want.” Because Prince never just gave you what you wanted, right? [Everyone laughs.]
gabrielle
Never.
ernest
Even when he’s like, “Here’s pop,” there’s a challenge.
gabrielle
He gave you what you didn’t know you wanted.
ernest
Exactly. Exactly. So, one of the things about Parade is I think he’s doing both simultaneously. He’s going even further in terms of experimenting with what the audience can take, and what he and his band can produce. And he’s saying, “I’m also going to stretch the boundaries of what you think of as pop.”
gabrielle
Absolutely.
music
“Life Can Be So Nice” off the album Parade by Prince. Fun, upbeat pop with cymbals, drums, woodwinds, and a backing chorus under Prince’s vocals. … from your lips Morning glories never cry My love for you, baby, drips Life can be so nice! It's a wonderful world, paradise Kiss me once, kiss me twice [Music fades out as Gabrielle speaks]
gabrielle
I do want to say one thing about Under The Cherry Moon for those who haven’t seen it, which is the film that ostensibly Parade is the soundtrack to. Um, I love Under The Cherry Moon, I mean, most of Prince’s movies are not good, and the only movie that I would say—I mean, the best movie is Sign of The Times, and it’s interesting because Sign of The Times is the double album that comes right after Parade, and that is a masterpiece. I mean, it’s incredible, right? But, I love Purple Rain, but as a film, come on, friends. I mean, they throw Apollonia in the trash. I mean, come on. But I love, I mean, I could quote you that, but come on. And then Graffiti Bridge. That’s another record that I love very much, but as a film, come on. This movie, however, it is unsuccessful in some ways as a film, but there are some things about it that are interesting to me, and that one, he was like, “This needs to be in black and white,” two, “I need to die,” and three, “It needs to be in the South of France.” And that last piece, you know, when they were like, “Why can’t we just film this in Florida? Why does this need to be in the South of France?” And he’s like, “Because I want the community to see the South of France.” So there’s something about Prince with exposure. There’s something about the way that he’s bringing in different kinds of musical genres and styles and the experimentation of this album that I felt like, I felt like he was talking to me. He was like, “Black girl, I’m gonna expose you to some things. I’m gonna expose you to some orchestration. I’m gonna expose you to some music that—” Like, I know in Matt Thorn’s book on Prince he talks about a song like “Venus De Milo” as, you know, pretty but incidental music. For someone like me, that song was like revolutionary. When did I hear a Black man bring in this kind of delicate, beautiful music in the context of, you know, ostensibly a pop album? So there’s something around the cosmopolitanism of it, but also the nostalgia— [“Venus De Milo” begins fading in.] —that to me was really important in exposing me to different kinds of musical sounds, and also saying that, as a Black person, I could have access to anything.
ernest
Right, right, right.
music
“Venus De Milo” off the album Parade by Prince. A slow, tender, romantic piano track with no vocals.
oliver
So, can we cycle back a little bit in terms of, when you were growing up, was this an album that you picked up right away when it first came out? And likewise with the movie, did you rush out to see it? And I’m gonna add a third question to that, is that, how did the soundtrack prepare you for the movie? Because it’s very unusual to release a soundtrack before the movie comes out, let alone three months before the movie comes out.
gabrielle
Right. Well, okay. So first, I have to really give props to my older sister.
oliver
Shout-out to older siblings.
gabrielle
Older siblings, like, set you up for musical love; and my older sister had excellent musical taste, except for some of that 1970s “Horse With No Name” America stuff that she was listening to, I didn’t care about. [Everyone laughs.] But she really, I mean, but she had Rick James, she had Prince, she had the Double Dutch Bus. She, you know, it was—she had it. And so, probably even as early as 1999 or Controversy, I mean—and my Godsister, I gotta name her, and my Godbrother. They had all these records, so whenever there was a Prince record that was coming, it was in—I heard it. One of those people, one of those older people got it, and we all listened to it. Now, I immediately listened to this record, and it was so like melancholy and emotional and romantic, and really different than what I remember Around The World In A Day being. And me liking it, but being a little afraid of songs like, um, “Sometimes It Snows In April”, because it was like, what does it mean to be so sad? What does it mean to say that you’re sad and to be emotionally vulnerable in that way? As a prepubescent girl, you’re attracted to that, you want to be able to do that, but that’s also really terrifying. So there’s that experience that I had kind of coming to know and love those songs, but then I remember going with Laney Walker as soon as we could to the Americana theater in Southfield, Michigan, right outside Detroit, because as Ernest knows, there aren’t that many movie theaters in the city of Detroit, so you gotta go to where white people are to go to the movies. And I remember that the film Under The Cherry Moon confused me, so I was like, “First of all, why is this, like, what happened to the color?” Because remember, it starts in color, and then two minutes—and I was just like, “Is something wrong with the projection?”
gabrielle
I really didn’t have any idea of what I was about to see, so that was one thing. And then the idea that he would die. I didn’t understand that at all, and I remember saying to Laney like, “Is the movie over?” I just couldn’t understand what was going on in this film, but then I remember he had these like finger waves, he had like that Josephine Baker curls on his face and these waves, and he was both a gigolo but he was also kind of like lush and later I would come to understand it’s almost like the Nicholas brothers. He’s just like this 1920—that’s what I’m saying, people. You gotta see this movie, because what he’s doing in that movie is writing himself into a kind of cinematic history where he didn’t get to see himself. I feel like he made a movie that he wanted to have been able to see as a child himself, and that kind of gesture, I know in my own performance practice, or in my first book, Swallow The Fish, there’s a whole sequence that I do called “Fat Black Performance Art” where I just take all these classic performance art actions, you know, Carolee Schneemann with Interior Scroll, or Karen Finley in Smearing The Chocolate, and all of a sudden I just make it be like a fat Black woman who’s doing it. That kind of insertion into a particular history, that is really what Prince is doing in Under The Cherry Moon, and I don’t know if I understood it at the time, but I just was excited by it because it was something so radically different than anything else I had ever seen.
