Sade's "Smooth Operator"

♪ Diamond line, love a boy ♪ ♪ He moves in space with minimum waste ♪ ♪ Maximum joy ♪ - Minimum waste and maximum joy. I mean, just think about those lyrics. I think there was something in the water in the 80s, like the fact that she's able to work this into an international pop single. Minimum waste with maximum joy. It reminds me of dig if you will, the picture of you and I engaged in a kiss, like these are poems. - Yeah. - I don't know that we get poetry like this. Now we get like. - It's very natural. - Gucci bag, you know what I mean? (upbeat music) - Luxury. Today we're diving into the work of one of my absolute favorite artists of all time. It's somebody who became one of the most recognizable stars in the world without giving the world very much of herself or her behind the curtain self at all. - That's right, Tiola. Sharday has built a career around elegance, restraint, and mystery. But while her voice and image made her an icon, the sound we know as Sharday was created by a full band. Four musicians who understood how to leave just as much space as they felt. - So today we're covering a song, built around a baseline that never breaks us wet chords that make you feel sexy even when you're completely alone. - Which is just fine. We don't sex shame on the show. - At a saxophone that has been invited every late night scene since 1984. - So coast to coast, LA to Chicago. We're talking one song and that song is Smooth Operator by Sharday. (upbeat music) - Your movement's gotta be minimal on this song. It's just like a tiny little box and you can't break out of it. A little Marcel Marcel. Sexy Marcel Marcel. (laughing) That's why I do the show with you. I can't get Marcel on the phone. - I am so excited that we're talking about Sharday today. I even got a little dressed up because I feel like I needed to be a little sophisticated and I needed to like bring my best, you know, like, 'cause it's Sharday, you know, how can you not get a little bit of fancy for Sharday? - I feel the same way about Sharday and we're gonna get into these different sounds we're making. - Oh, here we go. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallor Riddle. - And I'm producer DJ Songwriter and musicologist Luxury, aka the guy who ispers interpolation. - And this is one song. - The show where we break down the stems and stories, iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more. Listen. - You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before and you can watch one song on YouTube and Spotify while you're there, please like and subscribe. - All right, so I'm just gonna break the script for one moment here and say one thing. The pronunciation of this artist is a contentious subject. It might be the most contentious subject. - Have we ever disagreed more violently? - It is the most violent disagreement between my co-host Yaluvaya Dore as a brother and myself. So let's just like rip the bad ate off as you'd say, how do you say this artist's name? - Listen, I know how you're gonna say it. - Oh, do you now? So presumptuous. - Me and the rest of the world say Sharday. - Hold the phone. - Do you wanna go ahead and tell us what you say with a hard r? - There's a major reason why and I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna show you on this screen. I have evidence. I have mountains of evidence. - I've seen your evidence, but laid out for the people. What is the evidence? - I've seen the evidence. It's not a counterargument. (laughing) There's a reason why we say Sharday and that R sound is in there, but is it not? Is it not? I'm saying Sharday. What are you saying? Let's just start with that. Here's my pronunciation. Sharday. - Okay. - No, I'm gonna hear yours. Just back to back. - Oh, Sharday. But here's the thing. - Sharday. - Sharday. - Like the Sharday. - Yes, that's what Sharday. - The Sharday. - Let's take a second to break this down. - Oh yeah. - You showed me a piece of vinyl. One of her very early releases. And right there on the label, it says pronounced Sharday. - That's right. We're showing you on the screen right now in the video version of this podcast. The evidence exhibited on the album itself, not only just does it say it on the album. It says it on the spine of the album, on the album Diamond Life, from which the song that we're talking about today survives. - Absolutely. - It doesn't just say Sharday, like the name of the artist and the album title. It says pronounced. - It literally says pronounced Sharday. - With an R. - Okay. - Now, exhibited. - That haven't been said. First off, her name is Helen Follasha Day. - Do. - Great pronunciation. - Thank you so much. - You're welcome. - But here's the deal. I think it's because she came to us, she came to the world via, she's Nigerian, but she came to the world via England. - That's right. - And we know that the English don't really respect R's like that, so I think that they took, they, you know, technically it is Sharday. But they're British, so they say Sharday. - And there are. - The rest of us say. - I'm just gonna support what you're saying to your point. They, the British adding an R, more explicitly, still leads to it being kind of halfway up the mouth. Let's just pause for a second. What is an R is important. Because an R is formed in the mouth. You're coming, this is, I was a minor, a linguistics minor in college, okay? - Take it away, take a million. - What's happening in your mouth to form the sound of an R is literally tongue placement in the back of the mouth. Try it right now. You know, pause the video, just do it while you're listening to me. - Shard. - There are listeners who work. - The tongue is sort of in the middle of the mouth. And if you go from Shaw, the word, Shaw without an R to Shaw with an R, you'll feel your tongue kind of go up a little bit. Shard. By the end of it, it's at the roof of your mouth for the hard R. Shard. Like pirates are at the roof of their mouth all the time. What's going on in England is that there are sounds are more in the middle. Their tongue is more in the middle. But the suggestion that you go shard day with the pronunciation on the label, essentially, instinctively you'll do this. You won't be thinking about it, but it means lift your tongue a little bit more. Not to the roof, but a little bit higher. And you can kind of feel it shifting gradually. Shah, shah, shah, shah, shah, shah, shah. So to your point, you're right. I think the Englishness is mitigating the hard harness that happens outside of England where ours are already dropped. (laughing) - Here's a deal. I've never gonna say shard day. Like that will never become a common thing for me. It's just like, when we were talking about Ariana Grande and it's like, technically, your name is Ariana Grande. You know, like that's never gonna happen. - Right. It's also in common use, your name evolves because that's what people are saying. And you just kind of got to deal with it. - Every time you say shard day, I'm just like, oh God, it's just 'cause you saw that label. - I'm just gonna enter into evidence though. In addition to the label, which we put on screen, here's Exhibit B. This is an article from the face magazine we'll be talking about this. The article is literally called the hottest name in contemporary music is pronounced shard day from the face magazine. The Chicago Tribune said, it's not sod. It's not said, not saiding shard day. This is all evidence I'm entering into the record. And last but not least, here's shard day pronouncing her own name. And I have a feeling this is gonna be a Yani Laurel moment for everybody, but just, we're gonna put it to rest after this 'cause we may never resolve it, but this is how she pronounces her own name. - Helen, it's Helen the first one. - What's it? - Helen, it's my first name and then four last shard day. - Four last shard, yeah. - Listen one more time, listen one more time. What's your name? - I'm not gonna bring out. - What's it? - Four last shard, it's her tongue is like, not quite at the roof, but it's really close. It's really close. And that's what I'm trying to do. - No, I love it, I love it. Listen, I think Shard day should pronounce her name, however she was, of course. - But I have definitely trained my lips to say shard day and it's gonna be hard to be like walking around like, "Hey, you wanna hear some shard day?" - I think what we're at and maybe we can just end it here, is I think you're a little too shaw and I'm a little too shar, and it's not too shaw, do not say that. - I think you're a little too shaw. - I am not too shaw. - I'll admit to being a little too shaw. I'm trying to negotiate with you here. - I think one of my earliest memories of shard day is actually the smooth operator video. It's like, you know, to kids nowadays, it seems weird. We used to, as a family, sit around the TV and watch music videos together. - Really, the whole family? - The whole family. I mean, we had, I remember my mom's opinion about, yes, owner of a lonely heart, that was a crazy video. - What did she say? - I think she didn't like the part on the roof. - Oh, that was scary. That was scary. - That was scary, yeah. - But, you know, that was a thing. Like, people would literally sit around TV's and we would watch VH1 because, you know, it's come out a lot in recent years. Like, MTV was primarily a rock station in the early days. Video hits one, VH1 showed a lot more like R&B and like British pop. Like, I got all my, like, you know, flock of seagulls stuff. And I'm sure, I imagine the mission statement at VH1 was everything we don't play on MTV. Meaning, leaning black and leaning older, skewing older - Yeah, there was older stuff on there too. Like, you definitely watched like a Stevie Wonder video on there, or, you know, earthwood and fire. Let's groove was probably on VH1. - But all the R&B and funk and disco and like, all that stuff and the slow jams. We're gonna be on VH1. - I remember just being completely enthralled. - Yeah. - Shot in, the smooth operator video. I was a kid, but I was like, oh, these are adults. Like, you know, they're driving in cars. They're drinking wine. They're like, all the stuff that this con man is doing. I just associated with adults. This video was platinum in my house. Everybody was watching it. Let's take a look at this video. And I just want to point out, I think the con man looks like Count Dracula. Check this out. That's got to look like Count Dracula. ♪ No need to ask, is a smooth operator ♪ ♪ Smooth operator ♪ ♪ Smooth operator ♪ - The saxophones have never quite gotten the love that they got in the 80s. - Yeah, no, for sure. - They were all over the place. - And now when you have a saxophone, it instantly evokes the 80s. Because if it's ubiquity back then, [BLANK_AUDIO] - Sure, yeah. - Smooth operator, he was a smooth criminal. Am I correct? - He was basically a smooth criminal. He's a sexy, elusive man, up to no good. He's a near-do-well, and that's why we love him. You know, I really hesitate to use the word cool 'cause it borders on having no meaning because it's overused, but it is absolutely perfect for Sharday, her voice, this song, this video. Everything about the moment where she burst into the world fully formed it would seem. Because of the coolness, it was what locked it all in. And I think this video was also my first exposure to not just the song, but to Sharday. I think it was the worlds, a lot of the worlds. Actually, this was the third single in the UK, and I think the second one in the US. - Right. - But it's, she blew up because of this song. It is still her biggest song to this day. And what's interesting as I was doing the research, I was remembering back, the first time I would have heard it, it would have been presented to me in these British magazines like Enemy and Melody Maker, but it would have been presented alongside what we would have called back then, it was College Rock or Alternative or Indie, right? But it's Depeche Mode, it's the cure. It's a lot of white rock acts and maybe synth pop acts and cheers for fears. And then it's Sharday with this soul-infused jazz pop. It doesn't have, it has a little bit of funk, I suppose. It just doesn't sound like anything else, or look like anything else on the radio or on MTV at the time. But what I was gonna, to connect all these dots, what it did have in common with it, was this idea of coolness, visual coolness, and kind of a vague kind of sense of importance and mystery. