60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Boyz II Men—“End of the Road”

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

Rob explores the legendary R&B quartet Boyz II Men’s record-smashing single “End of the Road” by discussing the group’s universal appeal, their unprecedented success, and the massive footprint they left on the music industry. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Keith Murphy Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, a quick note to say that we are going to take a month off here at 60 Songs that Explain the 90s. We are going to take the month of August 2021 off just to recuperate and so forth, quiet reflection, etc. This is our 40th episode. We got 20 more to go and we're going to do them and they're going to be fantastic. Please listen to the episodes that you haven't yet because I'm guessing you haven't listened to them all. It's fine. I take no offense. But stay tuned to this feed and we will be back as soon as we can. Thank you. All right, I got a modest proposal for you regarding boys to men. The Philadelphia R&B group, Boys to Men, Boys with a Z, Roman numeral two men, do-op, hip-hop, harmony over hip-hop tracks. They all dress the same, frequently,

the white V-neck varsity sweaters with black vertical stripes over red button-down shirts with red baseball caps and bow ties. That look worked for them. Actually, a couple of them. A couple of them more glasses, just eyeglasses, really well. Boys De Man, back in school, they used to dream about this every day. Probably they got someone you knew in high school really into a cappella. They'll make love to you. Had the number one song in the country for 13 weeks beating a record held by Elvis, held by the Elvis Presley single that had Don't Be Cruel and Hound Dog on the other side, and then Whitney Houston beat their record, and then Boys to Men had another song that tied Whitney Houston's new record, and then they had another song that replaced that,

song at number one, they replaced themselves at number one, which only Elvis and the Beatles had done previously, and none of those songs is the biggest Boys to Men song, those guys. Boys to Men, modest proposal. My proposal is that Michael McCarrie, the bass singer, the fourth member of the group for the first six Boys to Men albums, Michael McCarrie should appear, should say a few words during the first 15 seconds of any song released by anybody forever. Every song by anybody. Next Drake Records can have like 55 songs, just a terrible, oppressive, sheer quantity of songs.

Michael McCary intro on all 55 songs. Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift, Megan the Stalion, Imagine Dragons, cannibal corpse, Apex Twin, Paramore, Bad Bunny, Logic, the London Phil Harmonic, King Crimson, Anybody. Every song, first 15 seconds, Michael McCarrow. explaining, providing context, orienting the listener. No more ambiguity, no more wondering what a song's about. Oh, it's art.

No, it's obnoxious. We don't have time. We got to Google shit. We got to listen to podcasts. No, none of that. We got Michael McCarrie, our rock and our salvation. Let me show you how this would work. I suspect that you first knew Michael McCary as the

and all the Philly Steaks You Can Eat guy. This guy. him. His name is Michael McCarrie. He had a cane, often Michael. I think at first, all four dudes and boys to men carried canes, and then they were like, this is too many canes. Our canes keep balking into each other, too much sword fighting and whatnot. So just Michael got to keep his cane. His cane was a fashion accessory at first. So that, of course, was Motown Philly, Boys Demand's debut from 1991, peaked at a mere number three. Fantastic debut. Fantastic song. Fantastic song as a group origin story. Michael does not need to explain the premise of Motown Philly in the first 15 seconds. The song explains itself. The song is almost meta. The song is about how the song exists. Motown Philly was the lead single off Boys Demands debut album, Cooley High Harmony in 1991. Sold 9 million copies in the United States. Just a blockbuster. It's also the most

bafflingly sequenced blockbuster of the 1990s. Second place is Green Day's dukey, by the way. The track sequence is wild. Cooley High Harmony kicks off with four straight slow jams. Motown Philly is not this group's natural mode. Motown Philly is New Jack Swing. New Jack Swing, of course, is

R&B with hip-hop overtones. Big deal starting in the mid-80s, popularized by Teddy Riley, etc. Don't mention New Jack Swing to Ice Cube. If you happen to see Ice Cube, unless you want to swing from Ice Cube's nuts. No, boys to men,

with Motown Philly used New Jack Swing as a Trojan horse for Quiet Storm. Boys to Men were slow jam guys. And here is where Michael McCarrie truly shines. Track one is a slow jam called Please Don't Go. Here are the first 10 seconds of the first song on the first Boys to Men record. I'm sorry. Incredible. How helpful is that, right?

Just tremendous. All the information you need to maximize your enjoyment of Please Don't Go. in 10 seconds. Second song on Kui High Harmony is a slow jam called Lonely Heart. This time, let's give Michael a scene partner to play off of. Ah, shit, she's going. How can you leave a man who goes, yeah, baby, whenever he's addressed, she's gonna regret this.

Mike keeps his cool even when he's pleading. Give him that. Third song on Kooey High Harmony is a slow jam called This Is My Heart, which does not begin with a Michael McCarrie spoken word intro. which is too bad. I guess he's got nothing to say on this one. I'm really going to miss hearing from him. No, just kidding.

It's in the middle of this song this time. I'm pretty sure you can imagine how he feels inside. Perhaps you're imagining it right now. Welcome this man, baby. Holy shit. This is a spoken word interlude so sexy. It causes a key change. Do you understand now why we need this man to liven up the 38th concept?

executive Drake song about Drake's junior high, ex-girlfriend. Okay, fourth song on Kui Eye Harmony, you're never gonna believe this, but it's a slow jam called, uh, ah. This song is so sexy, I'm surprised. There isn't a key change every eight seconds. This song also kicks off with a helpful reminder that there are three other dudes in Boys to Men.

