Pour Some Sugar on Me Edition Part 2

[music] Welcome back to Hip-Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine. About the hits from Coast to Coast, I'm Chris Malanfi, Chart Analyst, Pop Critic, and Writer of Slates Why is this song number one series on our last episode. We introduced you to prolific producer and songwriter Robert John Lang, better known by his nickname Mut Lang. Raised in South Africa, nurtured in the British recording industry, Mut emerged as a top producer at the start of the 1980s, with a detailed meticulous method for crafting fist pumping anthems from AC/DC to Foreigner, Death Leopard to Billie Ocean. We're now in the mid-80s, and Mut is about to embark upon an even more complex Death Leopard LP, before making an improbable pivot to country music by the 90s. Death Leopard's fourth album seemed cursed from the start. Mut Lang did help the band start writing its songs in 1984, just after their pyromania album wound down, but he declined to produce the LP, citing his exhaustion after producing the car's heartbeat city. So, for the rest of '84, the band tried other production arrangements, including producing themselves with the assistance of engineers, and even working with Jim Steinman, the famed meatloaf producer we covered in his own hip-per-aid episode. Jim Steinman and Death Leopard did not see eye to eye. He wanted the album to have a live band feel, while the band was aiming for an even more extravagant sound than pyromania. They parted ways after about six weeks. By the end of '84, Leopard had been working all year, with not much to show for it. Then things took a much darker turn on New Year's Eve, 1984, when drummer Rick Allen crashed his corvette a few miles west of Sheffield, England, and severed his arm. Doctors tried to reattach the limb, but due to infection, they were forced to amputate. Rick Allen instantly became the world's most famous one-armed drummer, a dubious notion. The idea of Allen continuing with Death Leopard seemed almost fantastical, but the person who convinced Rick Allen and the rest of the band could be done was Mut Lang, who had stayed in touch with all of them. Here is Mut himself, some rare audio in his own voice, speaking for the aforementioned BBC documentary. When I arrived at the hospital, he was actually, I could see that he was really done. He was trying to keep a pretty brave face, but he was prostrate. Really prostrated at that point, not knowing which limbs we're going to work at all. Then I just mentioned to him that he could conceivably, if he could get his right hand to work again, he could actually play the drums by repeating the sounds on the top and the bottom. He then, as he lay there, he started just doing that thing with his limbs. I could actually see almost a light shine in his eyes in terms of saying, "Yeah, that's actually the one way out of it." Literally from that day on, in my perception, a few times I saw him, he had a cause. Then I actually mentioned it to the band. I said to Peter Manchin, I said, "Rick really could play. It's just going to take time. We were going to record the album, so he had a lot of recuperative time." Of course, nobody was discounting that, but in the back of everyone's minds, they weren't quite ready to believe it. By 1985, not only was Rick Allen still in, Deaf Leopard, Mutt Lang was back in the fold as well, having enjoyed his break and rescuing the album from its string of failed producers. But the LP would take another two years to complete, delayed not only by Rick's rehabilitation, but by Mutt's own perfectionism. He and Joe Elliot would record vocals literally syllable by syllable. Basically, the band were trying to make what Mutt called the Thriller of Hard Rock. More than half the album could be singles. And writing these would-be hits was not easy. One song, Animal, took Mutt and the band nearly three years of trial and error to get right. In the middle of all that labor, drummer Rick Allen conceived of the album's title, "Historia," not just a logical follow-up to "Pyromania," but also a reference to all the crazy making trials the LP had put them through. After spending five million dollars to record "Historia," an unheard of sum back then, the album finally arrived in the summer of 1987. In the four years, Deaf Leopard had been gone, so-called "hair metal" had blown up, and many hair metal hits sounded like they could have been Mutt Lang's handiwork, from the dreaded Bon Jovi, whose explosive choruses were very Mutt-like. To White Snake, a veteran British band who, like ACDC, had rebooted themselves for this new era of hair metal. So, Deaf Leopard should have been welcomed back with open arms, but "Historia" was almost sunk out of the