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that, how that came to be, 'cause that's not unintentional. - No, I think that, I love the fact to use the word mystery because I think that that's what makes Sharday timeless. She's mysterious and she almost feels like you said, like she's pulling from pop. I don't hear a lot of funk. What I actually hear, I think, is I'm gonna use a term, Rare Groove, which I feel like a lot of the BBC radio DJs we're starting to use for music, coming out of the '70s into the '80s, that had these jazz influences, had soul influences, for sure. - Yeah, I was gonna say, I would argue the Rare Groove stuff has a little bit of soul, a little funk, a little jazz, a little bit of dust sprinkled on top to make it magical, a little bit of rarity, too. A little bit of obscurity is what makes, by definition, Rare Groove music, which became kind of a jazz Peterson, and, you know, talking like a jazz Peterson, and all that, I also feel like it's nighttime music, 'cause I feel like, you know, certain songs like Smooth Operator, searching by change, featuring Luke Vandros. - Go back and check out that episode that we did a few minutes ago, but you're a go, actually. - Those kind of songs evoke like going out at nighttime to me. - But it's an adultness, like you were saying. - And as an adult, it's VJ, it's on MTV, it's VJ. - You kind of have to have a nice suit and a cool car, and you're living in this sort of jet set, an international environment, and because she's Nigerian by way of the UK, she sort of embodies this scene that she's singing about. - Yeah. - You know, it should be said that, shot at her bandmates are getting inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame this year. One of the reasons why we're so excited to do this episode. And it's, you know, it's interesting to me, because at least in the earliest days of this group, you listen to the music now, and you sort of imagine her not being on the, and it's almost like easy listening. Like, it almost feels like smooth jazz, maybe not in the best way. - Yeah. - But for whatever reason, when you introduce Shaday's vocals over this music, it feels like easy listening with an edge. - I would argue that her entire presence is part of that. It's both hurt. - Is that mystery? - It's a mystery. The visuals matter a lot, but not exclusively, but also a lot. It's this conundrum, and I'm just gonna say, rip the bandaid off about the whole show, which is that, and this has been a theme in recent episodes, I've been saying this a lot, some version of it. We break things down, but you will never get to the heart of it. The beauty of trying to understand music is that it's elusive forever. You can get little bits and pieces, and hopefully something is interesting or of use on this show, and in general. But why is Shaday so mysterious, and everything that she is? - I don't know. - Can I just say, ever since we started this podcast, Shaday is one of those artists where I was desperate to hear her isolated vocals, and to just live inside that voice, because there's an intimacy when she sings. Like, even in preparing for this episode, when I was listening to certain songs, I'm like, going back and listening to album cuts, like a tattoo. (soft music) ♪ Hungry for life ♪ ♪ First and fourth distance ♪ ♪ River ♪ - And thirsty for the distance? I mean, come on! Come on, no, who can sing that line? - A thingly beautiful. - And have you like, it feels like a stab to the gut, man. Certain parts of those songs sound so intimate and so crystal clear that you just feel like, how she not just singing to me. - But there's a warmth to her voice, and intimacy is the right word. I mean, we're gonna, we will probably list 100 words today to do our best to try and understand what we're hearing that's so evocative emotionally. But that's what all that matters, is that Shaday resonates with us emotionally, in a way that wonderfully will never piece together. But we're gonna try a little bit on this episode. - We're gonna try a little bit on this episode. - And the backstory of this band is fairly complicated, but I'm gonna try to really crunch it down to just a few sentences. It begins with a band called Areva, who were a Latin soul band with a gentleman called Ray St. John, who's a lesser known part of the Sharday story, but an important one, because he is the co-writer of today's song. And Areva was, according to Sharday's boyfriend, Robert Elm, so we'll be talking about a little bit later. The story begins with the two of them in a van on the way to see a band, and the driver was the manager of this band Areva, the Latin soul band with Ray St. John. And the driver asked Shaday if she could sing. And according to Elm's is telling, she said she could, and then he looked at her like, "Really?" 'Cause they'd been dating and he'd never heard her sing before. - Was she just in the van with them? - They were going to a gig together. It was a friend of his, 'cause he worked for The Face, which is this really big music magazine, like Fashion Magazine at the time. So we sort of knew all the other journalists and bands in artists. So they're going to this gig. The manager, I suppose, took a look at Sharday. It was like, "Well, that's an interesting-looking person." If they can sing, maybe there's something that could be done on stage with this person. So she said she could remember his Elms. I thought there had been no evidence of this. So when we stopped at a petrol station, I asked her about it and she goes, "How hard could it be?" So the origin story of Sharday singing is given a sort of opportunity. She joins that band. It becomes a band that's known as Pride. There's a seven-piece band in London, and Sharday is a background singer for the band. Let's watch a little bit from 1982. This is a song called, "When You Can't Back Down" with Sharday, watch the video that we'll be showing in the video version of this. She's singing background vocals. ♪ Right, when you get back down ♪ ♪ No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no ♪ ♪ Right, when you get back down ♪ And you can see she's fully formed in the video. She's one of three singers. She's one of the two background singers, I should say. The lead singer was a gentleman called Nick Moxon. And she's got, I mean, listen, this is the wisdom of hindsight, but she looks like a star already, fully born and bred. She looks amazing. I mean, she's writing on a bus, so they're like, "Can you say?" And you say, "She definitely wants something going on." Exactly. So enter at this point the other members of Future Sharday, which is not yet called Sharday. These are sax player named Stuart Mathiman, a drummer called Paul Cook, who also features in some contentiousness to be discussed later on this episode. And the bass player, Paul Denman. There's a member, and Ray St. John is still in the band at this point, who would later not be in the band, but co-wrote Smooth Operator. And it's roughly around this time that they write that song. So at this point, remember, there are seven-piece band they're called Pride. Future members of what would become Sharday are among those members, but there's still a seven-piece and Sharday's a background singer. But at a certain point, Mathiman, the sax player, and Sharday formed their own songwriting unit. They just kind of vibe. They just kind of get along, have something in common. And they start writing songs on the side, but they bring them to the band and the band's like, "Hey, these are pretty good. "Why don't you guys open for our band?" So there's a shared backing bass player and drummer, and then it's Sharday and Mathiman. And they are a new band opening for the major band. Right, exactly right. And they get the response. The crowd are like, wait, this is what we came for. And everyone kind of feels it. And the rest of the band are pretty chill about it. Like, you know what, we get it. Why don't you guys, we understand if you want to kind of develop this separately from the overall. - Totally, when I was reading the story, I was like, "Everybody seems really chill." - Yeah. - It sort of fits the music that they're like, "Hey, you know, if people are like in Sharday, then we'll just kind of shift over to that." - Exactly right. So there's actually an early version, the first ever recorded version that I'm aware of, of what was then called Diamond Life. - Right. - And this is from 1982. This is live at Ronnie Scott's in London. The band is called Pride. And it has the original drummer. It's Paul Cook, but not the Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols. The different drummer called Paul Cook. This is the first recording I could find of the band's still called Pride. The song is at the time called Diamond Life and would soon become smooth operator. So this is from a live gig in London in December 1982. Let's have a listen. And notice how different it is. And yet, a lot is the same. A lot is fully formed already. Let's hear it on. (upbeat music) - Gosh, so much I want to say. First off, she is like the queen of, in her writing, like the first, Words or the last words of the song will often be the title of the song. Yeah. I always noticed the diamond life was the name of the album is the first lines of the single, at least the first single I heard or whatever, but so there's that, that's already sort of built in. I earlier played like a tattoo, like a tattoo comes in at the end of the song. Okay. So that's sort of like a writing stuff. But can I just take a step back, I'll big step back and say, I already thought of Shade as like blondie, because you know, for a long time, everybody thought blondie was the name of the girl. They didn't know. They had to be hairy. Blondie was the group. Shade is the group. Right. So there's that similarity. But also this version of this smooth operator would sound totally at home at CBGB's. You're right. This could be a blondie 1978. This could be a blue demo. I mean, this is what? 1982? 