Episode 189: Popchip Away
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
The hiatus is over.
The boys are back in town, and we got quite a bit to talk about.
Popchips, the cardigans, Mike and the Mechanics, and so much more.
This is the first Time Crisis of 2023, so buckle up and
grab a beverage
for Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
Let's begin.
The war I felt, robbing me of my rightful chances.
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy.
And so I dealt you the blow, one of us had to go.
Now it's different, I want you to know.
One of us is crying, one of us is lying.
Leave it only there.
Time Crisis back again.
Feeling good.
Feeling good, back in the studio, everybody's here.
It's been a while.
I'm gonna refrain.
After Jake's two months suspension for saying that BTS sucked,
I'm trying to think, what would Jake get suspended for?
Suspended by the Apple Corporation or by the Time Crisis corporate board?
By the FCC.
Oh, okay.
The government which regulates communications.
Jake said, quote unquote, "Not feeling this new BTS track. They suck."
Are we talking built to spill or are we talking BTS?
What are we talking?
They weren't sure. They couldn't risk it.
So two months off the air.
How's everybody doing?
How are you doing, Seinfeld?
Yeah, I'm good. What's up?
What's new?
Not much.
I missed you guys.
Yeah, I missed you too.
What's going on in the online Seinfeld community?
Oh, I put out a tweet today.
I did one of those, like, one's gotta go, like, which one are you eliminating from Seinfeld?
You know what I mean? I put the picture of each cast member.
The consensus is Jerry.
Really?
Yeah, people don't want him.
I mean, if they had to eliminate one.
He's suffering from success.
I mean, he is kind of like the least interesting character.
But then a lot of people are like, you need a straight man.
Like, you need the one. He's the glue.
He's the apartment. Without him, there's no Kramer.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Somebody was like, without Jerry's food, Kramer dies.
That's right.
Straight up.
I got a real question for you.
Real question? That was real?
[laughs]
Do you think, is Seinfeld getting more popular?
Because when I heard that Netflix was going to buy it,
there was a small part of me that felt like,
we all love Seinfeld, but is it too weird for Gen Z to get into?
You know?
Here's what I'll say.
I've noticed a lot of more international quote tweets on the timeline
since the Netflix acquisition.
So I'll see a lot of South American tweets.
I'll see a lot of stuff in foreign languages.
I see a lot of Arabic tweets.
So I'm thinking that might be the Netflix global effect.
But I think, to your point, there's also a bit of like,
Gen Z, this show is actually super problematic in all these different ways.
So I don't know.
Anecdotally, I could see some international--
I feel like maybe it's growing a bit.
It's weird when you think of the timing.
I think about when I was a kid,
it would be like being into I Love Lucy or something, in a way,
based on the timeline.
So it's kind of, you know, it seems like it still has this timeless appeal.
Anyway.
It's an old weird show.
Anyway, Seinfeld, check it out.
It's streaming on Netflix.
What's up with you, Nick?
You still watch Seinfeld?
Not joking, every night.
Really?
Every single night.
When we go to bed, throw on Netflix, one, two episodes.
Max watches it, we all watch one episode, and that sort of gets us.
Right, that's your son.
Yeah.
And how old is he?
Eleven.
And he gets it?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, we've watched it for a long time.
Right.
I mean, we got a new dog.
He got to name it.
Dog watches it.
Dog's named Jerry, after Jerry Seinfeld.
Not Garcia.
No.
I mean, it sort of cuts both ways, but no, he named it.
Let's be honest.
Let's be honest, not Seinfeld.
Yeah.
Okay.
But no, we watch it every night, and it's, yeah.
And it holds up in a way where we've seen every episode thousands of times, and you
will sort of dip into seasons and go, "I've seen this one too many times."
What I can say, I don't know, and I had this conversation maybe yesterday, is I don't
know if television has just gotten so much worse or if Seinfeld's just aged very well,
but at the time, if you remember, people really did not like the last season.
They thought that it had jumped the shark.
They thought the ending was awful.
You know where they all go to, no spoiler alerts, but where they all go to jail at the
end.
Yeah, yeah.
It is so good.
I would totally ride for the last season of Seinfeld in a way where everybody hates it,
but I think in the context of the culture now, you go, "Damn, that was good."
There's some really classic episodes.
Yeah, but people, I will say, Seinfeld probably knows much more than I do, but I don't know.
The community in general does not seem to really get behind the last season.
They say, "Larry David left," but something about it, it really just hits on all cylinders
still and maybe just culture's gotten so insane that that season doesn't feel insane anymore,
but I'll watch it every night.
I think you're both right.
I think there are a lot of classic episodes, and I think it also went into some very surreal
territory that the show was very grounded before.
Then you've got Kramer putting human blood in his oil tank of his car to keep it powered
and stuff that just has no logical application anymore.
Yeah, I don't know.
There's a range of perspectives.
I think it holds up, and I think it did get better over time.
I also wanted to say I was in Baltimore last week, Charm City.
I put on the TV late at night.
Seinfeld was on television, linear, classic style, and it hit different.
It was so nice to watch.
I will say, you stay in a hotel room, and it just happens to be on.
There's no better feeling.
Right.
The commercial breaks, you can send a text or something, and then you can go to the bathroom.
You get a Seinfeld or an Impractical Jokers on linear TV in a hotel room.
I mean, Impractical Jokers, that's whenever I do actually watch regular TV and you go
to True TV, I'm not kidding, they play 12 hours of Impractical Jokers a day, maybe 24 hours.
True TV is the impact.
Yeah, it's the Impractical Jokers Network.
Do you remember when we went to the Adult Swim up front?
I took you to the Adult Swim up front.
I forget who was playing.
I don't think it was Jay-Z, but it was years ago, and the Impractical Jokers were there.
Vega.
You were so excited.
I had never seen Impractical Jokers.
I was a big fan.
But I couldn't believe it.
People were pretty surprised that you were like, "Oh, wow."
I mean, it's a star-studded event, this Adult Swim party.
I guess I'm kind of like an indie snob, because when I first saw Impractical Jokers, I was
on True TV, season one or something.
I was like, "This is basically public access."
I was like, "This is very low production quality."
But I felt like, "I love this.
Four lifelong friends from Staten Island.
I like their energy.
Obviously, this is not ready for primetime, but I like four local guys doing something
on local TV.
Good for them."
Then I go live my life, five years later, they're basically Justin Bieber.
These guys are huge.
They're making movies.
They're paid tens of millions of dollars.
They might be billionaires if you put all four of them together.
I guess that's how sometimes people feel about music.
You see somebody play a club, you go live your life.
Next thing you know, they're playing arenas.
You feel like, A, where did the time go?
B, you get to have that little proprietary feeling like maybe it's a bad thing.
I want to keep them in their place.
I want them to be living in Staten Island and just be four local guys.
I want them to be a local secret for the tri-state area.
Never seen it.
Even just the name, the name is so bad.
When you really think about it, Impractical Jokers,
that it really just had that low budget local flavor.
It's a prank show?
Yes.
It's for lifelong...
Is it like a punk?
You're saying the opening sequence.
Punk? That kind of thing?
Well, except that they're...
The interesting thing is that it's for lifelong friends from Staten Island.
These guys literally went to high school together.
They're an improv troupe, but they're daring each other to do embarrassing things.
So they're kind of pranking other people, but they're mostly embarrassing each other.
Actually, there's four of us.
Is it...
It's sort of...
I mean, like a jackass thing, but not as physical?
Yeah, it's very not physical.
So a classic example, it would be that the guy's wearing a little like earbud,
and he's getting fed lines, and they'll say,
"All right, Sal, you're going to sit down in Washington Square Park."
And he's like...
And he's sitting there, and you're kind of...
And he's like...
And they're like in a truck or something.
And he's like, "All right, guys."
And they're like, "Here's what you're going to do.
"The next guy who walks by, you got to ask him for help.
"And when he says, 'What's your problem?' you got to say, 'My butt hurts.'"
It's like something like that.
And he's like, "Oh, my God, this is going to be so embarrassing."
And they're like, "But if you get the guy to actually sit down next to you
"and pat you on the back, you win a point."
Okay. Wow.
Yeah.
And anyway, this show became like an empire.
Yeah. I mean, I think there's--
Literally on TruTV-- Have you ever heard of TruTV?
Heard of it, never seen it.
Don't have linear cable.
No, but there's two-- There's sort of culture--
Like, within the TV landscape,
there's two kind of things that people talk about being pretty crazy.
And one is that TruTV is now basically a 24-hour network of impractical jokers.
It, like, keeps the lights on for Tru-- There's almost no other shows.
Similarly, on MTV, too, has become the Ridiculousness Network.
Oh, yeah.
Where all they show is this show, Ridiculous.
Have you ever heard of that?
No.
Oh, Rob Drydak?
It's on 24 hours a day.
Damn, I'm out of the loop here.
Yeah.
Well, it's very debatable, all this stuff.
Are you out of the loop or this channel's out of the loop?
It's hard to say.
There's a lot of loops.
There's a lot of loops, folks.
There's a lot of loops.
Well, so, just so you know,
I feel like we've talked about this gentle jesters thing for a while.
Right, that was our concept, was to do--
Low stakes.
Yeah, even as we discussed it, you might not have been aware,
that it was kind of based on impractical jokers, but--
Well, I'm familiar with the prank show format.
Yeah.
So I understood the whole setup of, I'm working at a coffee shop.
Right.
I'm playing Neil Young.
Yeah.
Someone walks in, they say, "Oh, I love this record."
And I say, "Yeah, I love Bob Dylan, too."
Or something like that.
Right.
What was-- There was something like that.
I've never heard of Neil Young.
It was actually like that, but it was the same where we're kind of putting you in a situation,
just like the jokers do to each other, where you're going to be really embarrassed.
And because they know each other so well, they can sometimes really embarrass each other.
Like, one of the guys used to be a firefighter.
So maybe he loses all the pranks or something,
and then at the end he has to do some sort of humiliation ritual because he lost that day's show.
And they're saying, "All right, here's the thing.
You're going to have to dress up like a ballerina and perform swan leg."
And you're like, "Oh, my God."
And they're like, "Get him on stage."
And then they open the curtains, and guess what?
It's all the guys from the station, all your old firefighter friends.
He's like, "Oh, my God!"
Anyway, so because they know each other well, they know what would particularly--
The pressure points.
Right.
So that's why I think you mistaking Neil Young for Bob Dylan would be perfect for gentle gestures.
I think actually we could pitch this because you bring up Jackass.
Someone could say, "Now, Jackass was big.
That's a cultural touchstone.
But then MTV never--they didn't really know how to follow that up
because the next huge prank show was Impractical Jokers on True TV.
MTV got their lunch eaten, and that's because people wanted to move towards gentleness.
Wait, what about Punk'd?
Was that pre-Jackass?
That was concurrent.
It was kind of around the same time.
What I'm saying is Impractical Jokers took over,
and it's because people--they don't want all the violence of Jackass.
They wanted something a little more down to earth, chilled out,
and we can say, "Let's continue that.
Let's go even further.
Let's go more gentle than Impractical Jokers."
It's like slow TV, almost.
Just sit back.
Nobody gets hurt.
No one gets humiliated.
It's almost--at this point, not even practical jokes at this point.
It's sort of minor embarrassment.
It's gentle gestures.
It's just no cuts.
Just two hours of Jake at a coffee shop that's playing nothing but Neil Young,
continually making conversation with people, just saying,
"Now, I love Bob Dylan, but for the life of me,
I can't remember which album this is.
Is this '70s Bob?"
And half the people are just like, "I don't know."
How many roads must a man walk down
before they call him a man?
And how many seas must a white dove sail
before she sleeps in the sand?
And how many times must a cannonball fly
before they are forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
The answer is blowing in the wind.
I'm on CelebrityNetWorth.com,
and I'm going to be talking about the new season of "The New Yorker."
I'm going to be talking about the new season of "The New Yorker."
That sounds low to me. I guess we also got it like I said, true TV.
It's possible that the first season of "Impractical Jokers,"
they were paying each guy 200 bucks an episode.
Clearly there was a tipping point where they renegotiated.
- And the film rights too. - Yeah, they made a movie.
- And then also these guys can tour. - They were doing a lot of touring.
- Merch. - Yeah, merch.
So I'm on Celeb's Age Wiki and there is a Jake Longstreth net worth.
Okay, um...
We can bleep it out if it's too accurate.
- I want to guess it. - It's up to date as of 2022.
- Jake Longstreth net worth? - That's a wide range.
I usually feel like they're way high.
I'm going to say like $3 million.
Oh yeah, you're right in the middle. You're worth $1 to $5 million.
- $1 to $5 million. - $1 to $5 million. That's a pretty big range.
- That's a huge range. - And then there's salary in 2022 is another category
and it says under review.
- They're still chipping away. - Well, I'm self-employed.
- So I don't draw a salary. - Which website are you on?
It's called Celeb's Age Wiki.
Celeb's Age Wiki has three of their top analysts
working around the clock to review Jake's 2022 income.
- Burning the midnight oil. - Yep.
Oh, this is deep. I mean, there's a wiki component to this
where they're talking about all the different means of income that you might have.
- What does it say? - I mean, it goes in.
It said time crisis is the first bullet point on there.
It talks about your brother.
Oh yeah, Dave pays me out. Royalties.
You got something in 2008 called the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant. Is that true?
Oh yeah, that was a one-time grant for $12,000.
Well, compounded with interest. That's like what happened to him right there.
Yeah, no. The $12,000 in '08, that made my whole year, man.
- And you bought-- - Paints.
So you bought about 10,000 Bitcoins back in '08.
That's most of it.
He was supposed to buy paint, and he bought Bitcoin.