box by a poor choice of first single. In a bid to re-establish Deaf Leopard's credibility with their dude rock fan base, the label chose the "luxurious women" as the lead-off track. Though it did make the top 10 on Billboard's album Rock Chart, women stalled on the Hot 100 at number 80, and the "Historia" album had a somewhat soft launch. The LP rose into the top five, briefly, then fell back and knocked in and out of the top 10 for the next nine months. But that's when Mutt Lang's instincts began to pay off. "Historia" was indeed packed with potential singles, and it spun off more Hot 100 hits than any hard rock band had ever seen. Starting with "Animal", which cracked the top 40 at number 19 in late 87, each single from Deaf Leopard's "Historia" rose higher than the one preceding it. Next, the album's title track, as we mentioned at the top of our show, climbed into the top 10 in the spring. For the fourth single, Deaf Leopard went with a song they wrote as an homage to both "Queen's We Will Rock You" and "Run DMC's Walk This Way". The lighter waving, tongue-twisting anthem poured some sugar on me, which reached number two in the summer of 88. The week poor sum sugar reached its Hot 100 peak, the "Historia" album rose to the top of the album chart. Deaf Leopard's first number one LP, nearly a year after the album came out. And the hits just kept coming. The fifth single, written largely by Mut Lang, was a heartbreak song that sounded like country music when Lang first brought it to the band. By the time Deaf Leopard and Mut transformed it, the song was a metallic melodramatic power ballad called Love Bites. In early October 1988, Love Bites went all the way to the top of the Hot 100, becoming Deaf Leopard's first and only number one song. The hysteria album was now septuple platinum, and it wasn't done spinning off hits. Next, Armageddonit, a nonsensical but very catchy Bop reached number three. And finally, in the spring of 1989, more than a year and a half after hysteria arrived, the album spun off its last hit when Rocket peaked at number 12. To this day, no hard rock or heavy metal album has spawned as many hit songs as hysteria, and with total US sales of 12 million and global sales of 25 million, it's one of the best-selling rock albums period of all time. Mut Lang's vision of a hard rock thriller essentially came true. A side note about Mut Lang's run of hits with Deaf Leopard, though he did take the band to number one with Love Bites, funnily enough, that was not Mut's first Hot 100 chart topper. Five months earlier, in April of 1988, a song produced and co-written by Lang hit number one for the first time, and it topped both the Hot 100 and Billboard's R&D B chart. Who would have guessed the artist to take Mut to the top of the singles charts would be Billy Ocean? Get out of my dreams, get into my car, was mostly Mut's idea. He brought it to Billy Ocean a couple of years after their success with Loveorboy and when the going gets tough, the tough get going. It was partially based on the hook of a song Mut had previously written for the soundtrack to the 1984 movie Teachers, a forgotten track by the British new wave rock band Roman Holiday called One Foot Back in Your Door. Mut took that pre-chorus lyric, "I'm your nonstop miracle, I'm your man, and fused it with the funky stylings of the Isle brothers 1973, top 10 hit that lady." And the result was a positively infectious dance floor bop for Billy Ocean. Get out of my dreams, get into my car. In England, that song title raised some hackles. The BBC was concerned that "get out of my dreams, get into my car" would sound like a potential sexual come on for Johns or pedophiles. So Ocean had to record an edited version with fewer grunts. In America, it aired in its original form. I guess you can file mutt-langs on winning lyrical sensibilities alongside Max Martin's Hit Me Baby one more time. Nonetheless, get out of my dreams, get into my car was a number three UK hit and again, a double number one in America. Mut's first pop chart topper and his only R&B number one. ♪ Get out of my dreams ♪ Indeed, once Mut Lang got the deaf leopard album out of his system, he went back to serving as a gun for hire songwriter through the late 80s and early 90s. Some hits in this period you may not have known were mutt compositions include Hearts, Hornet, Telenovela, all I want to do is make love to you. A number two hit in 1990. Huey Lewis and the news is 1991, Bob. It hit me like a hammer. One of that bands last top 40 hits. And Michael Bolton's "Soul Tree Ballad" said I loved you but I lied. A 1993 single that reached number six. ♪ Said I loved you but I lied ♪ In addition to all of these one offs, Mut Lang had also found another