82. So like, it wouldn't have been out of place at CBGB's to have a rock and drum line like that. Yeah. At the beginning of it sounds very, very post punk to me. I love it. Super post punk and 1982 would be the time for post punk. Yeah. Can you imagine a double bill of Shade and blondie that would have been insane. That would have been insane. And it kind of would have made sense. In 1982. They could have played together. It would have been like version. Hey, we got lady front singers. Right. Who we've kind of built a band around. Right. It's crazy. That's amazing. So in 1983, Char Day, Mathemin Cook and Denman, the four that we just heard performing that song as part, you know, opening for pride, leave pride officially at this point. They split to form the band, Shade and there's a story behind the name there. And Rays St. John separately leaves in 1983. They've written the song together, but he doesn't go on to form to be part of the band with them. He does his own thing. And they add a new keyboardist called Andrew Hale, who's also on the recording. So we'll get into them in the Sims more. But I found this quote from the producer, Robin Miller, who said, who's explaining how that name change happened. Like, how did it come to pass that we went from pride to Shade? He said, Shade just said, look, we're called pride at the moment. I just think Shade is a better name than pride. Shade said that. That's Robin Miller explaining the origin of the name change. The rest of the band apparently agreed with her. I thought to myself, this is just chill. I thought to myself, this is somebody who gets what she wants because none of them said anything against it. That's that's Miller's telling of how come we went from pride to Shade overnight. What happened to my drummer? What happened to Paul Cook? Well, we're going to be talking more about him later. But I will have a perfect question for the button I'm about to give you, which is that on Shade's wiki, which is interesting because, you know, I love looking at Wikipedia because it is crowdsourced. And sometimes you see a little piece of information. And if you've done a little bit of other homework, you're like, I know exactly who wrote this. I know exactly who this wiki editor. I know exactly who's trying to get a little retribution here. It's factually probably true. Anyway, I'll just read it. As in October, 1983, I'll do Shade signed with epic records. And in 1984, quote, the rest of the band signed to her as contractors. And then the citations as unreliable source. You know, I love that one of my favorite things that was ever on Wikipedia was on the rapper Spice One's entry, which was like a very typical bio. And then at the very end, it was like one time in 1996, a man approached Spice One at a bar and asked him for his number and he gave it to him. I was like, why does this exist? I love that because like, you know, he can't see it on his, you know, like I did, at least, like, you know, you go to the library and the encyclopedia, yeah, the encyclopedia. That was the final word on it. That was the final word. They printed it. It looks like this. This is factual. So you go into Wikipedia with a sense of like, factualness. Like, I mean, for the most part, it's pretty reliable. But you can, you can't also just write whatever you damn want. Shade gets what she wants. And I will also point out that what if her albums is called Stronger than Pride? You know what? It's hard not to think about that. And the title says, Shade, Stronger than Pride. It's hard not to think that there's a little bit of her that's like, er, er, poke, poke, poke. Can I say that is absolutely one of my absolute favorite songs of all time. Love is Stronger than Pride. That song comes in so strong. No other artist could start a song like that. That's also the song where she says, I can't hate you, although I have tried. So beautiful. Oh, come on, man. I just add to the never ending checklist of descriptive words that do no justice to Shade, like innocent. Yeah. Lovely. Like every time we stop and listen to something, I'm just like, there are so many qualities to this voice. It's so evocative. And it's some, it's for me very personal like it was for you with the intimacy. I feel like she's talking to me. I feel like we're friends. And she also nails the heartbreak of it all, doesn't she? Like, I love that line. I think it's in Boomerang. Where do you be? I just want to stay at home and listen to Shade, Shade. So that's basically the concise version of how we get to the band as we know it being Shade. We get into the details of the recording of the song in the stems in just a moment before that there's one more step in the process of the band coming together. And that's this coolness factor because it was a conscious attribute that was added to the mix. In addition to the musicians, the songwriting, there is a conscious choice. And I mentioned before this gentleman called Robert Elms, who was Shade's boyfriend at the time. He worked for the face. That's very important because the face I grew up reading the face is one of the coolest magazines. It was fashion, music is very stylish, very sexy, kind of, it was expensive, at least the import version was. Yeah. Remember spending a lot of money on paper? Oh, for sure. Yeah, my son just bought a magazine, the other day he bought a copy of Rolling Stone Home with him. I'm like, so cool. I'm like, it was $16. It was eight pages. I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it. You're like, what is this pamphlet? Oh, that's really stupid. I mean, in the look beautiful, I'm glad magazine still is this support your local magazine newsstand. Remember when L.A. was filled with magazine stands all over the place by vinyl magazines by all the paper. We were going to save the trees. Maybe we could save the trees. Oh, good point. Well, getting back to Robert Elms, he worked for the face and the story goes that one day he was at the office and he happened to have this fashion photo of his girlfriend who was in a band and he was trying to promote her, right? And it turns out that there was an advertisement for the back page that the face fell out. Like they thought they had the money locked in and it went away. So at the last minute, he suggested, hey, why don't we put this picture of my girlfriend on the cover? Everyone at the face fell in love with her. They ended up putting her on the front cover of the magazine a little bit later. They called her The Face of 1984 and one more important step in this process was there's a little club called heaven in Charing Cross and London and he told, oh, I've heard this story. Yeah. He told all of his journalist friends to come to the gig. So a thousand people queued up, I mean, I'm sure the telling that number has probably gone from 300 to 500,000. I heard a thousand people got turned away. So how many people did they even let in? I think this night was legendary and the numbers may have shifted with the storytelling. It's their first show. The hundreds of not thousands of people are queued up, get turned away. There's instructions given to the door of people that if any record label come to tell them not to, that they're, that to turn them away to, to deny them. I like to think it was empty inside like this is all just like PR stunt. So they made this feeling of exclusivity, which we kind of take for granted now that you do this with anything PR. But at the time, it was kind of a new relatively, I mean, if not a new idea, it wasn't executed as frequently. So people, quote unquote, fell for it. People were like, what is this gig we can't get into? Who is this artist? And suddenly there was a bidding war for the band. Epic ends up signing them. I'm jumping ahead a little bit. But my point is that the creation of the band as an entity going from not zero to 60 overnight, it took two or three years for them to go from pride to sharday signed to Epic. But they had incredible songs, they had incredible presence, and they had the face magazine at a bunch of journalists and a bunch of turned away record executives who are like, there's something special here. There's something mysterious. We want part of it. And at the heart of all of it is sharday because I just think that like clearly from the time she was on that bus when you're Riva, like there was just something magnetic about her. People wanted to get into that club. People, she played Danceteria. Yeah. You know, I just, I love the idea of like, you know, you have Debbie Harry and Blonde. You've got Madonna, you know, starting to jump off, and then you've got sharday playing at Danceteria. Like, this is definitely like a moment for, you know, compelling, larger than life female vocalists. And it's hard for me not to come to the conclusion after this many years of life and paying attention to superstars that like, sometimes superstars just have it. Yeah. And you can't put your finger on what it is, but it's charisma, it's magnetism, it's beauty, and it's something that you just want to pay attention to. You want to listen to you, you want to watch, and clearly sharday had that immediately. And after that heaven show, she signs with epic. That's right. Yeah. I think that's interesting because she could have left her bandmates behind, like clearly everybody wants sharday, but she was like, no, you know, the band comes with me. Well, according to this like unreliable source, it's only sharday that does get signed to epic. We don't know if that's true. Okay. It may or may not be true, but it's quite possible given how she took her own name and made it the band name. Yeah. She may have decided, hey, this is my band and you guys, I'm going to hire you for quite some time. But your contract is again, we don't know if that's true, but we certainly know that sharday took command and the band she made her own in terms of the, not just the name, but the voice and the sound and the sound because they were saying that maybe she should be doing more synth pop. Yeah. You know, she walks away from that sound that admittedly I like. I like that early version of smooth operator, but she was willing to walk away from that. He was like, I'm gonna do something that's very jazzy. - Yes. They said that like the label sort of fought her a lot about that on the radio jazz. You want to do jazz? So according to sax player Mathemin, Stuart Mathemin, he said when they did that gig, their manager invited all the record companies and told the the door man who I think was Steve Strange, famously from Visage, not to let any of them in. Quote, that was the punk way of doing things. It meant record companies wanted it even more and sure enough, according to the producer Miller. The phone began ringing off the hook from all the labels that had turned her down. We'll get into the turning down, which is crazy when we get in the stems. But this was the moment that everything turned around and