It’s been a busy few days, friends. A few hours ago, I got back from speaking (and mentoring young humans) at the Ohio University Music Summit. Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be in Arizona at Southwest Love Fest. I’ll start the week as Music Industry Mike and end the week as Sex & Relationship Mike. Mental Health Mike is kind of the through line. I’m sure I’ll be exhausted at the end of this cycle, but I really enjoy flapping my gums about topics I feel are important (and that I feel like I have some knowledge about).
I’m also excited to bring my kilt out of retirement for SWLF. It’s been at least six months since I wore it last.
Anyway, how’s your week been? Let’s talk about songs I think are awesome (and you might too), okay?
“All I Want” by Toad the Wet Sprocket (Columbia, 1991)
Dave Holmes (the former MTV personality) mentions Toad the Wet Sprocket in his excellent memoir Party of One (seriously, y’all should all read that book). Specifically, he mentions that so much of Toad’s music was for brooders, by brooders. Even if you didn’t know specifically what Glen Phillips was singing about, you felt that shit. That quality is what drew my brooding 15-year old self to Toad from the moment I saw the video for “All I Want” on NBC’s Saturday Morning Videos. It’s both strange and not so strange to think that Glen was just a few years older than I was when “All I Want” was written and recorded. He’s about 5 1/2 years older than me, but his lyrics and his countenance seemed so mature. “All I Want” still slaps, and was the perfect song to serve as Toad’s commercial breakthrough. Released in R.E.M.’s heyday, it recalls the Georgia band’s jangly rock sound with (slightly) less obtuse lyrics and a killer hook.
I can pretty much guarantee I was the only kid in my neighborhood listening to Toad the Wet Sprocket.
“All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey (Columbia, 1994)
At some point in the last decade, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” went from a fun pastiche of girl group-era holiday songs that’s one of a precious few salvageable newly-written Yuletide gems of modern days to, literally the song that every radio station in America starts playing as soon as you’ve digested your Thanksgiving dinner. It’s arguably extended Mariah’s career and contributed to her (overdue and well-deserved) critical re-appraisal.
The gradual ubiquity that “All I Want for Christmas is You” has achieved isn’t really Mariah’s fault, though. She (and co-composer Walter Afanasieff) followed the blueprint set by musical genius but reprehensible human being Phil Spector and created a timeless gem. It’s playful, joyful and very easy to sing along with. About as perfect as pop music gets. Thankfully, I don’t listen to the radio voluntarily and I try to stay out of malls (not that there are many in New York City anyway), so I get my 4 or 5 times a year fix of Holiday Mariah and safely put (that version of her) away every December 26th. That’s probably what’s kept “All I Want for Christmas is You” fresh to my ears.
“All I Want is You” by U2 (Island, 1988)
Glen Phillips probably took notes on how to brood earnestly from Bono. Some find the U2 frontman’s heart-on-sleeveness grating, I find it endearing. “All I Want is You” was a song that had a lengthy shelf-life without ever becoming a major hit (it was released as a single in 1989 and had a mid ‘90s resurgence after being featured in the film “Reality Bites”, and it was also the first time a U2 song sounded sexy to me (it took many years for me to understand the erotic nature of “With Or Without You”). Although the typical U2 histrionics show up eventually, 2/3 of the song goes by at a seductive pulse before The Edge’s signature guitar chimes in and Bono starts shredding his throat muscles. I’m a big fan of palpable erotic tension, and U2 pretty much nails (heh) it here.
“All in Love is Fair” by Stevie Wonder (Tamla/Motown, 1973)
Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions is my favorite album of all time. Period. I don’t think another album will ever come close.
“All in Love is Fair” is as perfect a song as has ever been written or sung. Period. No details or context necessary. So I’ll use this space to tell you how I discovered this album.
My oldest uncle, let’s call him R, was a player. Dude has like 10 children by like 5, maybe 6, different women. One of his baby mommas, let’s call her V, was a frequent visitor to my grandparents’ house during my early elementary school years. She’d come by even after she and R split up. By the time 1982 rolled around, he was on at least his second post-V lady friend. Stevie Wonder, meanwhile, was already a mainstay in my 6 year old world. After all, he was arguably one of the three most popular Black singers of the day (Michael & Diana being the other two). Anyway, Stevie was getting ready to release his greatest hits compilation Original Musicquarium, Vol. 1. Just a few months earlier, on Christmas Day 1981, I received a Fisher-Price record player from my grandparents and had already inherited a sizable collection of hand-me-down 45s.
I asked V for a copy of the new Stevie Wonder LP. Some time later, she handed me a copy of Innervisions, which was not the new Stevie Wonder LP. I didn’t know any of the song titles (little did I know that there’d be significant overlap between the two albums) and the cover was weird. I fussed and complained as snotty 6 year olds are wont to do, and I’m fairly certain the response was something like “boy, shut up and take this record before I take it back”.
I owe V a debt of gratitude, because I dug into Innervisions and I was transfixed. Even as a (relatively precocious) 2nd grader, there was something about those songs that spoke to me. Forty-two years later, those songs still speak to me. And lots of others, too. Innervisions still routinely appears near the top of every music publication’s best-of-all-time list. With good reason.
“All Night Long” by The Mary Jane Girls (Gordy/Motown, 1983)
The Mary Jane Girls were Rick James’ attempt to take the girl-group framework that gave us The Ronettes and The Supremes, and make it contemporary for the ‘80s. Which meant sex, sex, sex. The MJGs were a bit classier than their counterparts Vanity 6 (the girl group put together by Rick’s rival and former opening act, Prince). Their songs were erotic, but couched in double entendre (unlike Vanity moaning that she wanted seven inches or more…no shade, “Nasty Girl” is a bop). “All Night Long”, the third single from the MJGs 1983 debut (and its biggest hit) is a perfect example.
“All Night Long” is also a hood classic. It didn’t chart on the Billboard Hot 100, and stopped just shy of the Top 10 on the R&B chart, but quiet storm airplay, interpolations, and samples of that luscious, woofer-pulverizing bass line (played by James himself) have kept the song in rotation for four decades and counting. Cocaine was cutting Rick’s imperial phase short, but “All Night Long” shows him going out on his sword.
Running tally-type shit because I like stats:
Total songs: 37
4 songs from the 1960s
10 songs from the 1970s
16 songs from the 1980s
4 songs from the 1990s
37 songs in and still no songs from the aughts! That’s weird.
3 songs from the 2010s
11 songs by male solo artists, 15 songs by duos/groups/bands, 8 songs by female solo artists, 2 collaborative performance by two (or more) solo artists, 1 collaborative performance between two groups (although what did Cult Jam actually do?)
Michael Jackson appears on five songs on this list so far (one as a solo artist, three as a member of the Jackson Five, one as a background vocalist.) Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (as a duo) and Stevie Wonder appear twice so far.
Next up: Motown artists continue to have a field day on this list, and I try to explain why Air Supply appears here.