One Song - Massive Attack's "Teardrop"

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Love is a verb, love is a doing word: And this week on One Song Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY are not short on things to say about Massive Attack’s trip-hop anthem, Teardrop. Join the fellas as they trace the group’s history from curious kids to electronica pioneers, take a look inside the song’s haunting melody, and the “voice of God” vocal supplied by Elizabeth Fraser.   Come for the teardrops on the fire, stay for the breakdown one of 90s pop music’s greatest what-ifs: What would it have been like if, as one of Massive Attack’s producers intended, Madonna had sung the track. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter, Luxury, aka the guy who whispers about interpellation. And this is one song. All right, today on one song, we are going high brow. We're going ethereal and we're going electronic. With a song that marries two of my favorite artists of all time. And it's built around a simple drum loop, a harpsichord,

and the voice of God herself. And the vocals on it inspired, one of the greatest what-if moments of 90s pop music. The song is Teardrop and the group is Massive Attack. All right, so we both have a lot to say about this song. I am super passionate about this. Not that I'm not passionate about it every song we do. No, no, but this is a special.

You know, a lot of times we're dealing with songs that everybody knows. They're all over the radio. They're at your wedding. If you play this song at your wedding, I think you're really cool. It's not a wedding track song. But people might fall asleep and they might cry also. It could not. It's literally called Teardrop.

Yes. It's not a song that you're going to necessarily know from the radio, but I think a lot of our listeners will know it. Exactly. So before we get into it, I want to back up for a second and ask you, D.L, why do you care about this song? And why should our audience care about it? It's just a cool song.

You know, I think that one of the reasons we do this show is because we want people to hear songs they've heard many times a new way. But another sort of secret goal is just to start a conversation about music and turn people on. to stuff that maybe they haven't heard. Or if they have heard, they thought they were the only person who heard it. And now they're like, oh, yeah, you know, I do know this song. I've heard it in a movie.

Or I heard it when I was walking through a hotel lobby, something we're going to talk about a little bit later. You know, I heard it at the coffee shop when I was unemployed and looking for a job. You know, like wherever you come across your cool music, we want to be one of those places. And so we knew we had to do something about Massive Attack. I'm pretty sure the first time I heard this song was in a record store, ironically. You know, those wonderful bastions of music that no longer exists as much as they used to. Do you remember the first time you heard this song?

I'm kind of, yes, because it was also at a record store. So what record store were you at? And when, where was it? Gosh, man. I mean, given the year, I might have been a tower, you know, might have been at Turtles in Atlanta. Shout out to turtles. Shout out to Turtle. Shout to Sam Goody in the warehouse.

None of these places exist. Oh, hell no. Right now, everybody under the age of 30. It's like, what language is this? What is a record store? It was probably a record store. What is a record? It was at other music across the street from Tower Records.

In New York? In New York? Oh my gosh. I used to love other music. Me too. That was my walk. I used to live on Christopher Street and walk across fourth to my workplace on Lafayette. So it's right there on Lafayette and forth.

And that was my either walking to or from work. I would sort of, you know, stop in. And I would constantly be bombarded with amazing new things. Almost, I feel like I would be the guy who walks in, finds out, finds out what they're playing and buys it. Like that's why they're doing it. Oh, 100%. You walk up and you'd be like, hey, what song is this? And they would be annoyed. That movie, High Fidelity nailed it. They'd be annoyed. They'd be like, oh, God, it's massive attack. The name is the song. They're obligated to be

annoyed as record courts. It's on the application. Can you be annoyed by innocent questions? Okay, before we get into the song, there's a few things I want us to clarify. First off, musically, how do you classify this song? Well, Teardrop is a slow electronica song, and that's, we're about to get into a conversation here because in the moment it came out, 77 BPM, this is down tempo. This is like coming out of years of, this is years of, this is years of disco and house music being

in the 110s, 120s, even 1.30s when you talk, you know, Sylvester's at 132, right, with you make me feel mighty real. Suddenly we have electronic music being made, and it's much slower. This is what was sometimes called down tempo. Sometimes, the controversial term that we're about to get into,

trip hop. Tripp. So trip hop, just really quickly, what is trip hop? Trip hop means literally trippy hip hop. and I know D'all has a lot of really interesting thoughts about that, so I'll let you get to that a second. But just on the definitional tip. So it is slower music. It's usually very bass heavy.

It doesn't have as much going on instrumentally. It's a lot simpler a lot of times. And it can feel, again, psychedelic is the reason why it's called trip, but then it's instrumental hip-hop essentially. I know you've got a lot to say about that. Listen, I just would have put it in perspective because some of our listeners are, you know, younger. And I do feel like the term trip hop was created so that, you know, basically a whole generation

of white guys who really appreciated hip hop's beats, but didn't either didn't know rappers to give the beats to. Or actually felt like in some cases, I forget, was it, was it DJ Shadow? Somebody said lyrics are too confining. You know, they were really like, I just like the music. So it's almost like, because I was a hip hop head at this time. When I found out there was a genre called Trip Hop, I was like, that just sounds like them trying to basically rope off their own area so they can experiment with the beats.

Yeah, a little bit of a whitewash going on there. It's a long history of like R&B becoming rock and roll when it becomes white. It's the same thing. We're just changing the name because of the different color of the skin of people making it. To that point, trip hop, I remember when hip hop, you couldn't play hip hop in certain spaces. Like hip hop was not being played in high-end restaurants. It was not being played in hotel lobbies. It was not being played in places other than like in movies where it was supposed to let you know that the neighborhood was bad.

You might get shot in a few. It was that cliche. But Tripop had a respectability and sort of like a cleanliness. Oh, Tripop, this is the soundtrack of like shoes, like upscale Soho shoes stories. Which to those younger listeners, the mall was when you would actually walk into Amazon.com and make your purchase. But it's the fancy malls too, right? It's the upscale malls. This was the Beverly Center.

