One Song - Olivia Rodrigo's “good 4 u”

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Does ‘good 4 u’ build a bridge over the generational rock / pop divide? Diallo and LUXXURY dive into the teenage scream of Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘good 4 u’. They discuss her deep rock influences..., Paramore interpolation woes, and the eternal angst of the break up record. One Song Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40SIOpVROmrxTjOtH7Q1yw?si=0cb256de8f984481 Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/onesong today. Songs Discussed: “Good 4 u” - Olivia Rodrigo “Misery Business” - Paramore “Boulevard of Broken Dream” - Green Day “Live Your Life” - T.I. feat. Rihanna “Umbrella” - Rihanna “Alejandro” - Lady Gaga “Dragostea Din Tei” - O-Zone “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” - Taylor Swift “Higher Love” - Steve Winwood “vampire” - Olivia Rodrigo “Doe” - The Breeders “Just Like Heaven” - The Cure “On The Bound” - Fiona Apple “drivers license” - Olivia Rodrigo “brutal” - Olivia Rodrigo “Pump It Up” - Elvis Costello & The Attractions “Subterranean Homesick Blues” - Bob Dylan “Too Much Monkey Business” - Chuck Berry “Friday I’m In Love” - The Cure “Crazy Train” - Ozzy Osborne “Brain Stew” - Green Day “Run It Up” - Jarv Dee, Bad Colours, Kas & Jay Park “L.O.V.E.” - Motor City Drum Ensemble Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Before you, you're happy and healthy, not me. If you ever care to ask, well, I never meant to brag, but I got them where I want them now. My shadow's only one that walks beside me. Just live your life. Hey, yeah, under my umbrella. Adandro, ha, la, and no. We are never, ever, ever.
Starting point is 00:00:30 Getting back together Bring me a higher love Whoa Because you're so unaffected I really don't get it I guess good for you And that's the whole show It's one song
Starting point is 00:00:48 Literally one song But so many songs So many songs So many songs So many songs Luxury today I'm excited to learn More about an artist Who's been a rising pop phenom
Starting point is 00:00:57 For the last few years She's had an incredible run, two number one albums, three number one singles, and three Grammys, all by the age of 21. That's right, D'all, but Olivia's not your average pop star. I really love the fact that she brings in this lineage of female-fronted rock bands and pop stars that came before her. Everyone from Fiona Apple to Joan Jett to even like Loretta Lynn is in the mix with her. Dude, I love Fiona Apple.
Starting point is 00:01:18 She's the best. I cannot wait to talk more about her. And this wonderful artist, today we're talking one song, and that song is good for you by Olivia Rodriguez. I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ D'A. Riddell Riddell. And I'm producer, DJ songwriter and musicologist Luxury, aka the guy who whispers, Interpolation.
Starting point is 00:01:52 And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. That's right. You'll hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And if you want to watch one song, you can watch this full episode on YouTube and Spotify
Starting point is 00:02:05 and why you there, please like and subscribe. Now, luxury, when did Olivia Rodriguez first come across your radar? Listen, let's like the elephant in the room is that we're a couple of dudes talking about a young female pop star. And what's interesting to me... Speak for yourself. Well, in what way? What part of that sentence was not true? I think what's interesting for my experience of Olivia Rodrigo is that it was COVID
Starting point is 00:02:26 era. When things were starting to sort of flatten out, everyone's experience was very related. We were all looking at our phones. We were all looking at TikTok in particular. And for me, her first record, Sauer, and this song in particular, good for you, were kind of a soundtrack for a while. There was a good six weeks where my FYP was filled with songs, Fragments of this song, you know, videos that were like soundtrack to the like, like a damn sociopath, like that part of it. And for me, when I think of Olivia Rodriguez coming on my radar, it was in this context, which is, it's happened a few times on our show. We talk about TikTok breaking songs. But an entire artist coming on our radar was a little bit new to the world still in this era.
Starting point is 00:03:10 And she was one of the first TikTok breakout stars. And so I feel like I'm as allowed to know about and like her music as any teenage fan might. Is anybody with that app on their phone? And what about you, D'all? When did you first hear Good for You, or Olivia Rodriguez, for that matter? Well, I think the first song I heard from her was not good for you.
Starting point is 00:03:26 I think it was the Q remix of Vampire. The thing about that song, Vampire, is that, like, you know, there's this whole backstory. And I think that, to your point, I think that Olivia has absolutely lived in this world where the stories behind the songs are just as important as the songs.
Starting point is 00:03:53 Yes. Like, it's not just among the fans, but among people like us talking about her. And I think that that goes towards the knowledge of what's happening in her life outside of the music. Yeah, I think that is sort of the TikTok part of it. I think you and I were talking recently about a video where a guy said, you know, you have to let the fans into your process. You don't have to, but there's a whole segment of, you know, it happens in K-pop too a lot,
Starting point is 00:04:16 where you're allowed as a fan into the creation of the music the first time the artist is listening back to the music and they're making changes. Like, you're a part of the process. You're along for the rock. Yeah, you feel invested. You feel invested. Yeah. And you know something about the person maybe.
Starting point is 00:04:30 And it adds to the experience of the music. That extra layer of richness, of intertextuality, as we've talked about in other episodes, really contributes to the experience of the listener. Absolutely. And I think as far as good for you specifically, I like probably so many other people, heard the song, like the song. It's interesting because it does remind me of Kelly Clarkson since you've been gone. And a lot of these songs that have sort of a certain structure that harkens back to the 90s.