So that's just like some sort of computer aggregator that's just--
- Oh yeah, it's AI. - Why? What is that?
- There's a lot of ads on it. - Has anyone ever looked at that page?
- Are we the first? - Yeah, I can't see the back end.
- I bet we're the first. - I mean, sometimes you come,
you see truly the most uninteresting, not useful YouTube video.
And sometimes you just see like 89 views.
And even then you're like, this should be two, max.
And I guess sometimes it's by accident, but yeah.
So I bet something like that probably got 125 views, you know?
People start snooping around.
But yeah, all these websites are--
I feel like half the internet is just bots making stuff up now.
Just taking news articles and trying to repackage it.
Somebody was telling me recently, someone that was kind of dark about,
they found out that a friend of a friend had died.
Total tragedy. And then they couldn't reach out to the--
They were trying to confirm it, but they didn't know who to hit up,
and they Googled it.
And they said you get all these weird search results
that some sort of bot or AI that's probably going through death certificates
and creating weird websites.
How did John Goldstein die on March 25th?
Can't you just picture it and then it's like, click here for more.
And then it's just like, is your testosterone getting low?
Just imagine you're trying to actually find some real information about something
and you're like, what is this website?
Is it like an older person?
Enter your zip code.
These single women are ready to--
And then you scroll to the bottom and there's zero information, actually.
Right. All this old guy wanted to know is Jake Longstreet's net worth.
Now he's signed up for--
I think the impractical jokers are sitting on more money.
You're thinking eight figures.
I assume these net worths are not accounting for investments, properties,
NFTs, that sort of thing.
It's just based entirely on salary, income.
There's a lot of private stuff that they can't account for.
I make between $1 and $5 million a year in time crisis.
Salary. That's my W-2.
There's an Apple Music salary cap, which is $5 million for all hosts.
So yeah, it varies, but within that range.
♪ Wanna turn around ♪
♪ Like you got me figured out ♪
♪ But girl what I can't promise is I let you down ♪
♪ So don't put up a fight ♪
♪ You'll get lost in the light ♪
♪ If you keep staring at the sun ♪
♪ You won't see what you have become ♪
♪ It's gonna be everything you thought it was ♪
♪ Blinded by the thought of us ♪
♪ So give me interest ♪
♪ I will look up again ♪
♪ I want you in advance ♪
♪ But you just keep on staring at the sun ♪
- Anyway, Shep, it's The Impractical Jokers.
I'd love to have 'em on.
- I gotta check it out.
- I wonder what you'd think of it.
It's not for everybody, but it's a very casual show.
- But it's for most people.
- It's for most people.
- Yeah, I mean, I don't love, but I like those prank shows.
- You have to like the guys.
- Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
- As a tri-state area guy,
I think you might enjoy the concept.
Four lifelong friends, their names are,
well, there's Joe, who's gone,
and then Sal, Murr.
- Short for Murray.
- Does that sound appealing to you, Jake?
Four lifelong friends from Staten Island,
one of them's name is Murray,
and the guy's always like, "Hey, Murr.
"Okay, Murr."
- No, I'm down.
- All right, you're sold?
- I'm open to it.
- Murr, come on, Murr.
If you like that, you'll enjoy it.
So what else has been going on the last couple months?
- There was a Super Bowl.
Thanks for coming to my Super Bowl party.
- Yeah, it was fun.
- Thanks for having us.
- It was great.
- Yeah.
- Hell of a spread.
- True.
- Yeah.
- So many wings.
- There were a lot of wings.
- Chips and guac.
- A lot of subs.
One thing that I don't love about throwing
an annual Super Bowl party is I miss all the commercials.
- You're hosting.
- I'm hosting.
I'm looking around, you know,
tiny bit stressed, is everything okay?
Were there good commercials?
- Yeah, I caught the Duncan, the Ben Affleck one
out of the corner of my eye,
and I think I ran up to one of you guys,
and I was like, hey, Ben Affleck was a Duncan commercial.
But it was very like,
the game was very secondary to the party, I felt.
- There was also a lot of children there.
- Oh, at the party?
- So it would be like, oh, there's a, yeah, at the party.
They'd be like, oh, that's the Ben Affleck Duncan ad.
Oh, well, my kid just crapped her pants.
- Yeah, and the kids, they don't know who Ben Affleck is.
They might not even know what Duncan is.
Probably have some idea what a donut is.
But yeah, none of these kids have seen Breaking Bad,
for instance, so the idea of a Breaking Bad reunion,
what were they selling?
- Doritos.
- Was it though?
- No, it was a chip, Pop Chips.
- Pop Chips, yeah.
- Not familiar with that product.
- Okay, what's actually, I'm glad I brought this up.
What's the deal with Pop Chips?
Because I feel Pop Chips, they've been throwing--
- I feel they're the healthy alternative.
- They've been throwing so much money
at Pop Chips for a decade.
I've never seen anybody outside of some sort of like,
sponsored green room situation eating Pop Chips.
- I think Jet Blue will have it.
Jet Blue will give you them.
- Okay, wait, clarification first of all.
It was actually Pop Corners,
which I think is like a competitor to Pop Chips.
Same idea.
- Wait, Pop Chips got big enough
that there's a competitor spending,
and also to get the two leads from Breaking Bad
and by the Super Bowl,
that's a minimum $20 million investment.
Maybe it's more like 30.
- For sure, yeah.
But I think Doritos owns, hang on a second.
Doritos, what?
It's so weird.
I think Doritos--
- Crunch those, you're a little rusty.
I haven't crunched the numbers in a while.
- It's been a minute.
Oh, it is Frito-Lay product.
- Okay, but just to explain.
- Wait, wait.
- Explain the commercial to me.
- It's like the--
- Jesse and Walter White.
- Jesse and Walter are in the trailer.
- They're in the trailer cooking up meth.
- But now they're cooking up Pop Corners.
And it's the purity, right?
It's like, "Oh, we made the perfect Pop Corner,"
or whatever.
- And they're just like, "They went corporate."
- Yeah, corporate.
- Jesse, remember what I taught you.
Mr. White, these Pop Corners are gonna be,
I can't even remember.
(Jesse laughing)
Suck my (beep), Mr. White.
These Pop Corners are gonna be fire.
- This is gripping.
- So Pop Corners, it's a triangular chip
shaped like a Dorito, but it's air-infused.
- And it's a Frito-Lay product.
And I think what I'm getting confused
is that there was also a Doritos commercial
during the Super Bowl.
And so there were a lot of press releases
about Doritos, like Frito-Lay having a couple
of different spots in the Super Bowl.
But I guess there's no real association
between the two products.
- Where were you seeing these press releases?
- Well, I just looked it up again.
So the thing is, when I looked it up at first,
whenever it came out, I saw a lot of Doritos talk
among the Pop Corners.
And then I just looked it up again,
and there's like a USA Today article
where it's clearly a rewrite of a press release
where it's like, "Doritos and Pop Corners are both,"
anyway, it doesn't matter.
- Okay, but what about Pop Chips?
Pop Chips have been out for a while.
I kind of remember like Katy Perry was always selling them.
- Pop Chips is an American brand
of Pop Potato and Corn products.
Marketing is similar to Potato Chips.
They are manufactured by processing potato starch
at high pressure and temperature
in a process similar to that used for puffed rice cakes.
- Okay, right.
That's what gives it that puffy, airy, crunchy vibe.
- And Pop Corners is the same thing,
same manufacturing process.
- Pop Chips just seemed like such a failure to me.
It just seemed like something
that they were trying to make happen.
And clearly, they had big celebrity spokespeople.
Did like Pharrell own 25% of it or something?
- God, how did that happen?
That's amazing.
- But Pop Chips was just like massive,
using big celebrities, and just felt like,
I don't know anybody who's buying Pop Chips.
- Oh, okay, investors in Pop Chips,
Ashton Kutcher, punked callback here.
- There you go.
- David Ortiz, Puff Daddy, Sean Combs, and Jillian Michaels.
So that's probably-
- Wait, is Jillian Michaels our friend from Diet Coke?
- No.
- And it's Gillian Jacobs.
- Oh, my bad.
Who's Jillian Michaels?
- Jillian Michaels.
- Jillian, I think you'd recognize her if you saw her.
She's a personal trainer.
I think she's in reality.
- Dude, I love that David Ortiz is an investor.
That rules.
- Big poppy.
- Yeah.
Puff Daddy and Big Poppy.
- Ay.
- Going in.
- Right?
- So Jillian Michaels was on The Biggest Loser.
- Okay, yeah, she's a fitness influencer.
- Yeah.
- So when did-
- I just wanna say-
- But when did Pop Chips drop?
When did that hit the scene?
- 2007.
- Oh, it's been around, God, it's been around 16 years.
- And from an article in Entrepreneur Magazine in 2019,
the result, "Pop Chips became a hit snack
under Keith Belling's leadership
and has sold in more than 30,000 stores
and has generated more than $100 million in revenue."
- Huge.
- That sounds like a fail to me.
(laughing)
Sorry.
- Why?
- So that's 16 years.
- Generated $100 million?
I mean, don't you think-
- So it's like, yeah, it's like six or $7 million a year
in revenue.
- It's-
- How much are they spent on advertising?
- Right.
- Oh, yeah, well.
- I don't know, that doesn't sound like a big win for me.
- I mean, let's just do the, what is that?
- Wait, wait, wait, what did you say?
$6 million a year?
- That's off the top of the head.
- It's an impractical joke or a year.
To be honest, I think the fact that you've even heard of it
makes it successful.
- Yeah, it's six and a quarter million a year.
- Okay.
- 16 years divided by 100 mil.
- So the creator of-
- But that's revenue.
- Yeah, exactly.
They're spending more than that on ads.
So that's a loss leader.
- But they're not doing so much advertising.
I feel like you don't really see it.
- They just dropped $30 million on a-
- Keith, I mean, that was Pop Corners.
- Right, but Doritos probably makes
like billions and billions.
- Yeah.
- Are we talking about Pop Chips or Pop Corners
at this point?
- Who cares?
- Pop Corners is new.
Pop Corners is brand new.
- Something's off here.
This thing stinks to high hell.
- Getting something into the national conversation
seems so hard.
Look, here's the article.
- But not if you're not selling anything.
- The entrepreneur behind Pop Chips
hopes to have another hit with rice made from vegetables.
Keith Belling's Right Rice, made of lentils, chickpeas,
and peas will be available today nationwide
on Amazon and Whole Foods stores.
- I've seen that stuff.
I've seen Right Rice.
- You've seen this?
- I've never seen that before.
- I've never seen that either.
- Are you sure?
- I've seen it, yeah.
- Have you had it?
- Never had one.
What am I gonna do with that Right Rice?
- It reminds me of when IHOP flipped the P,
turned into IHOP.
Were they selling more burgers or pancakes?
- Doubt it.
- No, no.
- You guys remember this?
Pop Chips received widespread criticism
in a 2012 ad campaign where Ashton Kutcher
pretended to be an Indian man looking for love
in a dating ad style spoof.
Do you remember that?
- It was explosive.
- And he was doing an Indian, like a Apu voice?
- He had dark makeup on.
- Oh, because it was curry flavored or something?
- Good question.
No, I don't think it had anything to do with flavor.
- A white guy putting on makeup.
- I think it was years beyond.
It was already like--
- I mean, 2012 sounds very late, but.
- Yeah, I think it was very questionable,
even at the time.
- That does sound familiar.
Okay, here's my thing.
All due respect to Keith Bellinger,
the creator of Pop Chips.
If you told me, okay, there's a guy
from Rancho Cucamonga in his garage,
whatever, he was a chemistry teacher,
a Walter White type chemistry teacher,
got laid off, sitting around at home,
and he had this, started experimenting in the garage,
and he figured out how to air infuse potato starch,
and it was kinda crunchy,
and he was selling them at the farmer's market, whatever.
Next thing you know, it's a company
that does $100 million in revenue,
which maybe they meant per year,
which would be a different story.
I would be like, that's an amazing story.
That sounds like the Cliff guy who started Cliff Bar.
We love the story, just somebody cooking it up
in the kitchen.
- Big League Chew. - Big League Chew.
The controversial Big League Chew.
So if you told me that, I would say,
this is a great story of American ingenuity,
and although you have not remotely come close
to creating a product as iconic as Doritos,
Cheetos, or even Ruffles, my hat's off to you,
because you did something.
You went from being an unemployed chemistry teacher
to a very wealthy man, but the reason I don't feel that way
is because my memory of Popchips
is that it came out of the gate
with the big celebrity sponsors.
So that makes it feel like a PSYOP.
That's a psychological operation for people who don't know.
Because, or what would you call it?
You know what it really is?
It's not a PSYOP, it's an industry plant.
You know?
- I think you're right about the PSYOP.
In an article from, when is this article?
2013 about Popchips.
This is a great line.
Popchips started with a distinctive edge.
Quote, "Popping was a breakthrough," says Kara Nelson.
Food trendologist from CCD Innovation.
Food trendologist.
I mean, this is real.
- We're scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
- We should get some food trendologists on.
- Wait, when you say that,
are you saying what we're talking about or the show?
- Both.
♪ The last leaf falling ♪
♪ There an earth where green ♪
♪ The water's bone ♪
♪ Above Madonna ♪
♪ Two eagles hang ♪
♪ Against a cloud ♪
♪ Sun comes up blood red ♪
♪ Wind yields among the stone ♪
♪ And the days for the past are gone ♪
- The idea that there's Doritos,
the Frito-Lay company wanted to make a Popchips competitor
and dump $30 million or more to kick it off.
It just doesn't compute.
Maybe it's really doing $100 million a year,
which I guess is pretty good.
- I do remember the Katy Perry.
- It didn't say that.