This was not Fox Hills Mall. Right. I'm getting really granular right now. Every city has that black mall. You know, it's got like... This podcast is just for L.A. residents. If you're in Atlanta, think Greenbrier Mall versus Linux Mall. Linux Mall, trip hop, Greenbrier Mall.

Let's go through all the cities. What about San Francisco? Oh, man. You know what? Probably the Westfields. On a formerly known as the Saramonte. But I think that, yes, to a certain extent, I had a little bit of an aversion to, the term trip-hop that I didn't have to the music itself.

Yeah. Because, you know, even before I got into TV and film, I liked music that felt cinematic. Yeah. You know, to me, the best hip-hop albums had, like, you would listen to them in your headphones, you know, and they would take you to a place. Right.

And this music, whether you want to call it trip-hop or as I call it, just electronica, it would send you to a place. And suddenly you were in a movie. I think someone described... It's very visual. Very visual. Someone described...

Portishead, I think, is like soundtrack to a movie that hasn't been made yet. You know, and I feel the same way about massive attack. There was something extremely cinematic. They felt like they were influenced just as much by Martin Scorsese as they were by public enemy. We're going to get into all that. And your distaste or aversion to,

or shared, I think, a version to the term trip hop. Just the term. Just the term was shared by the band themselves, by massive attack. They prefer to call it either lovers, hip-hop was one term they came up. I'm not sure if they said. that as a joke, but they definitely didn't like Tripop, I think possibly

for some of the reasons that you mentioned, and it's important to mention we're about to get into the story of the band. But this is not unlike Portishead, which is a bunch of white dudes, and we love Portishead. We love them. And Beth Gibbons on vocals. Beth Gibbons. Kendrick Lamar loves Beth Gibbons. She showed up on his latest album.

This is a multiracial band. Yeah, yeah, no, totally. Listen, set the scene for us, massive attack. Who are they, and where do they come from? Excellent question, and I'm glad you asked it. The scene is being set. It's Bristol, a small town in the U.K., in Southwest UK, in your Wales. It's very isolated.

It's not London, Manchester, Liverpool. It's kind of in its own little area. 500,000 people, and this is really unimportant. That's not a lot. It's the least important thing we're going to do all week, but it's this newer that I've learned, demon. And you're excited about this. What do you think someone from Bristol is known as? Oh, God.

It's not like a weird one, but I just... It's not, I like the weird ones. Like, I wanted to be Bristolian or something. You're right. That's it. It's Bristolian. So now we all know. Now we all know what a demon name is.

And specifically, if you're from Bristol, you're a Bristolian. Who knew that? Okay. So here's the story. We start in Bristol where a lot of immigrants from the West Indies after World War II come because when the Blitz hits England, there's a lot of labor shortages. So they're like, anyone from the British Empire will pay your way to come to England and help us rebuild the nation.

You know, because they were only hiring men back then. It's messed up. And they didn't have enough. So this is called the Wind Rush Generation. because one ship is called the wind rush from the Caribbean, from the West Indies, brings a whole bunch of immigrants from the West Indies. Jamaica, Barbados, et cetera. So that's the bedrock of this story because when a lot of them come to Bristol and they bring

their culture with them, which includes sound system culture. So you know that I'm a huge, obsessive Jamaican reggae and dub fan. Lee Scratch Berry. So excited. I finally get to kind of bring it into one of these episodes. Sound system culture. You just did your hands like olive oil when she. She loves Popeye, which I think it's hilarious.

But keep going. To our younger listeners, that's a cartoon. Keep going. That's how delighted I am. You are super delighted. I've never been more delighted. Shout out to Delight, Groves of the Heart. Let's keep going.

I'm filled with delight and glee to talk about sound system culture. Now, for those of you who don't know, in Jamaica in the 50s and 60s, sound systems, bands were not a big thing. The beginnings of DJ culture really begin in Jamaica. and to make a very long story short, and hopefully we'll have many more episodes later to go deep. To talk about the Jamaican sound systems. It really is culturally the product of Jamaica

that we have the idea of DJing in open air spaces with lots of people and giant bass rigs that are constructed by the people themselves. It's before there was pump. They're making it to cars, essentially. Like you drive a van or a truck around. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

And these people are building, the Jamaicans are building their own sound systems from discarded, you know, stereo parts. So this tradition is brought to Bristol because of these immigrants who bring their music and the way their music is presented with them. So we have these open-air street parties. There's one famous one called St. Paul's Carnival. It's multi-racial.

Use that word again. Twice in 19 episodes? Wow. I'm watching you. The reason why that's relevant is because there had been racial strife and then there's one incident where it was, it was well because it's because there's there's racial strife because they brought in all these people to essentially build you know rebuild after you know world war two and then once the

buildings are there they're like eh we'd prefer if you guys just go back home you're making britain look a lot less like britain yeah you know and and they did they started deporting people i think it was like you know this big scandal they started deporting a lot of people i think that was only recently reported right that that had been happening all this time yeah yeah yeah Back in Bristol, there was a single incident where I believe the cops burned down a club, and there's such an uprising against the cops from it that they stopped. That's like the end. I'm not going to say the end of police brutality in Bristol,

but the police started to turn a blind eye, basically, to these festivals. They're like, you know what, we're hands off. We heard you guys were going to leave you be. And because of that... Old Bill is like, I've had enough. And because of that sound system culture thrives in Bristol in the early 80s, which gives the chance for black and white kids to bring their... Jamaican music and their punk music together

in a new way. And disco music and funk, it's all coming together in a really special way and these open air festivals open to every one of all ages. It's really important that it's not a nightclub, it's not just adults, it's parents and kids, it's a very community feeling. And this is something I think is one of the reasons why we're covering mass attack. It's one of the main themes that I think I take away from not just this song, but a lot of songs that we cover on the show.