all the pieces came together. All right. We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, you will hear Shade or Shardays, isolated vocals and trust me. This is like, ever since we started this podcast, this is something that we've wanted to bring to you. So all that comes when we get back, stick around, we'll break it down. All right. Welcome back to one song luxury. Let's get into the stems. Where do you want to start? And that's obviously how the song begins, right? Is that a drum machine or is that a drummer? I'm so glad you asked. So I have done a lot of digging and here's my theory in my thesis and I think it's correct. I believe what you're hearing is a combination of Paul Anthony Cook, the aforementioned drummer, the disgruntled. You think he's in there? I think Paul Anthony Cook's recorded part is in there. He claims on his own YouTube channel, which I encourage you to go watch. He has a lot of videos. Like and subscribe. Listen, the guy obviously was, I believe, asked to leave the band early on for reasons we don't necessarily know. But I also think he was there for the recording of this song. I think you're hearing his part based on what he presents as quote unquote evidence and the absence of anything to the contrary. I will say that he certainly was in pride. He was one of those three core members of that. He laid down a killer groove in the original smooth opera. He absolutely heard of him in that version, the live one with the rock and drum version. But there are no songwriting credits with his name. He's not pictured on the record. And in fact, he only gets a quote unquote thanks to, so in other words, in the track listing on Diamond Life, the band is listed as Sharday, Mathemann, Hale and Denman. Literally, it says Sharday are, and then it's those four names. And then his name, this guy Paul Anthony Cook, is thanks to, with the word drums next to it. And that's it. And, you know, you know, it was funny is I've gotten into, into TV making and I'm filmmaking. I'm learning more and more, this only confers it because I've got a thanks to credit when I wanted more. So I feel like that thanks to credit is when you put too hard is like sort of like a, it's a, it's a row gallery of people who didn't get a bigger title. Yeah. It's really, you know what, I have a lot of empathy for this gentleman's situation. He, I think was in the band and then his part in the band ended and then they became global superstars and made lots of money off of a song that he contributed to that he was cut out of. So I have a lot of empathy. I'll say one last thing about him that he brings up in his own channel, which is that apparently there was a lawsuit in 1997. He in his own description underneath the video where he shows that he played the part or talks about how he played that part. He quotes from Sharday's witness statement in 1997. It says quote, unfortunately, in Vienna, apparently there was a gig in Vienna where it says unfortunately, in Vienna, it was not possible to cover up his deficiencies as the rest of the band had become particularly tight being in the studio, quote, his inability was noticeable to the point of embarrassing the band and humiliating me. This is Sharday's own words as reflected by Paul Cook telling us that this happened in the lawsuit. So it sounds like things. How does that help his case that she said that? I don't know. But I mean, what it means is that apparently things got a little ugly. And he felt like he was deserved more than just this sort of subcredit without any publishing attached to it. What's interesting is I feel like Paul Cook definitely lays down that, like I said, killer groove in the original version. This version not only sounds nothing like that version, where I could believe, like I guess what I'm saying is if the reverse were the case, you would be like, oh, that's a drummer there. And he's inventing something. This honestly feels like this could have been a drum machine. So that leads us to part two of what you're listening to answering your question. When I was listening, doing the close listen for this episode, I immediately was struck by the sort of on the tears for fears episode we talk about this too. It sounds like a Lindrum, which I spent many years working with and hearing in songs like Human League. Don't you want me, baby? And it's an extremely distinctive kick and snare sound, but also it's very regimented. It feels very, you're nailing it. The sound is the same, like the volume level, like the attack, the decay. There's no change from one note to the next in the kick and snare. And that was confirmed. I found an interview with producer Robin Miller, who will now present as the unsung hero of our episode. I'll tell you a little about him in a moment, but he confirms an interview that he replaced the bass drum and snare drum on this song and on your love is King with a kick from a Lindrum, but also a snare drum that he owned. But the point is he sampled his own snare drum and then replaced every instance of it. So it would sound exactly the same. And that's why we hear this sort of sonic perfection, but that's mixed with in his, again, his own words. He kept the overhead mics of the drum kit being recorded open and he mixed that in. In 1983, we take for granted now that you do this all the time, blending samples, drum machines and live recordings. He's doing this in 1983 with the technology of the time. He doesn't have MIDI yet. It's no pro tools to say anything of anything screens, but he's mixing a drum machine kick, a sampled snare and the kind of percussion of, I believe it's both Paul Cook on drums and then on percussion, Dave Early, who then becomes their regular drummer is playing the Konga's and sort of the percussion sounds. So he's doing this incredible kind of early production job before there's anything remotely related to computers to work with to do that kind of thing. That's insane. Do the drums ever change from how they start in the beginning? So there's this iconic break of chorus that is going into the chorus. No need to ask. Let's hear that. Oh, okay. So that little Konga that went through for five. Is that, is that, do we think that's Paul Cook? That's clearly not. I believe that Dave Early, the percussion player, who gets the credit and again goes on to become the regular drummer in the band. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. I believe this is his first appearance in the band is totally created the mood. So it's a props to him. Yeah. Unsung hero Robin Miller. What else can you tell us about him? Let's talk about Robin Miller, the unsung hero who is the producer of this song had a kind of eclectic music career he went on after this. This was his big break to do fine young cannibals and big country, did some stuff with Malcolm McLaren. He actually bought chrysalis records that the brand recently and it helped re-release the DLS whole records. Oh, that's, that's great. I was going to say. It's like, yes. So I think about that often as I start re-downloading my DLS whole count. Cool, dude. And at this point, he's just getting started in London. He's got his own recording studio, which is called Power Plant Studios in Northwest London. What? And the story of how they come to meet the band. The story of how Robin Miller meets the band is he's putting together a record to raise awareness of General Pinochet and the disappearances in Chile. So this is like a political record. Right. Did Pinochet sound like penis too much? I didn't know where that was. I didn't know where your sentence was going. But thankfully it went towards, you know, autocratic dictators. I couldn't tell if it was a laugh about disappearances. I'm a child today. Apparently I'm a freaking child. I did feel as I was saying Pinochet. There's nothing funny about Pinochet, by the way. It's nothing funny about him, just his name is ridiculous. Absolutely. So Robin Miller puts together a track. It's called "Ven Ceremos, We Will Win" by a group kind of for the project called Working Week. And it features Tracy Thorn from everything but the girl on vocals. Love it. Let's listen to a little bit of it just to get a vibe because it also demonstrates that there was this other strain of music happening at the time. That wasn't just on the pop charts and it had this kind of Latin influence to it. ♪ A common teeth bomb ♪ ♪ Like dust and blood ♪ Just to get a little vibe, I mean, this is a kind of more on the rare groove tip kind of. Where is, I was just about to say. Bossa Nova beat. So for those who don't aren't aware, there are a couple of DJs who this is associated with. But one of my absolute favorite DJs of all time is Jarls Peter. Yeah. I think the stuff that he did at the BBC and his show "World Wide." He's still doing it. Yeah. It's so good because it really does sample jazz and soul and just groovy music from around the world. And all these influences growing up, there was nothing cheesier to me than music that was classified as world music because I was just like, I ain't listening to that stuff. But for some reason, when channeled through the right influences, I guess you'd call it, it's some of the coolest music on the planet. But you're absolutely nailing part of what this Friday story is. It's kind of like what I said about the Face magazine. Yeah, and the kind of exclusivity of the of the event. There's something about tastefulness Yeah, and how tastefulness is often dictated is a strong word But it often comes from a trusted source where you're like oh of Giles Peterson who I know to have good taste It seems cool and is backed up by being on the cover of such and such magazine or such and such radio station Then I will listen probably differently and I think that's kind of sometimes the nature of music sometimes music Just hits you yeah with no context and you just like it or you just don't yeah, but sometimes you're brought into it because The context of how you're being introduced to it is a trusted DJ going. Yes. Hey check this out. I think it's cool I was just talking to my family about this because my kids are basically growing up without any concept of really what the radio is Yeah, but I was saying that I don't listen to my radio show every Friday night from 10 to 12 on But they're like they're like hey to look luxury to take our request Seriously though, they're we need more curation. Yes, I actually I'd never would have thought I'd say this maybe 20 years ago But like there there should be some gatekeeping because what I think we are Loot what we are losing and what we are lacking nowadays is a sense of like where can I go to hear new music? Hopefully you come to this podcast. We still do our one more song segment sometimes but like that I Dear that like not just you were listening to music. It's sort of key like support. This is your subway take. I'm on board with it Yeah, it's not controversial. I think the pendulum is swinging back after maybe 15 20 years of ubiquity from now And just the algorithm just feeding you what it thinks you want. That's great for some situations But sometimes it still helps to have somebody's ears and