oliver
As someone who had not seen the film but knew that this was a soundtrack for it, it made a lot more sense listening to Parade and trying to figure out, how do you go from this style to this style? Because it doesn’t feel like there’s an intuitive through line to connecting all of the diversity of sounds and styles that are on here, until you remember, well if this is supposed to be tied to a movie, then it makes more sense. Because some of the songs, at least to my ears, sounded like this is a song I would expect to hear in a movie, as opposed to a song I would expect to hear on the radio; which is how I experienced Prince in the 1980s, was strictly through his commercial output. And so I think knowing that, even without having seen the movie, the album made more sense to me, if that makes any sense.
ernest
Like Gabrielle, I’m from Detroit, and Detroit was always just like, huge for Prince. I mean, Prince was the ocean in which we swam.
gabrielle
Absolutely.
oliver
I love that analogy.
ernest
And so for me, Prince was the thread pulling you through; so even though, on one hand, it is sort of scattered—it’s not cohesive in an obvious way—when you’ve sort of been fed Prince for so long, you just sort of go with it, I think, much more easily than, you know, maybe fans who came on board with Purple Rain, or fans who only knew him from the radio stuff. I think if you sort of, you know, had just been sort of infused with Prince, sort of swimming through that album was maybe a bit easier, and maybe not quite so chaotic or scattered.
music
“Christopher Tracy's Parade” off the album Parade by Prince. A grooving, poppy, upbeat track with R&B influences. Steady drums, Everyone come behold Christopher Tracy's Parade The show will proceed, unless it should rain strawberry lemonade Hopefully, that will not occur, the man above has been paid [Music fades out as Ernest speaks]
ernest
You mentioned your sister and her influence on your musical taste, and one of the questions I had for you was if you could talk a little bit about Detroit’s relationship to Prince and how that relationship shaped your relationship to Prince. Because what you’re saying about, you know, your older sibling being into Prince, and then cousins and neighbors. I mean, it’s really difficult for, I think, people who weren’t—who didn’t grow up in Detroit to realize just how huge Prince was. And so for me, when I’m hearing you say, “My sister had Prince, and she had Rick James, and she had Double Dutch Bus,” I can’t think of any place where kids listening to the radio were primed with such extraordinary diversity of sound, diversity of genre, you know. That’s why techno came from Detroit, right? So, it makes sense to me that you, as a young girl, were already just like, deeply immersed in all this music and that Prince would be one of the anchors that you grabbed hold of.
gabrielle
That is so well-said and so true, because I think that, I mean, if you listen to like, WJLB or you listen to The Electrifying Mojo, you listen to these incredible DJs who were eclectic and were playing the B-52’s and were playing Kraftwerk. I mean, I remember listening to “Pocket Calculator” on Black radio.
ernest
Yes.
gabrielle
I mean, just what it all was, and I remember my Godbrother loved Elvis Costello. I mean, it just was real. It was not clear channel communication, and it was also not such a narrow definition of Blackness, in terms of musical sound is what I fear people are having now. I mean, I think there are some artists today that are trying to push against that, but I just feel so thankful that I grew up in a moment before the internet when Prince ruled things, and also that I grew up in Detroit. Because, I mean, one big thing I guess I should say, for those who don’t know me, is that I am a big Midwestern booster in some ways. I mean, born and raised in Detroit and then spent thirteen years working in Minneapolis, which, you know, it’s amazing. That place, it explains so much of why Prince is who he is, that he grew up there in some ways. But anyway, I think that when I grew up, we thought of Detroit as Prince’s favorite city.
ernest
Absolutely.
gabrielle
That’s where he would come to do his birthday concerts and shows. That’s where he could come and give exclusive interviews with DJs. That’ where he like, loved the crowds. That’s where he would do surprises. I mean, he would come to Detroit, it felt like even more than he would play at home.
ernest
Oh, absolutely.
gabrielle
And there was something about the way that, even sort of like macho dudes who wouldn’t normally be into some guy in a trenchcoat and a jockstrap and high heels, like, they just went there for him. Like whatever he wanted to do, they were like, “Let me just go off and see this like, whatever this movie, let me just see what Prince is doing. Prince is a fool, he crazy, but we love him.” You know, whatever. It was almost like he was a member of some kind of family, and I loved growing up seeing someone who was so idiosyncratic and so strange also be deeply Black and deeply weird.
ernest
Right, right.
music
“I Wonder U” off the album Parade by Prince. A slow but upbeat track that’s a little pop, a little rock, a little R&B with firm drums and backing woodwinds. I, how you say I wonder you I wonder you I, dream of you For all time For all time [Music fades out as Ernest speaks]
ernest
Well, you mentioned radio DJs, and especially the great Electrifying Mojo, and I remember he did this remix of his own of “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” that was the funkiest—I mean, I’ve never heard anything like it, and I would kill to have it today. But in addition to radio, we had the local dance show, The Scene.
gabrielle
Absolutely!