- The Katy Perry placement, I mean,
when she was at the peak of her popularity,
she was like number one,
three number one albums back to back,
then she was heavy on the Popchips.
I remember that very well.
Going to a grocery store, cardboard cutout,
Katy Perry, TV commercials, social media.
I remember even at the time, it felt like this is a lot.
- The only other thing that I could think of
is that they launched in this era
when you were starting to have
the multi-hyphenate entertainer business person.
I don't know if anybody saw the new Shaq documentary.
It's a four-part series on HBO Max.
I enjoyed it.
I'm a lifelong Shaq fan.
And they kind of cover the basketball,
and then once he retired,
they're kind of just like talk about
how much he loved to work and make money.
And the documentary, I mean,
obviously it's a bit of a puff piece.
They kind of imply that Shaq is the one who, right,
that Shaq kind of paved the way.
He took what Michael Jordan did as being a spokesman
and took it to the next level.
He creates his own brand early, and he's out there,
and he's often foregoing a payday for equity in the company.
He says, "People think I'm an athlete
"who got into business.
"I'm a businessman who happens to be athletic."
It's deep.
And I thought, right on.
And so anyway, I think in the post-Shaq universe
and just in the 2000s,
I guess it's possible that some of these celebrities,
somebody goes in and says,
"This is gonna be the next Doritos."
I could totally picture it.
In 2007, you're going on a road show
meeting all these big Hollywood managers and stuff
and music industry people,
and you say, "Guys, Doritos, it's so '90s.
"You're getting the cheese dust on your fingers.
"People today want something new,
"and this is like a trillion-dollar market,
"and we have something that could change the game
"with our patented air infusion technology.
"It's different, it's modern.
"This is what people want now.
"It's light.
"We can pretend that it's healthier.
"All those things that you grew up eating,
"the greasy lays, all that stuff,
"is gonna be left in the dustbin of history."
This company, especially if it goes global,
we get to dial in the flavors for Southeast Asia,
South America, if we dial that in,
this company easily is doing,
just like very confidently be like,
"4.7 billion a year in revenue in five years."
And maybe you can go to the Katy Perry's
and the Puffy's and say,
"We're prepared to offer you 1.5% of this company."
They're doing the math, and they're like,
"Four billion, 1.5%?"
What is that, Seinfeld?
- Oh yeah, that's like--
- 600 million? - 600 million, yeah.
- Wait, no, that's not-- - 60 million.
- 60 million. - 50, 60 million.
- Yeah, so you pick four celebrities,
Katy Perry, Ashton Kutcher, Puffy, David Ortiz,
and you promise each of them 1.5% and say,
"I know that's a small number,
"but please, our projections say 4.8 billion."
Yeah, and then they're starting to think,
"I'm making 60 to 80 million a year for doing very little?"
And then it's like, "No, no, but hold on,
"we'll make sure you like the product."
Hold on a second.
Take a bite.
I do like it, this is exactly the type of,
first you talk the money, then you offer them the product.
- So 1.5-- - I wanna get into this world,
it's kind of exciting to me.
- It is. - I wanna go pre-sell shares
of a lame snack company and see
what the biggest celebrity we can get is.
Just go and just be like, some terrible Puffy chip,
just see, can we make it to Bruno Mars,
and just be like, "Bruno, all the money's gone into R&D.
"If you're with us," I can't believe I'm saying this,
"20% of the company."
- What about this, you know, most chips are dry.
What about a moist, like a soggy chip?
You know what I mean?
- A wet chip. - A wet chip.
Like, it's not oily, it's H2O infused.
And it's got a certain sort of liquid viscous.
Anyway, Ezra, you nailed it.
- Wet chips.
- It's like when you have your chips on a plate
and you accidentally spill some water on it.
- Yeah, and be like, "And people,
"and yeah, you think that people don't want that anymore,
"but Mr. Obama, I'm sorry,
"but since you left the White House,
"doesn't culture feel kind of dry?"
You know what I mean?
- They want it wet.
- I can't believe I'm saying this, Brock,
but if you get on board for this
and you film two to seven commercials,
we'll give you 99% of the company.
I mean, we're nuts, we're nuts,
but that's how much we believe in this.
- I mean, Michelle Obama was very pro-hydration, pro-health.
You know, you could just like,
"We need more water in our chips."
Katy Perry was an investor in pop chips.
LA Times 2012 reports that,
it all started with a tweet.
She was promoting part of me.
I don't know if you remember, Jake,
her concert documentary part of me.
- Sure, of course. - Oh yeah, it was very good.
- I think she broke up with Russell Brand in that one.
Anyway. - I saw that in the theater.
- Yeah. - Twice.
- I was on tour and I caught it.
Yeah, it was cool. - It seemed spectacular.
So she says she found this in a mini bar in a hotel
when she was promoting the film.
She read the back of the label,
saw that it was a healthy choice.
She was hooked after her first bite.
When I discover something good,
I wanna share it with everyone.
So I tweeted about it and the rest is history.
- Very organic.
- She just, an unsolicited promotional tweet.
- So when it says she's an investor,
that implies she put in her own money.
So that is pretty different.
- And she became a spokesperson for it.
- Well, yeah, maybe we gotta steal the actual deal points.
Maybe she just reached out to them
and said, "I'll be a spokesperson."
- And just kick in 1.5.
- I'm sure it worked out for her.
Okay, but why was it in the hotel in the first place?
It was just like a regional snack?
- It does feel like something that would be in a mini bar
where you're like, "I have a--"
- I don't believe any of that.
- Yeah, after that.
- I don't believe any of that.
- You think Katie's lying?
- I mean, no, I think that--
- So cynical, Nick.
- Well, I'm reading this article,
which is essentially that they brought on the guy
that did Vitamin Water to basically be the consultant
or partner in Popchips.
And this says he did exactly what he did
with Vitamin Water, which was bring on--
- Go to the celebs.
- Yep, you know, 50 Cent, famous Vitamin Water owner,
sold out for however many hundreds of millions of dollars.
So they first went to Ashton Kutcher.
The funny part is, is they said,
"You create any kind of chip you want."
It seems here he created the Bombay chip.
(all laughing)
- Oh no.
- I swear to God.
- So it was Bombay flavored.
And then he was like, "Yeah, and then I'll do," I mean.
- It's possible that the entire thing,
it's not just an accident that Ashton Kutcher
ended up doing this brown face Indian character.
It's actually when they asked him what flavor he wanted,
he said, "Anything that allows me to do this character
"I've been working on."
- Yeah, and then two months after that,
Katy Perry signs on.
- I'm with you, I don't--
- To do Katy's kettle corn,
and then immediately after that, it's--
- Puffy?
- Well, yep, it's, well, here are the rest of them.
It's gonna say that it's
Jillian Michaels, Heidi Klum, and Diddy.
- Heidi Klum.
- So, I mean, this is, there's just no,
this isn't an organic--
- Yeah.
- How did David Ortiz get--
(laughing)
- He's passionate about snack food.
- That's a weird one.
- Well, yeah, no, I hate to say it
because I'm a Katy Perry fan.
I think she's cool.
But, you know, hopefully she wouldn't mind us
just kicking the tires.
It's just business.
All I'm saying is that I think Katy's a savvy businesswoman,
and it's possible that she sat down
with the Vitamin Water guy.
They said, "Listen, we got Ashton Kutcher on board,
"and no, we're not punking you.
"You're about to be a billionaire."
And she said, "Okay, I like what I hear."
And then they gave her the product,
and they said, "But here's the thing.
"Vitamin Water, people saw it in stores first.
"They kind of half felt like they discovered it
"by the time they heard 50 Cent was a big investor.
"They kind of felt like they were all in on it together.
"We don't want this to feel top-down.
"Help us craft a narrative that feels like you
"that kind of makes it sound like you discovered it."
Because, also, so you said this was all happening in 2007?
- Well, the PopChip was created in 2007.
I think it became a business then,
but 2012 was when Katy Perry, I think, came into the fold.
- Oh, so it's exactly the Obama era.
So they're probably talking to her
about how the Obama campaign had a feeling
of being grassroots, even though
there was also big money behind it.
So I bet they said, "Just when you announced it,
"let's make it seem like you discovered it,
"not that we came to you selling you on it."
And then she says, "I just happened to find this
"in my hotel room, and I love it,
"and I wanna share it with you."
It's a good grassroots rollout campaign.
- Does the Four Seasons stock that chip in their minibar?
- Yeah, we gotta find out, we gotta do some digging.
- I do feel like PopChips does have a minibar feel to it,
because you open that minibar,
and it's sort of like seven out of the 10 things,
you're like, "What, I'm not, what?"
- Absolutely, but--
- But at a fancy hotel, I'm thinking Kettle Chip.
- But Kettle Chip is not as healthy as--
- I mean, at a really fancy hotel,
they're gonna take the products sometimes
and put them in their own packaging.
So you get your little Four Seasons gummy bears
or something, your Four Seasons salted cashews.
Also, the way that PopChips look is so slick and corporate
that just the, it'd be one thing if you found
some mom and pop fudge company,
you're just like, "Guys, next time you're in
"Youngstown, Ohio, you gotta try this.
"It's such a cool little place."
They're just thinking about picking up PopChips,
and then just being like, "I need to share this with people."
- It doesn't track.
- It doesn't track.
- It's not, yeah, it's not a Sweet Martha's cookie, you know?
- Oh, not at all.
I mean, it would be like--
- I mean, even the packaging looks so corporate.
It just looks, like I'm reading here--
- Maybe that's her aesthetic.
- Yeah.
- Maybe that really spoke to her.
- It's possible, it's possible.
- Very cold corporate packaging.
She was just like, "Damn."
- It's late at night, she's on the promotional circuit.
She's had a few drinks in her.
She's come across the PopChips,
and she's tweeting without--
- She's looking at the calorie count
on the back of each one of these things, right?
- She goes, "This seems like the healthiest alternative."
- It's 20 less calories--
(laughing)
- It's 4 a.m.
- Than the KettleChips.
- Right, it's 3 to 4 a.m., you know?
- Been traveling all day, skipped dinner.
- Judgment is way off.
- Her social media managers, there she goes,
writing about PopChips again.
- Katie, not for free, come on.
- This is the most I've ever thought about Katie Perry.
- Really, are you a fan?
- No, not a fan.
I like Teenage Dream.
- Yeah, it's a good song.
How many songs can you name?
- That's it.
- Really?
- No.
- How about, Jake, can you finish this?
♪ 'Cause baby you're a ♪
- Firefly?
- Close.
- Oh.
♪ Baby you're a ♪
- Firecracker?
- Close.
- Doesn't roll off the tongue.
- Yeah.
- Fire--
♪ 'Cause baby you're a ♪
- Firebrand.
♪ Firebrand ♪
(laughing)
- You're so close, Jake.
- You're a fire...
- Work.
- Oh, okay.
- Firecracker.
- What about, ♪ I'm coming at you like a ♪
♪ Audi S5 Series 3 ♪
- Okay, wait.
♪ I'm coming at you like a dark ♪
♪ Comet ♪
♪ I'm coming at you like a dark ♪
♪ Fantasy ♪
- That's actually the better,
that's the better lyric.
- That's, ♪ I'm coming at you like a dark horse ♪
- Okay.
- Remember that one?
- Let's keep doing this one.
I like this game.
- That was a cool--
- Let's keep going.
- All right, let me see which ones I know
off the top of my head.
- What about the one with Snoop Dogg?
It seemed like you know her--
- Oh.
- Her catalog pretty well.
♪ I'm coming at you like a dark fantasy ♪
♪ Like a dark fantasy ♪
- Okay, she has a well-known song
where that's California somethings.
- Raisins?
No, I'm joking.
How's it go?
Sing it.
♪ California ♪
- It's not "Amy Lynn."
♪ California ♪
- I think if you look here--
- No, that's not, it goes like--
- If you look up just the lyrics on it,
I think you'll know the--
- Okay.
- The thing for him.
- I mean, these were like number one,
just like, she was like,
she owned the charts for like five years straight.
- She was crushing at it.
Oh, okay, this is how the pre-chorus goes.
♪ You could travel the world ♪
♪ But nothing comes close to the golden coast ♪
♪ Once you party with us ♪
♪ You'll be falling in love ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ California girls ♪
- Yeah.
♪ We're on for ♪
(laughing)
- Wait, say it again.
♪ California girls ♪
- What?
- What's the next line?
- I might have the melody wrong.
♪ California girls ♪
♪ We're on ♪
- I wanna rhyme it with girls and I'm struggling.
- No, no, no, this part doesn't rhyme.
♪ California girls ♪
♪ We're on for ♪
♪ Beatable ♪
♪ We're unforgettable ♪
♪ Daisy dukes ♪
♪ Bikinis ♪
♪ Tops ♪
♪ On top, yeah ♪
- Yeah.
♪ A cooler full of brew ♪
- Okay, how about,
♪ Sun kissed skin so hot will melt your ♪
♪ Sun kissed skin so hot will melt your ♪
♪ Ice ♪
(laughing)
♪ Sun kissed skin so hot will melt your ♪
- Mind.
♪ Popsicle ♪
♪ Oh ♪
- Okay.
I'll melt your mind.
- Wow, you're really not a Katy fan.
♪ Will melt your mind ♪
- What are her other big songs?
- Roar.
- Oh yeah.
- So that was a rewrite of California girls, basically.
- Well, it was.
♪ Well, these girls ♪
♪ Girls ♪
- Also the title, they spelled girls G-U-R-L-S.
- Okay, that's a fun update.
- What about her breakout?
I mean, when she first came on the scene,
it was like, I kissed a--
- I kissed a--
- Girl?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I thought that was a Jill Sobiel song from the early '90s.