You got Nathan Morris singing Baritone and Juanier Morris, no relation, and Sean Stockman singing tenor, four dudes in Golden Era Boys to Men, four bow ties. This is important. a note, stupendous chemistry in boys to men. Welcome these men, baby. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You recall Beyonce, of course, sampling this intro for her song Countdown back in 2011.

Beyonce apparently once described Countdown as the song, Hipsters Love. If that's true, that's the funniest thing Beyonce's ever said. Anyway, boys to men's countdown here on uh, I think you know what they're counting down to. Injection, fellas. Not ignition, injection. If Mike had meant ignition, he would have said ignition. I understand. Okay, I decided just now we need to expand the Michael McCarrie introduces everything edict to other artistic mediums.

Movies, that's easy. Girl. this movie is about a baby who wants to be the boss, but like visual art as well. The plaques, the title cards hung on the wall next to paintings and art museums. Let's just replace those with a giant red button and you hit it,

and Michael McCarrie drops out of the ceiling to introduce the painting, baby. This is Saturn devouring his son by Francisco Goya, early 19th century. If you listen to enough boys to men, you start talking like this. I'm sorry. It's about a god eating his own.

children so they don't overthrow him baby it's like what drake tried to do with mecos anyway fifth track on coolly eye harmony is it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday acapella fantastic song let me revise my earlier statement this song alone got 25 people you knew in high school super into acapella cover the gc Cameron song the motown classic from the soundtrack to coolly high the movie in 1975, Boyce of Men's version peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, beat out by Michael Jackson's Black or White. What are you going to do? It's so hard to say goodbye is an excellent reminder that Michael McCarray is not just great for interludes and intros. He, you know, he sings as well. It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday. The sixth song on Kui

i harmony is motown philly i'm getting into this track list actually the slow build of it it's audacious the vast majority of this record was produced by dallas austin super producer tlc brandy and monica madonna on and on and on much later he'd say the dudes and boys to men turned into assholes after this record that's a direct quote drastic ego change he said simpler times now though cool a high harmony after motown philly you get a handful of upbeat tunes the one called Under Pressure with the rad trumpet thing, the one about how simpin ain't easy, et cetera. But the best song on Cooley High Harmony, the biggest song on Cooley High Harmony,

Boyce Demand's first number one song. The song, in fact, that was number one for 13 weeks, the song that beat Elvis. This song was not originally on Cooley High Harmony. They added it. They tacked it on at the end of the CD a few years later. Ordinarily, I'm opposed to such music industry shenanigans, ordinarily this is a rip-off but i will allow it this time just because this is boys to men's

finest hour and michael mccary's finest hour in your average junior high after-school gymnasium dances finest hour i will allow it when this is the song you tacked onto the cd two years later my name's rob harvilla this is 60 songs that explain the 90s and this week we're talking end of the road by boys to men end of the road is a better song then both Don't Be Cruel and Hound Dog by Elvis Presley. Let's get that on the record. Let's get Michael McCary added to Don't Be Cruel and Hound Dog. Then we can revisit this argument.

So Boys of Matt, of course, name themselves after a new edition song, New Edition, the Boston R&B group, the boy band that formed in 1983 and consisted of five teenagers in no particular order. Ricky Bell, Michael Bivens, Ronnie DeVoe, Ralph Trezvant, and Bobby Brue. Here's what new edition sounded like in 1983. That's Ralph Tresvan singing lead. All five of these kids combined could eat one full Philly steak in one sitting max. New Edition put out four albums in their first four years, the last of which after they kicked out Bobby Brown,

who went solo, they took a year off. Then in 1988 they put out the album Heartbreak, two words. This would be the last new edition record for eight years. The last song in the album is called Boys to Men. boys to men. That's Johnny Gill singing. He's the fifth member now. Nobody in New Edition is a kid anymore. This is a song, in fact, about how they never got to be kids at all. We've given up our teenage years in the effort to pursue our career. That's a pretty clunky line, if we're honest,

but it's also raw as hell. The clunkiness helps sell the rawness, maybe. The point of boys to men, the song is that even if you make it as pop stars, even if one day BET makes a dishy three-part many series about you, even if you win, you still lose. You lose something extra. You lose your personal life. You lose your adolescence. You lose some essential, some youthful part of yourself.

Boyst to Men is a wild song to name your aspiring teenage R&B group after. You can add the Z and the Roman numeral two. You can add some silliness to it. but you're still acknowledging the profound sacrifice you are prepared to make. You are staring into the abyss. The trick is to get bigger than Elvis without becoming Elvis. So after Boys to Men, the song, we got a lengthy hiatus for new edition, three members of which form a new group called Bell Biv DeVoe.

Some days, I think that 1990s, the whole decade, peaked right there in February 1990. No offense to your dad, whoever your dad is But has your dad ever given you a single piece of advice as useful as lasting as? Never trust a big butt and a smile Poison is one of the best songs of the 90s It's New Jack Swing as a Trojan Horse for without question the rawest line in a song that you've heard at least 50 times at a wedding So what you say, huh? She's a wedding to you, but I know she's a woman.

How did you know? Me and a crew used to do her. I am in fact willing to bet money that at some point in your life you have locked eyes accidentally across a crowded wedding dance floor with like one of your aunts, possibly a great aunt.

At the precise moment when both of you were dancing while mouthing the words, me and the crew used to doer. What a moment that was for you. Just stupendously raw. It's not even grammatically correct. It should be the crew and I used to do her, but that's super clunky, of course.