first of all narrowing it down Yeah, because there's so much and second of all Giving you context associating kind of whether it's literally telling you that this is important because it connects to you know Mentioned Basinova. It it it's part of the lineage of 60s the Brazilian jazz like there's the information and the context can help Bring you into something you wouldn't normally listen to I I worked at Hollywood records in a and R briefly Which is not so that get to bring up a whole lot one of the reasons I ended up at that label is because I was able to Commence one of the an R guys that I had good taste and truthfully I was getting a lot of my taste at the time from Jal's Peterson from guys Like Rob DeBank and Benji B Like these are guys that were putting Oson Lone next to Jill Scott But then they would go back to the 60s and get some rare, you know Ballet funk or something like that and that's something that the algorithm can't do because if you put in Dapung It's just gonna give you a whole bunch of Frincher Electro sounding stuff when that's not necessarily what we want I'm I'm not trying to quote unquote to our own horn because we're part of the case here W family going yeah, but the fact of the matter is is that I do feel the pendulum swinging back to people really Wanting and enjoying the community feeling of being a real DJ and having Ideas of what music to listen to helpfully provided to them because you're swimming in it's too much and most of what gets attention is Pop music which is wonderful, but there's no challenge to it by definition. I think you guys in case here W are doing good work I think that the the idea of you know more music let's talk like no, there should be a little bit of talking Like like I want to hear a DJ a radio DJ come on in between songs and be like hey, you just heard this and here's a song that I was just listening to like that means something so getting back to Robin Miller So the song is Vince Ray and most he decided to he wanted to have like a remix of that song a 10 minute quote Latin jazz freak out extended version, so he literally just puts the word out to get any musician who wants to be a part of the remix again It's for you know, it's to raise awareness for general punisher's disappearances. He gets 20 people 20 musicians to come by for no money Mm-hmm and work on this remix. Let's just hear a portion of it It's funny because I'm just noticing that that's like the original version was like a bostonova slower and that was like a samba Which is where bostonova came from a slowed down version of the samba music that exists Yeah, so it's funny that the remix was like the 30s style and the original was the 60 style So the 20 musicians that put together this remix include a couple of members of who at the time were pride going into char day So the next day Robin Miller gets a call from a manager who says hey two members of my band came last night They liked your studio. They like working with you. They're in a band called pride Hey, can we send you some of their music? And if you're interested, maybe you might want to produce them So he listens to their tapes. He likes their sound. He invites them back And that's the beginning of the connection between Robin Miller and the band that is now turning into sharday Apparently sharday showed up wearing a pair of baggy jeans and an old t-shirt They said we don't have any money if you consider let us using their studio like it's important to remember that these guys are living in squats Mm-hmm the song when am I gonna make a living? Yes a real lyric? Like that sharday song is based on her writing on the back of the laundry ticket a truth of her life in that moment When am I gonna make a living? It's a great. They don't know So they end up recording two tracks Smooth operator and your love is king and what's interesting is the exact same demos they made that day that they then shopped around and were rejected by every record label Ended up for me and too jazzy for being too jazzy Or what we hear to this day on the 10 million selling diamond life record It's the demos they made that day wow that were rejected by every label until they had these like, you know Exclusivity, you know, you guys can't come situation shut love that you heard of your first Smooth operator the song you love it was a demo. It's actually a demo. What's next in the stems? You want to play for us? Well, let's listen to Paul Denman on bass with the iconic kind of like I was saying bossa nova e Descending line in the intro I'll bring in some drums so we hear the full groove here we go , you know, it's it's simple, but it's groovy and you know, maybe just because we love the song like it's enough You know, it's it's not showbodies. It has a lot of flavor to it because it's chromatic meaning it's descending We're getting all the notes the notes in between the scale notes. Yeah, and it has that really satisfying pickup when he comes in Yeah, that's true. Yeah It's so sexy and slinky You can just see the the flowy dress. Yeah, so the overall effect is very Brazilian. It's very bossa nova In fact, that descending chromatic thing I was just referring to it reminds me of this Astrid Gilberto song from 1963 Listen to the bass line We have to go down another half step from Mary Chris. Yeah, another half step coming up next Oh, lucky boy That's the best part that one that went in the background there You know, it's interesting guys. I'm listening to Astrid Gilberto. She sees very shoday It's it's sort of it's sort of satisfying the same thing. Yeah, it's sort of satisfying the same It hits our battillion brain. Yeah, I think it's as as cisgender males Like I'm just like oh, I want to I want to listen to her sing It's very simple and it's almost naive in fact famously you know Gilberto This is her first you know record she ever made she was a very young woman at the time I think she was a teenager even but there's something very Honest and direct and not schooled. It's not a bluesy belty. No growing up in the church I've been singing my whole life and I think it's almost conversational and it's again the word naive comes into it I wouldn't say it doesn't have the night of attain necessarily but it's innocent. I will say this I think that uh for Astrid it's it sounds like it sounds like innocence. Yes But it's also just beautiful in its own way and I'll always think of black or a face whenever I hear her voice But also because of Antonio Carlos Jobim. Yeah, but uh wrote this song yet who wrote this song but the Gosh, there's something about Shade I actually feel like shade can sing I know we haven't we haven't gotten to the vocals yet. Yeah, but I think the one difference is that Shade steps it up a notch in just being an amazing singer. I mean we're gonna continue as we get closer to shade And then when we get in shade it'll double the words that associate with her voice None of which are perfect by themselves. Mm-hmm. But formal word cloud of shardanus One of them is innocence like we were just talking about one of it maybe straightforward one of them might also just be Realness it's just kind of conversational almost. Mm-hmm. She's not like I keep saying like by Contra belting it. She's not a wreatha. No, she's not shaka. She's not belting it She's not coming from a bluesy tradition of bending every note and putting deep emotion into like again the bluesy She's not using the pentatonic blues scale notes for the most part But there's an emotion that's there that's extremely that pulls you in like a tractor beam She's having a conversation with you. Sometimes she's upset with you. Sometimes she's in love with you Sometimes she's just in her own thoughts. I think about a song like You know, hang on to your love. I feel like she's, you know, kind of singing to a person, but they're not in the room, you know? - Maybe I just found another word natural. It's natural. - It's natural. - It's very natural. - That's kind of, instead. - Autotune has no place with a strewed or shadowed. - Well, I just want to be careful 'cause like unschooled and, you know, that means, like, that's not the association I want. I just mean it's natural. - It's natural. - I feel like she just might start-- - It's untreated. - Yeah, it's untreated. And in the verses, he changes the baseline a little bit. So we just get kind of a straight up, one, five, four, five. Let's listen to that. (upbeat music) I give you a little tease of the vocals. ♪ You move in space with me ♪ ♪ I'm a waste ♪ - It's for context there. And then we go to the pre-chorus. - And then in the pre-chorus, what does he do? Let's listen. (upbeat music) (laughing) - Five important conga notes. - B-D-B-D-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B. (laughing) - No! - Sorry. - Asa Jazz is good. Jail's Peterson version is good. We're not gonna go there. - We're not gonna go there. - Us three is that what it is. I put it out of my brain. - I love you. Just like us three more days. - We've talked about us three 10 times on this podcast, and I always eliminate their name. - Let's just get 'em on the show. - Nothing wrong with us three. Just not my favorite. Asa Jazz. And then in the chorus, he's sort of doing basically the same thing he's doing in the verse with slight variations. (upbeat music) I mean, I like it. It's exactly the same. There's no difference in the verses in the chorus. (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) - You like the post chorus? - Yeah, let's, can we take the drums out? I kind of want to just appreciate it. - Okay. - Let's have 'em. Let's have, let's-- - Can we hear the bass and the, I guess it's the post chorus? (upbeat music) - Woo! - You like the walking? - I like the walking around. (upbeat music) - Getting in the steps. (upbeat music) - I'll bring some drums in. (upbeat music) - I think that's the end of it. - So Paul Demen was in Pride, the bass player. And he'd been playing with drummer Cook since they were teenagers together. - Oh, okay. - And I believe we're hearing him play his 1978 music man, Stingray bass. Like, kind of at his neck. He's one of those bass players. Like, some Peter Hook. - I've seen him in some of these videos and he's playing it really high. - Peter Hook, bass player for New Order and Joy Division. - Almost two is ankles, you know what I mean? - I like that too though, yeah. - That's really cool. It can be cool, but it's kind of a little less cool when you're playing it super up high. But that is a choice. That is a stylistic choice that Paul Demen does make full respect to Paul Demen and his skills. - It's funny because they're playing these instruments around the same time. - Yeah, it's true. - Yeah, New Order and Joy Division around the same time. And that goes to your point about natural. Like, the band Joy Division has a very organic sound. And New Order's like beating you in the head. In a good way with synthesizers and drum machines. - Well, now's as good a time as any to put another connection in there, which is that by their own telling the three core musicians who aren't sharday in the band that are making the drum bass key and sax sounds are