- Yeah, that's two different songs with the same concept.
All right, but you know, Firework, I think,
that's like her signature song, right?
- I feel like it's Teenage Dream.
That's the one I know.
- That's a big one.
- That's a big two.
- What's this other, I kissed a girl?
I didn't know there was another one.
What's that?
- It's in the '90s.
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
- Throw it down.
Or not, whatever.
(laughing)
- I wanna hear it.
- You wanna hear it?
- Yeah, I've never--
- It's defeated.
It's J.K. Hercules.
- Same concept?
- I'm in a weird mood, guys.
I'm out of practice with TC.
- Right.
- I feel like--
- I'm easing in here.
- I'm hoping the audience in general
gives us a little latitude.
- We're in the studio for the first time in a while.
I feel like that's, that gets us some points.
- We're drinking Modellos, we're eating pizza.
It's old school, but I'm--
- It's a classic.
- I'm just kind of struggling to kind of find my footing.
I'm a little out of practice.
- This is Jill Sobule?
Okay.
So this is Jill Sobule.
So this is from the '90s.
Kind of folk rock.
- Yeah.
♪ Jenny came over and told me about Brett ♪
♪ He's such a hairy behemoth ♪
♪ She said, "Dumb as a box of hammers ♪
♪ But he's such a handsome guy" ♪
♪ And I opened up and I told her about Larry ♪
♪ And yesterday how he asked me to marry ♪
♪ And I'm not giving him an answer yet ♪
♪ I think it could do better ♪
♪ So we laughed ♪
♪ Compared notes ♪
♪ We had a drink, we had a smoke ♪
♪ She took off her overcoat ♪
- Oh.
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
- Bam, bam.
- See, this is the era of like Ellen DeGeneres coming out.
It was like mid '90s mainstream culture
where like this was pretty novel.
♪ She called on to say she'd be late ♪
♪ He said he worried ♪
♪ But now he feels safe ♪
♪ I'm glad you're with your girlfriend ♪
- Song was kind of better than I remember it.
- Yeah, this is good.
- I like that bridge.
- You never heard this Seinfeld?
- In this, no.
- No.
- This is a total blank for me.
This is my Katy Perry.
- This part's dope.
♪ And we laughed ♪
♪ At the world ♪
♪ They can have their diamonds ♪
♪ And we'll have our pearls ♪
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
- Bam, bam.
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
♪ I kissed a girl, her lips were sweet ♪
- Okay.
- Bridge.
♪ She was just like kissing me ♪
♪ Kiss the girl, won't change the world ♪
♪ But I'm so glad ♪
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
- Whoa, Jay Maskis out of nowhere.
- Yeah, I don't remember that.
- Tight tone.
- A&R guy was begging to change the tone on that part.
(laughing)
- Well, it's the edgy part, it keeps it, you know.
- Yeah, maybe they liked it.
We can get on K-Rock with that.
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
♪ For the first time ♪
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
- Yeah, this slots nicely in that kind of '90s folk rock,
like--
- Lisa Loeb.
- Della Metri.
- Uh-huh.
- Rembrandt's a little bit.
- Oh yeah.
I'm kind of curious to hear the Katy Perry now.
- Yeah, it's funny because--
- So wait, what year was the Sobule?
- Yeah, what year is this?
'95?
- Yeah, I'm gonna guess, yeah, mid '90s.
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
♪ Won't you come ♪
- Oh yeah, some tasty licks.
♪ Where the arms go flat ♪
♪ I kissed a girl ♪
- Kind of split the difference
between Jay Maskis and Lindsey Buckingham.
- Yeah, it's actually a really tight 11 minute,
"I kissed a girl" from Lollapalooza '96.
(laughing)
- It's actually a top played track on the streaming services.
- Yeah, I used to have that on a tape, on a cassette.
Shout out to Jill Sobule, that sounded great.
- That was nice.
- And also, yeah, it's kind of sweet,
very '90s, kind vibe.
And then the Katy Perry one,
we haven't heard it in a while.
As I recall, this one's very, like, almost like spooky.
(laughing)
Let's see how this one sounds.
- Well, at this point, it's no longer, like,
novel subject matter, so she has to have a different approach.
- There was some backlash to this, I recall,
as far as, like, her-- - Was there?
'Cause she's not gay, or?
- I think so, yeah.
- Well, let's see.
- A person can be a character in a song, right?
- Yeah, I mean, I'm--
I'm writing for Bruce Springsteen's first gay song.
- He might have one.
No, he does.
- He has a gay song?
- "Streets of Philadelphia."
- I guess you're right, 'cause he's singing first person.
- Oh, yeah.
- "I Was Bruised and Battered."
- So he's Tom Hanks in that song?
Is he the voice of Tom?
♪ I was bruised and battered ♪
♪ I don't know how I felt ♪
- Great song.
- I mean, he clearly was shown the film,
and then he wrote, of course--
- It's Bruce, so you're not, like, yeah.
- I guess, probably, back then,
Bruce could've played it either way,
if they said, "So, Bruce, you're writing
"from the perspective of the character."
Oh, no, no.
(laughing)
No, far from it.
No, this is--
I was touched by the film,
and it made me think about life.
But if he wanted to, he could say, "Absolutely."
I was so moved by the plight of Tom Hanks's character.
I don't know, yeah, he could go either way.
- What do you guys think of "Secret Garden"
from the Jerry Maguire soundtrack?
- Great song.
- Yeah, very good song. - Beautiful.
- Which one do you like more?
"Streets of Philadelphia." - "Streets of Philadelphia."
- Okay.
- Beautiful.
- Yeah. - Yeah, what a song.
Let's see how spooky this is.
Yeah, so this is, I think, like, 2008, 2009.
- Oh, okay, this is early in her career.
- Yeah, early Katie.
- So 13 years after Sobule.
- Shuffle beat.
♪ This was never the way I planned ♪
♪ Not my intention ♪
- Whoa. - Oh, yeah.
I forgot that she--
♪ My intention ♪
- That she used to be a little, like--
- Like Killers? - Like emo.
This just sounds like the Killers meets Paramore.
♪ It's not what I'm used to ♪
- What, did she cut her rock in the beginning?
(imitating guitar)
♪ I don't wanna try you on ♪
♪ I'm caring as for you ♪
♪ Caught my attention ♪
♪ I kissed a girl and I liked it ♪
♪ The taste of her cherry chapstick ♪
♪ I kissed a girl just to try it ♪
♪ I hope my boyfriend don't mind it ♪
♪ It felt so wrong, it felt so wrong ♪
♪ Don't mean I end up tonight ♪
♪ I kissed a girl and I liked it ♪
♪ I liked it ♪
(imitating guitar)
- Yeah.
♪ The beautiful people ♪
- Yeah.
♪ I don't even know your name ♪
♪ It doesn't matter ♪
- This doesn't sound like a fun make-out session.
(laughing)
- Well, actually, yeah. - It sounds--
- You hear those lines?
- Pretty severe.
- No, I don't even know your name.
It doesn't matter.
You're my experimental game.
- Co-written by Trent Reznor.
- What about, do you remember?
♪ Last Friday night ♪
(imitating guitar)
- That's a great song.
- Is this another Katy song?
- Oh, you know what?
I really like this song.
This is from the same album as "I Kissed a Girl."
I always preferred this song.
- My experimental game.
- This song is called "Hot and Cold."
This is the first Katy Perry song I heard
where I was like,
♪ You ♪
- I like her.
♪ Take your mind ♪
♪ Like a girl ♪
♪ Changes clothes ♪
- This line's a little harsh.
♪ Yeah, you ♪
♪ P.M.S. ♪
♪ Like a (audio cuts out) ♪
♪ I would know ♪
- Fun video.
- Yeah.
♪ How to think ♪
- '80s movie.
♪ I would speak ♪
♪ Critically ♪
♪ I should know ♪
♪ That you're no good for me ♪
♪ 'Cause you're hot and you're cold ♪
♪ You're yes, then you're no ♪
♪ You're in, then you're out ♪
♪ You're up, then you're down ♪
♪ You're wrong when it's right ♪
♪ It's black and it's white ♪
♪ We fight, we break up ♪
- Her rhymes are rough.
To me, this is just good pop songwriting.
♪ Say no ♪
♪ You ♪
♪ 'Cause you don't really like her ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ You're hot, then you're cold ♪
♪ You're yes, then you're no ♪
♪ You're in, then you're out ♪
♪ You're up, then you're down ♪
- All right, well, Jake, so you're saying
your favorite Katy Perry song is "Teenage Dream."
Let's throw that on.
♪ You think I'm pretty ♪
♪ Without any makeup on ♪
♪ You think I'm funny ♪
♪ When I tell the punchline wrong ♪
♪ I know you get me ♪
♪ So I let my walls come down ♪
♪ Down ♪
♪ Before you met me ♪
♪ I was all right ♪
♪ But things were kinda heavy ♪
♪ You brought me to life ♪
♪ Now every February ♪
♪ You'll be Valentine ♪ - February.
It's March right now, last month.
♪ Let's go all the way tonight ♪
♪ No regrets ♪
♪ Just love ♪
♪ We can dance ♪
♪ Until we die ♪
♪ You and I ♪
♪ We'll be young forever ♪
♪ You make me feel like I'm living a ♪
♪ Teenage dream ♪
♪ The way you turn me on ♪
- Bass playing is pretty Phoenix.
- Oh yeah, it is pretty Phoenix.
Yeah, this is sort of like 1901.
- Yeah, and that like guitar figure in the beginning.
♪ My heart stops ♪
♪ When you look at me ♪
- What year did "Teenage Dream" come out, Seinfeld?
- That was 2010.
- Oh yeah, one year after the big Phoenix album,
"Wolfgang Amadeus."
- Yeah.
- I have a theory about this.
I think that one of the references for the song was
"You get what you give, new radicals."
- Oh, love that song.
- Don't, right?
♪ Don't let go ♪
- Yeah.
- I think it's the same, I don't know what you call it.
You're a musician.
- Plus a little Phoenix, like the cadence of the melody.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Plus a little bit of a Phoenix production.
But she even, Katie's been doing her thing.
This song, "Never Really Over."
I feel like this is a later single.
♪ I'm losing my self-control ♪
- Okay, this is in the tropical house era.
- Yeah, this is recent.
You guys remember tropical, no, tropical house.
It was a long time ago.
- Oh, but this song.
- Like Bieber was kind of doing some tropical house.
- Yeah.
- Five years ago.
- Yeah, I just mean this is like latter period.
This is post, you remember that Hillary Clinton song
she did, the...
- Katy Perry?
- Katy Perry.
- This is Trump era.
- With the Marley.
Do you remember she did a song with one of the Marleys
that Sia wrote?
- I don't remember that song.
- It was very like, politically aware.
- This is like years after that.
- Oh, actually, no, I was wrong.
This is 2019.
Yeah, it's not that long ago.
It's Trump era.
♪ I guess it's never really over ♪
♪ Just because it's over doesn't mean it's really over ♪
♪ And if I think it over ♪
♪ Maybe you'll be coming over again ♪
♪ And I'll have to get over you all over again ♪
♪ Just because it's over doesn't mean it's really over ♪
♪ And if I think it over ♪
- Are we going too deep on Katy Perry right now?
- 2019, Trump was in the White House.
- What in my neighborhood?
♪ I guess it's time for therapy ♪
♪ I gotta rewire this pain ♪
- This is pre or post COVID?
- Pre, don't worry.
- Pre.
- Well, it's kind of blowing my mind this is from 2019.
♪ Just can't even go on the internet ♪
♪ Without even checking your name ♪
♪ Like you're also my sister ♪
♪ Checking my net worth on the internet ♪
♪ And I'll do whatever you want ♪
- Anyway.
- Dump her a crunch, Katy Perry net worth.
- Ooh, should we guess?
- Oh, I'm gonna say it's gonna be hundreds
of 400 million.
- Oh, I'm going.
- This is based on the dumb, the inaccurate.
- Yeah, that's a good guess.
- How much, 400?
I'm going 200.
- All right, then I'm gonna go 325.
- $1.
All right.
- New strategy.
- Ooh, okay, 330.
- Ooh, yeah.
- Yeah, what did you say?
- I said 325.
- Nice.
- I said 200.
- It's almost entirely pop chip money.
(laughing)
- None of these songs are actually particularly big.
That's why I wanna share them with our listeners.
(laughing)
Not a lot of people bought the Teenage Dream album,
but every one of them started an indie pop career
after that.
Very influential, not particularly a heard record.
Thank God for pop chips.
- No, it's cool to use our platform here
to really like expose the audience to music
they may not be familiar with.
- That's right.
Well, and also--
- Actually, I wasn't familiar with this music,
so I'm learning.
- No, you literally weren't.
Oh wait, sorry, I gotta play you.
Maybe we're going too far.
I kinda wanna play Jake Dark Horse
and then the song with Calvin Harris.
- He doesn't care.
- Let me Dark Horse.
- All right.
I just wanna see if you remember this at all.
- I won't.
- I love this song.
- Yeah, I remember when this came out,
it was like, it's a real moment.
What year did this come out, Seinfeld?
- Oh, this was off a huge album.
(laughing)
Also 2010, I wanna say.
Let me see.
- No, later. - Oh wait, 2013, yeah.
2013 off of Prism,
which had
Roar,
This Is How We Do.
What a great song.
♪ Make me a referee, daddy ♪
- I think this was a Max Martin.
- I don't like this.
- Hold on, just see if you like the chorus.
- Wait for that chorus.
- Wait until you hear Juicy J's full verse.
- Is it gonna go major key on the chorus?