rock act he could reboot the way he had foreigner ACDC and the cars. This Canadian soloist had scored plenty of hits in the 80s but he needed Mut for a 90s reinvention. Brian Adams after his 1987 album underperformed on the charts. This song "Heat of the Night" was the LP's only top 10 hit. "Reached Out to Mut Lang" to produce his next album. They began work on the album in 1990 and were most of the way through it when the producers of the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood "Prince of Thieves" asked Adams if he'd be willing to help score composer Michael Cayman turn a melody from the film into a pop song. Brian and Mut paused work on their album, teamed up with Cayman and wrote a song that wound up the biggest hit any of them had ever produced. Everything I do, I do it for you, spent seven weeks at number one in America in the summer of 91. Billboard later named it 1991's top song and in the UK, it spent a staggering 16 weeks at number one. Resetting the Slim Whitman record I mentioned earlier in our show. After everything I do, Brian Adams and Mut Lang went back to complete Adams's album. Only now, they had the wind at their backs. In 1991 with Grunge and Gangster Rap taking over the radio, you would not have expected a Brian Adams album to be deep in the current pop conversation. But suddenly, the Husky voiced Canadian who brought you Ernest 80s hits like "Straight from the Heart", "Heaven" and "Summer of 69" found himself a serious hitmaker again. It helped that Mutt made his album gleam like a skyscraper. Can't stop this thing we started was the first official single from the 1991 Brian Adams album "Waking Up the Neighbors". Unofficially the album was led by everything I do, I do it for you, which was included on the CD and helped the album debut on the album chart within the top 10. The album's first album to open that high. "Waking Up the Neighbors" would eventually be certified quadruple platinum, and it generated 5 top 40 hits, including "Can't Stop This Thing We Started", which featured an anthemic "Mutt Lankoris" and reached number 2 on the Hot 100 by November. "I'm a way, now baby, can't stop this thing we started" That number 2 peak made "Can't Stop This Thing" Brian Adams' highest charting single not connected to a soundtrack, which is an important caveat, because for the rest of the 90s, Brian Adams became the king of soundtracks, scoring hit after hit from movies. And "Mutt Lank" worked on all of them. That included the "Schlokki Trio" single we talked about in last month's hit parade episode on "Sting", the Brian Adams, Rod Stewart and "Sting" single from 1993's "The Three Musketeers", the three week number 1 hit "All For Love". "When You Hold Me The One You Want Me" Also, the 1995 Brian Adams smash from the Johnny Depp film "Don Juan de Marco", the Fabio-like flamenco-flavored ballad have you ever really loved a woman. Importantly, it was "Mutt's Idea" to include in the lyrics "The Line From The Movie" about seeing your unborn children in a woman's eyes, which you. But it was another number 1 hit for 5 weeks in the summer of 95. "When You Can See Your Unborn Children In Her Eyes You Know You Really Love A Woman" In the years to come, Brian Adams and "Mutt Lank" would continue working together, off and on, and even generating the occasional hit. But by the time they scored their third and final number 1 together in 95, "Mutt" had already pivoted to his next major production project. This one was both more personal and bigger than anything he would ever do. He went country. "Who's bad, have your boots been under?" "Who's bad, have your boots been under?" We'll be back momentarily. "I've tried it, see I wonder, is it standing if you like something?" "Shenaya Twain, born and raised in Ontario, Canada, was attending the June 1993 edition of Fanfare, the annual country music meet and greet event, to promote her self-titled debut album. The CD had earned respectable notices and did spin off a couple of minor radio hits. But the "Shenaya Twain" CD stalled at number 67 on the country album's chart. At a time when country was crossing over and going multi-platinum in the era of Garth Brooks and Reba McIntyre? "Is there my fanfare, so what she hasn't done, is there life beyond her family?" "Shenaya Twain was, at best, a promising but third-tier artist. But that fanfare is where she met Mut Lang. "Shenaya was a fan of the kind of rock Mut produced and Mut, who'd been a fan of American country music since childhood, remember his love of Slim Whitman, wanted to try his hand at country. He heard great promise in Shanae's debut. And he offered to work on her next album. Within weeks their relationship was more than professional. Just six months