The poor grammar helps sell the rawness. Michael Bivens in this moment is building himself an empire, as a manager, as a discoverer of talent. He is building, he is fathering, what you might call the East Coast family. Michael Bivens discovers, for example, another bad creation. A. B.C., a new Jack Swing group consisting of emphatically pre-teenagers, a new new edition. How emphatically pre-teenaged are these pre-teenagers? ABC's debut album in 1990 is called Chillin at the Playground, you know.

ABC's hit song Aisha, co-written by Michael Bivens is like a Muppet Baby's version of poison, and it kicks ass as well. But Michael Bivens doesn't qualify for the discoverer of talent, Hall of Fame until he meets these guys back in Philly. The Boys Demand song Motown Philly is so meta in recounting the Boys to Men origin story that Bivens himself appears

halfway through the song to rap the story of Boys to Men auditioning for him. Now check this out, one day back in Billy four guys wanted to sing. They came up to mess up, but what's your name?

Bois to Man. First of all, pretty sure it was five guys who wanted to sing. Mark Nelson left the nascent Boys to Men to start a solo career before the first Boys to Men record. A little premature as solo careers go. So the members of Boys to Men met at Philadelphia's High School of Creative and Performing Arts.

Michael McCarrie, in fact, says he joined up after he started harmonizing with the other guys in the bathroom of Philadelphia's High School of Creative and Performing Arts. Great acoustics in that bathroom, one presumes, I hope they had the circular trough, the hand-washing trough where you turn the water on with your foot. Specifically, they were harmonizing to the new edition hit, Can You Stand the Rain? That song is on the Heartbreak album also. Actually, new edition's version sounds like this. So just picture this plus Michael McCarrie dropping in some rad bass while washing his hands. And so when Belle Biv DeVoe plays a show in Philly,

and the dudes and boys de men bluff their way backstage to meet Michael Bivens, to convince Michael Bivens to manage them, they end up doing an impromptu audition for Bivens in front of a backstage crowd that also includes, depending on what you read, Will Smith, aka the Fresh Prince, kid in play, Keith Sweat, and Paula Abdul. This part of the anecdote is suspect to me. You might as well put Rocky Balboa, Ben Franklin, Patty LaBelle,

Charles Barkley, and the Philly fanatic in that room as well. But anyway, the song Boys Demand audition with is Can You Stand the Rain? Putting a new edition song in the middle of Motown Philly would be a little jarring perhaps, so the Motown-Filly version of Boys Demand's audition sounds like this.

You're higher. Seriously, you're hired. You may recall at this point in the Motown-Filly video that Boyst & Men are harmonizing around a giant birthday cake with a bunch of giant candles and they're wearing salmon-colored blazers over shirts and ties. All four of them are wearing eyeglasses really well. Now, Boystom men under Michael Biven's watchful eye

were styled to be preppy, to be collegiate, to be shrewd counter-programming to the quote-unquote street-wise look of most early 90s rap and R&B groups. That's according to the Los Angeles Times in early 92, where Sean Stottman, from boys to men, said, at first I thought our management people were wrong to put this image on us because the black kids might not relate to it. But now I like it.

I like being different. Different from whom you might ask? Well, Jodacy, for example. Jodice, the bad boys of R&B. Four sexy roughnecks from Charlotte, North Carolina. The first Jodice record, Forever. My Lady also came out in 1991. First track is called Stay, perhaps because the song titled Please Don't Go was taken. Jodice heartthrob, Devante Swing kicks us off. Here are the first 10 seconds of the first song on the first Jodicy record.

Don't talk. Just listen. First of all, I have to be honest with you, baby. I lied. When I told you I never want to see you again. Oh dear. These are the guys, their next album in 1993. It's called Diary of a Mad Band. It's fantastic. It's got a song called F-E-E-N-I-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N. Here's Devante swing again to explain the premise of Fieninin.

Hit me. All a chronic in the world can need a mess with you. Do the ultimate heart. Oh, dear. Diary of a Mad Band is the album cover, where some members of Jodacy are shirt. and all of them are wearing neoprene fishing overalls. The implication of the fishing overalls ladies being that if you have sex with a member of

Jodacy, never mind, forget it. Boys to men are not these guys. Even when boys to men sing a giant hit song called I'll make love to you, boys to men are not these guys. They're not shirtless, ultra sexy bad boys. They're boys with a Z. These are the guys styled musically from the beginning as throwbacks to seven the

oj's harold melvin and the blue notes etc boys and men are the guys you bring home to mom and dad these are the guys you bring home to mom and dad and they end up geeking out over your dad's old vinyl record collection until you dump them these are the guys who sell updated versions of your dad's old record collection back to your little sister these are the guys who do an acapella version of yesterday the beetle song yesterday on their next album these are the guys who sure seem to like doing acapella covers of old songs with the word yesterday right there in the title later when boys to men make the cover of vibe magazine juanier morris will describe acapella as the purest form of music these are the guys who regard other musical instruments as impure these are the guys who equate musical quality with purity whereas jodice are the guys you bring home to mom and dad and you leave

the room and you come back and they're humping the shelf that holds your dad's record collection no boys to men just want to do slow jams usually pretty chaste slow jams right in that la times article sean stockman says forget about this danceable new jack stuff we're really ballad singers we'd love to do in all ballads album what other young rnb group would do that that kind of album would set us apart and above the rest of the groups and then a few months after that interview in june In 1992, boys to men set themselves apart and above the rest of the groups. Let's get our friend Michael McCarrie to help explain. I caught a bunch of jokes where I talked in this voice, by the way,