♪ So you wanna play with magic ♪
♪ Boy you should know what you're falling for ♪
♪ Baby do you dare to do this ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm coming at you like a dark horse ♪
♪ Are you ready for, ready for ♪
♪ A perfect storm, a perfect storm ♪
♪ 'Cause what's your mind, what's your mind ♪
♪ There's no going back ♪
(beatboxing)
- My memory's that Juicy J says,
I'm gonna go to his rap.
My memory's that he says something about Jeffrey Dahmer,
which I remember being like,
that's a little too dark for a pop song.
♪ She's a beast, I call her karma ♪
♪ She eats your heart out like Jeffrey Dahmer ♪
♪ Try not to leave the home ♪
♪ Shorty heart is on steroids ♪
♪ 'Cause her love is so strong ♪
♪ You might fall in love when you meet her ♪
♪ If you get the chance you better keep her ♪
♪ She's sweet as pie but if you break her heart ♪
♪ She turn cold as a freezer ♪
♪ That fairy tale ending put a knight in shiny armor ♪
♪ She can be my sleeping beauty ♪
♪ I'm gonna put her in a coma ♪
♪ Damn I think I love her ♪
♪ Shorty so bad, she's buggin' ♪
- This is such an era.
- Damn I think I love her.
(laughing)
- Eat your heart out like Jeffrey Dahmer.
- Like Jeffrey Dahmer. - Literally.
- Not detailed, metaphorically I think.
- She'll eat your heart out like Jeffrey Dahmer.
An iconic, influential artist and--
- Smart investor. - And smart investor, perhaps.
- And I would say to connect it to the Super Bowl,
very strong halftime show.
- Oh yeah, she did a famous halftime show.
- One of the best.
- I think you can catch her hosting American Idol.
- Still?
- Yeah, 8 p.m. on Fox.
Well check your local listings.
- I wonder if she still rides for Popchips.
- Wow, still?
- No, I mean she's huge.
Also, those kind of gigs hosting American Idol,
I think the host, they're probably making more money
doing that than they made grinding it out
in their arena tours.
Okay.
Moving on.
- Deep sigh.
This is 25 minutes on Katy Perry.
- Oh man.
There was a Bob Dylan interview during our hiatus
that made some waves,
at least in the Bob Dylan fan community.
Bob sat down with the Wall Street Journal.
- Yeah.
- In the interview, people were excited
because Bob talked a bunch about music that he liked.
He was talking about younger musicians
that he's found interesting.
I know he said something about Grace Potter,
Julian Casablanca.
He very specifically wrote Julian Casablanca,
which I think knowing Bob is some,
I don't know why, somehow it's on purpose.
Jack White, Rag and Bone Man.
But also, he says something about a Duff McKagan solo song.
And you know, Duff McKagan famous as a member
of Guns N' Roses.
I'm sure he's got some cool solo music,
but it's not something I've heard
that many people talk about.
So to have the great Bob Dylan shout him out
was pretty interesting.
And he doesn't just shout him out as just like,
Bob, you know, who are some artists you like?
You know, Duff McKagan's doing his thing.
He really goes hard for him.
They ask, how do you discover new music?
This was the question Bob was asked.
Said, mostly by accident, by chance.
If I go looking for something, I usually don't find it.
In fact, I never find it.
I walk into things intuitively
when I'm most likely not looking for anything.
There's a Duff McKagan song called "Chip Away"
that has profound meaning for me.
It's a graphic song, chip away, chip away,
like Michelangelo breaking up solid marble stone
to discover the form of King David inside.
He didn't build him from the ground up.
He chipped away the stone until he discovered the king.
It's like my own songwriting.
I overwrite something, then I chip away lines and phrases
until I get to the real thing.
Shooter Jennings produced that record.
It's a great song.
- Duff was just like, oh, hell yeah.
- I mean, yeah. - Come in full circle too
after G&R covering, you know,
maybe this is Bob's way of paying back Duff
and Guns N' Roses.
After they covered "Knocking on Heaven's Door,"
we covered this on the show.
I mean, Bob was just sort of like--
- Kind of a breadhead at the time.
He just wanted the money and he made a lot of money.
- Hey, Axl, why don't you cover more of my songs?
- Yeah, wait, that was the real thing.
And then Axl said--
- Oh, actually, Bob, I gotta say, sir,
we, as you might've heard,
we've been covering "Knocking on Heaven's Door" in concert
and I hope you understand how much we look up to you
and how covering your song is our way of honoring you
and your contribution to American music.
And we actually do have plans on recording it in the studio.
- You should put it on your next record.
- Actually, we're thinking about it
and it'd be so meaningful.
- You should make it a single.
- We might, Bob, but first and foremost,
we just want you to understand how much we look up to you,
admire your song craft, what you've done with your career,
everything you've contributed
to the American musical ecosystem.
- Well, if it makes me money, that sounds good to me, son.
- Oh, all right. - Maybe one of those
- Market clubs.
(laughing)
- All right, Bob.
- I don't work here.
- Yeah, I don't work here.
(laughing)
He's just like in their dressing room.
He just barged in.
- Sure.
- The last one.
- Bob, that is the last one.
I don't give a (beep)
- So he was a Duff guy.
- Duff head.
- But yeah, it's classic.
- Speaking of Duff.
(laughing)
- It's classic Bob to be,
well, first of all, let's throw it on because.
- Yeah, I've actually never heard the song.
I meant to look it up after we texted about this.
- So this is Duff McKagan, "Chip Away."
♪ Talking heads ♪
♪ I'm making dollars ♪
♪ It's like doing a crack ♪
♪ Day after day ♪
- It's like doing crack day after day.
♪ Talking taxes ♪
♪ I'm business fathers ♪
♪ It'll work this time ♪
♪ They say ♪
♪ Gotta rise up ♪
♪ Gotta keep on fighting ♪
♪ You know we've seen this all before ♪
- This is real cool.
♪ This too shall stop ♪
- It's not bad.
♪ If we keep our heads down ♪
- Very stoned.
♪ It'll work this time ♪
♪ They say ♪
♪ Chip away, chip away ♪
♪ I'm gonna throw him ♪
♪ Chip away, gonna crave ♪
♪ For something new ♪
♪ Chip away, chip away ♪
- Oh yeah, I like that fiddle.
Tasty.
♪ Can you hear me calling ♪
♪ Gonna wait 'til this is through ♪
♪ Oh, history ♪
♪ Has had some cravings ♪
♪ Some bad ass mother (beep) ♪
♪ Didn't give a (beep) ♪
- Whoa, okay.
♪ If y'all would laugh ♪
♪ Might lose the holler ♪
♪ Oh, they put an end to this ♪
♪ Chip away, chip away ♪
♪ I'm gonna throw him ♪
♪ Chip away, gonna crave ♪
♪ For something new ♪
♪ Chip away, chip away ♪
♪ Can you hear me calling ♪
♪ Gonna wait 'til this is through ♪
- Tasteful.
♪ I hear it often nowadays ♪
♪ The earth is flat ♪
♪ Or so they say ♪
♪ Living beings came to be ♪
♪ I was sucked one day ♪
- Wait, Seinfeld.
I think it was Duff.
One of the guys from Guns N' Roses
was an early Starbucks investor.
- Well, Duff's from Seattle.
- Oh yes, I think he was an early Starbucks investor.
- Yeah, so in '94, Duff decided to invest 100K
in some local companies.
He chose Starbucks, Microsoft, and Amazon.
- Jesus Christ.
Rock and roll, baby.
- What is that worth today?
- That's like a full-on, you went back to the past
and told yourself what you're investing in.
- That's like outperforming Warren Buffett.
- Yeah.
- Like America's top investors by return percentage.
Warren Buffett, Duff McKagan.
- What's Duff's net worth?
- Yeah.
- Celebrity net worth, Duff McKagan, 79.
Right on, Duff.
- What's Slash?
- All right, here we go.
Slash celebrity net worth. - 130.
- 90 million, wait.
- Yeah, they're not taking into account
Duff's savvy investing.
- Oh wait, is that Axl Rose?
♪ Chip away, chip away ♪
Oh yeah, 90 million.
Why does he?
- You know what? - I love the thing
about Bob sitting in the back of the tour bus,
earbuds in, hoodie up.
- Just listening to "Chip Away" over and over again.
Actually, "Chip Away" is the type of song,
this might be hard to describe,
but it's exactly the type of song
that I feel like we all might get into,
like listening to kind of like a late record
by like a famous dude,
nobody else is checking it out that much.
You're like, I wanna listen to that,
and you throw it on, and you're just like,
honestly, I really like track five.
It'd totally be a song like this.
- Yeah. - You'd just be like,
♪ Chip away, chip away ♪
- Yeah, the next day you're singing it,
you're like, what is it?
Oh yeah, that's that Duff song.
- Yeah, it's actually pretty good.
Okay, all right, Bob.
It's a solid song.
So, you know, like we said, Bob described
when he hears the song, Duff McKagan's song, "Chip Away,"
he thinks about Michelangelo breaking up
the solid marble stone to discover the form of King David.
And actually, I have some old texts
from the TC Text thread where Jake said,
"Amazing, first episode of 2023, Duff McKagan deep dive."
- Okay, we're doing it.
- And then Jake said, "Also, the David
"is maybe the greatest artwork of all time.
"Just saying, I'm right there with Bob."
And then I said, "Didn't know you were David head.
"Is it number one across all art forms for you?"
Jake said, "Generally not a huge sculpture fan,
"but it's the scale of David that makes it so amazing.
"Like, I don't understand how he did it.
"It seems otherworldly.
"In terms of iconic world historical art pieces,
"it's a funny conversation to have.
"David is the goat, bro."
So Jake says, "Greatest work of art, the David.
"Greatest rock song, Bob O'Reilly."
But by work of art, you mean anything
that a human being made to express themselves with.
- I think I meant greatest work of art in this context,
visual art.
- Okay, but--
- You know, like a painting or a sculpture.
- All right, but like, you know,
this is single elimination.
It's March Madness time.
You got it down to the David on one conference,
in the Eastern Conference, Bob O'Reilly in the Western.
Now let's get serious.
Which is better, the David or Bob O'Reilly?
- Damn.
You stumped me on this one, man.
- I would just, yeah, that was interesting to me.
- You stumped me.
- That you love the David so much.
So you like the David more than--
- Well, it's just like one of those things
where you're just like, it's so huge.
Yeah, so I asked if you guys had seen it in person.
- No, I've never been to Florence.
- It's at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
It's okay, we've all seen old classical sculptures
of the naked male form.
- Sure.
- They're everywhere.
You go to a museum, you go to the Getty.
- Sure.
- There's a bunch of them there.
But this thing is like, Seinfeld number crunch?
What's the height of the David?
It's immense.
It's on a pedestal.
I mean, basically the toes start at like,
where your eye level is.
- Jake?
- And then, yeah.
- 17 feet.
- Okay, I was gonna guess 20.
- Oh, that's a big boy.
- It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you see it--
- It's larger than life.
- It's this immense, perfect sculpture of a man
out of one, it wasn't like, put together like Bob was saying.
It was one giant block of marble.
I just don't understand, I guess I like it so much
'cause I just don't understand how he did it.
A painting, 'cause I'm a painter, I've done a lot of it.
There are paintings I see where I'm just like,
I don't know how they did that.
But I kinda still maybe can figure it out.
- Even some of the greatest paintings of all time.
- You're just like, okay, I can kind of see how they did that.
- And also, with the painting, no disrespect to the art form,
but you can do a lot of cheating.
So, you know, like sometimes the X-ray, Leonardo da Vinci,
he's considered, he's a top guy.
He's big in that world.
- Top guy, top guy, nick ratings.
- Then they look through it, turns out,
he was painting over little flubs, he was using a pencil.
- He'd make mistakes.
- Do you respect that?
When a guy uses a pencil?
- Absolutely.
- You respect that?
- Oh, yeah.
- It's not cheating?
- Not cheating.
- One thing they should have to say at the gallery, though.
You know, when I paint a picture of like a Pizza Hut
or Cheesecake Factory, I'm free-handing.
I'm not using any sort of pencils or rulers
or any sort of rejection system.
- See, that's what I'm talking about.
- I just know intuitively the perfect shape
of every little piece of tile and shingle.
- 'Cause you studied the--
- I can just do that first time out.
- Because you're a pro.
- No, and also, that's right,
because you're out here selling paintings.
- Paintings.
- Paint.
- Not pencilings, not rulerings.
- Not sketches.
- Not sketches.
Right, 'cause you haven't worked with that.
Sketches, that's when you take a pencil--
- It's oil and canvas, that's all it is.
- Projection system, that's interesting,
'cause there are a lot of hacky, lesser artists
using projection systems to--
- You're looking at 'em.
- Oh.
(laughing)
- You don't use a projection system?
- I'll use an Epson digital projector
to transfer the information that I plan out.
- See, this is the thing.
- I transfer the information onto the canvas.
- I took you at face value,
just like I took Katy Perry's mini fridge, mini bar store.
- Okay, but you always paint them.
You're not using 3D printers yet.
- They are painted.
- Okay, by hand.
- By hand.
- Your hand.
- My hand.
- It's a mechanical hand.
(laughing)
Actually, you know, Bob--
- Yeah, quote unquote, my hand.
- Bob, yes, it's my hand.
It belongs to nobody else.
I paid $25,999 for it from a Korean robotics company,
and it's mine.
And when I said it was my hand, I meant it was my hand.
You know, Bob got in trouble because when the book came out,
the song book, he, I don't wanna say he,
I don't wanna put it all on the great Bob, but--
- The publisher.
- The publisher was selling these expensive signed copies
as is typical, and I guess they found out
that a lot of them were signed,
they kind of used some fancy word,
like using some kind of like auto signer.
- Right.
- What am I, you mean a printer?