clip
[Pounding music and a crowd cheering as somebody raps.] Speaker: [Rapping] Yo, set your clock ‘Cause it’s time to rock We rock, rock, rock All around the clock And we don’t stop! We don’t stop! We rock, rock, rock All around the clock Say, don’t stop Party rock, and you jam Jam, come on! Dancers come from all around To throwdown in this here king town The latest steps and the latest stops Pretty faces and pretty mouths We’re looking good, everybody screams So set your clock, it’s time for The Scene! [Crowd cheers loudly, then the audio fades out as Ernest speaks]
ernest
And so, what you were just describing, we also had visual accompaniment. We had guys who lived right next door to you or went to high school with you who would be on The Scene, and these were “tough guys”, but when they put themselves together for The Scene, they were mimicking, they were taking cues from Prince’s aesthetic. Right, and so we saw all kinds of blurring, and all kinds of boundary-crossing, and, to your point, I think there are a lot of Black artists now pushing against this really narrow definition of what Black music is, but I feel like having been raised in Detroit, it feels like they’re trying to get back to someplace where we already were.
gabrielle
That’s right. I think, I mean I want to also shout-out Channel 62, because that was a Black television station, and that’s where The Scene took place, and so it was also a different kind of media. Even to bring it back to the album of Parade, one thing—another thing that’s important around this record, I mean, so this is what you were talking about, Ernest, in terms of some of these tough dudes with blurred aesthetic, 1986 was in kind of a new romantic time in Black culture and maybe even in popular music overall. I mean, it wasn’t Spandau Ballet or some of these English groups were pulling out at that time.
ernest
Yeah, there was a whole movement, The New Romantics.
gabrielle
I mean, and there’s something about that kind of softness, or that ruffle, or with a little bit of kind of faeness, that I just remember even in my neighborhood that there were guys that were rocking that really unapologetically, and so that’s connected to that dandy idea, but it’s also connected to something else. Like, “I can be a lover for you, or I can be—” You know, there was something really special around that, and then there was also, that was connected or coated with Frenchness, which is another thing that made this album kind of exciting for me.
oliver
On Parade, absolutely. Yeah.
gabrielle
You know, there was all of these—this is where all of the sudden there were Latanyas and Moniques and there was all this Frenchness that was coming into Black culture really hard, and in a very kind of important way for me, because my father’s from Haiti and so I grew up hearing French, hearing Creole, and so to have someone like Prince all of the sudden have a song where it was like vous êtes très belle, and have French be on this album, I mean that’s another reason why I felt really connected, and there was this cosmopolitan idea, and there was this ex-patriot idea, and it was romantic, but it was also kind of tragic and melancholy, because it was Prince. [Everyone laughs.]
music
“Under the Cherry Moon” off the album Parade by Prince. Slow, heartfelt R&B with a tender piano backing. If I don't find my destiny soon I'll die in your arms under the cherry moon I want to live... [Music fades out as Ernest speaks]
ernest
We’ll be back with more of our conversation with Gabrielle Civil about Prince’s Parade after a brief word from a few of our MaxFun podcasts. Stay with us.
music
“Crown Ones” off the album Stepfather by People Under The Stairs
promo
Music: Twangy country music. Tusk Henderson: Hello, my name is Tusk Henderson, and I am an outdoorsman. Narrator: Are you looking for a new comedy podcast? This month's episode of Beef And Dairy Network Podcast has, as its guest, the wonderful Nick Offerman playing the part of Tusk Henderson, adventurer and outdoorsman. Tusk: Think about fitting yourself, a month's worth of provisions, and a half-ton cow into a kayak. Narrator: So if you've never listened to the show before, this might be a good place to start. Tusk: I string a bowstring between her horn tips and I can fire a spear off the top of her head. And, uh, took in some very delicious cod. Narrator: So! If you're after a new comedy podcast, why not try The Beef And Dairy Network from Maximum Fun? Download it now! [Music ends.] Tusk: You flip a cow upside-down, they make an excellent toboggan.
promo
Danielle Radford: [In announcer voice] Macho Man to the top rope! The flying elbow! The cover! [Crowd counting to 3.] We’ve got a new champion! [Sound of bell ringing.] [Tights and Fights theme song. Upbeat song similar to what you’d hear during a wrestling match.] Lindsey Kelk: We’re here with Macho Man Randy Savage after his big win to become the new world champion. What are you gonna do now, Mach? Hal Lublin: [Doing Randy Savage impression] I’m gonna go listen to the newest episode of the Tights and Fights podcast! Oh yeah! Lindsey: Tell us more about this podcast! Hal: [Doing Randy Savage impression] It’s the podcast of power, too sweet to be sour, funky like a monkey, woke discussions, man, and jokes about wrestlers’ fashion choices, myself excluded. Yeah. Lindsey: I can’t wait to listen! Hal: [Doing Randy Savage impression] Neither can I! You can find it Thursdays on Maximum Fun! Oh yeah, dig it! [Music ends.]
music
“Crown Ones” off the album Stepfather by People Under The Stairs
oliver
We are back on Heat Rocks talking about Prince’s 1986 album, Parade, with Gabrielle Civil.
ernest
So, I’m going to, um, take the thread that we’ve been holding, and pull in a slightly different direction. In the introduction to your book, Experiments In Joy, and in your work, period, you really make it clear that your art is in conversation with and hugely inspired by the scholarship, art, and activism of countless Black women across discipline and genre. June Jordan, Howardena Pindell, Audrey Loren, Katherine Dunham, Octavia Butler, and so many others. In that introduction you also cite Prince, who, along with Willy Colón, is the only male mentioned in the introduction. So I have two questions. The first is, and this sort of gets at something we’ve been talking about, there’s something about Prince’s work that is feminine as we think of feminine, right, but it also exists simultaneously way beyond the binary of male, female, masculine, feminine. So I’m wondering what it was that had you include him so close to that roll call of Black women, right? And I’m also wondering if you can speak to the role of Black women in Prince’s Purple World.