Starting point is 00:04:57 we're going to talk about that on this episode. I was listening in the car with my wife. We were driving down from the Bay Area, so we had a long time to listen to lots of Olivia Rodrigo and really get into it. And her reaction was like, first of all, she's not a 13-year-old girl, but second of all, her reaction was,
Starting point is 00:05:10 you know, I've kind of heard this before. And when I heard it before from Alanis, I kind of liked it better. And my response was like, yeah, but every generation has the need for someone to embody their emotional feelings, and that's what pop music is for. It's for this generation of 13-year-old and teens
Starting point is 00:05:26 and 23-year-olds, for that matter. And you don't have to be a teenager to love... 23 at heart. You don't have to be a teenager to love Olivia Rodriguez. But it may be the first time you felt represented with your feelings on the radio. There's a Filipino-American woman, a young woman, singing. And she's part of a long heritage of women
Starting point is 00:05:46 from Joan Jett, as I mentioned, to Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette. I mean, it goes back, you can... Sister Rosetta Thorpe and Nina Simone and Tammy Wynette and Lorette-Line. you know, Patty Smith and Polly Styrene from the X-ray specs. And when you're a teenager, she may be getting you into these other influences because she brings out the breeders to tour with her and she talks about them in interviews. So this to me feels like what pop music should be for. It should be for I'm going to express myself using, you know, my influences and then I'm going to tell you about the influences and maybe you'll get into the influences. And can I just say that
Starting point is 00:06:21 the breeders, by the way, one of my favorite bands, this is Kim Diel and her sister Kelly. Kim was in The Pixies, another one of my favorite bands. I was going to say, we've heard that name before. And their influence is clear in the music when we get in the Sems. We'll be talking about it. By the way, you know, Cannonball is their biggest song, but their first record, which they did with Steve Albini, which is called Pod. For years, I would go around the world and say, this is my favorite record. Like, it was my favorite record for many years.
Starting point is 00:06:55 I also got to mention earlier this summer, Olivia headline the historic Glastonbury Festival, which is like a huge deal. Not only that, but during her set, she flexed pretty hard and brought out. one of our favorite British performers, the legendary Robert Smith of the Cure. And they performed two of our favorite curious songs. Friday I'm in Love, that's Team Diallo. And just like heaven, that's Team Luxury. Two of our favorite songs, let's watch a clip.
Starting point is 00:07:27 It's always so fun to see generations come together over beloved songs. Like, this was very cool. I remember Robin performing with David Byrne. I'd love to see stuff like that. Absolutely. And there's information she's giving us when she does things like this, right? When she has Robert Smith of The Cure, and they play those songs together at Glastonbury. She's doing the same thing.
Starting point is 00:07:46 It's a signal saying, I'm not your typical pop star. Or rather, she's saying, she's sort of playing with the idea of the pop star being maybe manufactured and vapid and not knowing about the history of music. She's like, I know about the history of music. I'm a real fan of this stuff. I used to always like it when Snoop and Justin Timberlake hooked up with Charlie Wilson for that song, Sines. I was like, oh, man, you can bridge the gap. Yeah, yeah. It really says something about the artists when they're able to recognize and give props to.
Starting point is 00:08:11 those who came before them that influenced them. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think these references definitely come from an authentic place. Apparently, Olivia's parents were big music as her mom in particular was big on 90s, alt rock. And Olivia says that that era of music, specifically artists like Alanis Morseb, Fiona Apple, these were huge influences on her. There's this quote from her that she has that I really, really appreciate. She says, quote, the albums from that time were so brutally honest and angsty.
Starting point is 00:08:37 And I wanted to make an angsty record about growing up and going through. heartbreak. And I think she's right about that. There's something about those records in that period. And you have a favorite artist from the 90s that we've also mentioned. And this one of Yeah, sure. I mean, like, listen, I think Fiona Apple is one of my
Starting point is 00:08:53 favorite. And she's one of these artists that I think was so huge at the time and she was winning Grammys and she was taking the stage. I don't hear her mentioned as much nowadays, even as much as Atlantis Morse set. Yeah. Who had, you know, Jagged Little Pill, that album that ate the planet. Yeah, exactly. I feel like, but Fiona was such a, was such a wonderful artist. I followed her with her big album, but then I also went with her,
Starting point is 00:09:15 Win the Pond. Very long title, I'll just call it Win the Pond. And anytime I go back and listen to that and the work that she did with John Bryan, I'm just like, this is masterful. I want to actually play a clip of one of my favorite Fiona Apple songs.
Starting point is 00:09:27 This is On the Bound. I mean, that song gives me chills. I love that song. She's so good. Fiona Apple, come on one song, please. If you know Fiona Apple, we'll do two songs. What an incredible artist.
Starting point is 00:09:50 Great choice. That song is so powerful. I love that. That's on the bound. And I think to Olivia's point, like, when I hear that, like, I hear not just, like, honesty in the lyrics, but, like, honesty and the delivery, like, you know, she's allowing her soul to absolutely be, like, bare and transparent and open in ways that, like, it draws something out of you.