girl, I'm sorry I fucked your sister and so forth. I thought better of it. I thought better of it usually. So boys to men are on tour with MC Hammer in 1992. They're on the too legit to quit tour. And the boys are invited to take just a few hours off and hit a studio in Philly to record a slow jam for the movie Boomerang for the instant classic 1992 Eddie Murphy rom-com boomerang dark horse pick for the best Eddie Murphy movie period

do Beverly Hills cop or coming to America have Grace Jones in them I don't believe they do this slow jam is called End of the Road it is co-written by Daryl Simmons vexing music biz Titan L.A. Reed and baby face the singer and songwriter and producer baby face who's like if you're dad's old record collection got tired of being humped by Jodice and grew legs and started walking around and adding other classic throwback R&B jams to itself. End of the road is the song Boys to Men were born to sing. End of the road is the song America was founded to listen to Boys to Men singing. This is Nathan Morris, probably the best glasses wearer in Boys to Men. That vibe cover story identifies Nathan as the serious boy.

whereas Sean Stockman is the thoughtful boy, Juanie Morris as the youngest is the playful boy, and Michael McCarrie, of course, is the lover boy. End of the Road, along with the thousands of other things, end of the road has got going forward. It's a great penetrating many profile of boys to men as individuals. Nathan takes the first verse. Sean Stockman, thoughtfully, he takes the second first,

and he takes a different approach to this desperate baby, please don't go scenario. He's less accusatory and more mansplainy, endearingly mansplaining. The boys to men look at this point in the end of the road video is black and white plaid coats over white mock turtlenecks. I don't know, aspiring turtlenecks. This is in my department. Gold chains, most of them, sunglasses now, most of them. Everyone looks forlorn and drowsy, almost disoriented, eyes darting around at random and slow motion. Like, they all lost their keys.

It's very effective. And of course, on the pre-chorus, when you need precisely controlled but also uncontrollable wailing, when you need pleading from a boy who's totally lost as cool in the most alluringly possible way, well, you need Wanié Morris, taking a break for being the playful one so that he might more effectively be the extra forlorn one. That is a terribly clunky line on paper that sounds perfectly elegant when sung. by Juan Yee Morris. I find that the best slow jams historically have this quality, ridiculous when spoken, transcendent when sung. The first line of Jodice's Forever My Lady, another killer slow jam. The first line is, so you're having my baby, and it means so much to me. And I crack up every single

time I hear it, and I'm laughing because it is absurd, and yet it sounds beautiful. But this is end of the road. We got killer verses. We got a killer pre-chorus. We got one of of the 20th century's most exhilarating choruses we got mellow drama out the wazoo what more can we possibly need what should we cram into the middle of this song oh right that you ate all the cookies out of the ice cream again i hate that baby michael mccary in the end of the road video he's sitting on a rock wall the fucking ocean is roaring behind him he's got his white pants rolled up he's got his natty red short-sleeved button-down shirt, and he's got his cane propped on the rock wall. I'd say it was phallic, but Michael's too sophisticated for that sort of thing.

End of the road is just in perfect, absurdist harmony with itself. It gathers just a breathtaking amount of momentum as it goes, despite moving in slow motion. It captures for me the essence of the junior high after-school gymnasium dance. Awkward in theory, just ungodly ecstatic in practice the first time. you slow dance with somebody the life-altering magnificent cringe of that moment where you don't know what to do with any part of your body you put your hands at their shoulders at their waist what is the appropriate distance between your bodies many fine slow jams are about that subject the distance question specifically that is a too close reference think back to how awkwardly how

a rhythmically you swayed back and forth in broken hapless time to the music. Did you look them in the eye? Were you desperate not to look them in the eye? Was the room? Was the gym spinning? Is this what romance is? Is this what true love is? How did your heart? How did your brain even survive that moment? If you were lucky, you had Michael McCarrie to cling to emotionally while you clung physically to whoever was clinging to you. This is the song that beat Elvis, and then Whitney Houston beat it. I will always love you, beat it.

And then in 1994, Boys of Men put out their second non-Christmas record, two, that's Roman numeral two. And that's the one with All Make Love to You, which tied Whitney Houston's new record for a number of weeks at number one. And then On Bended Knee replaced, I'll Make Love to You at number one. That's when Boys and Men not themselves off the top. of the Hot 100. And then in 1995, they did a duet with Mariah Carey called One Sweet Day. Maybe you've heard of it. Sixteen weeks at number one. That said a new record, and nobody would

beat that record until Old Town Road. Slow jams galore on this album, the two album. There's a slow jam called 50 candles. Great Michael McCarrie intro, but that's way too many candles. She's going to fall asleep before you've lit even 15 of those candles. Get on with it. The two albums sold 12 million copies in the United States, a true blockbuster. That's all math, though. Most of that was math. Whatever you remember from junior high, I'm guessing it isn't math. You're still thinking about slow dancing, aren't you? And anyway, I don't want to pull Michael McCarrie too far to the future, because at some point he developed scoliosis, and from then on he needed that cane just to walk, and he didn't tell anybody how severe an issue this was until he finally left Boys to Men in 2003.