gabrielle
Oof. Wow. Okay, so, um, yes. For those who have not yet read Experiments In Joy, which I hope that you will, in the opening there is a big role call, and especially sort of Black Feminist ancestors who have passed on, and really calling their names and bringing their life force into this really challenging moment that they’re in; and there’s this idea that Black Feminist joy doesn’t deny oppression, it defies it, and it doubles down on the possibility of imagining something else, and imagining against the status quo. And somehow, bringing Prince right there, I mean who else? So many people, I don’t want to make Prince—I mean Prince is wonderful and I love him so deeply, but I also don’t want to feed so much into this exceptional idea, even though in my heart I’m like, “Prince is gone and what are we gonna do?” But there is a sense of like, a really recognizable iconic figure of someone imagining against the status quo, and also, for me, I’m such a strongly identified Black Feminist, and really, really lifting up kind of, Black women, Black femmes, Black feminine energy, but also really having space for understanding that in a really broad way, and having Prince also be in that and other people, some who are not Black, some who are not female-identified, but just sort of vibing with a certain kind of life force, so not wanting to be rigid, either. And in the book it’s sort of like, “Okay, well now that we have this possibility and we’re feeling like we want to try to experiment with joy, what are some things we can do?” Well, one thing we can do is dance to Prince, because for me, dancing to Prince brings me joy. So that’s one reason. Now, women in the purple world of Prince, that’s complicated.
oliver
To say the least.
gabrielle
To say the least. I mean, I did read, a long time ago, an article in the New Yorker that was talking about, “What is it with Prince and all these like tawny-colored, you know, like tall women, that later, in the later years, they seemed a little interchangeable?” And I, I mean it’s interesting, because on the one hand, I remember when Prince had Marva Collins in “The Most Beautiful Girl in The World” video, so those that don’t know who she is, she’s a dark-skinned Black woman who created academies for kids. So like, there’s a way in which, on the one hand, he wanted to try to represent a certain kind of love for Black women, but then he always, in his actual romantic choices, and who were his proteges, it was either very young, very light, very thin, often multiracial women, or, I mean later he was trying to support people like Rosie Gaines or even Mavis Staples.
ernest
Mavis Staples, right.
gabrielle
So, I mean, I think he had a—it seemed to me like he had a complicated relationship. On the one hand, he really seemed to musically recognize the contributions of Black women and wanted to bring certain kind of elements of their sound, at least vocally, into the work. But then he had a certain kind of starlet idea of himself in terms of who he was attracted to and who he wanted to be with. Which is, you know, his prerogative in terms of his desires, um. But that was complicated. And also I know, I read Mayte’s biography, The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, and what I got from that is that, you know what, it didn’t matter, you could be a man, you could be a woman, you could be genderqueer, you could be straight, you could be gay, but if Prince loved you, you surrendered. [Everyone laughs.] And then it was like, after that, there was almost nothing else you could do in your life. It like, ruined you a little bit. But, also, I mean there was a way that it just felt like, the way he was with her, when he loved you, it was so much, and then he couldn’t really handle it. And then he would write these songs about it, and then he would leave you for someone else, and then there was God, so it was all a big mess.
music
“Girls & Boys” off the album Parade by Prince. A mid-tempo funky, rocky, poppy track with drums, horns, and a backing chorus singing behind Prince. It looked like rain, mama, birds do fly I love you baby, I love you so much Maybe we can stay in touch Meet me in another world, space and joy Vous etes tres belle... [Music fades out]
ernest
You know, I actually love the messiness when our desires and politics don’t align perfectly, and when our desires can sometimes be inconvenient, you know? So, on one hand, especially as he aged, Prince became very much a race man. Very much a race man. And yet, as you were saying, so many of the women in his world were fair skinned and actually looked a lot like him. I mean, him and Vanity could have been siblings, right? So there’s a little bit of narcissism perhaps in play as well. And then specifically in the film Under The Cherry Moon, Tisa Bryant, who’s going to be a guest in a few weeks, did a really amazing breakdown of the film where she was trying to track the Black women in the film, and you have to look in the background to see Black women. You know, you have to look in the background. Um, and so, it’s just a very interesting thing. I was thinking and being moved about you as a young Black girl watching this film and feeling immersed in this world, and feeling in some ways seen, and some ways being fed, and yet, you know, Black women in the actual film are so much in the background.
gabrielle
You know what, I’m so glad that you mentioned Tisa Bryant, because I saw her neo-benshi on Under The Cherry Moon and it was so excellent and I feel like whoever is listening to this should, you know, call her and hire her to do it again, because, I mean, she made me see that movie in a way that I had never seen it before. ‘Cause to be honest with you, before she re-cut the film to show you the Black women in the film, I don’t think I even realized there were any Black women in the film, and there are quite a few. There are a lot more there than I noticed, and it’s very strange. In terms of the racial dynamics, I mean, it’s important to mention with this album, Parade, this is the last album with the Revolution, and the Revolution was this multiracial band that really was about this kind of candy-colored vision out of, you know, Minneapolis’ Uptown. Again, that’s like that Midwestern Minnesotan multiracial deal. And there’s something around, it’s interesting, like Kristin Scott Thomas as the female lead in that movie, that’s so odd, and it might have been her first—
ernest
It was her very first film role. Yeah.
gabrielle
—her first film role. There’s something about the way little Gabrielle looked at who that was—see, this was a different racial moment. Maybe this was something around disidentification. I didn’t… not see myself in that movie, maybe at that time because there were so few representations of Black women on the screen, I was very used to swapping out or being able to project or understand that someone that didn’t look like me could be my avatar. Now, strangely, the more there were representations, then the less easy it was to be able to look at things that didn’t look like me and be able to make it work.