You mean just like a stamp?
I don't know what they mean.
But, and then, you know, you gotta feel for Bob.
Man's in his 80s, and he said he did start to sign them,
and then he had like vertigo or some kind of health issue
that made it impossible, and there was a deadline,
and he was assured by people who worked with him,
like this is done, this still counts as your signature.
Like literally, it is like my hand.
No, no, Bob, this still counts.
This is not fake.
This is still a one of a kind printed Bob Dylan signature
that you authorized, so that's the same.
And then people found out, they were upset,
and he, clearly he felt bad.
He went, he put out a press release saying,
"I was assured that this was normal.
"It's only because I had vertigo."
- Anyway, I love that you're writing for the David so hard.
- Well, yeah, so you're subtracting,
you have this huge block of marble.
- Right. - You're subtracting.
And I just, I can't even imagine just like--
- Do you think he used pencils?
- I have no idea how he does it, how he did it.
Any of those, any of that sort of art form,
but at that scale, I mean--
- It was aliens.
It was ancient aliens.
I mean, all the, and that's how they--
- One mistake.
Also, it's marble.
I mean, you're chipping away.
It's like, what if it like breaks in a weird way?
Or like, I just don't understand how you would do that.
I just don't understand.
- I mean, all, and does Bernini,
I've seen some of the Berninis.
Those are incredible too.
- Yeah.
- How could you even figure that out
and have it so hyper-realistic and--
- That's one thing that, yeah, I don't think people,
I'm sure there are people who are doing it,
but you just don't see, like,
you know, you go into a gallery in Chelsea,
and you're like, "Oh, marble sculpture."
- Right.
- You just don't see it.
I don't know.
- And if somebody was doing it now,
you could totally picture a young artist.
- Machine routered.
- Yeah, it would totally be 3D printed, machine cut,
and it would be some sort of, it'd be like a bit.
- Right, all this stuff I found,
like this internet porn, and they're turning to--
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- This is Mayor Hamburger had (beep) his own (beep)
in marble.
Did you carve it by hand?
It's like, no, I sent an email to a factory in China,
said, "I need a three-foot high Mr. Mayor Hamburger's
"(beep) his own (beep)."
Can you send it to this gallery in Chelsea?
Get it by next month?
I mean, does that ever, actually,
does that ever happen in the art world, Jake,
where it's like, because you have the people
who still enjoy, I know there's a lot of people,
like you paint by hand, you're interested
in like the history of painting,
you might have some slight different tools
at your disposal, but in a way,
you are doing what people have been doing
for hundreds of years, and kind of an ancient tradition.
- Thousands.
- Thousands of years.
- Going back to the cave paintings in Lascaux in France.
- Absolutely.
- An unbroken tradition, whereas today,
that you also get these big conceptual artists, right?
Basically the idea guys who might come in and just,
and maybe their ideas are great,
maybe it's some exciting thing,
people are gonna walk in the gallery
and the first thing you see is the,
are there situations where somebody who's studied,
painstakingly learned how to sculpt or paint,
ends up just kind of like working for,
like just an ideas guy?
Is that, that happens all the time?
- For sure.
- Like you're somebody who's been like,
studying the greats, painting since childhood,
went to art school, you're so concerned,
then you just get like--
- You're working for Jeff Koons,
or I mean that's probably a good gig,
but yeah, you're working for, absolutely.
- And maybe they're cool,
but maybe it could also just be like a bozo,
just being like, "I need an exact replica of the Mona Lisa."
- I'm sure.
- Except you can write like, "She sucks," on the bottom.
- There definitely are fine artists
that have stuff painted for them in China.
I mean, it's part of the like conceptual,
kind of rigor or story of the art.
- Like they're making commentary on the global marketplace.
- Yeah.
- Capitalism.
- Yeah.
And then you're like, "Okay,
"well I have this kind of mediocre painting to show for it.
"Awesome."
- Right.
- But yeah, I mean, yeah, that's--
- More of the story.
- That's definitely a thing.
- Okay, but I can see in this context,
that the sheer ingenuity of like,
"How was the David made?"
And why that over any other sculpture you've ever seen?
- Just the scale.
The size of it is just like,
you walk into the room and you're just like,
"Oh my God, that's crazy."
- But you must've seen some other big,
what about the Statue of Liberty?
Why's it gotta be something Italian?
- That's not hand carved out of a piece of marble.
Although that's true, I don't know how they made that.
I mean, honestly, Mount Rushmore is pretty impressive.
(laughing)
It's a mountain.
- James is like, "Big stuff."
- I mean, it's like, if you're Michelangelo
and you mess up the David, and maybe he did.
Maybe this is his third try and he nailed it.
Mount Rushmore, you kind of only have one shot.
No, I don't understand that.
I don't understand how you do that kind of stuff.
It's wild to me.
- Has there ever been a movie like,
like, you know, Ghostbusters style,
where like, the David gets like haunted
or like struck by like a lightning
or like come to life, kind of like walk around.
- He gets a big (beep)
- Yeah, like gets a big (beep)
Has it ever happened?
I feel like I've seen it with Mount Rushmore in movies.
Like George Washington's like, "Ooh."
But like, do you know what I'm talking about?
- Oh, you're like a knight at the museum?
- Like a knight at the museum style.
There's Mount Rushmore.
- That'd be fun to make like a real cheap indie versions,
Jake's a knight at the Uffizi Gallery.
- Yeah, there we go.
(laughing)
- When an American painter finds himself
accidentally locked in the Uffizi Gallery
in Florence late at night.
(laughing)
He goes face to face with his all time favorite work of art,
except the David's like really pissed off or something.
- Not favorite, greatest.
- Greatest, I see.
Now, but I'm with you.
There have been times when I've seen large scale,
like for instance, in Japan,
there's a whole bunch of these famous, like huge Buddhas.
Some of which were made in like around the year 700,
for instance, and you see these like really old,
sometimes they're made out of bronze or something.
And just to be like kind of confronted by that.
Yeah, the scale, it is, it kind of knocks you out.
- Yeah, I can picture that.
- Just holding up like a huge hand
and in this like beautiful space
that was just made for people to come from far and wide,
just to like sit and look up
at this representation of the Buddha.
- That reminds me when I went to Mexico City,
like five or six years ago,
went to the big museum there and there's this huge,
I don't know the name of it,
but this huge sculpture of like the sun god.
It's just like mounted onto the wall,
but it's all stone, it must weigh like some ungodly amount.
- Like from the pre-Columbian times, like on Mayans.
- Yeah, yeah, it's not by like a famous artist.
- Big sculptures rule.
And actually, how about down in Rio, the Cristo?
- Never seen it, but yeah.
- But it's like, it's iconic.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- It's sick, arms out.
How big is that boy?
Is that a big boy?
- Shout out to the Statue of Liberty.
- Statue of Liberty?
How tall is it?
- Oh no, no, the one down in Rio.
- Oh, the Jesus?
- Yeah, I always call it the Cristo.
- Oh yeah, yeah, the Cristo.
That is 98 feet.
- Oh, it's massive.
Right, yeah, 'cause when you see it in like a movie,
it's like a helicopter shot, you could be like,
what's that, 10 feet?
10, 15 feet?
- Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't have thought it was that big.
- Yeah, massive.
- I mean, it's almost verges sort of
into like the seven wonders of the world.
- Oh yeah.
- And I went to the--
- Colossus of Rhodes.
- Colossus of Rhodes, yeah.
- I've been to China once and I went to the Great Wall,
which is insane, but I couldn't help but just think
of like the slave labor that went into making the--
- Right.
- The Great Wall is sort of beautiful
and it's breathtaking and again, it's scale.
- Right.
- But it's not like aesthetic in the way that like
the sun god, Mexico City, or the David is.
- Right.
- It's just like brutal.
- Last question, you Grand Canyon fan?
- This is a great shame.
I've never been.
And I need to go. - Oh, interesting.
- It's on my list.
Have you been?
- No, I've never been.
In fact, there was--
- Road trip.
- T.C., road trip.
- I had the chance to go when Vampire Weekend was on tour
and I felt like, eh, I don't need to see that.
- Really, dude?
You do.
- And that's why I'm trying to like reconnect.
- Let's go.
- That's why I like that you're ranking the David
as the goat because I do feel like there's a lot
of just things that feel so familiar to me
that I probably would pass up the chance.
Like I've never gone up to the Statue of Liberty.
And now I kind of understand as I get older,
like no, it's cool to go see these things,
even if they seem basic.
Like I told you how we were in Japan spending time
at Mount Fuji.
- Oh yeah, yeah.
- And I'd seen it from the plane before,
but to actually go right up to it,
to go up it a bit, climb up,
there was something about it.
You're like, this is the best mountain in the world.
(laughing)
No, there's a reason.
- Greatest mountain in the world.
- Greatest mountain in the world, Mount Fuji.
Greatest regard, the David.
Greatest rock song?
- Bob O'Reilly.
- Greatest pop song, "Hot and Cold" by Katy Perry.
All right.
- Teenage Dream.
- Let's get into the top five.
- It's time for the top five.
Five on iTunes.
- We're gonna be comparing the top five hits right now
with 1989.
Why 1989?
I actually have no idea.
- 'Cause this is episode 189.
- Okay, wow.
That's crazy.
We've created hundreds of hours of content.
- Top shelf content.
- That's right.
- Greatest internet radio show.
- Time crisis, hands down.
The number five song this week in 1989,
speaking of Duff McKagan,
it's his band, Guns N' Roses with "Paradise City."
- Jake, do you remember where you were
when you first saw this music video?
- Probably in my living room.
- Do you remember it?
I remember it vividly. - Yeah, I remember it.
- Yeah.
- Jordan Stein's basement.
- Oh, nice, dude.
Right at the show.
- I don't know if I've ever seen the video.
Is there something special about it?
- No, it's just cool concert footage,
or them on tour.
- Yeah.
- Like sound checking in an empty arena.
- Yeah.
- Like an intimate kind of view of the tour.
- Like real rock star (beep) though.
Like.
- Yeah.
- Very cool.
- The beginning of the song is awesome.
Like this part rules.
- This synth is pretty.
- He's also doing a lot of his snake dancing.
- Yeah.
- With the synth, they thought it was kind of like
a 70s, proggy synth.
(imitates synth)
Okay, yeah, this part was so sick.
Also, this is a pretty wild song.
Just like does the chorus,
and then just like. - Yeah.
- Another minute of instrumentalist jamming.
(imitates drum roll)
- Kind of.
And then they go to the like,
riff rock part.
- The whistle?
- The whistle's tight.
I picture Axl on like the catcher's protective gear
with the whistle.
This song was number,
peaked at number five on the Billboard 100.
♪ Number five ♪
(imitates drum roll)
I wonder if like when this came out,
it felt a little bit throwback.
- I think G and R kind of did, in general.
- Yeah, 'cause it is hair metal,
but it's also like,
I bet this felt a little more 70s
than some of their contemporaries.
- Definitely that intro.
♪ Take me down to a paradise city ♪
♪ Where the grass is green ♪
♪ And the girls are pretty ♪
♪ Oh won't you please take me home ♪
- Well, I remember like,
watching, like seeing an interview with Axl on MTV
when I was a kid,
and him being like,
"We're just like a great 70s band."
- Oh, really?
- And I was, I remember being really confused.
I was like, "What?
Like it's 1988.
What are you talking about?"
Like, "You're like the best band in 1988.
Why do you mean you're..."
And I didn't know, like,
I couldn't parse out like,
"Oh, this is early 70s Stones,"
or like, "Skinnerd."
- And he was probably just looking around
at his contemporaries, like,
Miley Crue and Poison,
and I bet he was just like,
"This sucks."
- Yeah, yeah.
♪ Hey, tell me what you're gonna believe ♪
♪ Take me down to a paradise city ♪
♪ Where the grass is green ♪
♪ And the girls are pretty ♪
- Yeah, Stones, Skinnerd, then Lizzy.
- Yeah.
But what was Joe Walsh's band?
Like, Funk 49?
- Uh-huh.
Oh, for sure.
- What's that band called?
- James Gang?
- Oh, James Gang.
- Yeah.
- Cool dudes in the 80s are always like,
"It's all about James Gang."
- Yeah.
(upbeat rock music)
- Yeah, this structure.
What else was happening like this?
- This part?
♪ So far away ♪
♪ So far away ♪
♪ So far away ♪
♪ Can't see the end ♪
♪ Can't see the road up on high ♪
♪ Oh, just a little broken heart, yeah ♪
♪ Turn me around and take me back to the start ♪
♪ I must feel the roots of my heart ♪
♪ Heart of mine ♪
♪ I'll sing it over and over again ♪
- What is this song about?
'Cause it kind of seems like,
obviously he's talking about the paradise city
and the choruses,
but then in some of the verses,
he's describing a more dystopian environment.
- Axl Rose told Hit Parader
that the verses are more about being in the jungle.
So LA.
- Right.
- And the chorus is more like being
in the Midwest or somewhere.
- Indiana.
It's pretty sick.
Welcome to the jungle in Paradise City.
It's two sides of the same coin.
♪ Yeah, take me down to the city ♪
♪ Where the grass is green and the moon is bright red ♪
♪ Oh, won't you take me home ♪
♪ Home ♪
♪ Home ♪
- Sounds like they wrote this in the back of a tour bus
coming back from San Francisco
before Appetite got this.
(rock music)
Very cinematic.
Picturing them driving down I-5.
- This double time, this is so '70s.
I mean, this is so Skinner.
- Yeah, right.
Yeah, no, exactly.
Yeah, this is like the end of Freebird, right?
- Yeah.
♪ I wanna go home ♪
♪ I want to be ♪
- Picture the white Econoline pulling into the Taco Bell
in and out in Kettleman City, 1985, '86.