we anytime you have cross-pollination in cultures you end up with cool stuff like I think about Atlanta cool and very new new new stuff I think about the city I'm from Atlanta growing up we didn't have a ton of rappers from Atlanta but we were getting all the stuff from New York we were getting all the stuff from LA we were even getting like the Luther Campbell sound from Miami and eventually we ended up with Alcass right and Goody Mob

and then eventually we got T.I. and Ludacris It's all of the influences, but synthesized in a completely unique and new way. And you think about New York where, you know, in downtown Manhattan, they were getting rap from the Bronx. They were getting, you know, disco and punk. And, like, it all came together to create this stew. And I think what you're saying is that Bristol was, you know, it had a lot of Jamaican and Barbadian. That's another, what is it? What's the word?

Oh, damn, I already forgot. Demonym. Demonem. You had, you know, they were bringing the sound system. They were bringing the reggae. I think that punk and reggae have kind of gone, I don't want to say hand in hand, because reggae has just as big an influence on hip hop, obviously. But like when you listen to early, like the police and you listen to, which, you know, we can argue the police are not punk. But I guess what I'm saying is that there was a lot of reggae and a lot of punk mixing in the UK.

And then because these guys in this particular group, which blows up in the 90s, they're also listening to, you know, 80s New York hip hop. and they're putting that influence in. Exactly right. We're about to get into that. You're exactly right. We're about to get into that in a really big way. Just one last sort of quality that comes from, that comes out of this Jamaican connection specifically, is bass.

So the advent of bass as a phenomenon that we, as we know it today, we really have to thank these DIY sound systems in the 50s and 60s because the idea of replicating bass requires large speakers that are strong together. You have to push a lot of air through. It's a physicality that prior to Jamaica, you couldn't really hear it. If you were playing music outside, you wouldn't hear any bass. So it was to solve a problem, to be able to replicate these sounds that they had recorded that they liked the bass part of, they innovated these do-it-yourself systems that evolved and evolved and improved upon themselves.

And that becomes what we sort of take for granted when we go to a nightclub now, anything bass related. We really have to thank Jamaica for bringing that into both the replication in a live space, but also on recording. Hugely relevant as we get into the massive attack story. We just want to say, thank you, Jamaica. Thank you, Jamaica. So I want to move forward to the making of tear drop. The process of DJ's writing music.

We all know that it's different than what you'll find with traditional singer-songwriters. Let's talk about that. I love this topic because I have learned, I can't come from an instrument, you know, playing background. I started on drums and I taught myself a little guitar, blah, blah, blah. So I have a little music theory, a little piano. lessons in my background, right? So I definitely come from a musician background, and I have

worked with people who come from a DJ background, and what I've been blown away by is how it's not the disadvantage in the way that you might think it is when you're like, in theory. Actually, DJs who come to the table on the songwriting process bring a deep knowledge of what people respond to, first and foremost. Oh, thanks, man. Thank you so much. A thousand percent, you, you who I'm talking about over there, Diallo with whom I've written songs. It starts with the DJ knowledge is a very specific kind of knowledge. It's an understanding of even if it's intuitive, even if the next step is getting the language for it.

It's an intuitive sense of what's going to work, what's going to clear the dance floor, what's going to go to peak hour. And it's also about tastes. It's also about recognizing what's cool, what's been done too many times. So there's all these specific things that I think, and obviously I want to hear your perspective,

because you are the DJing question here, that is a different way of approaching how to write music. So what as a DJ? I'm reminded of the LCD sounds like, system. Right. So he's like, you throw it away your keyboards and bought turtables. You throw it away your turd tables and bought keyboards.

That's it. I mean, like, I think about massive attack because this is a group that basically starts off doing a lot of sampling, you know, because they're essentially like DJs, like me. And that's the third element is the resourcefulness. Yeah. If you don't know how to make a song, a sound, you find the sound and you use the sound by anything is necessary. I don't know if you remember this. The first time I came over to your house, you know, I've said many times public schools failed me. I don't know how to play any instrument that requires notes,

but I do know how to drum and I do know how to DJ. First time I came to your house to work on music, I pulled out my laptop and I turned on Serato, which is like the go-to DJ application. And I was literally like, so it sounds a little bit like this. I started pushing buttons. But then it sounds like I pull up another song, but then it's got a part that sounds like this.

And I would play that part. And I was like, can we make something sounds like that? And you just know that we're about to get into the Wild Bunch, which is the name of the massive attacks embryonic sound system. But you just know that they were doing the same thing. Yeah. And maybe they landed on, hey, why don't we just, what you just did on the, just use that, sample that, because that sounded what I want to hear.

Let's just take that. Now, you just mentioned the Wild Bunch. As I understand it, the Wild Bunch is a bunch of these people out of what they call the Bristol scene. And they're wild. Yes. Well, they're named after that movie from the 60s, right? Well, they're named after a San Pekinpaw movie, but I think it might have also been a play.

on one of their favorite movies, which was... Wild style, yes, is one of my favorite movies of all time. If you ever want to get a real sense of what early 80s hip-hop was, you can get almost nothing more authentic... 1983 Bronx, yep. Then, yeah, South Bronx, nothing more authentic than the movie Wild Style directed by a guy named Charlie Ahern. Music by Chris Stein of Blondie.