music
“I Wonder U” off the album Parade by Prince. ... how you say I wonder you I wonder you [Instrumentals play for a moment, and then fade out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
Well, I want to detour us—I should say, I want to nudge us back to Parade, and we were just talking about the fact that this is the last album that Prince recorded with them before, I think, a pretty public falling out; and it led to Prince recording the next couple of albums solo, before he brought together the New Power Generation a few years down the line. I’m wondering, to what extent was—what was losing The Revolution like? What did it mean for Prince’s sound and discography, and is it a great what-if to imagine what happened if they had stayed together for the next few albums?
gabrielle
Well, I mean, I love The Revolution, I do, but I have to say, I mean, before The Revolution—I mean, The Revolution really just started with what, was it 1999? I mean, he had albums that were kind of amazing, including the Prince album, that wasn’t with The Revolution. I mean, I know part of it is that Prince’s ego got so stratospheric that he couldn’t handle the idea that he would maybe depend on these people for his sound. And then also I think, just as an artist wanting to explore new things, I’m sad that they didn’t really—that he didn’t really come back with them in an extended way. There were moments where he recorded here or there, but I have to say, Sign o’ The Times is so exceptional. It is such an excellent album, and I don’t know if he could have done that with them. Parade is also an album that seems to me to be kind of both kind of killing and mourning an earlier Prince. I mean, one thing that we sort of skirted around, but I think if there are people who are listening to this that are like, “Let me go back and look into this album,” either for the first time or again, there’s a lot of death in this album. There was a song called “Old Friends 4 Sale” that emerged on a later—in fact, maybe it was like the title of a later kind of, weird album that Prince put out for, I don’t know, contractual reasons, but he wrote it around this time, and it wouldn’t fit into the world of this movie, but it was this idea of like, fame has done something to his relationships.
music
“Old Friends 4 Sale” off the album The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale by Prince. Slow, almost mournful R&B. Maybe the morning air will make me feel better Oh, I hope better than I feel right now Last night a stranger took my picture and then he He asked if I'd buy it I said I guess I don't know how Old, old friends for sale Get them... [Music fades out as Gabrielle speaks]
gabrielle
It’s almost like this is starting—this is the beginning of Prince, the movie, the mega-rockstar, starting to feel differently about himself and his relationships and all that worldbuilding that happened in the earlier albums, Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, it’s like, that was like, he was like a critic’s favorite, and he was—that was like—to me those are deep Detroit records. Not everybody was super into Prince, but in Detroit those records were really big, and then he became this global superstar, and then what does that do? So all of a sudden there’s like, sometimes “I feel so sad,” or sometimes “Tracy died soon after a long-fought civil war.” I mean, what’s going on there in terms of his sense of himself, as a maker, as a creator, and what’s possible, and maybe that that had to die in order for some other kind of work to exist.
ernest
You know, and I think that might be why, for me, “Sometimes It Snows In April” is one of his most moving and affecting ballads. I think it’s one of his most amazing performances, because he so inhabits that sadness, and even though he is a fantastic actor, you know, to be a good singer, to be a great singer, you have to be a great actor or actress, right? And he really is, and I don’t know if people, when they talk about how extraordinary he is as a musician and a songwriter, you know, his performances as an actor, performing these songs, inhabiting these characters. And I was older than you when I heard “Sometimes It Snows In April” and it kind of shook me a little bit, because the sadness just kind of wafts through the speakers.
music
“Sometimes It Snows In April” off the album Parade by Prince. Very slow, keyed down, tender, sad pop/R&B with a simple piano and guitar backing. I used to cry for Tracy cause he was my only friend Those kind of cars don't pass you every day I used to cry for Tracy cause I want to see him again But sometimes, sometimes life... [Music fades out as Ernest speaks]
ernest
And I think Meshell Ndegeocello’s cover that she recently did just like really nailed that element, that quality of it.
music
“Sometimes It Snows In April” off the album Ventriloquism by Meshell Ndegeocello. The same tune as before, but even slower, even more bare, even more mournful with only a guitar backing. Sometimes I feel so bad Sometimes I wish that life was never ending And all good things, they say, never last [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
I just want to add on that, you know, I think it’s notable that it’s one of the songs that Prince would often close his performances with, and why choosing that, given the immensity of his catalog, why choose that, and it’s also, of the various songs on this album—and I could be wrong about this because I didn’t go this deep into the discography to figure this out—I want to say it’s also his most covered song off of this particular album. I mean, the covers of “Kiss” are perhaps a little bit better known thanks to Tom Jones and Art of Noise, but if you look at the number of people who have covered “Sometimes It Snows In April”, it’s a really long list, and I think there's something about—I’m just thinking, you were saying before, Ernest, about performance and about to be a good singer you have to be a good actor, and the ways in which actors have their favorite moments from other actors, they like quoting that performance. And so there’s something to, when you choose a song to cover, why are you choosing that particular song, and I think perhaps it speaks to that dynamic you’re pointing out.
music
“Sometimes It Snows In April” off the album Parade by Prince. Always cry for love, never cry for pain He used to say so strong unafraid to die Unafraid of the death that left me hypnotized No, staring at his picture I realized… [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
If I can just make a quick plug too is, we had Meshell on the show to talk about Purple Rain—and this was, at this point, maybe about a year ago, but—she also touches on, she touches on a lot of the things that have come up in this conversation; in particular, the question of the role of women within the purple world, as you put it, Ernest. And I would just direct our listeners—if you like today’s conversation, you absolutely should check out listening to Meshell talk about Prince and talking about Purple Rain.
ernest
Yeah, it is a fantastic—as a huge fan of both Meshell and Prince, that’s one of my favorite Heat Rocks episodes.
gabrielle
[Makes sizzling sound.] That’s hot. [Everyone laughs.]
oliver
So, bringing this back again to Parade, what is your fire track off of this album? What’s the favorite cut for you?