after fanfare, Shanae and Mut were not only married, they were already co-writing material for Twain's second album. Though he was relatively new to the ways of Nashville, Lang was determined to break in. It was a good moment to pivot. Rock fans were migrating toward country music, and post-Garth Brooks, many country hits, were basically suburban soft rock with Twain. As a beta test, in 1994 Mut wrote a song for Countrystar Billy Ray Cyrus that reached number 23 on Billboard's Hot Country songs. Not bad for a first try. Only God could tell me not to. In the spring of 1995, Shanae and Twain released her second album, The Woman in Me, her first produced by her husband Mut Lang. From the jump, its singles were spunkier and more energetic than anything on Twain's debut. The first single, Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under, Mut liked songs with conversational titles. Hit number 11 on the Country chart. Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under, Mut liked songs with conversational titles. That single was quickly followed by Any Man of Mine, which became Twain's first number 1 country song in July of 1995. That sent The Woman in Me album to number 1 as well, and it kept spinning off hits. Pretty quickly, listeners noticed Shanae Twain's hits didn't sound like anything else on Country Radio. Sure, they had all the Sonic hallmarks of mainstream country. Fiddle, banjo, pedal, steel. But Mut Lang amped up her singles with anthemic hooks, not unlike his rock and pop hits. They were stadium country songs, even before Shanae was ready to play stadiums. But also encouraged Shanae to sprinkle her lyrics with exclamation points, especially song titles. Her second number 1 hit, If You're Not In It For Love, I'm Outta Here, Ended With The Banging Punctuation. This sassiness played in the media and on the radio as a kind of pop feminism, Twain expressing her freedom and independence. But the mastermind of this persona was a veteran rocker dude with a mullet and a gift for faders and knobs. The Woman in Me spent a stunning 29 weeks at number 1 on the Country Albums chart and spun off 8 singles on the Country Songs Chart, 4 of which hit number 1. I'm Outta Here, You Win My Love, Ended With The Banging Punctuation. to know. On that last country chart-topper, you could hear Mutt Lang's voice, providing harmony vocals in a de facto duet with his wife. True to his mystery man status, however, Mutt didn't appear in the music video. By the time the woman in me spun off its final hit in the closing weeks of 1996, the album was eight times platinum. It is now certified for sales of 12 million copies. And Shania Twain and Mutt Lang were already writing the follow-up. On the breakthrough album, Shania and Mutt brought a pop sensibility to country music. On the blockbuster follow-up, they would bring their brand of country straight to the pop charts. They even baked their crossover intentions right into the album's title, Come On Over. When the Come On Over album arrived in the fall of 1997, its first single Love Gets Me Every Time was already number one on the country chart. More remarkably, that Twangie Bop also made it to number 25 on the Hot 100. But that turned out to be just a warm-up for the album's blockbuster pop breakthrough. "I saw you, I saw love, and the first time you touched me, I felt love." You're still the one, more than any of the prior hits Shania Twain and Mutt Lang wrote together was actually autobiographical. Given their 17-year-age difference, Twain noticed that careerist naysayers were second-guessing their marriage, especially in the music business. So she wrote a gentle, folky ballad remarking on how she and her husband had persevered. "Looks like we made it," she sings. "Look how far we've come." She brought it to Lang, who loved the sentiment, and wrote the song's very memorable melodic chorus. The result was a song that not only became a wedding standard, but Shania Twain's biggest crossover hit. Released as a single in early 1998, you're still the one, not only topped the country chart, it rose to number two on the Hot 100 and stayed there for nine weeks during the summer of 98. It would have topped the pop chart if not for Brandy and Monica's 13-week number one hit, The Boy Is Mine. And around the world, you're still the one blew up, reaching the top 10 in nearly a dozen countries, from Ireland to Croatia to New Zealand. It turned the come-on-over album into a global blockbuster. Back in America, it also established Shania Twain a decade before Taylor Swift as a legitimate crossover country to pop star. Come-on-over wound up generating multiple top 10 pop hits, including the number four ballad from this moment on. And the spunky