There's a famous song, and they're called Subway Rap, which serves the bed. Let's play it. I had it queued up. Which serves to it. bed of the for those who may not know it have you ever heard Nause's I'matic it's the first song you hear in Elmatic plays a little bit of that

I love how punk rock that is too I think that's but they didn't consider it I mean like it has punk influences but they consider this B-boy stuff that's crazy but it's so wonky like in oh it's complete like that base I think that's Chris Stein on the base they don't use a snare they use a snap

you hear that snap they don't use a snare it with a snare it's as I think it's as I was told to me It was several snaps layered in. Does that make sense? It's not just one snap. I only bring it up just to say that it's got one of the greatest moments of unintentional brilliance. There's a stick-up scene where they actually use some guys on set who just rolled up on the set. And sometimes when you're filming, there will be people who just roll up to set.

And they were like, hey, can we play the stick-up kids? They were like, yeah, sure. It turned out they actually had a weapon. And they were like, we're going to use this weapon in the scene. and when he says, there's a famous thing where he says, you heard it on the radio, you seen it on the TV show, and the other one says, A to the K,

and he pulls out the gun, and he says A to the motherfucking Z. And this is not in the script. They told the director, this is just some cool stuff we thought we'd say before we robbed somebody. And it made the cut. It made it into the movie.

It seems so authentic. Yeah, Wild Style, amazing movie. So yes, Wild Bunch, obviously, the Sam Peck and Paul movie from the 60s, but Wild style, a movie and, if you will, a movement that had a big effect on the members of Massive Attack. I was just going to play, so we have it, the Illmatic song that samples. This is The Genesis by Nas.

And you can hear he slowed it way down. Pleaser. So who actually is in the Wild Bunch? All right. So the Wild Bunch sound system consisted of. Robert Del Naya, who's 3D. We got Grant Marshall goes by Daddy G. Massive attack.

We got Andrew Vowles, goes by Mushrooms. Massive Attack. And there are a couple other founding members. Milo Johnson gets a lot of credit for being among, maybe even the first who, I think, his being the kind of kingpin DJ of the sound system is what led to, I think, Robert Del Nia joining later.

Nellie Hooper, importantly, is an early member who goes on to produce Madonna and Bjork, among other people. And we have, not unimportantly, Adrian Thaw's, aka Tricky, who is a bit, especially those first couple records, like the silent Ford member. Tricky's in the massive attack family. Yeah, he's in a massive attack family, exactly right. So these guys are... And by the way, Nellie Hooper, I mean, like, and it totally makes sense to me that the person who worked on the Bjork albums, those early 90s Bork albums,

was also in the scene because, you know, albums like debut and post, like, there are very Electronica slash trip hop songs on those albums. Exactly. And so these guys get together. They throw these sound systems and these are like full on combining elements of West Indian like Jamaican culture we've got the big it's a DJ party outdoors at festivals. I know. All ages

and the music being played is a combination of punk and reggae. It's the clash. It's American hip-hop. So they're bringing in elements from Jamaica. They're bringing in elements from New York and hip-hop and they're also be-boying and spray painting and graffiti. Like they're bringing in

all of the, this is absolutely hip hop, but it's Bristol style with Jamaican influence. It's an incredible mix. It's a scene. I always wonder like where are the scenes today? Like post-pandemic, I'm always looking for the scenes. I think it was, you told me David Byrne was like, to have a scene, you have to have

basically free alcohol for the kids who are going to be making them music. You have to give them a safe place. And I think a sound system would help. Maybe you and I should start a sound system. We should start a sound system. We'll buy a food truck. We'll put a whole bunch of speakers on it and then we'll just drive around like we'll drive down sunset. Maybe we'll start at like sunset and Hollywood and like where it meets near Silver, like it will just drive east towards downtown.

I'm free Monday. Let's do this. Let's figure that out. We're going to start a sound system. One song sound system sounds really dope too, actually. I like that. Sounds like some hooligans to me. So they're getting mixtapes from America before London does.

And it's important to note that Robert Del Naya, aka 3D, we'll call him 3D from this point forward. He is one of the first graffiti artists in Bristol. he pioneers that stencil graffiti that you've seen a million times. And by the way, he's rumored to be Banksy. Now this... I think he denied that, right? He's denied it, but that doesn't make him not Banksy.

Because Banksy would fess up. Are you Banks? Oh, fine. But I've seen footage of him... If you see there's on YouTube, you can go see footage of some of these early sound system parties in Bristol. And you see him spray painting. And it's that Banksy style with the stencils where they've clearly just printed out a photograph. So he's either lying or Banksy's a freaking hack.

Yeah. But there's all these, like, people on the internet have, like, tracked, like, Banksy, a new Banksy showed up in a town that, like, Massive Attack. It was just in? Right. Insane. Yeah, so we don't know. We don't know. We're not confirming or denying, but we are throwing it out.

But Banks, if you want to come on one song, the invitation is there. So we talked about the DJ approach to songwriting. This band, this group of people, gradually starts to put together their first musical piece. It happens to be the first single by Massive Attack before they're called Massive Attack is called The Look of Love and it's the Wild Bunch sound system. And it's a Dusty Springfield cover. I'm going to play a little bit for you. That's the next thing.

And the reason why this is relevant to our conversation about the DJ approach to songwriting is that it's literally just that. It's just a breakbeat, which might be a drum machine. It might be a combination of a loop from a record. And then Sharon Nelson, who goes on to perform on Blue Lines,

their first record, is singing on top, somebody else's song composition. So they're just, they don't know how to play instruments other than Cher who's an incredible singer, but they're like, we want to make a song, let's just grab what we can grab. We don't want to write anything,

so we're going to use a cover. We don't know how to make anything melodically so we won't have any instruments. So just a drumbeat and this girl who sings incredibly well. Which to me is totally legit. Yeah, me too. Music making.

So the Wildbunch ends up splintering and 3D mushroom and Daddy G become massive attack. And in part, they're inspired to do this by Nana Cherry. Shout out to Nana, who Buffalo Stance, one of my favorite underrated gems of the late 80s. She took them under her wing, basically.