gabrielle
Okay, I know this is a little astral, but I have to admit, I love “Life Can Be So Nice”.
music
“Life Can Be So Nice” off the album Parade by Prince … you’re so nice! [Some form of woodwind begins playing loudly for a moment before it cuts off and a drum solo begins. After a few moments, the music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
Is that a harpsichord in there?
gabrielle
No, there’s all these wild, wild sounds and it’s noisy and it’s clangy and there’s this incredible propulsive drum in it, and it’s just so surprising and weird, and I think I love this song too because there’s a dance practice called Don’t You Feel It Too? where you put the same song on repeat, and you put in your headphones, and then you just dance, dance, dance in a public space, and you work through whatever embarrassment or shyness and you just reveal yourself. And I listened to that song on repeat for something like ten or fifteen minutes, and I just—it just—oh, it like cracked me open. It was such a wonderful thing to dance to, and there were so many different layers that you could dance to, so. “Life Can Be So Nice.”
music
[“Life Can Be So Nice” fades back in] ... be so nice, so nice Can be so nice It's a wonderful world, paradise Kiss me once, kiss me twice Life can be so nice... [Music fades back out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
Ernest, how about you?
ernest
For me, it’s “Anotherloverholenyohead”, because it’s so funky and it’s so sexy and I really love the way the backing vocals are handled in that track. There’s a way in which it’s both a call and response thing, but it also sort of collapses and it’s him with them, and it’s not just a call and response, and it’s just one of those things that hits you viscerally, you know? And because I was already living in Los Angeles by the time Parade came out, for me, what you were saying about Dirty Minds and Controversy and 1999 being such Detroit albums, for me, something about “Anotherloverholenyohead” just sort of put me back in that Detroit headspace of Prince.
music
“Anotherloverholenyohead” off the album Parade by Prince. A bit rock, a bit R&B, a bit pop, a lot funk. You need another lover You know there ain't no other [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
I’m gonna be the basic person here and say that my fire track is “Kiss” because it was certainly my introduction to Parade. It doesn’t also hurt that I just wrote an essay for an upcoming anthology that Daphne Brooks is editing about Prince and David Bowie, and I wrote about “Kiss”, and one of the things I said about it—and this is something that we were talking about before we started recording—is I always think of this song as a DJ cheat code, because if the party is flagging and you don’t wanna play Michael, there’s no way you can go wrong with playing “Kiss”, and in particular, just the way that the song opens.
music
“Kiss” off the album Parade by Prince. It begins with several rocking notes on an electric guitar before drums kick in and Prince begins singing in a high falsetto. You don't have to be beautiful to turn me on [Music fades down and plays quietly as Oliver speaks]
oliver
It is the easiest track to drop in if you can just count four, because that’s all you gotta do. The audience knows it’s coming within just those few heart beats, and they’re a hundred percent in.
music
[“Kiss” increases in volume] You don't need experience to turn me out Just leave it all up to me, I'm gonna show you what it's all about [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
And it’s just the choices he makes, deciding to sing the song in falsetto, deciding after the original track was recorded to take the bass out, which, for a dance song, like why would you ever do it, except all of it works so perfectly. And I think there’s a way in which, given the mythology of Prince, we want to think that everything that he ever put out was meticulously composed and considered, but I also want to say that I think that we have to give a certain amount of credit to just, not so much dumb luck, but that choices that may not seem intuitive suddenly become sublime in the aftermath. And I think that, again, to take out the bass, to decide how to approach the song, these were not things that were gonna guarantee the hit— [“Kiss” begins fading back in] —but they work in a way that is magical, because “Kiss” to me is just one of the great, great Prince pop songs, at least along those lines.
music
[“Kiss” fades back in completely. Prince sings in an even higher falsetto with a backing chorus behind him] You don't have to be rich to be my girl You don't have to be cool to rule my world Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with I just want your extra time and your… [Electric guitar plays several notes] …kiss! [Music fades out as Ernest speaks]
ernest
I always think of it alongside “When Doves Cry”, you know, another one that should not work if you look at what it’s doing and what it’s not doing on paper. And yet it’s a classic, and what we were saying before about Prince pushing the boundaries of what pop is.
music
“When Doves Cry” off the album Purple Rain by Prince. Intense funk with heavy drums. … just leave me standing Alone in a world that's so cold? Maybe I'm just too demanding Maybe I'm just like my father: too bold Maybe you're just like my mother… [Music fades out as Ernest speaks]
ernest
I always think of “Kiss” and “When Doves Cry” as being twins or siblings, in the way that they’re so incredibly out of the box and unconventional and just work. As a writer, I have to say, one of the things that makes me just laugh and happy is, in “Kiss”, the lyric, “Act your age, momma, not your shoe size.” That’s a great school—
gabrielle
Yes, yes, yes.
ernest
—and here’s a man who has written some sublime lyrics, who can just, who can just, who’s pen is without peer, and for him to drop that, you know, in there is just—I love it.
oliver
Do either of you have a favorite moment on this album? And for me, originally I thought it was gonna be the opening to “Kiss”, which I do think is a perfect moment, but listening to the album as a whole rather than as a series of different singles, I think the point that always surprises me and catches me off guard, but for this reason is also one of my favorite moments, is that transition between the end of “I Wonder U” and how it just seamlessly goes into “Under The Cherry Moon”, because you don’t expect, given the sound of the two songs being so different, and yet somehow it works really, really perfectly.
music
“I Wonder U” off the album Parade by Prince. Twangy strings play over the slow crescendo of a sustained piano note. After a moment, the string drop out and the sustained note plays alone, fading into…
music
“Under the Cherry Moon” off the album Parade by Prince. The sustained note of “I Wonder U” fades into the piano and drums opening of “Under the Cherry Moon”. The music plays quietly under Oliver’s dialogue, then fades out entirely.