number seven pop hit that don't impress me much. Both of these singles did better on the Hot 100 than they did on the country chart. And though it didn't do quite as well on the charts at the time, reaching number four country and number 23 pop, man, I feel like a woman. Has become Twain's legacy hit. More than a quarter century later, man, I feel like a woman is her top song at Spotify, with nearly three quarters of a billion streams. And between the loud riffs and the two exclamation points in its title, "Man, I feel like a woman is arguably Shania's most mutt-like anthem." Come-on-over spun off hits for nearly three years, from 1997 to mid-2000. In all 11 singles were issued at Country Radio, and the album spent a record 50 weeks at number one on the Country Albums Chart. Twain would hold that record for more than two decades until a Morgan Wallen LP finally surpassed her. About half of the "Come-on-over" singles made the pop charts too, and the album was certified double diamond, mutt-langs second 20 million plus seller after ACDC's back in black. And that's just in America. Around the world, "Come-on-over" has sold 40 million copies, second only to Whitney Houston's Bodyguard soundtrack. Among top sellers by women, all for an album about mutt-lang and Shania Twain wanting to smash multiple genres together. Unsurprisingly, "Come-on-over" took longer to follow up. Now that Shania Twain was one of the biggest global music stars, period, she and mutt tripled down on crossing over with her 2002 album "Up." By the way, the title "Up" included an exclamation point. It was issued in three versions, color-coded by genre, a green country CD, a red pop CD, and a blue international disc. Any given track on the album, such as the lead single, "I'm Gonna Get You Good" was remixed or re-recorded for each audience, whether country? Pop. Or, "International," which had a specifically South Asian Bollywood-style flavor. "I'm Gonna Get You Good" In short, "Up" was more an expression of mutt-lang's cross-genre global ambitions than Shania Twain's country persona. It did sell quickly out of the box. Twain's first album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 pop album chart. But its final sales total was less than half of "Come On Over" and its singles did nowhere near as well on the charts. No country number ones and no pop top 10s. It would be the last album Twain and Lang worked on together. And contrary to the love songs they'd co-written, their marriage did not have a storybook ending, unless that storybook is a primetime soap opera. After 15 years of marriage, in 2008, Lang cheated on Twain with her best friend. Twain and Lang separated for two years before divorcing in 2010. The following year, Twain married her former friend. ex-husband, so much for forever and for always. We'll be right back. After his multi-platinum successes with deaf leopard, Brian Adams, and especially Shania Twain, Munt Lang only worked when he wanted to. He moved to Switzerland, where he lives to this day. And professionally, he became a sonic specialist across genres, pop, country, and rock. His pop contributions have included songs for the Backstreet Boys. He wrote this 1999 Backstreet Boys track with Max Martin, arguably Mutt's successor among cross-genre, maximalist, super producers. The next year, he co-wrote and produced a single for Britney Spears' second CD, Oops, I did it again. The top 40 radio hit "Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know." And also in 2000, he gave Irish sibling quartet "The Chores" their all-time biggest international hit, Breathless, an explosively catchy pop anthem. Breathless was their only top 40 hit in America, their only number one in the UK, and a top 10 hit in countries around the world. On the country side, other Nashville hitmakers have reached out to Mutt for some of the magic he achieved with Shania Twain. Lang has contributed songs for such acts as "Lone Star." Their 1997 number four country hit "You Walked In" was co-written by Lang with his friend, Brian Adams. Jessica Andrews, whose 1999 debut album included the Mutt song "I'll Take Your Heart." And American Idol winner and country megastar carry Underwood. Kurt Triple Platinum 2012 album "Blown Away" closed with the Mutt Lang composition, who are you? And finally, on the rock side, Mutt did eventually contribute songs to "Latter Day" and "Lapper." Including the hit "Promises" from their 1999 album "Uphoria." Both that album title and the track's sleek sound were an intentional throwback to "Vintage Mutt era" deaf lepper. "Promises" reached number one on Billboard's mainstream rock chart in the summer of 1999. Deaf leppers last chart topping hit. Leppers work with Lang continues