She gave them some financial support. They were like, you guys are really talented, but you need to finish what you start. So she brings them into her house, and they're in her baby's room, starting to make what becomes one of the greatest electronic albums, if not album albums of all time. And I know you've got a lot to say about this. It's called Blue Line. Yes.

We both adore this record. Did you want to talk about it? that, you know, it's such an important record. It's got, be thankful for what you've got and safe from harm and so many songs that if you, we don't have time on today's podcast, but go listen to Blue Lines. You will recognize so many songs. If you were at all alive in the 90s, you'll recognize so many songs. Yes.

And you didn't know, some of you didn't know that those were massive attack songs. And I'm going to play a clip of a song off the album called Unfinished Sympathy, called by some critics one of the first truly great dance songs. It was an anthem for this new sort of multicultural Britain that you know these kids had come up in and here's a clip of that.

Man that song still because we chose it's just a masterful dance record. If you listen to Blue Lines now like you hear like soul music dance music basically what is you know British hip hop like you hear from that era Like you hear so many things, but by the third album, things in the 90s have gotten dark. And we come to the album Mezzanine, which is an absolute classic, but is also going to help tear this band apart.

And on this album, we have the song that we're talking about today, which is Teardrop. Where would you like to start? We have the stems on Teardrop. Where would you like to start? Well, let's start with the drums. And this is going to be one of the quickest stems we've ever done because there's so, the element. that are there are very sparse and they're very looped, which is to say that across the duration of are they live? Is this a drummer or a sample? So the drumbeat is a sample. Let me play it for you

first in the mix. And now you're going to laugh a little bit when you hear the sample because you know, you just kind of heard it. I don't think I did. I'm going to guess it's something slowed down. Oh wow. It's actually something sped up. I would not have guessed that. This is Les McCann. It's called Sometimes I Cry from 1973. right, they just took that one loop, that one beat, and they looped it through the song. They added another second kick underneath it. Play us just a little bit of Les McCanns, just like a meaty part of the song, just so we get a sense of where that beat comes in.

Ooh, got that Rhodes in there. Got that 1973. Anything from 1973. I think everything from 1973 sounded amazing. There's nothing bad that came out in 973. Well. So, Les McCann. So that gets looped.

There's a second kick drum added to make the beat slightly different, that boom, boom, boom, ka. So there's your beat. And then before we get into the next section, let me back up and say that there was kind of a silent fourth member who joins the band at this point. And that's Neil Davage, the producer. And he becomes somebody in their circle who actually can play instruments. So one day the story goes... We won't hold it against him. He adds a harpsichord part, which I'll play for you in a second.

Oh, wow. This comes out of the fact that Mushroom was in the studio. One day he walks in and Neil's... just happen to be messing around and he comes and he plays this part and mushrooms like whoa stop right there i love this and here's what he was here's what he heard and once again that's another element that just goes through the entire six and a half minute duration of this song so never changing it's so dark and wonderful it's dark and wonderful so the next thing i want to play for you do y'all are you ready for this we were talking about bass and the importance of bass to

Jamaican culture and dub. It's really important to set that up when I play for you the stem because what you're going to hear might seem sort of simplistic or insignificant, borderline insignificant. But this is the baseline. Once again, going through the entire song. I've ever heard that before. And it does have a sub in the mix, meaning there's another part that doubles it. But essentially that on giant speakers is devastating, you know? And sometimes when you hear isolated stems like this, that context doesn't really come through. Yeah. But this is one of those albums and this band and possibly this entire genre is designed, as we now know, for sound systems and for bass to come through and destroy your emotional state. So this is actually a bass line.

Or lift you up. That in spite of its simplicity is incredibly powerful in the context of the song. There's also like a piano in here, right? Yeah, let's listen to that. And it's layered with this Leslie, which is that sound. I'll just outside. You hear that in the background? Those things are on top of each other.

Yeah. And that Leslie is a kind of speaker that rotates and that gives it that kind of oldie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He could have them Beatles feel to it in fact. Oh, no, I like it. It's sort of an oldie cell. By the way, if they didn't have that fourth piano note in there, I think we would all just die. Like, that third note is so dark.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, like, I'm glad they gave us the, like, it's almost like, hey, but the sun's going to come back up, you guys. It's like. The minimalism. Each of those notes has its own emotion. You're dead right. Every single note there has a personality. That third note is an absolute killer.

And I mean that actually in the best way. I often say that, like, I think the through line of some of my absolute favorite hip-hop songs of all time, from Ill Street Blues by Cool G. Rap to New York State of Mind by Nas is chunky piano. I'll even call it chunky piano. If you're a listener of the show, you know what that is. That's the way. Drinking game. Do your shots.

Chunky. but I think that there's something about like a rich piano that like there's just texture and there's depth there that like very few other instruments can tackle. Also one other thing I'm noticing there. One other thing I'm noticing is the scratchiness. Can you say something about where does that scratchiness come from? Well, the scratchiness literally comes from the sample

because they're literally taking the record, the vinyl record, which has aged from 1973 to 1998. So it's a 20 plus year old record. And they're recording it. into their sampler in order to use it. And it comes warts and all, and that includes the actual... Red and white core.

Crackle, the vinyl sound of the vinyl, that's a 20-year-old piece of vinyl, which, of course, aesthetically, adds and contributes to the darkness and the melancholiness of the song. It gives us this sort of oldness, this kind of mustiness, right? And that's intentional.

There isn't a goal to clean it up to make it sound pristine. To quote Mrs. Potato Head from the Toy Story movies, it's dark and dusty. And let me just recap everything you've listed that you've just heard all of, there's not a lot of things I just played for you, but that for the first minute or so of the song is all you're getting. And here's what it sounds like just to remind you in the mix.

