I’ve had mortality on my mind for a lot of reasons lately. I’m firmly middle aged, but I’ve certainly reached the stage as a pop culture fan when the number of living artists I admire is fairly steadily decreasing. There are seven songs in this installment of Five Star Jamz, and only one out of the 7 is a completely living entity (I’d be remiss, though, if I didn’t mention that 4 out of 5 Jacksons and 2/3 of Nirvana are very much with us, but I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that the one member of each band that’s dead is that band’s focal point).
Today would also be Marvin Gaye’s 85th birthday. There’s been a lot written in the past couple of days about his musical legacy. Questlove tied that legacy in with the shock of Marvin’s death 40 years ago yesterday (murdered by his own father at a time when we were both too young to comprehend that but also are you ever old enough to comprehend that?) and also spoke in depth about epigenetics (the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work) and there’s a lot to be considered about that, specifically when you think about the generational trauma passed down from Black folks (certainly not exclusive to us, but there’s so much you can trace straight back to slavery/colonialism that we as a people are still reckoning with today).
It’s purely coincidence that we start with Marvin (and then jump right into Michael Jackson, who you can certainly posit was heavily affected by epigenetics).
“Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (Tamla/Motown, 1967)
“Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” by The Jackson 5 (Motown, 1971)
We are drinking from a few wells once again; the Marvin & Tammi well, the Ashford & Simpson well (they wrote “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” as well as “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”), the covers/re-interpretations well, and the Motown well. “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” is the second song to appear on this list in multiple versions, and these two renditions are slightly different in mood and tone, as one would expect with lyrics sung by an ostensibly romantic duo (conflicting reports exist surrounding whether Marvin and Tammi were ever actually a couple) vs. those same lyrics sung by two brothers.
Marvin and Tammi played the starry-eyed lovers role (if, indeed, that was a role and not real life) to perfection. When the lyrics change from “ain’t nothing like the real thing” to “so glad we got the real thing”, you want to cheer for their love. It feels TV-movie perfect. The Jacksons get more wistful. Their version, slowed down a step or two from the original, has an air of sadness. And I’ve gotta, once again, call out how Michael (and Jermaine!) were able to sell these lyrics so convincingly at such a young age (Jermaine was 16, Mike was 13).
Aretha’s rendition of “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” (produced by future Jackson collaborator Quincy Jones) is a solid 4 stars, btw.
“Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by The Temptations (Gordy, 1966)
The Temptations went through as many musical styles as they did members—and there have been over twenty Tempts over the years. “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” (not to be confused with the TLC song of the same title that just missed this list) is a gospel-flecked shouter featuring the impassioned vocals of David Ruffin. It’s the grittiest hit they’d recorded up to that point, although things would get grittier once Ruffin was jettisoned in favor of Dennis Edwards (more on that later). I’m sure many a guy quoted this song when trying to keep a love interest in their lives. I doubt many of them could’ve matched Ruffin’s passion. I love that the (very) off key note literally two words in (“I know you wanna leave me”) wasn’t corrected. It adds to the desperation the lyrics convey.
“Ain’t You Had Enough Love” by Phyllis Hyman (Philadelphia International, 1986)
Most of the songs I’ve included on this list up till now were reasonably popular hit singles. “Ain’t You Had Enough Love”, a track from perennially underrated soul and jazz singer Phyllis Hyman, cracked the top 30 of the R&B chart but (like every song in Phyllis’s two decades of recording) didn’t sniff the Hot 100 at all. So unless y’all are real heads, you’re not familiar with this song (and very likely, this artist).
Phyllis Hyman’s husky vocals were a favorite of my youngest aunt’s. I discovered Phyllis’s music through this aunt and dug deeper after Phyllis’s 1995 suicide. While many of her songs had a blue streak, “Ain’t You Had Enough Love” engages Phyllis’s just as visible sultry side. This seductive yet danceable jam might sound familiar to lovers of ‘80s soul music because it was co-written by Jane Eugene of the British R&B trio Loose Ends (they’ll be here later) and produced by Nick Martinelli, a guy who is rarely mentioned when it comes to great pop/R&B producers, but had his hands in quite a few huge hits in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s (although a big reason he doesn’t get mentioned in the same breath as the LaFace and Flyte Tyme teams is because while his productions were huge on the soul charts, they didn’t cross over). We’ll be talking a lot about how, for many years, Black artists and music (with very few exceptions) could only cross over to the mainstream pop charts once they’d accumulated a certain amount of success on their “own” charts (and even then, crossover wasn’t always guaranteed). It’s a huge reason that so much Black music (especially pre hip-hop) doesn’t get as much critical respect from the older gatekeepers of “rock” music history, even though many of these artists sold as many (if not more) records and had lengthier careers than most rock bands.