- Yeah.
- Let me get the double double.
Slashers in the backseat working out the riffs.
- What a time.
- They're looking for a place
that'll sell them another bottle of Jack.
- Yeah.
- Just trying to keep the party going.
Paradise City got a renewed boost in 2022
after being included in the trailer and film,
Thor, Love and Thunder.
- Oh.
- Missed that one.
- Thank you, Marvel.
- And you guys see it?
- Yeah.
- You saw it?
- I did.
- With your son?
- With my son.
- Did it roll?
Everybody says the Thor movies are the best ones.
- The Thor movies are the best ones.
I'm not a Marvel guy.
If you're gonna do superheroes, make it fun.
- Yeah.
- Make it funny.
- Deadpool, the Thor movies.
- Uh-huh.
- So this one, and these are Taika Waititi ones,
so they already have a sense of humor.
- I'm excited for the Thor reimagined, the dark Thor.
(laughing)
- But it's not just-
- Enough jokes, Thor.
- I'll say what's interesting about it
is that it's not just used.
It's integral.
The Guns N' Roses catalog is very fundamental
to that whole movie.
- Is Thor a GNR fan?
- Either they say he's a GNR fan
or it's just-
- Every time Thor hears Paradise City, he goes Goblin Mode?
- Yes, it is like that.
So it's not just like, oh, they use it at a cool moment.
The way, you know, the Metallica, that Metallica song,
which one is it, is using Stranger Things
and it had a huge boost from-
- Master of Puppets.
- Yeah, Master of Puppets.
It's like, that's just sort of like,
oh, it's a cool moment.
This is very much a part of it.
- Thor's like, Loki, play Appetite for Destruction,
my Appetite for Destruction tape.
And he's like, psh, and he's like, Goblin Mode!
♪ We've been dancing with Mr. Brownstone ♪
- And Gen Z.
- All the deep album cuts.
- Gen Z's just loving it.
- Full Rocket Queen.
- The Zoomers had not heard of Guns N' Roses.
- Guns N' Roses, it's like the David, you know?
Seems basic, but once you actually-
- No, that's real.
- Spend some time with it, you're like, damn.
- Yeah.
I'm sure there's actually,
how many American kids do you think,
or young adults, do you think,
went on some sort of school trip or family trip to Italy,
dragged to Florence to go see the art,
jamming Appetite for Destruction on their-
- Oh, like in 1988?
- Yeah, on their headphones.
They get dragged into the Uffizi Gallery,
see the David, and they're like,
all right, that is pretty sick, actually.
- Yeah.
- And actually, this is like,
chocolate and peanut butter or whatever, man.
This is like, Appetite for Destruction,
and the David is like,
the height of Western civilization, bro.
- Absolutely.
- And here we are, 35 years later, being like,
♪ Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down ♪
- So, you know, there's like three big, pivotal moments
in Thor, Love and Thunder.
- Where they, where they, no, no, no.
- And they use, "Sweet child of mine,
"welcome to the jungle,"
and then the final one is "November rain."
- Whoa.
All right.
♪ Do you need some time on your own ♪
- I guess why not?
All right, the number five song this week
in the modern times,
Metro Boomin featuring The Weeknd with "Creepin'."
No N21, Savage.
(soulful music)
♪ Just can't believe this, man ♪
♪ Metro Boomin wants some more ♪
♪ Somebody said they saw you ♪
- So this is like, this is like the Fugees.
- No.
- Yeah, that's, this is--
♪ Ready or not ♪
- But do you know the original sample?
- Oh, the original, it's a cover.
- Enya, Delfonics.
(laughing)
- Oh.
- Oh, the Delfonics had that song.
♪ Ready or not ♪
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
♪ Year after ♪
- But the beat is an Enya sample.
- And somebody else did, "I Don't Wanna Know."
Was that like Mario?
- Yeah, this is J. Soul.
- J. Soul?
- Yeah, this is "Keep It on the Low," it's a cover.
- His name is J. Soul?
- Yeah.
- I don't remember J. Soul at all, sorry.
It's not Mario?
- Oh, no, no, it's Mario, sorry, no.
It's the Mario Wynard song,
and then P. Diddy did the cover of it.
- Wow.
- So wait, are the guys from the Delfonics
credited here in the songwriters?
- No, here's the thing, Jake.
Jake, here's the thing.
The Fugees song took a small piece of an Enya song.
♪ You, when you, when you, when you ♪
They did their song and they sang Delfonics on top.
Subsequently, other people sampled the same Enya song
without using the Delfonics.
So in this song, they're not actually referencing
the "Ready or Not" part.
- They're not singing "Ready or Not."
- Yeah, but they're referencing this other song, "Mario."
- I have that so ingrained in my head, the Fugees version.
- Right.
- It didn't even occur to me.
I thought that Weeknd was singing "Ready or Not."
- Right, right, right.
But he's singing, ♪ I don't wanna know ♪
- And do you remember the Mario Wynand's Diddy version?
- Yeah.
- I feel like there was a good--
- ♪ If you're creepin' ♪
And that's why the song's called "Creepin',"
'cause that comes from that Mario song.
♪ If you're creepin' ♪
I kinda remember that song.
- It was a great song.
All right, the number four song in '89,
Bobby Brown with "Roni."
I mean, he's talking about tenderoni, right?
- Rice-a-roni.
- Rice-a-roni.
Right rice.
I like that that Rice-a-roni was branded
as that San Francisco treat.
- Yeah.
- San Francisco was just like--
- What does that mean?
- Yeah, man, like--
- On the trolley?
- I'm gonna eat some San Francisco food tonight.
You're like a housewife in Dallas
and you're like, you know what?
Let's give the kids something a little exotic tonight.
That San Francisco treat.
- Let's give 'em a treat.
Rice.
♪ It's about a roni ♪
♪ She's sweet and it's a good ♪
- Okay, so this song's actually--
- Rice-a-roni.
- This song was written by Babyface.
"Roni" is short for tenderoni,
which was a stovetop macaroni sold
from the 1950s to the 1980s.
I did not know that.
The first known usage of tenderoni as a term of affection
was the OJ song "She's Only a Woman" in 1975,
and of course, the great popularizer of the term,
Michael Jackson in PYT.
- He says tenderoni in PYT?
Must have been a pretty popular product.
- Actually, that kind of reminds me,
this is not exactly the same thing,
but it's like, of course, now looking back,
tenderoni, it makes sense that it would come from macaroni,
but I didn't know it was actually a macaroni,
and I found out a weird one too,
'cause another kind of like suffix
that you take for granted is a dumpster.
So of course, we know what a dumpster is.
- Sure.
- And dumpster has led the stir suffix.
There's all sorts of like,
you could call something the something stir,
but dumpster's the original thing
that had stir at the end.
- What's another thing you call a stir?
- Well, you could call somebody by their name,
like the Nickster.
- No, but that's a good,
there are other versions, I can't think of it.
- So let me get a number crunch on hyphen stir suffix words.
But look, there's like the '90s SNL thing
of adding it as a joke.
The Nickster, the Jakester.
- Right, Buster.
- Yeah, that might predate it.
- Youngster, Huckster, Spinster, Teamster.
- Teamster may be post-dumpster.
Well, anyway, but this is focusing on the word dumpster.
I kind of thought like, great word.
And at the time I was kind of thinking,
well, like, yeah, it's like,
obviously you dump stuff into it,
and you call it a dumpster,
'cause that's like what makes it a thing.
And I was kind of like, that vaguely made sense.
But actually the reason it's called a dumpster
is that the dumpsters, we know it,
was invented by the Dempster brothers.
- Oh, wow, okay.
And they just like, nah, it's a dumpster.
- No, like if they had been like the Kowalski brothers,
it'd be called the Dumpski.
- But their name sounds already like dumpster.
That's almost-- - No, no, that's my point.
Is that their last-- - Dempster's too Jewish.
- No, no. - We gotta go with dumpster.
- No, if they were Jewish, we'd be called Dumpstein.
- If they were Polish-- - Oh, man,
someone just dumped their trash in the dumpsteen again.
- In the dumpsteen.
- You gotta put a padlock on that dumpsteen, man,
otherwise this is gonna get crashed.
- 2020 is a dumpsteen fire.
If they were Polish, it would be a Dumpski.
And if they were Italian, it might've been like Dumpio.
- Okay, Dempster brothers wiki.
Dempster dumped, okay.
This is amazing.
The Dempster Dumpmaster.
- Dumpmaster?
- Dumpmaster is great.
The Dempster Dumpmaster introduced in the 1950s
was the first commercially successful
front-loading garbage truck in the United States.
It was a truck.
The product uses the Dempster dumpster system
of mechanically emptying standardized metal containers,
which had been patented by the company in 1937.
It had arms in the front to pick up the dumpster
and lifted it over the cab to tip it into the hopper.
- 'Cause that's what a dumpster is.
It's a big thing that a specialized truck
can pick up and dump.
- Exactly.
The rearward traveling compacting panel
compressed the garbage stored in the truck
and was also used to push it out the door at the back
when it was being emptied.
- But my point--
- That's a huge breakthrough.
- Yeah, so my point is that--
- The Dempster dumpster.
- It's called a dumpster,
not just 'cause you add stir to something.
You would only think to do that
if you were one of the Dempsters.
- Yes.
- And if they had had a different last name,
it could have had a totally different--
- The Longstreth brothers, it would have been--
- Wouldn't have worked.
- It would have been a dumpstreth.
- It just would have just faded into obscurity.
- Ezra, have you ever--
- The Dempster dumpmaster.
- Have you ever been referred to as a songster?
- Okay, yeah, songster, that is something people say.
I think that's a post-dumpster word.
And I guess you're right, when you say jester,
there are these words that obviously predate dumpster,
but I think the idea of you just add stir as a thing,
he's a songster.
Yeah, I think that's post-dumpster,
and we owe that to the Dempster brothers' last name.
- Thank you for your service.
- And I think actually the patent expired or something,
so they don't even own the word anymore.
- Oh, so the public domain?
- Yeah.
- Get ready for the dumpstreth.
(laughing)
- Using my patented dumpstreth technology.
Industrial waste management will never be the same.
The number four song in 2023, SZA with "Snooze."
Jake, you know who SZA is?
- I mean, I've heard of her.
- One of the biggest artists of the moment.
- This sounds cool.
- Out of New Jersey.
- I'm feeling it.
- Yeah, she's from very close to where I grew up
in New Jersey.
♪ I testify for you ♪
♪ I do that three more times again ♪
♪ I testify for you ♪
♪ I'm so that like you ♪
♪ That I do it all and I'm over it ♪
♪ You're scared to do it ♪
♪ I'm not ♪
♪ Long as you joking now with me ♪
♪ I ain't got it ♪
- Whoa, Babyface is credited on this song.
Is it like a sample or did he actually work on it?
- Wow, 'cause--
- Yeah, he was on it.
- Weird how that lines up sometimes.
- Yeah.
- Babyface wrote "Roni" in '82.
- Yeah, Babyface--
- 40 years ago.
- Babyface had the number four song in '89 and 2023.
- All right, let's keep moving.
- This sounds good though.
- It's good.
The number three song in '89, "New Kids on the Block".
You've got it, "The Right Stuff".
- Oh yeah, this one.
- This is like one of the first pop songs
I was kind of aware of.
I was five in 1980.
I just kind of remember kids at school
like doing jokes about the right stuff.
- Weird Al Yankovic has a great parody of this song
called "The White Stuff" about the--
- That Oreos?
- Oreo cream filling, yeah.
Pretty good.
- That's pretty rough.
The white stuff.
- Yeah, it sounds like--
- Yikes.
- Sounds like something--
- That could go a lot of different directions.
- Well, he's very specific in the lyrics, so if you--
- This is written and produced by Maurice Starr,
who was also the architect of "New Edition",
who famously came out before "New Kids on the Block".
So I guess Maurice Starr was like,
"I'm gonna make essentially a white 'New Edition'".
- And Bobby Brown was from "New Edition", right?
- Exactly, yeah.
- So it's all lining up in '89.
- And in the weird way that things can work,
like this song, "Honey Success",
sort of leaves to Mark Wahlberg starring in "Boogie Nights".
- In a way.
- In a weird way.
If his brother, if Donnie Wahlberg--
- Had not been successful,
yeah, Mark might not have gotten signed.
- Yeah.
And then who stars in "Boogie Nights"?
If Leo turns it down,
and Mark Wahlberg is not a viable actor.
- Yeah.
- Someone else.
- Skeet Ulrich.
- Right, and maybe it's not as,
maybe it's a great movie still, I don't know.
I'm sure it is.
- Bottom line, if it wasn't for "Right Stuff",
PTA's working at a video store.
- Maybe, dude.
Sliding doors, man.
- Sliding doors.
The number three song in 2023,
"Pink Pantheras and Ice Spice", "Boys a Liar Part 2".
♪ Take a look inside your heart ♪
♪ Is there any room for me ♪
♪ I won't have to hold my breath ♪
♪ 'Til you get down on one knee ♪
♪ Because you only want to hold me ♪
- At least on February 3rd, my birthday.
- Happy birthday, Jay.
- Thank you.
♪ Would you ever picture us ♪
♪ Every time I pull my hair out ♪
♪ Was any outfit ♪
♪ That you'll find me ugly ♪
♪ And one day you'll disappear ♪
♪ 'Cause what's the point of crying ♪
♪ It was never even enough ♪
♪ Did you ever want me ♪
♪ Was I ever good enough ♪
♪ But boys a liar ♪
- Is that kind of like Y2K sound
young people getting back into?
- Wait, what do you mean?
I don't know.
- Like early 2000s kind of like.