How full and rich that is. You don't need much more. But you know what's crazy is this is that one time where I feel like the bass is really not the standout instrument. Like you played that bass part? Yeah. I had never heard it before. And I'm still not really hearing it. It's there.

You're feeling it, though. You're feeling it. But I know, but I am feeling the harpsichord and I am feeling the piano. Those are the things that are working in town. Those are the superstars. Well, we talked about riffs on another episode. This is the episode we're going to make you go back and listen to all the other episodes you missed. So go back to the superstition episode if you missed it.

But we talked about riffs. This is not really a bass riff per se. You don't walk away from the song thinking about the baseline. You may never actually notice it to your point. You are absolutely feeling it, though, in your body as you experience the song because it is providing the bedrock. some of the emotional bedrock, I would say. I think the drums with the scratchy vinyl vibe, plus that simple bass line, which is really rich,

that combines to create this bedrock, which is very dark and melancholy and vibe. Wow, I mean, it's so cinematic. I absolutely love it. Before you go throwing another tear drop on the fire, we will be getting deeper into tear drop by massive attack. That's after the break. We'll be right back.

Okay, so back to the topic of today's show. tear drop by Massive Attack. Luxury, tell us how Massive Attack accomplishes atmosphere. Right. Well, we talked a little bit about before when we were listening to the drumbeat and the sample, we have just the crackle noise of the vinyl adds a little bit because all of the instruments

and all the parts they're playing are very simple. So one way to achieve just listener interest across the song besides the vocals, which we're about to get to, is there's lots of little just interesting sounds and interesting just moments that come and go. So I'm going to play a few of those for you. And when you hear them isolated, you may not even notice them or recognize them. And then in the mix, it'll become the thing that as you listen to the song from here on out for the rest of your natural life, you will never unhear.

Oh, that's that thing where they did that thing. One that's really a particular interest to me, I'm not positive what it is, but my speculation, because it shows up in the stems, it's called plug one. I literally think this might be, and because I'm a producer, I think this is the sound of a cable from like a guitar being plugged in. and taken out again with lots of distortion and delay and effects add it to it. It's not a member of a day last old. It could be plug one,

could be plugged two. It's not plug three anymore. RIP. Talk about going dark. Dark song. Let's hear plug one. Now when I play that for you in the mix, you'll be like, oh yeah,

that's that thing that does that thing. You think that's a plug? Listen to it. Literally the beginning of the song is the sound. And again, this is speculation. But if you listen to it carefully, and in your mind you've got the image of, you know, a guitar,

someone unplugs the cable from it. It makes noise because it's electrified in that moment if it's still plugged into the end. So if you take that electrified plug and you plug it back into the guitar, the moment before it's fully plugged in, it makes a sound, which is a little to my ears like this. I could be dead wrong, but that's what I think is. I'm going.

I'm going. Mushrooms. Feel free to email or comment. And tell us if we're way off or way on. Either way, what it is is one moment that happens a handful of times throughout the song. There's a few more little sounds like that. Here's another one. Now, this one shows up.

It's called Hammond. So I'm pretty sure this is a Hammond. A Hammond, Oregon. And here's what it sounds like. Not from Oregon. But Hammond. Hammond. I don't know why I said Oregon.

Here's a Hammond. Oregon. Right? Yeah, that's a Hammond. Do you recognize that song? And it's almost non-pitched. Like there isn't much of a clarity of what that pitch is. It's more of like if you just bash a Hammond organ,

rhythmically, and you'll see a lot of passionate keyboard players, like Oregon players will do that. And here it is in the mix. So again, next time you hear the song, around the two-minute mark, you'll hear this, right? Little moments like that pepper up, a pretty sparse arrangement.

Did not really catch that one either. There's all kinds of little things going on in here. I'll play you one more fun little moment, little sound that just shows up. It's called Norse. BEEP. Here's the Nord beep. And that's it. I mean, Nord being probably a keyboard, right? Nord is a gorgeous, very expensive keyboard. And now I'll play that one for you in the mix.

This one's maybe a little bit more noticeable. So all of these things combine and, you know, there's, there is a string patch and there's some more synths, but basically what we have music. This episode is brought to you by an espresso. Hear that. That's your next obsession. Every coffee, a new world. sip a new taste. This is the new Nespresso. One touch, endless possibilities. Iceed,

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nespresso.com. Basically speaking, is a very sparse bed of atmospheric sounds. And just, you know, the base loop is simple, the drum loop is simple. All of this is engineered to make the vocal shine all the more. And now, ladies and gentlemen, at long last, the vocals of Miss Elizabeth Fraser from Cocto Twins, sometimes known as the voice of God. Love is a doing word.

Fear the summer, pray. I don't know much you, man, but... Wow. You know what? I never knew those letters. before and I still don't know what the song's about. That's a piece. We're going to try and break that down in a moment, but I mean, just from like ears and spying, tingling span. And I think that what the 90s had that, it's still a thing, but it's different now.

There was like a sort of, you know, I think about Elizabeth Frazier, I think about Beth Gibbons, I think about Bjork, you know, coming out of the sugar cubes. You know, like there's a, there was a 90s vocalist that, You just, you don't hear those kind of vocals anymore. That is some really, really icy stuff. I think it's, yeah, it's amazing. This is, you know, I don't know if technically you'd call it crooning, but the type of singing she's doing, she's not singing in cursive.

She's not singing in cursive. We'll talk about that on another episode, but she's not belting it. No, she's not belting. This is, this is, in fact, if you are singing this way as she is in a live setting, it's very difficult to hear. Like, so the live performances of her, they like, you can tell that they boosted her. Of course. It's basically a speaking voice.

She's like speaking, almost whispering. Very intimate. But it's very icy and cold in a good way. Luxury, tell us the backstory behind this truly haunting vocal performance and the lyrics. Well, Elizabeth Frazier is in one of my favorite bands, Cacto Twins, or I should say, was. And in fact, was married to... Love the Cacto Twins. If you haven't already absorbed their catalog, maybe start with Heaven or Las Vegas.