Starting point is 00:10:10 Yes. Yeah. I think that Olivia really responded to artists like that. In fact, she talks about how her mom would be, like, listening to the music, the Fiona Apple records and the No Doubt Records and Smashing Pumpkins records and be, like, And quote, she'd be screaming and yelling and all that, quote, grotesque stuff. It's emotion. It moves me.
Starting point is 00:10:25 That's the point of music. I've always had that in my head that the point of music is to move you. So Olivia's coming from the standpoint that it's notes and harmonies and lyrics are all a means to an end, which is to get your mom to shout grotesquely, right? To get that emotion out is so powerful. I love it. So today we're talking about Good for You, which is essentially a pop punk song that Olivia chose to be her third single, to showcase her range as a singer-songwriter.
Starting point is 00:10:51 Since her earlier singles, driver's license and deja vu were a little more straight-ahead pop. Well, let's hear a little bit of her first single, Driver's license. You said forever, now I drive alone past your street.
Starting point is 00:11:10 You know, it's interesting listening back-to-back with the Fiona Apple because that's the closer Fiona connection, I would say. Sure. The chord changes are, we're still in pop music land. And lyrically, the storytelling, what makes it pop, I would say,
Starting point is 00:11:21 is the storytelling is a lot more direct. she's doing really interesting things obviously with the sections of the song and the chord changes and arrangement-wise this is for our number one song on the radio it's unusual and by the way raw lyrics like this is very raw like this is she could get in trouble for these lyrics but she's decided to be as honest she's stocker adjacent i would say not you know just to the left to little to the left but she is being as raw and as open as she can be and you know i think that's what makes and interesting, and it's very important to point out that she co-writes this song and all her songs. That's exactly right. Her co-writer is the unsung hero of our episode, perhaps. Dan Nigo, unsung,
Starting point is 00:12:01 I say, but he won the Grammy for producer of the year. So he's a little song. He's deservedly sung. He also worked with Chapel Rowan on her record. So in the last five years, he's gone from literally sleeping on the couch at producer Ariel Rekshod's house to being the Grammy Award-winning producer of the year. So he's moved up to a much better couch. much better couch. And it begins with his collaborating with Olivia on this record and on this song, among others. And the division of labor in his own words is that, quote, Olivia is lyric focused where I'm more melody and texture focused. So the two of them, and this harkens back to my experience why I moved to LA. I came here for a publishing deal where I was the Dan Nigro of these interactions I would have
Starting point is 00:12:40 with topliners, as are called the melody and lyric and singing person, collaborating with the person who focuses on the music. But in the room, you both do a little bit of everything to get that song as good as it can be. Every producer does a little bit something different. Some producers, you know, have scone and they've got all the material when they come back to the artist. Others are literally there working with a bunch of different people. And they'll be like, oh, add more bell there. Come down on the base there.
Starting point is 00:13:06 That's right. The word producer means very different things in different contexts. In this context, Dan Nigo and Olivia Rodriguez made this record together as songwriters, as co-producers. even. Yeah. But yeah, but so Dan and Olivia co-wrote all of the songs
Starting point is 00:13:19 on the record except for three of them. Okay. And that's how Sauer came to be. The two of them really focusing together during COVID to make this record. Yeah, you know,
Starting point is 00:13:26 from what I heard, Dan and Olivia, they have such a solid and organic collaboration. Dan is quick to credit and praise Olivia as well. Even saying that as a producer, quote,
Starting point is 00:13:35 you're only as good as the artist that you're working with. What do you think about that statement, Lux? And remember, we work together. I'll just tell you one thing.
Starting point is 00:13:44 I had a fun conversation with one of my high school friends, literally last night at dinner about credit and how on the show, every week we had this joke recently, we're across almost 100 episodes. There's really no pattern in how collaborations and credit works. Are there any two stories that have been the same? Sometimes it's that bass player going rogue and everybody remembers the bass and he doesn't even have publishing. You need to have somebody that you can rely on to feel like, listen, we're working to make the song, the best song it can be. And over the course of our working together, we know we're going to be good to each other about how much we think we did and how much we think we deserve.
Starting point is 00:14:18 So clearly a sign of a good collaboration is that it continues on because that trust is like. Look, equal splits usually leads to a long relationship, right? It's sort of been the story, I think, over 100 episodes that sort of half of these stories in with somebody doing the right thing and cutting somebody in and then the other half are like, oh, man, that person got, you know, screwed. I mean, it's like looking at a resume. If someone's been jumping around for like the last couple of decades and doesn't say it a job too long, it maybe tells you something about them,
Starting point is 00:14:44 in the same way that you have these longer relationships between collaborators, songwriters and producers, or even bands, probably says something about how they interact together. You two probably some good dudes behind the scenes, you know, in fairness. Must be. Splitting up the songwriting splits. Well, this is a perfect transition to talk about how songwriting splits and influences, and all of these things are in the mix. You may have noticed, if you are listening to this part of the episode, you probably listen
Starting point is 00:15:08 to the beginning, right? Where we played a medley of a bunch of songs that use the same chord changes. One of the themes of this episode is that there are times when things sound similar to another song, but they're not the same and they're not copyright infringement. Yeah, they're not legally the same. But that doesn't change the fact that sometimes record labels and publishers get a little scared and they kind of give it up a little too soon. That's what happened in the song. We'll get into the details later. But we have a happier version of that story with a different Olivia song, which is the song Brutal, which begins with this. Now listen for Olivia in the background.