to define their career. A decade later, Lang transitioned to the next generation of mainstream rockers when Canadian hit makers Nickelback hired him to produce the follow-up to their smash CD "All the Right Reasons." Their Mutt produced 2008 disc was called "Dark Horse." And in the spirit of "Vintage ACDC," Lang helped them co-write raunchy hits like "Something in Your Mouth." Another number one rock hit. "I'm so much cuter, I'm so big in your mouth." Indeed, in the 21st century, when a band hired Mutt Lang to produce a full album, it was usually an attempt to glom onto the "Vintage Mutt Arena Rock" mystique. Two years after Nickelback's course, L.A. hit makers Maroon 5 commissioned Lang to produce their third album "Hands All Over," which fused their slick pop rock with a Mutt-like strut. The album reached number two on the Billboard 200 and spun off the single "Misery," a number 14 hit on the Hot 100 in 2010. "I don't know why I think you call for me." And as late as 2015, Mutt Lang was still topping the charts when English pro-Rock band Mews hired Mutt to produce their seventh album "Drones." All music critic Stephen Thomas Urlewine praised Lang for, quote, "sharpening Mews's synthesis of every arena rock idea," unquote. Not only did drones top the Billboard 200, its electro-Rock single "Dead Inside," reached number one on Billboard's alternative songs chart. Seriously, in 2015, deep into his 60s, Mutt Lang produced the top "Alte Rock" hit. "Alte Inside" your ladies and lad, but you're dead inside." And on the Hot 100, Mutt Lang's last major hit came in 2011 when Lady Gaga brought Mutt into the studio to add some arena rock pump to her "Born This Way" album. Mutt sang backup on a couple of track tracks and more prominently, he produced Gaga's song "You and I," featuring Queen legend Brian May on guitar. "You and I" reached number six on the Hot 100 in the fall of 2011. Mutt's last top 10 pop hit to date. And I say to date, because I wouldn't write off Mutt Lang just yet. In the 2020s, he has emerged from his Swiss hideaway to contribute to the occasional track or album. Old friend Brian Adams lured Mutt out of semi-retirement in 2022 to co-produce and co-write five songs on Adam's LP, "So Happy It Hurtz." Mutt and Adams revived their vintage lighter waving rock sound on songs like Kickass, always have always will, and on the road. And Lang is clearly still paying attention to new music. For rising Australian rock vocalist Leah Martin Brown, Mutt produced the punchy 2024 single "Boys." He knows his wheelhouse. One major Mutt associate who is no longer in touch with him for obvious reasons is his former wife and fellow hitmaker Shania Twain. In a round of 2024 and 25 interviews supporting her most recent Las Vegas residency, Twain said that despite their traumatic break-up, she had found a way to forgive, but not forget what her ex-husband did, and that she had even found the fortitude to begin performing their biggest and most romantic hit, "You're Still the One," live once again. Here she is in 2025 singing the song "In Concert." It's good to hear Shania moving on and embracing her musical history again. The songs she and Mut Lang wrote together moved tens of millions of people worldwide for a reason. Well, several reasons. Sure, there was parasocial fandom, listeners projecting about Shania and Mut's then happy marriage. But there are also just sturdy songs. Mut Lang wrote and produced a lot of those. And maybe one day, Shania Twain will find the courage to do what she did 20 years ago and perform other Mut Lang songs, like the time she covered one of his AC/DC classes. Plus one double diamond seller covering another double diamond seller. That's Robert John Mut Lang's legacy. Maybe he couldn't keep his own relationships together. But he's done plenty to keep generations of pop fans rocking together all night long. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Malanfe. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Kevin also produced the latest installment of our monthly Hit Parade The Bridge shows, which are available exclusively to slate plus members. In our latest bridge episode, I welcome Nashville-based journalist Brian Mansfield, who explains how Mut Lang and Shania Twain changed the sound of country music in the 1990s. To sign up for slate plus and hear not only the bridge, but all our shows the day they drop, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus. Our supervising producer is Joel Meyer and the executive producer of Slate Podcasts is Mia Lowbell. Check out their roster of shows at slate.com/podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the slate culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Malanfay. [Music]