She's famous for not singing in English. That's interesting. You go to that one. My favorite album is Garlands. Just as an intro, I was going to say. For new listeners, because their first few records don't have, she's singing in essentially a gibberish or a made-up language. And Heaven or Las Vegas is one of the first records that I think is accessible to a new list of English.

My friend, I actually think Garlands is a little bit more upbeat tempo-wise. So I'll admit my favorite song by them is Wax and Wayne. Okay. So like there's just a part of me that's like, you know, we've bonded on post-punk before. So tempo-wise, I think if you're looking for something a little more upbubly, beat Garlands, but if you're looking for Elizabeth's, you know, vocals at the forefront, let's do Heaven or Las Vegas. I mean, if you want to go down

a rabbit hole, just, you know, call me at luxury.com, and because we can talk about this all day and all night. Every song from every album has its own sort of feeling. So I'm such a fanboy for Cocto Twins and specifically for Elizabeth Frazier, the existence of her on a song with Massive Attack, these two titans of my, you know, favorite music makers coming together is such a pleasure. There you go. But she is often referred to as the Voice of God.

This is something that a writer for Melodymaker once said, and it sort of stuck amongst a certain group of us. And that's of our listening to like, Boyce God, man, I didn't come here for this. Don't try to convert me. So when the Cocto Twins end acrimoniously, because she's with Robin Guthrie, the writing partner and guitar player

and mastermind behind that band, the two of them are married, they have a child, and then things end. But she goes on to briefly date the incredible singer Jeff Buckley, son of another incredible singer, Tim Buckley. And when he passes away, it's May 29, 1997, and he's 29, he drowns tragically in the Mississippi River. And she finds out about his disappearance

in the middle of her writing the lyrics to this song. And she seems to feel, there's sort of a chill that goes down her spine as she learns of his disappearance in the middle of what this song was about sort of emerging from her vocal melodies and her lyrics. They just connected in a way that she found very chilling. She ends up saying, I got letters out, I was thinking about him, that song's kind of about him. That's how it feels to me anyway. So there's a connection that she feels to her relationship with Jeff Buckley, who passed away

right in the middle of the song. Wow, I never knew that. Now, Elizabeth Frazier wasn't the only singer that was sort of in the running to sing this song. That's right. It's one of the greatest what-ifs of 90s music. Tell us about it. Well, if you'll recall at the top of what we were discussing the song's origins, we have it beginning with the harpsichord and with Mushroom laying down a beat.

And so once they had this germ of an idea, Neil, the producer, Neil, continues to work on it separately with 3D, and the two of them send it to Elizabeth Fraser because they adore her vocal and they think it'd be perfect for it. But Mushroom was not that excited about it, right? Mushroom is not excited about that at all. And he actually removes his beats. He takes off the recording his percussion track. And then when Neil and 3D return to the studio, it's gone.

So they have to replace it. They have to collage their recording, their demo, with drums and percussion, which they borrow from another track they're working on. They actually bring in the engineer Dave Jenkins, who plays the piano, which we just heard, like that's on the final recording. Yeah.

So there's a splitting, there's kind of a papal schism going on for this song where we've got one version over here that is being worked on and is the completed version with Elizabeth Fraser from Cocto Twins. But there's this second version that makes its way across the pond. And one day they get an email or a call. They get communication comes in basically from Madonna's management saying she loves the song. Yeah. And she can't wait to finish it. And this is Madonna during her ray of light period. This is Madonna Louise Chaconi at her finest at her height.

Well, actually, you're right. When is 1998? She's experimenting with stuff that's sort of like left field pop. Right, right. The Ray of Light album was pretty experimental by Madonna standards. Absolutely. That's a great record. That's so crazy.

I mean, Madonna during the Ray of Light here, how do you think it would have gone down if Madonna had? I mean, it would have been a completely different song. I don't even know what they have in common in terms of like vocal styles or registers. completely different. I don't know. I don't know if it would have. Because I think that, you know, I guess it would have. I guess it would be a completely different song. It's just like I've heard the version of Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe by Kendrick Lamar that has the original Lady Gaga's vocals singing the hook. I don't even know that. Oh, yeah, that's the thing.

Wow. And at some point, Kendrick was just like, no, I'm going to have this other person sing. And it and it truly makes it a Kendrick song. It's the exact same notes and everything, but it's Lady Gaga singing. But does it feel like a completely different song? understand why they didn't use it? You know, I think it would have absolutely still worked, but, you know, I've had more of a few Kendrick fans when I played it for him and be like, nah, I like what he ended up going with. You know, like, no distigaga, but, you know, I like what that song ended up being. But, you know, here's the thing. If Madonna sings it, it's not as icy. It's not as, the song we think of now as tear drop. Like, to me. I love Madonna, but she's not an emotional singer to me. Like, I don't, I don't get the chills. It might have sounded more polish and more. pop. Like Elizabeth Fraser opens her mouth

and I'm in tears and I'm a puddle on the ground. Totally. But by the way, I also understand where Mushroom's coming from because it's tough when you want to, you know, I know where, I feel like I know where Mushroom wanted to go. Like he wanted to probably segue into, you know, more DJ stuff and more...

And meanwhile, 3D, clearly like just bring in more instruments and more like he's going in a more band direction. That's right. That's absolutely right. In fact, I know that Mushroom leaves the group around this album two years later daddy g the other black guy in the group leaves the group and then it's just 3d and he puts out a now i think it's 100 windows which you know a lot of you know sort of a

divisive album in the in the pantheon for it doesn't quite fit in the same way it's a good record but it's all live instruments he wants to move away from djing and sampling and not 100 but it's certainly a big change from the first three yeah i i remember when when daddy g came back i was actually DJing by that point. I remember the big quote was, I'm bringing the black back to massive attack. Well, that is a wonderful rhyming sentence. And I'm very impressed by it.