Boys Demand were no longer setting chart records at this point, but they're still at it. They're a trio now, Juan Ye, Nathan, and Sean. And that camaraderie is still palpable, even when you see their faces now, even if their breakup with Michael, apparently, was confusing and acrimonious. See, you bring in too much context and it ruins the moment. I said non-Christmas album. Boys Demand did a Christmas album right after Kuiye Harmony, Christmas interpretations in 1993. It's fine. It's minor in the grand scheme, considering how grand the same.

scheme of boys to men was about to get. But wouldn't it be great if Christmas interpretations gave us one more classic Michael McCarrie explaining intro, one more for the road? No way it's going to happen on this record, though. They're Christmas songs. Nobody needs to have Christmas explain to them. I'm just kidding. There's a song

literally called Why Christmas, which begins with Michael consoling Waniye and then explaining the point of Christmas to Wanii. It's time. I just get depressed. man, there's in no time in a year to be depressed. It's a time to be happy and giving, man. Juanier's nickname was squirt, actually. It's a term of endearment.

You know, sometimes I think about things that didn't have. We all feel that way sometimes. We all feel that way sometimes, but it'll be all right. That's lousy advice or encouragement or consolation on paper, but it's transcendent when he says it, isn't it? Speaking of transcendent, end of the road goes. a cappella right at the end it's the purest form of music that all right all right all right that Sean that's my favorite ad lib in any song from the 90s possibly in any song ever that's just an

exquisitely subtle casual way of conveying the idea holy shit this awesome song just got awesomer and there in the gym the closer you get to the person you're clumsily slow dancing with the higher you are off the ground the end of the road is the beginning The all right there are your final push into orbit, into the exhilarating vacuum of space, and you'd float away forever, if not for Michael McCarrie. If Michael McCarrie wasn't holding on with one hand in just your one foot, he's helped bring you here, and he'll help you stay here. He won't let go because he can't.

It's been far too long since we talked to our friend Isaac Lee, who produces this podcast, who is essential to this podcast, and who threatened to quit if we did not do a boys to men episode. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. Isaac, hello. Thank you for being here. I am super excited to be here once again, and I am very excited that we are doing boys to men instead of skipping over,

which is the original plan, which let me tell the listeners. A terrible, terrible idea. Why would we not do boys to men? Ridiculous. Isaac, why did we have to do boys to men? I agree with you, but in your own words, why was this necessary? We had to do boys to men because to me, you know, I was born in the 90s, and I did not live through the 90s with an awareness of 90s music.

But one of the defining genres of 90s music is 90s R&B. And more specifically, the slow jam, the fuck jam, you know, like songs that are men and women just crying out about sex, about how much they want to have sex, how good the sex was, how much they want to have sex with that person again. They're having it right now. How they're having it currently at the moment. That's a genre of 90s music

that I, as a retroactive listener, really enjoyed exploring. And the fact that we were going to skip over boys to men was just ludicrous to me. And also, like, Jodacy, I am of the opinion that Jodacy is while certainly not

as influential as boys to men, they're cooler. Sexyer also. For sure. Without saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, Isaac, I don't know how much I want to talk about this with you, but we're just going to talk about it. So it's, what is your first exposure to Jodacy slash boys to men? How old are you?

What are your reactions? You know, keep it clean. clean-ish. All right. So I was I was born in 1994 at the tail end. Yeah, great. And I know you love me reminding you of that. Yeah, that's why we don't talk very often.

But yes, continue, please. Yes, 1994. Great. Yeah, and I was born into, you know, a very conservative, immigrant, Korean family, very religious, evangelical. And so sex was not something that was talked about within my household, within my community. So I had to learn about sex through other media, right? It was, I certainly, we never had the birds and bees talk in my home. And so I effectively learned about the ins and outs of sexual intercourse of procreation through music.

Through Jodacy. Through Jodacy. So like I grew up listening to K-pop, right? So I grew up listening to groups like SG wannabe vibe and Dongwangshinyi. You don't know any of these guys, but they were pretty influential to me, and they would list in their influences, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, of course, Whitney Houston. But then they would also always list Boys to Men and Jodice and TLC

and all these kind of groups, R&B groups that were around in the 90s. And so I'm like, oh, I got to look these guys up. And I remember when I first saw the video for Freaking You, the Jodice song, Were you alone? Were your parents? I was alone. I made sure because I had a feeling.

I had a feeling. A premonition. A premonition. So when I listened to that Jodicy song Freaking You with the music video. And let me remind you that the song Freaking You starts with the lyric. Every time I close my eyes, I wake up feeling so horny. that's the way that that song starts very direct and then it goes was that censored on m tv i have no idea i never watched mtv i'm not of that generation oh for god's sake okay sorry continue

but i i remember learning about oh so like sex isn't just like a thing that married people do right like this is something that's fun and that's something that's like cool I actually went to boys to men and listening to, you know, songs like One Sweet Day, which is a much more sophisticated kind of, you know, it's about death and about missing. It's a funeral song. It's a funeral song. Not sexy. No, not at all.

But then you go back a little bit and then there's on bend the knee and then there's I'll make love to you. I'll make love to you. Right. And the juxtaposition of freaking you and I'll make love to you is a very stark one. It is. Because one is talking about sex. I'll make love to you is about, it's about, you know,

enjoying intimacy with your partner. A holistic experience. Absolutely. You know, your wish is my command like you want me to. It's very, you know, reciprocal. Whereas freaking you is about fucking. It's about,

and I say that like, F-U-C-I-N- apostrophe. It's about fucking. Yeah. You know, there's that line from, Genet Iiko song, Bedpiece. We make love and then we fuck.

Those are two separate things. And I learned about both through 90s R&B. I learned about... Were your parents aware of this? Oh, absolutely not. To this day, to this day, they are not aware. And they will not listen to this show. I'll make sure that they won't do.