Starting point is 00:15:46 she's about to say something. Deall, did that riff remind you of anything? Vaguely. Yeah. Very vaguely. That's a perfect word. I'm so glad you said vaguely, because that's a great way of describing the connection.
Starting point is 00:16:07 Yeah. Between Brutal by Olivia Rodriguez and this song, this is Pump It Up by Elvis Costello. There it is. Now, it's vaguely, you know. That's it, though. That's why I didn't want to say it at first, because I was just like,
Starting point is 00:16:28 yeah, it does remind me of that, but it's not the same. But this show is a copyright political, show because we want to make the point really clear that musician should have the right to use what are called musical building blocks in the public domain. Three notes in a row chromatically that descend are in the public domain. Nobody can own three notes. The rhythms are similar but not the same. The fact that it's on bass is similar but not the same. I have a term that I'm coming up with that is going to be the heart of the book that I'm finishing in 40 days. The expression
Starting point is 00:16:56 is evocation combination. Now what this means is that there are a handful of things that are unownable, like chord changes or the instruments or the tempo. And when they are in certain combinations, they start to evoke other songs. And that's going to happen so often, especially in genres. Genres are all about similar sounds, similar. Think about punk rock. You're going to have crunchy guitars. You're going to have breakneck tempos, 170, whatever, BPM tempos.
Starting point is 00:17:21 You're going to have situations where things evoke other things. But these combinations are not illegal. They're not infringement. And luckily, in this case, Elvis Costello, note, like, obviously not only feels this very deeply, but expressed it when he explicitly said, this is how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy, which is such a poetic way. I love that. I love that quote. Yeah. But that's the idea is you take something that inspired you. Yep. And your version of it is a new thing. I totally agree.
Starting point is 00:17:52 And by the way, Elvis himself pointed out that he took some inspiration, and you'll hear it lyrically in the rhythm of the lyrics. In this Bob Dylan song from 1965, this is subterranean homesick blues. Just to be explicit, the connection is that in both songs, their vocally, he's hitting the same. It's the minor third throughout the entirety, basically, of the verse. All those letters are said, that's it. That's the connection.
Starting point is 00:18:35 Nobody can own a single note being repeated a certain way. But that's a pretty common evocation combination. But by the way, just hearing you say that reminds me of a Chuck Berry song and the idea that Bob probably got it from somebody else, there's always constant borrowing. That's why we want artists to be able to be honest about this stuff. Honestly, like an artist should be able to say, hey, man, do you like that song, too much monkey business?
Starting point is 00:18:58 Yeah, exactly. Let's do our version of that. Phone something wrong, dime gone willmail, or the suitor operative for telling me a tailout. Too much more, baby. Too much more. Chuck Barry did a very similar thing. There's a lineage that goes back.
Starting point is 00:19:12 Totally. With any musical idea, you'll find lots of previous examples. Again, our parody at the top was demonstrating that as foreshadowing for the court case we'll be talking about for the song soon. I love honesty. I love the story about... Listen, no, when TomTom Club says, hey, we wanted to make our own more bounce to the ounce by Zapp
Starting point is 00:19:30 and the result is genius of love. Like, I love that... And when you listen back to back, what's the same about it is another one of these evocation combinations. It's the beat, it's the BPM, it's the sound of the snare clap combination. It's not the melody and lyrical combination. It's not the song. It's wrong itself.
Starting point is 00:19:46 But what I also like about the example you give is it harkens back to an era pre-blurred lines when talking about the things that influenced you. Was not a cry. And sharing the attribution so people can go and find it. Yeah. That's what you lose when you get people afraid to talk about their influence. Yeah, we talked about some stuff and then we recorded this song. Like, put everything behind this curtain.
Starting point is 00:20:07 What's the name of the term? Evocation. So evocation combination. And the number one evocation combination to me, like I really am trying to get scientific. about it as in 40 days the book will be done. But I'm finding time and time again that when you have a similar rhythm and a similar sound. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:23 That's like the minimum thing required. So in your ear, think of what I just said. Yeah. When we get to the base, when we get to the bass, when we get to the bass line of this song and you're thinking about the cure. Evocation combination. Yeah. And this is the minimum evocation combination.
Starting point is 00:20:38 Is interpulation going to get jealous? I hope so. I will have done my job right. He doesn't whisper me any. anymore. He's found a new love. I will have done my job right if the new whisper is evocation comedy. It's a lot of whisper. It's not terrible.
Starting point is 00:20:53 Well, listen, we're going to take a break, but when we come back, we're going to hear the stems. We're going to hear Olivia's isolated vocals. And we're going to find out if her song does sound like a pre-existing song, despite everything we just talked about. Is the deal that was worked out for Olivia good for her?
Starting point is 00:21:10 Or is it another case of misery business? What weird sounds I just made? Two honks, one song, be right back. Everybody knows there are things they can do to reduce monthly costs and improve their finances. But who has time to go through all of their expenses and decide what to trim? With Rocket Money, crunching the numbers for you, leveling up your money game gets way easier. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending,
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Starting point is 00:23:19 What can you tell us about the recording of the song? All right, so this song was recorded at Ariel Rekshad's home studio where Dan was living as we mentioned. And there's another co-producer actually on this track called Alexander Glance, who goes by Alexander 23. And a lot of his credits are shared with Dan, so I'm not sure where one person did the drum programming's ends and the other ones begins. But between the two of them and Olivia, this entire song and everything you hear comes from those three people in Ariel Rekshad's studio. Well, all right. Let's get to the Stims. Where do you want to start? We're going to go through the song section by section, starting with the intro into the verse,
Starting point is 00:23:54 and starting with the drums, which are really fun to listen to because there's a really big change that happens from verse into chorus with just the drums alone. It starts with these program drums that sound like this. Right?