By his rhyming skills. I mean, so that's a pretty big, you know, what if hangover the song. What if Madonna had said it? It would have certainly been interesting. Yeah, I would have left to have heard it. Well, that's what's funny. It doesn't have to be just an interesting what if anymore through the fantastic use of computers. Don't tell me. Yeah. Somebody suggested we use artificial intelligence. I know this is

going to be very controversial thing that we're going to do. It almost feels mandatory to try. Oh, I know, but it also, I hate it already. We used artificial intelligence to make it, you know, and we are so sorry in advance. To create, I know, I hate myself. But think of it as a learning moment, a healing, learning moment.

Learning through the use of copywritten material, we are going to find out now what does it sound like when Madonna sings tear drop. Let's listen to a little bit of this. I mean, AI nailed it. That sounds just like Madonna. If she didn't speak English, The robots are not taking over this week.

Wait, before we move on, I kind of want to hear, let's see what it would sound like if we had a more contemporary singer. Let's see what happens when you put Ariana Grande in the mix. Here we go. Why? What's weird about that is that sounds like... That sounds way more like Ariana. Yeah, and it sounds pop, and it kind of turns the song pop. It's sort of successfully AIs what it's trying to do, but it's still uncanny and creepy and weird.

I know, exactly. Like, Arianna's like, listen to the show, like, unsubscribe. And in spite of all, so there's clearly a lot going on in terms of the creative fracture that comes out of this, because they never work together again. They're always in different units or isolated, but they still hang out together. And in a mixed mag interview that same year after they acrimoniously split, I'm doing air quotes, they say, we get on really well together as long as we don't talk about music. As soon as we talk about music, we argue.

So the friendship remains intact to some degree in spite of that. And I think that their legacy remains intact. We don't have time to talk about every trip-hop group, every electronica group. But as much as we'd love to. It's worth mentioning that songs like, you know, Hellers Around the Corner by Tricky and so many wonderful songs by groups like, you know, everything from, you know, More Chiba to the sneaker pimps. We mentioned Portishead many times. Portishead. I mean, come on, GloryBox.

If you listen to one other song, It's our times. Listen to the glory box. You'll be like, oh my God, how cinematic, how dark, how cool. Their legacy lives on. I mean, that's what I would see is their legacy. What do you see is their legacy? Well, it's one of those things we're preparing for this episode

made me remember. I went down the rabbit hole of just listening to all the music that I loved at the time. And it doesn't feel dated. It feels certainly that tempo, that trip hop vibe, a lot of the choices that are made with, you know, bass and sampling, it's certainly, I know when it's from when I hear it, but it also feels fresh to my ears again.

Yeah. We're kind of living in a time where everything is sort of recombining things that have come before. And this, to me, I would DJ at our next, you know, DJ night at Pinkies. You know, Michael Gonzalez, who's a writer for vibes, said that this music still sounds like tomorrow. And I would agree. Except that if I'm being really hard, these, you know, there's so many drill. rappers coming out of the UK. Like now when I listen to BBC Radio One, it sounds very different than it did 20 and 25 years ago, obviously, which is a good thing. I feel like the music is back to being dark. I feel like the sort of multiculturalism that was championed when Massive Attack was making their music is now literally the source of political and social strife in the UK because, you know, even more than it was in the 90s, many people in the UK are stressed out because they say, say there's too much immigration and we've seen the you know what's resulted from Brexit and so

now like it seems even more confrontational if you are presenting a picture of the UK that isn't you know just the traditional white face right so I think we'll have to see where things go in the next you know a couple of years but I think for now we can look back on massive attack and say this is the best case scenario this is the this is what is good what happens when cultures, you know, mingle and mix and throw everything into a stew. And it's experimental, and what they were trying to do was not be hitmakers. They weren't aiming for the pop charts. They were aiming to just be true to what they loved.

Mushroom said so much. He was like, when we first started out, we were making music for ourselves. And he basically said, you guys are sold out, man. You guys are writing for the critics, man. And I understand that that's part of the process. Because, you know, even the movie Wild Style, to go back to that, they didn't know that they were making a seminal hip-hop movie. He literally said, I was making wild style because I wanted a movie that could be shown on some of those theaters that were on 42nd Street.

He had no idea that he was making a movie that, you know, almost 40 years later, is now being held up as the seminal. This is early hip-hop in New York movie. That was not the goal. The goal was just to make a movie that his friends could go see. It just goes to show that being authentic when you're making something, if it's something that you believe in and that you'd like and you're not looking too much to being like something that are. already exists, when you're bringing in disparate elements that feel very personally of interest to you and represent your genuine authentic loves, it will probably last longer. It will probably be more meaningful for more people for a longer period of time. And I think that this song and this record and

maybe even this most of this band's output, I think, checks those boxes. You know, when I first started off DJing, I was DJing at a lot of hotels. Oh my God. That was back when it was really risky when a DJ was like in a hotel lobby. People were like, oh, this is insane. They were really excited. They were really excited to see a DJ at the lobby. And then they proceeded to ask you where the bathroom was, which was so insulting.

But there was a time when this dark sort of like, you know, hip-hop influenced music was really on the cutting edge. And I'd love to see it, you know, come back in that way. Because I think with so many people trying to make these pop records, we'd really like to see people go back to make. making music for themselves and also music that is just cinematic in scope. Until then, I think we have to admit that this period is over. And for that, I will shed a teardrop.

Luxury, help me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter, luxury. And I'm actor-writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is one song. We will see you same time next week. To drop on the fire, fade of summer. One nice long note.