oliver
The element of surprise, the contrast, it goes back to what I was saying earlier about the sequencing of it. I just think that is such a sublime moment on this song. And I’m wondering if either of you have favorite moments off of Parade.
ernest
I think for me, something very similar is “Kiss” going into “Anotherloverholenyohead.” It’s a juxtaposition that works and that I don’t know if too many people would have thought of besides Prince.
music
“Kiss” off the album Parade by Prince. [Prince sings the highest he’s sung yet, nearly screaming some parts of the lyrics as the backing accompaniment continues beneath him] You don't have to be rich to be my girl You don't have to be cool to rule my world Ain't no particular sign I'm compatible with! I just want your extra time and your... [Electric guitar; then, low voice:] ... kiss! [Electric guitar continues for a moment, then fades out into…
music
“Anotherloverholenyohead” off the album Parade by Prince. A drumbeat plays with electric strings and vocalizations from Prince. After a moment, the music fades out as Gabrielle speaks.
gabrielle
Well, it’s interesting, because I too love a transition, and I think for me, one of the most interesting and exciting transitions in this record is from the end of “Christopher Tracy’s Parade” and the beginning of “New Position”, because when those drums start to hit in and you realize, “Okay, there was that Sergeant Pepper-y looking whatever this is, and now all of a sudden, we’re back in Prince.”
music
“Christopher Tracy’s Parade” off the album Parade by Prince. Mid-tempo horns and drums with a myriad of voices singing, slowly getting quieter. … Christopher Tracy's Parade Goodness will guide us if love is inside us Christopher Tracy's Parade Christopher Tracy's Parade Christopher Tracy's Parade Christopher Tracy’s Parade… [Music fades out, and fades into…]
music
“New Position” off the album Parade by Prince. A deep drumbeat quickly joined by higher drums and cymbals.
oliver
Just two quick thoughts, number one, just the way that “New Position” opens in general is amazing.
gabrielle
It’s so good.
oliver
But the layers, the sparseness but yet there’s all this density of sound because of the different instrumentation, which contrasts great. The other thing that I thought about too is, maybe it’s not a coincidence that a room full of people that at least partly make their living writing are into transitions, right?
gabrielle
Exactly.
oliver
Because this is what we always—
gabrielle
It’s so hard, yeah.
oliver
Game recognize game, right? We probably could have gotten to this a little earlier, and this might be a controversial question to ask. Where does Parade rank within the Prince discography?
gabrielle
Oh, don’t make me.
oliver
Oh, sorry.
gabrielle
Don’t make me do it! Oh, that’s like, I don’t know, ranking my friends. Ranking the children I don’t have. Um.
oliver
Was this your favorite Prince album?
gabrielle
Not necessarily. But I mean, I like—I mean, I love different Prince albums for different reasons. I love Lovesexy. You know what I mean? And Lovesexy would not be anyone’s number one Prince album, but just the—I remember him being naked on that leaf, and going and listening to it and it was on a, you know, anyway. I think that, for me, first of all, there’s like the Prince of pre-Purple Rain, and then there’s this Prince of the ‘80s, and then there’s kind of Prince of the ‘90s where I love those records but they get cheesy. Diamonds and Pearls, The Gold Experience, The Love Symbol Album. So, Parade is definitely better than all that, especially when you start getting into Lotus Flower and Minneapolis. You remember these albums? I mean, all these—this is stuff, like, you have to be a deep Princehead even to maybe have even heard. This is better than that. I do think as an album, it holds up for me more than Around The World In A Day. I think that, for me, it’s more interesting than For You, his first record. And I think it is on the same quality level for me as Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999. I do think that it’s there. But it’s prettier, you know what I’m saying? And that’s Prince’s playing with prettiness and he’s bringing in the classical, so I’m interesting in how—I mean, Matt Thorn talks about this record as being a marriage, one of the best marriages ever of pop and classical sensibilities through the orchestration, and that is something I don’t think he really tried so much before. I mean, there’s those beautiful strings on “Purple Rain” at the end of that song, but this is a record where he does that, so I have a soft spot for it. I love it a lot. Yeah. I’ll leave it at that.
music
“Sometimes It Snows In April” off the album Parade by Prince. But all good things, they say, never last I often dream of heaven and I know that Tracy's there I know that he has found... [Music fades out as Oliver speaks[
oliver
If you had to describe this album in three words, what three words would you choose?
gabrielle
Okay. So, I did do a little homework to try to come prepared for this. [Ernest and Oliver laugh.] Because it was so hard, I thought, “I better think about this.” And, um. So my words are romantic, cinematic, and classic.
oliver
Very fitting. [Gabrielle laughs.] Absolutely.
music
[“Sometimes It Snows In April” fades back in] Sometimes it snows in April Sometimes I feel so bad Sometimes I wish that life was never ending But all... [Music fades out again as Oliver speaks]
oliver
If folks really liked Parade, what other albums, or what would be the next thing that people would recommend they check out, and Ernest, you want to lead us off here?
ernest
Sure. I was thinking of something that works in very similar ways, and at the time of its release was as puzzling to fans, and I was thinking of The Secret Life of Plants by Stevie Wonder.
gabrielle
Mmm.
ernest
Right? Because there was the pop hit “Send One Your Love”, but then there’s all this other work that, for a lot of fans, especially coming in 1979, after we, you know, Stevie, we thought we knew what to expect from Stevie, even when it’s expect the unexpected, but we—people didn’t expect that much unexpected, and I think it’s an album that in recent years has been rediscovered by a lot of people. I know that, for instance, Solange has shouted it out as one of her favorites, right? So, I think, you know, an album that will probably push you out of your comfort zone, give you a couple of anchors to hold onto, you know, strategically here and there, but also just really broaden your perspective on the artist and what to expect from him.