Okay, that's fine. Yeah, just delete it from their personal Spotify. Did you listen to this music around your parents? Like, did they just ignore this? I had earphones and they had no idea what I was listening to. They thought I was still listening to like Christian Rock. I thought I was listening to casting crowns or whatever. Oh, wow.

You know? That's not a deep cut. That's a serious group right there. Yeah. They had no idea. I was learning about getting down and dirty. Wow. Feeneen, I mean, that song Feeneen, it's about comparing sex to drugs.

Yes. Two taboo items within my household. And that was like the most amount of like escape that I could have from my, my, provincial upbringing, if that makes any sense. That makes almost too much sense, Isaac. We've learned so much today about you, Isaac. This is, I feel like, I feel like I've overshared a little bit. Not at all, no.

Let me backtrack. Let me backtrack real quick. There's no backtrack. Isaac, okay. Let me talk about the song itself, End of the Road, right? Please. Because the music theory element of End of End of the Road is pretty interesting. Of slow jams.

It's a 6-8 song. End of the Road is written in 6-8, but there's a bunch of triplets. So it's technically like a 9-8 song. How does that register or does it register to a listener who doesn't know what 6-8 is? Does it come across different? Yeah. So, I mean, it'll sound more laid back even though the BPM isn't that. much slower.

Yes. Because it is three, do, do, do, it was interesting to see that a song that's not

written in Common Time 44 could achieve this kind of popularity. Obiquity. Yeah. And also,

on the music theory front, as like an 11, 12-year-old when I discovered the song, I did not know that you could

fit more than one or two notes in a syllable until I heard boys to men. until I heard Jodacy. Yes. Like, maybe.

Like, that's crazy. That was crazy to me. You mean you could not, that's not maybe. That's maybe. That opened up a new world to me, you know. It was simultaneous to learning about sex. It was concurrently learning about melisma. Yeah, molysmah and fucking respectively.

Yes. So they taught me about many things. I think I attribute their, their contributions on a personal level to both fields of education, let's say. The person you are today. Absolutely. Because of these two groups. The pedagogical just prowess of voice to men and Jodice.

Yes. Yes. Has shaped me. Fantastic. Well, that was, this was very educational, Isaac. Let's not wait 25 episodes or so before we talk. talk again about your upbringing. Let's do this again.

For sure, for sure. All right. Thank you, Isaac. Our guest today is the writer and editor Keith Murphy. His work has appeared in Vibe, The Undefeated, the New York Post and Billboard, for starters. Thanks so much for being here, Keith. No problem, man. I'm glad to be here. All right. By the numbers, boys to men were comically huge in the 90s, like they set all these records and then they'd break the records. Like, what made these guys specifically so appealing to so many people?

Like, how do you explain how big this group got? I think it was a combination of things. I think it was the songs. Mm-hmm. It was definitely the image. They came across as non-threatening jodicy. And people can, like, see them as that Middle America, Idaho, prom dance.

You're going to be playing some boys to men. You're also going to be some boys of men and urban neighborhood. They were still huge in black schools and black schools. But I think their appeal was that

just how they came off. I mean, they were wearing bowtiles. Yeah. If there's a group coming out wearing bow ties, and then there's another group coming out wearing baggie jeans were combat boots, then, you know, who was going to be gravitating more to the group with the bowtides? And it was the, you know, largely white kids that really, really love

Boysman. Poison Man was a universal group, but they were really beloved by mainstream fans, mainstream radio. Yeah, Idaho prom dance is a really vivid image for for me. I'm really, I'm enjoying imagining that right now. How calculated was it? Was it just who, this was who boys to men were, they were the bow tie guys, or were they sort of forced into that non-threatening role? It was both. This is who they were. That fantastic pop documentary that's on Netflix kind of spells it out. Yeah. My dealings with Michael Bivens over the years, I've been interviewed several times with different pieces. and he was adamant that he wanted this group to just touch all the bassists.

And he also wanted to take advantage of knowing that this group were music nerves. These guys went to class, they studied music, they studied classical, they studied jazz. This was not a Lou Pearlman band put together. Right. Was there a backlash to your mind at the time? among people who are really into R&B, really into hip hop, that they were so safe, that they were so popular in Idaho? Or as you say, like, they, you know, they played in black neighborhoods, too.

Yeah, it was a backlash. I think the backlash started to happen when they started having those back-to-back-to-back, number one hits. Sure, sure, yeah. And they started bleeding into one another. And you really couldn't tell the difference between the last one. Mm-hmm. And it was, like, so huge. and they were like everywhere.

And I think it was a strange time because R&B was still king, right? Like from 93 to maybe like 95 R&B music was still killing on our charts. And this was the period of time where if you were like straight up, you know, unabashed, black from the hood, R&B star,

if you were SWV, if you were Jodacy, if you was any of these groups, you could be unapologetically black and making black ass R&B and selling three, four million copies of y'all. Right, right. Like there was no, oh, you know,

what are these guys going to do? How are they going to sell their records? No, R&B was the hottest game in the time. Hip-hop was taking a backseat to R&B. You know, it was only until like death row and bad boy really came along and just, you know, just changed everything. But that's why they were looking at boys and men like that.

because they were like, we're making this music that specifically for a certain base, and if other people want to like it or love it, that's fine. Everybody love it. But we're making it for black folks. Right, right. And other people want to come along, man, the more to marry it. It seemed like boys, men kind of started doing it the opposite way. They looked at their target audience as those kids in Idaho.