“Alex Chilton” by The Replacements (Sire, 1987)
I’m not a huge Replacements fan. I probably like half a dozen songs by them. I’m also not an Alex Chilton/Big Star fan. Gimme “The Letter” by The Box Tops (which Alex recorded when he was still a teenager) and I’m good. However, the song about Alex Chilton by The Replacements is fucking gold. The word I’m looking for, actually, is ebullient. Paul Westerberg simultaneously sounds like an innocent, awestruck kid singing about a hero of his and the drunk dude at the bar who’s the life of the party for at least one more drink before you have to escort him out and throw him in the back of the cab.
Speaking of bars, I have to give a shout out to the Pittsburgh watering hole whose name I don’t remember but I’m pretty sure I visited there in like 2011 and my buddy Michael Cunningham sang this song at live-band karaoke and I picked up a used copy of The Replacements’ greatest hits at Newbury Comics or Bull Moose as soon as I got back to Boston. I also could be remembering this completely wrong. Gotta love alcohol, I guess.
“Alison” by Elvis Costello (Columbia, 1978)
Prior to 1993, I knew Elvis Costello from his brief dalliance with the top 40 in the mid ‘80s. “Every Day I Write the Book” crossed my path via some video show, and even though he had a couple of chart hits in the ensuing years, I don’t think I heard “The Only Flame in Town” or “Veronica” (at least I didn’t pay much attention to them) for years to come. Once I started working in a record store, I started checking out musicians I had a passing interest in more thoroughly, and that’s how Rykodisc’s “The Very Best of Elvis Costello” entered my CD collection. That set leads with “Alison”, and here’s a hill I will die on: “Alison” is one of the most beautiful love songs in the history of music. Prior to knowing much about Elvis, I pegged him as kind of an angry, piss ‘n vinegary kinda fella (and that certainly exists in his catalog), so to be confronted with the heart-on-my-sleeve-ness was a bit jarring. I’m grateful for it, though.
“All Apologies” by Nirvana (DGC/Geffen, 1993)
We are also closing in on the 30th (!!!) anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, and not to put an extra morbid stamp on this, but there’s been a long-standing theory that Marvin’s death was suicide-by-proxy, so the songs at the beginning, middle and end of this installment are by artists who took their own lives. And you wonder why mental health is such a passion of mine.
Anyway, Kurt’s death was the first major passing of my music industry career, and while the news wasn’t incredibly surprising (he’d almost OD’ed weeks before), it was still a gut punch. Was Kurt the voice of my generation? Not in my neighborhood (see: earlier discussion about gatekeeping and how perspectives that weren’t White, suburban or male weren’t democratized in popular music discussion until the 21st century). But he certainly gave voice to the frustration of a lot of younger folks, and that frustration was palpable in his music.
“All Apologies”, in studio or live, unplugged form, would be haunting even if it didn’t close out the last Nirvana album completed while Kurt was alive. Given what we now know, its use as the parting salvo to a career that burned short but bright seems slightly less than coincidental.
Running tally-type shit because I like stats:
Total songs: 27
4 songs from the 1960s
8 songs from the 1970s
11 songs from the 1980s
1 song from the 1990s
3 songs from the 2010s
9 songs by male solo artists, 11 songs by duos/groups/bands, 5 songs by female solo artists, 2 collaborative performance by two (or more) solo artists.
Michael Jackson is the only artist to appear on this list three times (1/9 of this list so far). The duo of Marvin & Tammi are the only other act to appear more than once.
Up next: happier stories (I swear), if not necessarily happier songs. And—you’re not gonna believe this—-more Michael Jackson.