music
“Send One Your Love” off the album Secret Life of Plants by Stevie Wonder. Mid-tempo R&B. Make sure that she knows it With a flower from your heart Show him your love Don't hold back your feelings You don't need a reason When it's straight from the heart [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
I thought of Sparkle. Written and produced by the great Curtis Mayfield, 1976, and the reason this came to mind was it was a few things. One is that it’s a departure, I think, for people who—if you have in your mind what the Curtis Mayfield sound is, Sparkle I wouldn’t say is a night and day deviation from it, but it’s different enough that it might catch people off guard in the same way that I think a lot of folks were not necessarily prepared for how Parade was going to sound based on the Prince albums that came before it, and it’s also another case where the soundtrack and the movie don’t entirely sync up in the way that you would typically expect. Partly it’s because Aretha Franklin singing the soundtrack, but it’s Irene Cara and other of the actors who are singing the diegetic songs in the film, and so I thought that was another interesting parallel given the ways in which Parade and Under The Cherry Moon— [“Something He Can Feel” begins fading in] —there was a bit of a divergence between the album as a musical effort, and then how the music works in the film.
music
“Something He Can Feel” off the album Sparkle by Aretha Franklin. Passionate, up-tempo R&B. People out there can understand I'm giving him something he can feel Oh, to let him know my love is real Hey, hey, hey I'm giving him something he can feel Yes, I am, babe To let you know... [Music fades out as Gabrielle speaks]
gabrielle
You know what, I’m gonna go in a really unusual direction here, and I’m gonna say as a nod to the French pop influences on this album, I would just suggest that people check out Camille, C-A-M-I-L-L-E, album Le Sac Des Filles. It’s like the girl’s handbag or whatever, and just, it has these kind of beautiful, weird French poppy songs. This artist has been called sort of the French Björk, and so I think it could be, right after listening to Parade, it could be a really fun little detour.
oliver
Oh, I love that.
music
“1, 2, 3” off the album Le Sac Des Filles by Camille. Upbeat music box pop with a simple piano backing and clear vocals. Un, deux, trois C'était mieux à deux Les yeux dans les yeux [Music fades out as Ernest speaks]
ernest
That’ll do it for this episode of Heat Rocks with our special guest, Gabrielle Civil. What are you working on now?
gabrielle
Ooh, it’s funny we’ve been talking about some French things. I’m trying to finish up a translation that I’ve been doing of a Haitian poet named Jacqueline Beaugé-Rosier that I’ve been working on quite a bit, and I’m also still continuing to do a bunch of performance writing about diaspora and sort of Black Feminist performance practice.
ernest
And where can people find you online, social media? How can people find you?
gabrielle
Well, they can definitely go to my website, GabrielleCivilArtist.com, and you can check out my books at your local independent book store near you or online, and recently actually, just this month, the work book for Experiments In Joy just came out from an in-print of the Women’s Center for Creative Work here in Los Angeles. So, definitely go check that out.
ernest
I cannot recommend Experiments In Joy highly enough. I was telling Miss Civil that I’m trying to find a way to work it into my syllabus for this coming term. [Gabrielle laughs.] So, highly recommended.
gabrielle
Thank you so much.
oliver
Thank you so much for joining us today.
gabrielle
So fun!
oliver
Yeah. You’ve been listening to Heat Rocks with me, Oliver Wang and our guest co-host, Ernest Hardy, sitting in for Morgan Rhodes. Our theme music is “Crown Ones” by Thes One/Ichi/Uno of People Under the Stairs. Shout out to Thes for the hook up. Heat Rocks is produced by myself, Morgan, and Christian Dueñas, who also engineers, edits and books for the show. Our senior producer is Laura Swisher and executive producer is Jesse Thorn. We are part of the Maximum Fun family, taping every week live in their studios in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
ernest
Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram @HeatRocksPod. You can find a link to our Facebook group on our webpage: HeatRocksPod.com. That’s where we’ll post show notes for every episode including a tracklisting of everything you’ve heard today and more goodies. Again, that’s at HeatRocksPod.com.
oliver
As we ask every week, if you haven’t had a chance to leave a review for us on iTunes, it is a big, big way in which new listeners can find their way to our humble little show, so if you can just take out a minute and leave us a review, please do so.
christian dueñas
Hey guys, it’s uh, producer Christian here, just wanted to quickly jump in with a tease for next week’s episode. Oliver’s flying solo again, talking to Jason Concepcion about Herbie Hancock’s Thrust.
jason concepcion
I think that the thing about Thrust on this arc is it’s part of a general trend towards how virtuosic can we get that I think was happening in music, um, popular music on the whole at that time. You know, like, the Beatles had created this thing of like, how virtuosic can we get in a studio and the next thing you know you have Queen, who’s sort of multi-layering full operatic styles, and you have ELO that are taking it to the next level of that. For Thrust, you really—it’s a snapshot of a time when that trend line of how much more technical, how much more virtuosic can we be was still kind of trending up, and it was really interesting to me, before all of that stuff kind of got swept away.
speaker 2
Comedy and culture.
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Artist owned—
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—Audience supported.
About the show
Hosted by Oliver Wang and Morgan Rhodes, every episode of Heat Rocks invites a special guest to talk about a heat rock – a hot album, a scorching record. These are in-depth conversations about the albums that shape our lives.
Our guests include musicians, writers, and scholars and though we don’t exclusively focus on any one genre, expect to hear about albums from the worlds of soul, hip-hop, funk, jazz, Latin, and more.
New episodes every Thursday on Apple Podcasts or whatever you get your podcasts.
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