Sure, right. And then it was like, if everybody else want to come along, that's cool. Yeah, okay. Do you think Jodice were designed to be threatening or they just felt threatening by comparison? I just think that Puffy when he put those clothes on those kids, you know, that's, that's awesome. I just think he just thought it was cool. Yeah. You know, we don't come into these things trying to be threatening or piss off some kids, parents or whatever. We just think it's cool that, you know, the way you're saying sagging.

We thought it was cool to wear Carnite and Carl Knai and, you know, false colors and walk-a-wear and all this stuff that we used to wear with the Timboots, Timberlin boots and the bandana. So we did us. Black folks did them, you know? And if people wanted to copy that style, hey, go ahead and copy that style. We weren't trying to make any other statement other than to say that we're cool as hell. Yeah. Boys Men from the beginning, one of their first big hits,

it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday, you know, as a song from the 70s, did they feel like the future to you, or did they feel a little bit like the past? I think they felt like the past, but it was kind of cool at a certain moment. You know, it was like I did a piece for Entertainment Weekly, edited the special issue that they did for black Hollywood over the years, you know, it's black films. And Cooley High was one of those films. That song just took on a second life with boys and men because all of a sudden you had that song being played at funerals.

Yeah. You know, you had that song being played at end of the year gatherings at school. Graduation, yeah. Graduation, everything. So, yes, they had a throwback feel. Of course you're going to have a throwback feel when you're singing an a cappella on a record. Right. Nobody was doing that and pop music like that, you know?

Yeah. So I was just shocked that that song crossed over because that's the blackest song ever. Yeah. Like that's a top five, top ten black song that you could put together in their life. And, you know, white kids love that song. So that was a revelation from me back then just going to a tour. But yeah, yeah, they would definitely a throwback group and they kind of held on to that like a badge bond. Yeah.

You've talked to Bivens several times. You said, like, he really had an empire there. Oh, yeah. You know, he had BPD, of course, another bad creation were huge. Boys and men were biggest of all. Like, what did he see that nobody else saw? Like, what made him such a great talent scout right there in the early 90s? Well, like, I think what happened was, you know, it was kind of like Bell Bibb de Beau were the three odd men out.

Nobody really expecting anything from him. Yeah. And once they put their heads. together and say, okay, we're going to break away from New Edition and do something that's never been done before. And they do this hip-hop, R&B

hybrid type of thing. Then he talks to Gerald Bugsby, who's the guy that was head of Black Music over at MCA, I believe. You know, Bugsby is like putting stuff in his ear like, yo man, like what you really need to do is you need to get into

discovering, producing, getting some groups on your own. And that's where his mind state was. He was looking at what Bugsby was doing. He was looking at what Barry Gordy did. He was looking at a lot of these moguls were doing. So he added in his mind to create his own empire. And it was like one of the last empires you would think of.

You did not think of Michael Bivens having his own empire like that. But he was a student of the game. Yeah. And he was very smart and targeted. He targeted a lot of different things. You know, he had a sexism. Rapper, M.C. B. B.C. brains. You know, he had all these little things that he was trying to do, and he was just checking boxes. And it was brilliant. The kids, of course, the little kids. Yes. Yes. Oh, please. They were like a gold mine. I think what they went, double platinum, double platinum or something like that? That's a huge record. That's a huge record. Yeah.

Yeah. The album was huge. So, I mean, he, he, out of everybody in new addition, he understood, that you have to make your own universe, right? You can create your own universe because they got tired of people trying to create their universe. They got tired of Murray Star creating their universe. And they broke away from them and all those things happened. And they started working with Jimmy, Jammy, Terry Lewis. And Bivens understood that in order for you to have impact and longevity in this business, man,

you have to create your own universe. And that's what he did. Yeah. We know how Ice Cube felt about New Jack Swing, but was there a fundamentally adversarial relationship between New Jack Swing fans and more hardcore rap fans? Yeah, but it was only because of radio airplay. It had nothing to do with actual music itself.

They didn't hate the music itself. New Jack Swing was as hood as Ice Cube record. It was something that was real, but what happened was radio was just being saturated it with R&B music and it was crowding out hip hop because you really couldn't play hip hop during the daytime like that.

They could not play those records in the daytime. So you would have, man, a steady diet of like, you know, all things Teddy Rowley, basically. Color Me Bad, yeah. Yeah, Color Me Bad. I mean, but Color Me Bad was an offshoot ball at. Like that's all of the stuff that came later.

But, you know, that's stuff that we played in the hood too. You know, we played that around the way. But the hip hoppers just took offense to radio programmers, just straight up telling them, no, we're not going to play your music during the daytime, because that's not what people want to hear. It's dangerous. Right, right, right. Is End of the Road the best Boys to Men song to your mind?

I feel like your favorite Boys to Men song says a lot about you. Yeah, I would. But I kind of go for the first album. a little bit and please don't. I mean, get the title on, I believe it's, uh, Please don't go. Yeah, yeah, please don't go. Yeah.

That's my favorite only because it's kind of like, because people kind of forget, man. That first album, they made pop the pop trots come to them. Yeah, it's a ton of slow jams. Yeah, Motown Philly is the outlier for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they did not, they were not trying to make a record of crossover with that first album. So that song, I like that song.