by their own telling not super accomplished musicians. And this again, this is literally a quote from Mathemann. Quote, none of us were great musicians, but we all sounded good. Andrew Hale could play simple chords. Paul is a simple bass player. I could get a nice sound with my sax by Never Study Jazz. Sharday had a gorgeous voice, but she wasn't a trained singer. Basically, I love this quote. - Sharday is punk. This is a punk band. - This is a punk band. This is a punk band. And that's the ethos that they're coming from. That's the connection in New Order. And I think the confidence to get on stage. Remember, this is also the era you mentioned him before. This is Quincy Jones. This is Big Orchestra. This is Sol and R&B has Earth, Wind and Fire. - George Vincent. - Technicality, musicianship. You have almost an intimidating, like in front of you, what one is intended to do if one wants to play the music, can be intimidating. But then punk comes along and says, you know what? You don't need to have that level of skill. And in his own words, again, Mathemann goes on to say, if any of us had been 10 or 20% better as musicians, it would have been horrible. It would have been too much. What made our sound special is that we were young and naive and we didn't really know what we were doing. And I love that because I hear that in the music. What they're doing is exactly right for the song, serves it, but nothing fancy, nothing ornamental. - First off, I love that. And it convinces me more than ever, we have to get instruments and music back into schools. So that people can try stuff. I feel like our kids are coming up in a generation where really I see only the rich kids are even picking up instruments because that's just not provided in public school education. So that makes me think that, you know, you don't have to be the best musician, but you can have great ideas that lead to great music. And if you just get a foundation of it, you know, somewhere in the public education system, that's going to make for a better culture. - And don't even get me started on how the AI conversation with music also includes this as a problem that is not being solved or helped along by AI. - But can I also say another cool thing that comes out of this conversation about the band is that Shadeh, they are taking some of this, like I said, they played Denseteria. They played Heaven. They play Live Aid. And they get up there and she does, is it a crime, which is kind of ballsy because think about it, like this crowd is out there, they want to hear Queen. They want to hear Alicia get excited. She gets up there basically does a slow jam and brings the people to their- - In a bit of a whisper of a voice as well. That's not, you know, she's not belting it. - Is it a crime? - Let's play a little bit of that from Wimbley. Live Aid. (upbeat music) ♪ My love is taller ♪ ♪ I'm taller than the ever staying ♪ ♪ Dimes, dimes ♪ - I mean, like, I don't know that I would take the stage to play these slow jams, but like she did it and the crowd loved it. It's just, it's wild to me to think of who her contemporaries are and she was very comfortable staying in this lane and doing exactly what she wanted to do. - I think punk and post-punk and just the general creative attitude in London and in England or in Western music perhaps at the time, thanks to punk rock is that you, it demystified one's ability to try and be creative. - That's what this show is for. - Which I love. We're trying to demystify a little bit just so you'll get in front of your instrument or laptop or whatever you do and just create something. - That's 100%. - All right, what's happening with the keys on this song? - All right, so Andrew Hale is playing keys and I love this detail 'cause what you're about to hear is a mix of real piano and the roads, but they're mixed together, not using MIDI, not using any kind of current modern day technology that would easily enable you to match the parts. - To mimic. - There's no screens, there's no MIDI. So they painstakingly in the telling, synced up the exact same parts played on both instruments on different takes by the same player. So let's listen to a little bit of that. (upbeat music) I'll bring in some other instruments so you can hear context. (upbeat music) It's not really piano. - But I'm hearing is a road's like just really hit, you know, with full attack, like here's a hear it. - That other piano in there, is that a piano, a keyboard do we know? - Based on Robin Miller, the producer's telling, it's a piano and a road's. I can hear how those two alone can make that. It also certainly evokes maybe, oh man, I don't know if it's DX7, there's certainly the synths of the time, have a certain attack sound, which is also in there, but they're emulating a lot of times or roads. So I think it's a road's in a piano, and that's why the attack, the emphasis on the sound beginning, is what I mean by attack, is so strong, because both of those instruments, when you play them hard, have really solid attacks and merged could be why we're hearing that sound the way it is. - That's great. - That's my speculation. - So let's listen to a little bit of the pre-chorus, and I'll give you some contact. (upbeat music) ♪ Man is left to child ♪ - That's a jazzy chord right there. Let me bring it right back. ♪ Let's do the ending when somewhere too far away ♪ (upbeat music) - All right, now when we first decided on this song, I was like, "I gotta hear what that saxophone is doing." I was like, "Isolated, so sax me, baby." - Stuart Mathiman, and again, I hope I'm not mangling your name. I think it's Mathiman, could be Mathuman, on saxophone. - That sounds like a superhero. This is power is to be the ultimate Matthew, here's that sax solo. That sounds like a smoky alley in a film war movie, uh-huh, apparently that line, the main line that he said that in rehearsal, he had, quote, wailed out the sax and they decided to use that line for the intro. It was just something he came up with for later in the song. It turns out to be the intro. And one thing that really strikes me and it'll make even more sense when we get to sharday in just a moment or vocal is this melody that like going basically all the way at the scale. I won't sing it. Fuck it. I can do it. Thank you. That melody, especially the fact that it bookends the song or rather begins it and shows up later in the song as well. It's such a, it's a more adventurous melody than anything you're gonna hear shardaysing. So what it's, what's interesting about that is it gives it balance, it gives it energy. That's right. How they're not been the sax doing both the crazy solo but also just that melody at the very top of the song and showing up periodically. It balances shardays, chill, cool. Yes. Well, she's the reporter. Yeah. I would argue she's like telling you what this guy is doing. Okay. That saxophone is him. He is the speaker operator. That sax is the speaker operator. I think that's right. I think she's the narrator. Yeah. She's just, she's just, she's just their narrator. And he's the wild man with that. He's the wild man. Grail and sax solo that comes in. He's nasty and he's gritty. It's a nice gender flip because usually like in old movies like when the, when the hot name comes in, like, he's healthy. Yeah. They always give her like some, some horns. But in this case, he's the one with love for sale. That's like he's a brassy sax. And in this case, we got it back there. He's the one with love for sale. Yeah. With all these wonderful instruments now laying down the bed, we get to the main attraction. Shade, I do. I've, I've looked forward to this day. Again, you know, we have, we still have to do a Bjork episode. We still want to do a Maxwell episode. Yep. I want to hear Shade's vocals. I think there was something in the water in the 80s. Like the fact that she's able to work this into an international pop single. Yeah. It reminds me of, um, dig if you will, a picture of you and I engaged in the kiss. Like these are poems. Yeah. I don't know that we get poetry like this. That would get like, it's very visual. Gucci bag. The imagery, the imagery is very visual. Absolutely. Right out the gate. Diamond life. I mean, there's a reason they picked that for the title. I love the fact that she starts the song with the title of the album. Like, that's just bold. But it's such a great encapsulation of this character in those two words. Diamond life. Diamond life. Love her boy. Love her boy. Diamond life. Love her boy. I always thought that maybe I should name my production company that and then I got married. One thing to point out as we're listening to her vocals is especially, I'm going to go section by section of the song, but again, calling back to the sacks that we just heard with that more adventure. Some jaunt all the way up the scale and beyond. Yeah. We are only hearing four notes right now. A, D, E, and a little F. That's the fourth one. That's the fifth note as we get to the second half. She goes up. It's only one more note though. That's crazy about that. Okay, so it's the fifth note. That's there. Yeah. But it creates so much tension. Yes. Let's contrast the first two. So she's just essentially repeated the same thing twice with a little variety and then she goes into this. That's the fifth note, that's the tension. And it also ends. It's an unresolved tunnel. Oh, it's unresolved. And as a kid, I knew there's something messed up in this relationship. Like I knew that like it, I think other kids were getting caught up in like the, oh, he goes from coast to coast. He's looking straight like, but I was like, no, this is, this is not a good, this is not a good scene. The notes. He's doing bad stuff. The lyrics and then the note selection with the melody. And the fact that again, we're ending each of those phrases on the second essentially, which means that you're like, it's unresolved. I need to get back to the tip. Da, da, da, you want to go here. Diamond live. God, get me home, which is here. It's one down. So we're not getting that resolution. We're just, we're kind of floating in ambiguity and melodically speaking for higher. Yes. Yeah. She's not, she's not bringing it home because it's, it's because he's not going to do it. She's doing so much with so little, essentially, very few notes. And that delivery is very intimate and conversational and uncomplicated, but we're engaged with the storytelling. We're already engaged. And she starts us off, you know, she starts us off with a spoken word. Can we go back to the intro and hear what she says at the beginning there? He's laughing with another girl playing with another heart, placing high stakes, making hard sense. He's loved it. Seven languages. Okay, so this is really making me wish that she were my friend because I feel like we're talking right now because that's just how Shade talks. She's in the room and she's saying stuff. Sounds like she's in a really big room. I was going to say on this part and on her singing vocals, there's a whole lot of echo. Sure. There's some like kind of reverb that was added. I'm sure. Just two books live, time