Starting point is 00:24:13 And when I hear... When I hear that, I'm hearing like, that's sort of a hip-hop-influenced production. First of all, the tempo and the beat itself. It reminds me of my own early drum programming where I would use reason, and I would grab a snare from one source, a high hat from another one.
Starting point is 00:24:30 And you'd make this really fun medley of different sounds of like a crazy drum kit of sounds that wouldn't naturally go together necessarily. It also sounds a little bit like electronica drums. Totally, like a trip-hop era. Snigger pimps. Snigger pimps. Early garbage.
Starting point is 00:24:45 You know, like it definitely has that vibe. Totally agree. And then we have the bass, which is apparently a synth bass in the verse and then it's a live bass in the chorus. To my ears, it sounds like it might be a blend of both. Let's just play it. and tell me what you think it is.
Starting point is 00:25:03 I'll bring in some drums. Really minimal half time. What do you hear when you hear this? What does it make you think of it feel? I heard it in the drums and now I really hear it with the synth bass. It just feels like that sort of 90s style, electronic. It sounds less hip-hop to me because I always feel like electronic. Hip-hop beats, especially from the 90s, are like, very dense and like, you know, they're sampling, you know, Art Blakey and all these jazz.
Starting point is 00:25:37 That's a good point, actually. feels more like inside the machine sequencer drums, and now we're going to bring in a synth bass. I can see the squares getting filled in. But it works. I mean, like, I love that kind of music. I love how it comes in kind of like sneaky. Right.
Starting point is 00:25:51 It's like all very sort of like, don't, don't, don't, don't. Like, it sounds like somebody sneaking up on. Yeah, speaking of sneaking up. Let's listen to what's happening in the guitars. I think it contributes to that feeling. And again, we're going to end right where the chorus is about to begin. So it's very tantalizing.
Starting point is 00:26:06 Oh, there you go. crescendo getting louder getting brighter and you want to do that right right you can't not do that it's brilliant that's brilliant well that's pop songwriting craftsmanship right there and there's tension in 20 seconds you're getting a lot of tension building yeah
Starting point is 00:26:26 but like the base is like sneaking up on you but there's like the hair on the back of your neck which is the guitar part which is like there's like everything is it's all it's all signaling hitchcockian it's really signaling that something big's about to happen. But we're not there yet. We can't jump ahead yet.
Starting point is 00:26:43 And there's one other little piece happening in the guitar. I'll play it isolated. It's very subtle, but it's just little sounds, which add liveliness to it, right? I think one of the things
Starting point is 00:26:54 they're playing with in this song because it's programmed... Trying to make it sound like its actual instruments. That's right. Okay, so the song starts with this really fun kind of queen meets Beach Boys'
Starting point is 00:27:06 vocal swell. And then we get into verse one. Look up for you. I guess you moved on really easily. You found a new girl and it only took a couple weeks. Remember when you said that you wanted to give me the world? And by the way, behind that world, there's this beautiful choir, which sounds like this stack of harmonies, I should say. Man, pop music can be so cool. I'm just reminded of that every time. I mean, it is what I came to L.A. to do and it didn't quite work out.
Starting point is 00:27:36 But I remember like, bro. There is still so much freaking. I'm just saying, I wasn't fishing, but I appreciate that. I do love the idea that you're sitting with just three minutes of musical content and you're just making every moment count. Yeah. You know, it just has to make something exciting or a little different from the previous time. And when it's done well, it's incredible.
Starting point is 00:27:52 It's also interesting because it's hard to determine what's pop, what's electronic, what's hip-hop, what's country. Totally. It's all made on the same stuff. It's almost like, what is the BPM and who's doing the singing. That's what determines what genre is. So much great literature about genre. We, in this era, are living in a time where we're, we have completely divorced what something sounds like from who made it and who listens to it,
Starting point is 00:28:14 which is what genre used to be. It used to be like, you know, rock and roll was made by these white dudes for these other white dudes. And it employs guitars and loudness. But Olivia Rodriguez is a perfect example of in this era, how wonderful that we can mix and match from different genres, even within a single song, and take sounds, instruments, emotional storylines even, and make them connect personal. to who the artist is. And it's actually interesting
Starting point is 00:28:41 because even when it was clearly defined genre, like if it was three white guys with guitars, it was rock and roll. If it was three black guys with guitars, it was R&B and soul.
Starting point is 00:28:51 So it's just like, that's always been a little bit there. Genre has always, has absolutely always been about two things at once. Who's saying it and who's the marketing to? Who's it marketed to? That's literally the history of genre with race records as we talked about
Starting point is 00:29:04 with cover versions a few episodes ago. Totally. Is the same music. If it's, if it's for Hill, Hillbillies by Hillbillies, he was in the Hillbilly section, which is literally what if it was a black hillbilly, then it was in the race. It might be Leslie Riddle under country.