But as far as End of the Road goes, it's really cool to see how that song was just breaking records left and right. When it was touching people like the Beatles, Elvins, and people like that, it was like just wild, man. Like the last thing you would think of. So I think the historical connection with that song is powerful. Yeah. There's a great vibe cover story on Boys of Men where they're playing in Minneapolis. They're playing an arena in Minneapolis and Prince is supposed to show up

and then somebody says Prince did show up and loved it. You've written a lot about Prince. And I was just wondering, do you think Prince in the 90s was reacting to New Jack Swing and Boys to Men and the newer stuff topping the charts? Like Michael Jackson worked with Teddy Riley on Dangerous, of course.

Did Prince feel as plugged in to what else was happening on the radio? Well, Prince was kind of like a, it was a coin. it could go either way, right? Like, he did not chase the new jack sound like Mike did. Right. And Mike did brilliant.

Like, the dangerous album for me is his best album after Off the Wall and Thriller. Remember the time? Yeah. Yeah. Number three. Remember the time, all that stuff. So he didn't chase it, though. Like, there's like certain songs that you can find on YouTube where he produced an artist

and he specifically used a new jack swing sound. But you never heard Prince like just go straight up new jack swimming like Mike. And I think Prince was much too artistically restless for that. He just couldn't do that, you know? Yeah. Like you said earlier, when a band gets this huge, when there's this much money involved, like people end up getting screwed, you know?

How much are, you know, the financial aspect of boys, the way it sort of ended. How much does that impact their career for you and the way you hear this music now? Yes, it's weird to me. It's, uh, boys the man got pat boomed. Yeah. And what I mean by that is they were so identifiable with a certain sound that crossed over towards the end that they started to, once again, that pop documentary on Netflix

throws it out. And I've been saying this for years, you know, all of the boy bands. they came from Boys the Man. Yeah. And the riffs, the vocals, the harmony, they all trying to copy them. You know, 98 degrees, in the street, yeah. Backstreet boys, all of those guys. So Lou Pearlman figured out that, hey, we can take this sound,

we can take the Boys and Man sound, make it really pop. And we're going to have white kids in America just feeding it up everywhere. And they did. Yeah, of course. So what happened was, boys and men was left without a bass. Right. Because their base that came from their first album

was no longer there. So the white fans that were loving their music, they weren't really a true bass for them. Yeah. They just happened to like their music. They found somebody new. They found Pac-boom during the music.

And next one, You know, Boys of Man can't even sell out a club. Right. Which is crazy to me. Sure. From arenas, you know, to fairs. Yeah. That should not be the case.

You have the Backstreet Boys still being able to sell out arenas. And they have, man, one drop of the talent that Boys of the men had. And I'm not even a huge Boys of Man. No, but you're right. If anybody knows me, you know, they know that I arrive. more with the, you know, jodices of the world. But, yeah, they did not have that group's talent at all.

And they're able to do these things. And it just shows how race and certain social segments really drive home the story of a group. Yeah. I mean, along those same lines, you were in a great piece. I think it was 2016 for the Undefeated about New Edition, about how new edition should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But they've never even been nominated.

Like, our new edition, Belved de Beau, in boys to men? Are they ever going to get sort of the full institutional respects that they deserve? I don't think boys to men will be because once again people view their success as like

very high, just a huge burst and it was almost like a five, six year period and that was that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. With new addition, the case can be made that they should be in there because not only did they have,

the run, not only did they do the offshoots from the Bobby Browns, the Ralph, Treasb, the BPDs, and Johnny Gills, but the influence is there. Right. You know, when you see Jodicey and all these other groups that were coming out, I mean, arguably new Jack Swing with Teddy. You know, I know he did guy in 88, but a big part of that was what New Edition was able to do. They saw what New Edition was able to do. They saw what they achieved. That gave a lot of hope to kids wanted to do. kind of, you know, R&B music that had like a little edge, and that that was new addition. It's baffling to me, like you stated, that they have not even been nominated.

Not since even, I guess not. They haven't. I don't even think they've been nominated. I don't remember them being on there. I might be wrong. Somebody wanted, you know, Quest Love, homie Quest Love, somebody got to let me know what's going on. Yeah, yeah, hopefully he's listening, but, yeah, yeah. man. That's strange. But yeah, Boys and Man is weird. There's a weird anomaly

anomaly that I don't think people can rock their heads around how big they were because it happened in a blink. Yeah. Near the end of that article, there's such a funny moment when Bell Biv DeVoe are playing. I think it was the last Obama concerts, like the last thing he threw in 2016. Like just the idea of, poison at the White House, right? Like, everybody singing me and the crew used to do her, you know, with the president of the United States. That's such a beautiful, bizarre moment.

Yeah, listen, that song is the weirdest hit for me. Yeah. Because not only is it like, you know, a song that plays well in every black neighborhood with a certain demographic, but it played well in white college towns. You play that song. they will black out to those lyrics. Yeah.

They will be crazy to that. That is like one of the biggest karaoke songs, you know? So, yeah, the whole image of them just even playing for Obama, BPD playing for Obama, is surreal because it just shows the power of that song. They could be a one-hit one to BPD, right? And it will never matter because that song will always be there. That hit, yeah, is unbelievable. Keith, this has been fantastic.

I really appreciate your insight, man. Thank you so much for talking. Oh, man, listen. Thank you so much, man. Thank you for your time. Thanks very much to our special guest this week, Keith Murphy. Thanks, as always to our producers, Isaac Lee and Justin Sales. And thanks to you for listening.

As I said, we will be taking a month off here. We will be back in September, 2021 to finish off the last 20 episodes. Thanks very much, as always. And here, without further ado, is boys to men with End of the Road.