and nights and movie lights. High in the sky. Haven't helped them. When he falls. When he falls. That's right. She says, when he falls. When he falls. So sexy. I was trying to avoid saying sexy this whole episode, but I can't listen. She is natural, relaxed, flowing, effortless, gorgeous, smooth. We used to joke. She was a vampire. Really why? Because she just does not age. Every time I see her, I'm just like, this woman just doesn't get any cry of an age. Who's blood is she drinking? Can it be mine? But can we talk about that? High in the sky. Yeah. Heaven help him when he falls. This is poetry, man. He's on that concord jet or panam. Yeah. But he's going to fall. He's going to fall. Let's go to the pre-course. One thing to point out. Four notes again and they're mostly the same ones. And yet, it is different. I just bought it. I bought it hook line and sick. I was like, those words rhyme. I never noticed that before. Yeah. She just she meld it. She blended whatever she was. Yes, you want to name the man after you do it. She's got charisma. She's got charm. There's a question that I have about the harmonies, by the way, because I write somewhere. It's not just her stacked. Miller is quoted. Robin Miller is producer, quoted as saying, quote, the third verse, sharday and steward sing together on one mic. And it's like the rose and piano being so in tune. You can't tell what the instrument is because I can't tell them apart. I can't hear that it isn't sharday in there. But I also am not sure what he means by third verse. Oh, I was going to say because there's only two. So I don't know if in this song, the harmonies are all sharday against herself until later on when one time, Matheson comes in. Mathemin comes in. What's funny is I always thought that maybe I heard her maybe I heard a male vocal on the choruses. Well, let's listen. Where do you think it is? No need to ask is a smooth operator. Could that be a male singing falsetto? It could be because Mathemin himself says, sharday, it's such a unique voice that anyone else singing with her stands out. So I wouldn't quite pronounce the ends of the words to help it blend more. So it's possible because he knows his vocals are on the track. Yes, his vocals are on the track. It might be there in the chorus. It may not be again going back to Miller. It's in the quote third verse, which this song doesn't have. What a confusing thing to say. But it's also what's interesting about that quote from maybe it's true. Like the identifying marker of any instrument or any sound or any voice is the beginning and the end. The middle of most instrument sounds is famously, if all I play for you is after the attack and before the end of a sound. It could be a trumpet. It could be a piano. It's really hard to tell a part. So a way of blending vocals is you can kind of let the other person begin a little bit and then you jump in and then you get out of the end. That's right. But cutting off the beginning and the ending of a note, it becomes almost impossible to tell what instrument is playing. Do you think that you can guess though? Hopefully. Okay, this is the first one. - It's just like a piano. - Actually a acoustic guitar. - Right, right. - All right. - So it sounds like that's what he did and successfully so 'cause as we listen to all the harmonies, I'm not sure where he is and where it started. - That's super helpful for you producers and singers out there. I did not know that, that's really cool. Maybe a text that you try. Let's hear the whole chorus. ♫ Smooth operator, smooth operator, smooth operator, smooth operator, smooth operator. ♫ By the way, in the chorus, even fewer notes. Only three. (laughs) The notes of the chorus are F-E-D. So here's the verse. And you can really hear on the piano like, and then she goes up that one time in the third phrase of the verse. And then there's harmonizing, which kind of brings in more notes. But then in the chorus, it's. She's in the same, it's the same notes we were hearing in the verse, which is unusual 'cause usually frequently I should say, the chorus will not only be a different melody or different, use different notes, they'll be higher. It'll be more elevated, because the energy. But can I say, this always felt to me like a guy was walking into Smoky Jazz Club, and unless it's a different kind of scene, where it's like Rockus, you can totally see it just sitting on a stool, seeing this very measured and cool, almost like Sarah Vaughn or somebody like that, as opposed to the Rambunctious Saloon where you have to scream over the people yelling, like this is a very different scene. Yeah, so interesting. Yeah, that second, the E, which is one above the root note, D of the song D minor. ♪ Smooth upper with her, she ends with smooth upper with her. ♪ So again, we're ending with Ambiguity, which carries us over into needing to hear some resolution in the next section. That Ambiguity is so cool because she's telling a story. Yeah. And she's not telling. She's not even mumbling. Yeah, she's not. Keep listening. She's not giving us the ending. Yeah, here comes one of my favorite lines we used to laugh as kids, because we were like, well, let's just play it. Post-chorus. ♪ Coast to coast, LA to Chicago, Western Maine. ♪ Again, just three notes there, another harmonized. ♪ Across the north and south to Chicago, love for sale. ♪ We saw his laugh, we were like, "Shine, it is an orgyography." Like, " coast to coast, LA to Chicago, like you only got halfway there." Oh, I thought the full coast. But I think Chicago just sounds better than coast to coast, LA to New York City, like that doesn't fit. But maybe she's only halfway to the end of her sentence because Key Largo is in Florida. Oh, yeah. It's like the northern part of Florida, so north, across the north, there's south to Key Largo. Not to Miami, Mike. But this is her storytelling. Remember she's keeping the Ambiguity of the second. We're not done with the story. Keep listening. We're in Chicago. We're not to the other coast yet. But then Key Largo. Yes. Yes. Perhaps that's a generous reading. By the way. By the way. Listen, Shadeh can do what she wants. If she says Chicago's on the east coast, then dammit, it's on the east coast. That's always the answer. Look, I'm amazed that we're now three sections of different vocals, you know, melodies in. But what she does with three to four notes per section is incredible. The chorus and the post-chorus both only have three notes each. They're different notes, and they're different melodies, they're different lyrics. But she does so much with so little. I like the fact that she doesn't even just change the lyrics on the verses. She changes the lyrics on the pre-chorus. Can we hear the second pre-chorus? The license to love insurance to home. His heart is cold like all this time, like she's been sort of like semi, like sort of almost sarcastically singing his praises. She's pretty definitive about, like, his heart is cold. No ambiguity. Stay away from this gentleman. He's a rogue. Stay away from this guy. Here's my favorite part. Fight me. There's no fight. Never fought. The fact is, I do think over the course of this episode, I'm hearing you go deeper into the Shah zone. Like you're getting more and more H. I'm getting-- Are we talking about Shadeh? Shadeh. I'm hearing Shah. You increasingly shadeh. I am increasingly anti the R in the her-- I think the tongue is getting, like you're like, I don't want any tongue here. Shadeh. Tung's at the bottom of my mouth. I definitely have been self-conscious about the Shah, so I don't think I'm doing the Shah. You're not doing the Shah as hard. We were working on this episode, so you kept-- so the Shah day episode. But this might be my favorite part of the song. We've heard the chorus now four times. It's pretty much the same every time. But then we get a little variety at the very end, and you'll know what I mean. Yeah. And it blends in with the song. Yeah. So she finally brought us home. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like I feel like that is the conclusion of this song. We're concluded. Yeah. And an interesting choice. I mean, it's a really small choice. But, you know, musically speaking, the whole song is basically one four five. We're playing, like, the three core chords. It's tonic, subdominant, dominant, just in various arrangements across all the different sections of the song. One, four, and five. But at the very end, they introduce, like, right as the song's about to end, we get a seven in there. Just for a variety of sake. Yeah. I'll play you the whole thing in the mix. You'll know what I'm talking about. Just this one bar. Seven. Seven. And then the song ends. So the song starts with something interesting. It catches your attention. Yeah. - But then we have this little bridge section and then we have the sax solo and then we come back for the cycle all over again of the second verse through the end. But there's lots of different parts so you're constantly changing, even though each part is simple. - It's one of the things I love about her and I feel like once again, you see this in other songs of hers that she'll build in a chorus and then a post-chorus. It reminds me I love that song Kiss of Life because it has like several choruses in it And I was like, man, it was almost like Little John when he was like, I just wrote choruses and I struck him out. Like, she's kind of the same way. There are like many different choruses in "Kiss of Life". - Yeah. - They remind me of this. ♪ Can we like Kiss of Life? ♪ ♪ Kiss of Life? ♪ ♪ Can we like Kiss of Life? ♪ - And none of those are the "Kiss of Life" choruses that you think of, but they're in the song, Sort of like is this post-course one, post-course two. - Yeah. - There's a stunning amount of construction that goes into us. - Stunning amount of construction and interplay with Denman, the bass player. He's playing all these little delicious melodic fills that are, I won't compare them, not equally satisfying, but in dialogue with char day. And as you listen to the song and they sort of take turns with their moments of melody and deliciousness. It really is, it's sort of like an unsung story within the music of the band. Everything matters differently, but the dent, but the base and the vocals are really locked in in Char day's cabin. You could argue that a lot of these songs feel like duets, even though she's the only one singing, because they're sort of like supplying the other voice in it. Can I say my favorite part of this song is the second pre-chorus, because it has this crazy chord in there. Can you play the second pre-chorus for us? All right. Let's listen to the interplay here between the sax and Char day pre-chorus. Second pre-chorus. great. I mean that's sex and that's sex and her going like this is so good. That interplay. Yeah. Beautiful. I love that note. I love that court that they strike. All right. Now that we've heard smooth operator, luxury. Yeah. What are the splits on this song? It's straight up 50/50 split between Sharday and Raymond St. John. Wow. Who had been part of the earlier incarnation, but didn't