Starting point is 00:29:17 So you just never know. That's crazy, right? So let's listen how we explode out of this electronic halftime thing into rock and roll double time starting with the drums. So you hear some little electronic things in there. And actually the entire drumbeat is programmed. The only thing that's live apparently, as Dan Nigrose pointed out, is the hi-hat. That is actually a live hi-hat.
Starting point is 00:29:44 It's isolated a little later in the song so I can play it for you. here's what they play. They brought in just the hi-hat itself, and they played this on it. So you're hearing that in that big chorus in addition to a programmed kick and snare on the grid. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:02 Because of some of these other signifiers, like I would say the fill at the beginning, I think to our ears, that sounds like a live drummer. That sounds pretty live to me. It sounds like a real drummer. It does. It sounds like Phil Collins.
Starting point is 00:30:17 It sounds like Phil's on the beats there. It sounds like Phil on the Phil. Slamin it. And there's also something happening in the bass in that same but-b-ba-ba moment. I'll play that isolated and then in the mix. These little, this is so pop music to me, and that's part of the genius of a genius
Starting point is 00:30:30 20-25 producer of the year, is it's all these tiny little decisions across the song that give you these emotional feelings. And in this tiny moment, the da-da-da in the drums, and this in the bass are, again, contributing to a wait, this is a live band. It's rock and roll.
Starting point is 00:30:46 So that's it. And then the bass goes, I'll bring in the drums. I mean, how. How the cure is that. Thank you. How the cure is that. Evocation minimum strikes again.
Starting point is 00:31:09 I mean, you can easily see Robert Smith coming in there. I didn't have to say it because you did because that is exactly the same bass, so the same sound. Yeah. And it's the same rhythm or really close to the rhythm that we hear in. Several cure songs, it's a very curie thing to do. This is close to the rhythm. This is, you can easily see him singing that.
Starting point is 00:31:28 Let's play. I'll play one example of a song. that does that. This is the cures just like heaven. And to be clear what the connection is, it's one, two, three, and four. It's really just the one, two, three, and four. That rhythm, one, two,
Starting point is 00:31:47 three, and four on the bass is cure. That is so Simon Gallup, he uses that rhythm on a lot of cure songs. Another one he uses it on, ironically enough, is this one. One, two, three, and four. It's always like two bars, and the first bar is one, two, three, and four.
Starting point is 00:32:08 That's the cure bass line. Yeah, totally. The second of you isolated, I was like, yeah, of course she had Robert Smith on stage at Glastonbury. Right. Because she loves Robert Smith. She loves the cure. And to me, as a songwriter myself and producer like, I love taking little unownable things that evoke other bands. Again, these evocation minimums are sometimes what you try and do when you're making music in any genre. In dance music, an evocation minimum is taking 808 kick drum. Right there. That's the bare minimum is four on the floor at 1.12. 24, call it, is going to get you into the genre. And then almost every, you know, a large percentage of songs in that genre will have that as well. That's a great point. All right. Let's see what's happening with the electric guitar.
Starting point is 00:32:52 All right. Let's hear the electric guitar. It too starts with a little human fluk, fluk, fluk. I'll put all the fluk flukes together. There's the guitar, the bass and drums. Are you pulling a gaga? Like, what is you? He say fluck, fluck.
Starting point is 00:33:05 Fluck, flick. Fluck, flick. There's an L in there. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it, parents. There's an L in that word. Fluck, fuck, fuck. And then it goes into the four chords
Starting point is 00:33:14 that you may recognize because you heard them at the beginning of the show across 11 different song lyrics, including this one. So what you're hearing is 4-1-5-6-ish, that six comes and goes. Again, the rhythm is that cure rhythm again, one, two, three, and four, right?
Starting point is 00:33:39 And then the second part is different. So what's happening there, and we can get into it, is that these four chords sound familiar because they are familiar. Well, yeah, let's talk about this, because this is the part of Good for You that people claimed was an interpolation of a Paramour song, the song, Misery Business.
Starting point is 00:33:56 Olivia's team felt the pressure, apparently, and ended up retroactively giving Haley Williams and Josh Farrow a peremore a song writing credit. And it resulted in a combined 50% of the royalties. Let's play a bit of misery business. And then I want to ask you what your take is on that decision. Here's misery business. Is that the same song? Is it the same song? Listen, that would be plagiarism, the same song twice, but is it the same song?
Starting point is 00:34:30 It's not the same song. It's not the same song. And we are, I was a leading question, wasn't it? No, I hear you. But I can understand why everybody thought more than what we've talked about with Elvis Vestel. It's because they haven't heard this episode yet where we're breaking down what it is about it that sounds similar and why that's not illegal. Well, yeah, let's take it for the Olivia fan, the Libby's side of this story. Why don't you tell us why you think that those are two very different songs, even though they might sound sonically similar to our years. Well, you already nailed it by bringing up Blurred Lines because this happens just five years after Blurred Lines. It's still in the air. Some of the more recent countercases that have brought
Starting point is 00:35:05 things back to a better place hadn't happened yet. Yeah. But just to remind people or people who don't know, Blurred Lines was the case. This was the Robin Thick song that was sued by the Marvin Gay Estate over similarities to got to give it up. And they lost to the tune of over $5 million. And that terrified everyone in the music industry because the songs are not the same. They're not similar. They have some similarities, and a musicologist in that case who helped win the case came up with her new concept. I won't name names, but she called it Constellation of Similarities, and she said, nothing here is copyright infringement same. But because they all come together to evoke her. Because there's a bunch of, there's eight or nine things like the chord changes,
Starting point is 00:35:46 the fact of there being similar rhythms. None of these things can be owned by anyone, but she claimed when you put them together, it can be. And because of the power of, of a musicologist's learned opinion in the courtroom, the jury and the judges were swayed. And it's a terrible court case that messed things up for artists for a number of years. A terrible precedent. Terrible precedent was set here. But now I noticed that, like, you have this new term evocation combination.