- Is that what this sounds like?
- Yeah, like kind of like UK pop radio garage,
like kind of like cheap keyboard sounds from that era.
- See, I'm so out of it.
I wouldn't associate this with.
- It's not retro to you at all?
- No, I don't get, whatever references they're throwing out,
they're over my head.
♪ You say I'm good enough ♪
♪ Go my third ♪
♪ The shit I shoulda known ♪
♪ So I tell him it's one of me ♪
♪ He making fun of me ♪
♪ His girl is above me ♪
♪ Like that boy is a cop ♪
- This is cool, I like Pink Pantheress,
English, Ice Spice, American.
- Wait, so Pink Pantheress told NME,
even though Ice Spice does drill.
- Drill's a type of music.
- Her flows are super unique
and the beats she chooses are different.
What is drill?
- Drill's like a type of rap music.
- I mean, I gathered that.
- They're talking about Chicago drill
and then Brooklyn drill.
I feel like for a young person now,
this probably reminds them of music
like when they loaded up some PlayStation game
when they were three.
- Right.
- I think it has a touch of charming retro.
The number two song this week in 1989,
it's actually a song you introduced me to, Jake,
Mike and the Mechanics, The Living Years.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
- It was a real tearjerker.
- Yeah.
(dramatic music)
Yeah, it's a really sad song.
(dramatic music)
- Kind of a-
- A muted guitar.
- Twin peaks vibe on that intro there.
- Yeah.
- Twin beaks.
- RIP to Angela Battel-Mente.
- Oh yeah.
- I feel like there were a few people that died,
like a lot of musicians died in our time crisis hiatus.
Or I'll explain the time crisis hiatus.
(laughing)
- I think there's another reason for us
to never be off the air.
- I think I'm allowed to say it.
The reason that we were off is 'cause Apple Music
was the sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show.
- Yeah.
- So there was a lot of airtime was going towards
NFL related halftime show type stuff.
- Promo.
- Yeah.
- TC's happy to take a backseat.
- They leverage their resources against the Super Bowl.
- I get it.
And in a funny way, it's kind of cool
because as part of Apple Music,
that means we sponsored Rihanna's halftime Super Bowl show.
- That feels good.
- Brought to you by time crisis.
(laughing)
- Sort of hard for me to imagine this sound
making a comeback.
- I mean, there's elements of this in some 2010s,
maybe like indie music.
But also just such a straightforward song
about like regrets.
- Right.
- About conversations you didn't have
with your dad before he died.
- Right.
- It's like something that like Tim Heidecker.
It's like Tim Heidecker would do something like this,
but it would be tinged with irony, you know?
It would be nice.
- I mean, Caroline Polachek could have a song
sounded like this, right?
People still digging into 80s pop sounds.
- Or like Bon Iver.
- Just hammered in a cabin in Wisconsin,
just blasting like a mechanic.
- I'm sure this is his (beep) for sure.
- Jake, you bumping that new Caroline Polachek album?
- Haven't heard it.
- Do you know who that is?
- It's pretty good.
- I know the name.
Was she in like a band 15 years ago?
- Yeah, she was in an indie band called Chairlift.
- Okay, copy that.
- And this is her second album.
- Putting it together.
- Second solo album.
- Feel like she's had a lot of kind of media presence.
- Yeah, a lot of attention for this album.
- Have you heard it?
- Yeah, it's good.
- I've already worked on a song.
- Oh really?
- Yeah.
- And does it have some of that
Mike and the Mechanics kind of flavor?
- Hold on, let's do a really quick--
- Let's do a little bit of Caroline.
- A quick jog through.
See if I'm remotely on the money.
I mean, I know there's some songs that definitely don't.
There's like a cool Spanish guitar song.
(singer vocalizing)
It's track one.
(singer vocalizing)
- '80s, a bit of all those suspended chords.
- Yeah, like a bit of a Jack and Diane thing happening.
- But actually the reverb on that guitar
is a bit Mike and the Mechanics.
Not a million miles away.
♪ Welcome to my island ♪
- Okay, that's going different.
(singer vocalizing)
- Some cranberries energy.
(singer vocalizing)
♪ Time's running out ♪
- More groove oriented.
♪ Draw the blinds ♪
♪ Draw the back ♪
♪ It's a mile ♪
- This has '80s atmosphere.
Kind of like Peter Gabriel.
- It's kind of Peter Gabriel.
- What was the song he did with Kate Bush?
Yeah, that kind of vibe.
- Yeah. - The Us album.
♪ So that I can live ♪
- A very unfair way to listen to this person's album.
(laughing)
- Oh, are those some of those--
- Look, I proved my point with the first song.
I think Caroline--
- I wanna check the album out.
- It's cool.
No, you should.
I think she's the type of person
who would appreciate The Living Years
by Mike and the Mechanics.
- When you guys were in high school--
- I'd be very surprised if she didn't
at least respect the song.
- When you guys--
- Caroline, welcome to the show.
- We got one question for you today.
- Do you respect The Living Years?
- When you got a new compact disc,
like when you were younger, did you do the thing?
Did you do the thing where you put it in
and then you just skip through the tracks?
You're like, "Yeah, that sounds good.
"No, yeah, that's a hit."
Like, did you do that or did you just listen to--
- A little bit, yeah.
- No, man, I was reverent.
- Oh, really?
- It's just like, lying in my bed,
it's like vibe.
- Oh, okay.
- I'm more like that.
- Did you listen to a lot of hip hop?
- I listened exclusively to hip hop in high school.
- I think that that's more a--
- Okay.
- I think that that's an element
of buying a lot of hip hop CDs.
- Like get through the skits?
- Just like 10 seconds of music.
- Well, not just the skits.
I think that there's, you know right away if you're in.
There's not a lot of chord progression in 90s hip hop.
- Right.
- Do you like the beat?
Are you in, are you out, are you in, are you out?
- And then you can immediately get an assessment
of whether or not the album is good
within that first like five minutes, 'cause you're like--
- Yeah, you were just like ahead of the trend.
- Well, you know, like no internet.
- Sing it loud.
- Skip.
- Yeah, right?
- Skip.
♪ Sit clear ♪
- But see, I grew up listening to music on tape.
So maybe that's what--
- It wasn't an option.
- Like just hang in, man.
Like--
- Yeah, you're not fast forwarding.
- This is a seven minute song, it's kind of a slog.
- Yeah.
- Hang in.
What are you gonna do, fast forward and go too far?
- Yeah, right.
- You have to, you know, there's no way.
- That makes sense.
- All right, the number two song on Apple Music right now,
SZA with "Kill Bill".
I actually have heard this song.
I threw on her album when it came out
and this is like track two, I think.
(upbeat hip hop music)
- That's pretty 90s hip hop.
- Yeah.
- Drums, kind of Wu-Tang.
- This is named after the Quentin Tarantino film, "Kill Bill".
- Is that a, that's a sample.
There's--
- A melody?
- Yeah, that's the melody from "Kill Bill".
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
I gotta find it.
- I mean, it's just like a classic melody.
(hums melody)
- It almost sounds like Bach or something.
- It's that real like French chord progression.
- This sounds cool.
I'm liking this.
- That's a good song.
When I first heard this song
and I was just kind of casually listening,
I was like, "What's she saying?"
I just killed my ex.
And I was like, "All right, kind of hardcore."
And then the next line she says,
"His new girlfriend's next."
- Okay, Eminem.
- Yeah, then more I thought about it.
I was like, "Oh yeah, this is just Eminem."
Kind of performative, murderous stuff.
(sings melody)
- It's a very like 60s kind of pop melody.
- I bet there's like a Jacques Brel song.
- Yeah.
(hums melody)
- Number one song this week in '89,
Debbie Gibson, "Lost in Your Eyes."
I don't know if I know this.
Is this her ballad?
- Written and produced by Debbie Gibson.
- I like that.
Good for her.
Wow.
- I didn't know she had hits in '89.
- 'Cause this is like after she came out?
- Yeah, her big thing was like '87, I think.
That was this.
♪ And I feel my spirit rise ♪
♪ And soar like the wind ♪
♪ Dancing through love that I am in ♪
♪ I'm getting ♪
♪ In the clouds ♪
- "Lost in Your Eyes" was Gibson's last top 10 single.
Second number one single following '87's "Foolish Beat."
- This feels kind of earlier than '89.
- It does.
I mean, it reminds me of like,
yeah, like Peter Cetera or like Eric Carman.
- Yeah.
- You know?
- This is depressing.
- For sure.
- No disrespect to Ms. Gibson.
♪ I don't mind not knowing ♪
♪ What I'm headed for ♪
- I guess she was 19 when this came out?
- Original Billie Eilish.
- But it is funny thinking about like a 19 year old
writing this.
- And producing it.
- And producing it too. - That's what's wild.
- Yeah, like a 45 year old like,
guy with like male pattern baldness like,
- That's who should write it.
- Producing it.
- Right.
- And then he just makes it sound like this.
And she's like, "Well, I was looking for something
a little more fresh, but the record company says
this sounds good."
- No, Debbie was in there dialing in that,
dude, that gated snare.
♪ Tonight ♪
♪ To an afternoon ♪
- I feel like this song should be in like
Romanian or something.
- When I hear, yeah.
- You know what I mean?
Don't you think this should?
- Yeah.
- This should be a man singing in Polish.
- You're in like an Eastern European grocery store.
(laughing)
- Gibson along with Bruce Springsteen
were named the ASCAP Songwriters of the Year in '89.
Which was also a very weird period for Bruce.
- Yeah, what was Bruce doing in '89?
- ASCAP with their fingers on the pulse.
- Yeah, because "Tunnel of Love" is '87.
- '87.
- And then he didn't come back till the '90s.
'90 or '91 with the,
- "Human Touch." - "Human Touch."
- '90, yeah '91, '92.
- I don't know what was going on over at ASCAP in '89, man.
- "Electric Youth" is a great name for an album.
- It is a cool album, yeah.
Album title, "Electric Youth."
The number one song,
this song has been heavily promoted through billboards.
It's already a TikTok hit.
I wonder if you've heard it, Jake.
And weirdly,
- I have not.
- It kind of goes along in a way with the,
this is a chord progression.
Miley Cyrus with "Flowers."
- The album title, "Endless Summer Vacation."
- That's, that's her album.
- One word too many there.
It should just be either,
summer vacation, endless summer, endless vacation.
It shouldn't,
- Endless vacation's a great name.
- Endless summer vacation.
- Not quite right.
- Oh yeah, I heard "Smoky."
♪ Went home and watched it burn ♪
♪ Mm, I didn't wanna leave you ♪
♪ I didn't wanna lie ♪
♪ Started to cry but then remembered I ♪
♪ I can buy myself flowers ♪
♪ Write my name in the sand ♪
- Oh, she was married to a Hemsworth.
- All right.
(laughing)
- She's changed.
- What does that mean to you?
- Late breaking gossip for Jake.
- Yeah, I'm just getting caught up here on the chicks.
- You're gonna get it, I'm gonna be like,
Hannah, you know Miley Cyrus
is married to one of those Hemworths,
the Hemworths guys?
(laughing)
- Yeah, I knew that.
They got divorced.
- Yeah.
I wonder if it was Thor.
- I don't know who Liam Hemsworth is.
- Nope, it wasn't him.
♪ I can love you better, baby ♪
♪ Can love you better ♪
♪ I can love you better, baby ♪
♪ Paint my nails cherry red ♪
♪ Match the roses that you lay ♪
♪ No remorse, no regret ♪
♪ I forgive every word you say ♪
♪ Ooh, I didn't wanna leave you, babe ♪
♪ I didn't wanna fight ♪
♪ I started to cry, but then remembered I ♪
♪ I can buy myself flowers ♪
- Wait, this is also,
what, there's some other like 2000s pop song.
- I mean, it sounds a lot like the Cardigans.
- It sounds like the Cardigans, but also--
♪ Love me, love me, say that you love me ♪
- Which is a great song, but also,
sounds like this Rob Thomas song.
- Runnin' the show.
- Oh!
Did Rob Thomas ever come on the show?
- No.
♪ Now it seems to me that you know just what to say ♪
♪ But words are only words ♪
♪ Can you show me something else ♪
♪ Can you swear to me ♪
- Yeah, obviously this is a very 2005 production here.
- With some heavy Backstreet Boys.
- It's not as Gen Z TikTok as the final set,
but it's a very 2005 production.
♪ More than ever, baby ♪
♪ I don't wanna be lonely no more ♪
♪ I don't wanna have to pay for this ♪
♪ I don't wanna know the love I have now ♪
- Is this new?
- No, this is from 2005.
- Are we going out with this?
- Oh shit, I was like, okay.
- No, I think--
- I thought this was from this year.
- Going out with that Rob Thomas would have been so strong.
Okay, we're back.
- Number one song, 2023.
- Rob Thomas in there,
but I think we're going out with Cardigans,
'cause you guys are correct.
I think that's the primary influence for--
♪ Dear, I fear we're facing a problem ♪
♪ You love me no longer ♪
♪ I know and maybe there is nothing ♪
♪ That I can do to make you do ♪
♪ Mama tells me I shouldn't bother ♪
♪ That I ought to stick to another man ♪
♪ A man that surely deserves me ♪
♪ But I think I do ♪
- Time Crisis, back in the building.
We'll see you in two weeks.
Peace.
♪ I cry and I cry and I think ♪
♪ Love me, love me ♪
♪ Say that you love me ♪
♪ Fool me, fool me ♪
♪ Go on and fool me ♪
♪ Love me, love me ♪
♪ Pretend that you love me ♪
♪ Leave me, leave me ♪
♪ Just say that you need me ♪
- Time Crisis.
- With Ezra Koenig.
(bells chiming)
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