get all the way from pride into Sharday. You know, his own way. Usually I'd say it would be weird to not include some of the musicians on this, but when you go back and listen to that demo that you started this episode off with. The song's all there. The song was all there. Yeah, fully formed. Well, it hardly needs to be said, but Shade went on from this song to have an extremely long and prolific career. I mean, we could do many more episodes based on Shade songs. Some of my own personal favorites are, and some of these might be because it occurs to me that, like, the current generation doesn't know Shade, and if we don't tell them about Shade, it could it could slowly be forgotten. That's why this episode is so important forward it to all of your friends all your whole 30 years old. Yeah, they need to know they need to know about shadow. I'm gonna call. us some personal favorites and some of these are album cuts because she has great album cuts. War of the Hearts. >> Yeah. [MUSIC] >> The big hit, "Sweetest Taboo." [MUSIC] >> There's a song that I think a lot of people don't give enough play to. It's this song Maureen off of her promise album. [MUSIC] >> I'm realizing how all of her songs have a bit of sadness in them. Like Maureen, I'm never going to see you again, you're never going to meet my new friends. She's clearly singing to someone who's dead, war of the hearts. It's the sin how we hit where it hurts. There's so many songs we could go on and on, paradise, by your side. If you don't know the Shade catalog, you're just shooting yourself. >> Just because you're done talking to me, I don't have a list to continue on my God. >> No, I just say I want to hear your list too. >> I'm so glad you said paradise because that one hits so hard. That bass line. [MUSIC] >> I mean, you cannot be eliric. I'd wash the sand off the shore. Why do I get goosebumps if I think about that too hard? >> That is gorgeous. >> I think that's why we have this love affair with Shade because it's not just her physical beauty. It's not the beauty in her singing voice. It's actually those lyrics that she's sitting you with. Everybody's heard "Ain't No Mountain High" enough, but her words sound personal. They feel intimate and they have just this way, again, I'm going to say it feels like someone stabbing you in the gut, but in a good way. >> A devastatingly beautiful melancholy that is in every syllable. It's wistful. It's nostalgic, but it's also warm, friendly, encouraging. It's the same time. It's like, listen, you know what Shade is a siren? That's what it is. >> She is a siren. Back in the first. >> It's just because I. >> Back in you to your death. >> It's because I just saw the Odyssey, but I'm like, yes, she's absolutely a siren. >> She's literally a siren. >> I'm crashing the ship. >> This is why you're crying because it's beautiful and gorgeous, but you can't stop listening to it, and you don't know why. And I'm not done with my list because there's hang on to your love. Is it a crime? I mean, no ordinary love. That is a devastating song. So good. I love that song. I love all the songs. I think it's one of those. If you don't know Shade, just honestly, the best of Shade, not a dud on it. It's 15, 16 songs. It's an okay entry point. >> It's an okay entry point, but I would argue, go by Diamond Life. Go by Promise. I love Deluxe. >> No ordinary love. >> Oh, I love Deluxe. I'm just doing the Alms. I love Deluxe. And then Love is Rock. I mean, like her album catalog is insane. I can think of nobody who's more, who needs to get thrown into the rock and roll hall of fame. I'm surprised that they haven't happened to rock in there. >> Throw her in there. >> Throw her in. >> And death men and all those guys in there. >> Absolutely. Wonderful. Throw him into. I want to say something about the band here, because we are spending some time with the band, because a lot of people don't know these guys. They had a follow-up, and we'd like to talk about the legacy that these songs leave. They had a follow-up band called Sweet Back. And Sweet Back worked with everybody from Amel LaRue, to DeAngelo, to Maxwell, and they put out some really incredible songs. And look, we've said a lot about, like, oh, we've got to expose the younger generations that she's not forgotten, but she's really not forgotten. I mean, like, she's created art that's going to be around for a long, long time. Her legacy is secured, which I also think is extra mysterious, because she's been mysterious. She's not going to find her on social media, right? You're not going to have like pop around to follow her around. >> Pop around there either. It was very difficult to find interviews with her, especially after her initial sort of break out. She's been very, she disappears. She's been very hard to locate. And I think that she does so in a way that actually only increases her stature, her mystique. The fact that she's not out there, just popping up everywhere, means that when she does come out with an album, and sometimes it'll be eight or ten years between them, you know, it's a big deal. Look, I'm not here to say that it's bad when artists are telling us, hey, here's, you know, my outfit, I'm going to be wearing, and here's where you can come see me. I'm not saying that's bad. I think it's good that some people want to reach out and touch their fans, so to speak. But I do think that there's something very old school and very cool about a person who can literally go missing off the radar, let the music stand for itself, and then decide at some point, you know what, I will drop a song for a soundtrack here, or I will pop up at this event. There's a political side, a shoday, you know, she was at Live Aid, and you know, even, you know, songs of a lover's rock had a political angle. I think that she's, you know, far be it, as a fan of her, she's done it all very right. And I think the lesson of her saying, like, let the music stand for itself, I'm not going to do interviews, I'm going to sort of disappear in between these albums. You see that now in artists like Frank Ocean, there are some artists who've sort of taken that lesson and run with it. So not only is her legacy in music secure, but also her legacy in handling fame and sort of pushing the cameras away, has its own legacy in itself. All right, Diallo, it's time to bring back our, one of our favorite segments we haven't done in a while, but let's bring it back one more song featuring Diallo and Luxury. That's right. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem with you, the one song nation and with each other. I'll go first because we've been talking a lot about Jiles Peterson and the world of rare grooves and, and curation that leads you into strange corners of the music world. If you don't know a victory to play, check out his catalog, great artist, and if you don't know this song, it's manhood, and I believe it was included on one of the worldwide compilations of Jiles Peterson put out, but whether it was or not, check out those worldwide compilations, Jiles Peterson, an amazing, amazing curator of songs. That song, manhood by Victory to Play, it has like sort of the weird staccato approach to dance music that you find in a lot of early Chicago specifically house. I heard that song and I was just like, man, I got to get in a music, if people, this is around 2002, 2003, I was like, if that's what people are making overseas, then I come to find out Victor's from Philly, but as it's always the case, the British have a good year for, you know, music from, you know, this country. And I was like, is there making music like this? I got to be a part of it. That's sort of borderline garagy, like total garage to step would have been average, yeah, exactly. That Roy Davis Jr. But then again, Todd Edwards also from, you know, New Jersey, yeah, New Jersey, uh, but it has, it has the international, you know, kind of thing going, yeah, going this way. It's got an international vibe, but it's, you know, in a, in a perfect world, you would be able to play this on urban stations too. Amazing choice. Thanks to y'all. What about you? What is your one more song? I'm bringing you something that I discovered when I was in Tokyo last month. And I went to a place called record shop, Nat. There's a whole bunch of incredible Japanese culture. They love vinyl and collecting, but they also have the subsection of like really dub enthusiast, reggae enthusiasts. So I found, I sought out this one record store. And when I went in, the guy was playing stuff on the turntable and what, the thing that he was playing ended and I was looking at a burning spear record and it was a hundred bucks. I was like, I don't know if I'm going to spend a hundred bucks. Maybe you'll play this for me. He dropped this next song and within five seconds, I was like, take my money. This is, this is everything that I am. Yeah. And this was, this is loud in Tokyo on a hot summer's day. This is what I heard. When the bass line kicks in, you know, every dub song starts with four bars of the train. Some one must be, some one must be, some one must be, some one must be, some one must be some one must be, some one must be, some one must be, some one must be. it reduces my stress level. It gives me a physical sensation that no other music genre does. It's extremely special to me. So this record, I spent the hundred bucks, it's on the turntable right now at home, and I can't get enough of that one track, that baseline is so sick. - If you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. We actually open those up and you guys are really turning us onto some new music. So keep doing it. You can find me on Instagram @diallodiallo and on TikTok @dialloRill. - And you can find me on Instagram @luxxury and on TikTok @lexuryxx. - And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok @1SongPodcast for all kinds of content. You can also watch full episodes of 1Song on YouTube and Spotify just search for one song podcast. While you're doing that, we'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. - And don't forget to subscribe to our, we'll not so new anymore, but it's our established Patreon. We have a separate channel where we get deep dives. We've got interviews coming up with Arthur Baker and we've got Jeff Barrow from Portishead. Really special stuff we're very excited about. Also be sure to check out the 1Song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. - And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of the 1Song Nation. Show us some love, give us some stars. Preferably five, keep that two star review to yourself. Leave a review and send us episode to a fellow music fan. It really helps us keep the show going. - All right, luxury help me in this thing. - I'm producer D.J. Songwriter, musicologist in case you're at WDJ, have free Friday night from 10 p.m. till midnight right after Henry Rollins, luxury. - And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes D.J., D.O.A. Riddle. - And this is 1Song, and see you next time. - 1Song was recorded at Spotify Studios, engineering by Ryan Todd, produced, edited, and mixed by Eric Kicks.