Starting point is 00:36:12 Yeah. And I think that's directly supposed to combat sort of the case that she made in that case. Because they were essentially saying, if you take all these things together, it evokes something that is too similar. Yes. And you're taking back the word evoke. Thank you for noticing. That's exactly right.
Starting point is 00:36:29 In my opinion, the idea that someone can make a list and say, because all of these things are similar, it is the same to me as absurd and it was a garbage decision. So you're right. I am hoping to push back against it because just stepping back for a second, and this is like getting back to our Led Zeppelin episode. Remember, we broke down like the questions you have to ask yourself when you're comparing two songs from a,
Starting point is 00:36:50 is this infringement and against the law perspective? What you have to decide, it's a two-prong test, again, go back to our Led Zeppelin episode, was there access and was there substantial similarity? Don't worry about how that's phrased. It sounds very legal. But this idea of substantial similarity, that's where the problem lies.
Starting point is 00:37:07 Right. Because that's open to interpretation. Right. To me, substantial similarity into a lot of copyright lawyers and to a lot of musicologists out there, it's either the same or it's not. Is it the same notes in the same rhythm
Starting point is 00:37:19 with the same lyrics? That's the same song. We shouldn't do that. That's something that somebody should own. But if we have a combination, things that nobody can own like chord changes and rhythms on the bass. These are all elements that people recombined
Starting point is 00:37:31 to make songs all the time. It's extraordinarily normal. And that's what happened in this song. And that's the irony about the Led Zeppelin thing is that they were, one could make the case that they were stealing more closely from Robert Johnson than anything that's happening between Olivia and Paramore. Quite possibly,
Starting point is 00:37:47 yeah, quite possibly. So listen, the three questions you have to ask when you compare two songs or when you hear someone on TikTok saying, hey, did somebody rip this off? Here's what you ask. First of all, is it not similar? Is it the same? Are these two songs similar or are they the same? Yeah. They're similar. Similar and same are not the same thing. They're not. That's exactly right. Similar and same or similar things, but they're not same things. Let's pretend it were the same though. Even let's say that they were singing the same melody. Yeah. The second thing you have to ask is,
Starting point is 00:38:15 has anyone else done it before? And that's why we started this episode with those chord changes with all the other songs on top of it. Because what happens when you have similar chord changes and say, it's pop punk, so you've got, you know, 170 bpm loud drum playing double time, you start to get these evocation minimums where it's like your brain gets overwhelmed with music information and
Starting point is 00:38:37 what isn't the same starts to sound the same because that's how you're processing it. That's a fairly normal human thing to do. Your brain sees the pattern that it's seen before. So this is an evocation combination where we have pop punk genre tropes. If you're a pop punk band, here's what you're going to do. You're going to have distorted guitars.
Starting point is 00:38:54 You're going to have big rock drums. that maybe change their BPM and go double time in the chorus, just like this one did. You're going to have the soft, loud thing every now and then. And then you have this four-cord loop family, which anyone who's seen the access of awesome, that famous video. It's the same four chords that they use in their video. All this to say, this is one of the most common chord progressions.
Starting point is 00:39:23 There is 12% of the songs on the Billboard Hot 100 from 1990 to 2016. Use those four chords. those, wow. In one of the variations of it. So given all of that, did Olivia need to get 50% of her publishing away? I really think that that was a huge mistake that was made by post-blurred lines, publishers and managers and labels who were concerned. Being very cautious. Because $5 million is a lot of money to give up just a few years earlier.
Starting point is 00:39:48 And there had been, there were still some court cases in the air that Katie Perry had a lawsuit. There was a Lentepin lawsuit. The Ed Shearin one that recently resolved in his favor, which would have made this go away. hadn't happened yet. If this were to have happened now, I don't think they would have given up 50% of the publisher. Fair enough. But in this moment, they did. I mean, tribute to, that's why we were having so much fun at the beginning of the episode. You were playing these chords from all these different songs, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Steve Winwood, Green Day. And yet they all kind of sound similar, but not the same. They sound similar, not the same. They work as a medley because they all share the
Starting point is 00:40:23 same chords. Yeah. And that's part of this evocation combination idea. It's like it's going to trick your brain a little bit. It's almost like we're all. just throwing into some great cultural stew. It's like, bring your best of the potluck. Absolutely. Came back to the stems. The post chorus. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:38 Love the post chorus. There's some interesting stuff happening there. Look, this is just another fun pop arrangement thing, where we've now heard a little intro, and then we've had the verse in the chorus. And then we have these four bars, which I'm calling the post chorus. We hear it after every chorus. And then later on, we hear it again as the bridge.
Starting point is 00:40:54 It is just different chord changes, basically. And it sounds like this. And that's it. Just four bars of it. just to like shake up our brains a little bit and get ready for this next change, where the energy also drops again because we're going back to that chill kind of verse mode. That's fun. What's going on in verse two?
Starting point is 00:41:14 Does anything change? They're playing around. So verse two's are always fun for me because you've already established what the verse sounds like. So you can start playing around with it and making little swaps in and out of like new ideas. So it's mostly the same. But it starts with kind of randomly these just three 808 kicks. And then we have these like kind of mouth sounds and Oz in the background. All right.
Starting point is 00:41:41 I feel like between Timberland and Farrell, the sound of like a good... It's always like fun in the song. It's so fun, and you can tell they were having fun adding this little ear candy. I'll add the drums back in so you can hear that with some context and then the bass.
Starting point is 00:42:09 The little synthy things come in. Yeah. Yeah, we're back to the sneaky part of the song. So they had a lot of fun with that. And when we get to the vocals, they made some changes too in how the vocals, the melody runs as well. You know, let's hear you.
Starting point is 00:42:27 of those vocals. Because I like that it's gone softer again. Let's hear some of those vocals there. So in the second half of the second verse, they start to play around with it a little bit too. It's one of the most exciting parts, you know, vocally in the verse. And good for you,
Starting point is 00:42:41 it's like you never even met me. So human sounding. Remember when you swear to God I was the only person who ever got you will screw that and screw you. You will never have to hurt the way you know that I do. You know, I got to say, I'm noticing this pattern. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:56 with songs. You were kind of alluding to it earlier. But there's like this thing. And I feel like the 90s did this all the time. But there's like it starts soft. Yeah. And there's this ramp up. And then there's this high energy chorus.
Starting point is 00:43:07 Totally. Blur song too, which was originally a parody of American grunge. Yeah. Which, of course, goes back to Nirvana. Smells like Teen Spirit. Right. And there's so many of these songs.
Starting point is 00:43:16 Just jump ahead a few years. Kelly Clarkson's since you've been gone. Like it's just you start a little quiet and you do this thing. And then you go, yeah, you got to sing. You know, like it's just like, There's a pattern. There's a structure.
Starting point is 00:43:28 Oh, totally. That goes back. I mean, listen, it doesn't start with the pixies, but the pixies are definitely a big part of the story of quiet, loud, quiet. And Kurt Cobain himself has talked about he, quote, unquote, ripped off the pixies insofar as so far as so many Nirvana songs do the quiet verse into the loud chorus. And Weezer does it. It's just a big 90s. You either do the quiet loud quiet or you did the, or you did the Darius Rucker.
Starting point is 00:43:53 Right. The pearl jam. Yeah, you did the pearl jam. Put ours and everything. It's just an art thing. There were only two ways. Apparently it was a road diversion. That's how you know it's the 90s.
Starting point is 00:44:01 If you have like, oh, and if you can do both, then you really sold some records. There's a guitar solo, I think you would have called out. It's funny to call it a guitar solo, but it really is.
Starting point is 00:44:11 And it's another kind of signifier of rockness in a pop context because there is a guitar playing some melodies, but it's done so pop in such a wonderful way because it's layered with other stuff. So I'll play that for you and I'll explain what I'm talking about. Here is the guitar melody
Starting point is 00:44:25 It's kind of a little arpeggio. But there's some power chords in Oz. So just to like isolate that a little further, I'll play what's happening underneath it. There are these, this beautiful, I called it Beach Boys-esque stack of harmonies. And it sounds like this. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:44:53 Who even knew that was in there? And in the second half, I love how it ends. Listen. That's Brian Wilson. It's so Brian Wilson. That's what I heard too. But what's crazy is that guitar solo,
Starting point is 00:45:06 you just played it a couple of seconds ago, sounded very Robert Smith. Yes. Oh, absolutely. It's very post-punk. It's melodic. It's simple. It's not a wailing, you know,
Starting point is 00:45:15 Eddie Van Halen. No. But it is a guitar solo. It's crisp and clean. It's jangly. Yeah. And it's predicting the coming of the stone roses
Starting point is 00:45:23 just a couple of years later. Absolutely. And this is eight bars in the middle of a tight three-minute pop song. And you don't get a lot of those. Like not a lot of Taylor, Chapel and Sabrina songs have guitar solos in them.
Starting point is 00:45:34 So again, it's another signifier that there's more than meets the eye with this pop star. She's got rock bonafides as well. All right, luxury. Well, take us to the bridge. So the bridge starts with those high hats that we isolated earlier. This is the only live drumming, non-programmed, I should say. And then it's this really minimal section where the only non-vocal part besides that is the bass. Oh, we were talking about signifiers of liveliness. You hear the sliding of the fingers on the pick and the strings like that,
Starting point is 00:46:05 right? I'll just isolate that in the base. So that's that same. post-chorus, those same three chords. And it's just those two things happening musically. It's so subtle. It's so subtle. Well, let's listen to what she sings here. So we're coming under that beautiful harmony stack into this.
Starting point is 00:46:32 Apathy's like a wound and salt. Maybe I'm too emotional. Maybe you never cared it all. And then the energy, first of all, this is a 16 bar middle eight. 16 bar bridge and pop music. Another cool choice. And the intensity is about to ratchet up in the second half of it. And I'll bring in underneath her some of the other instruments that contribute to the ratcheting up of energy.
Starting point is 00:46:58 Maybe I'm too emotional. Yeah, apathy is like a wound in salt. Maybe I'm too emotional. So all these cool energy ebbs and flows, you know, big chorus, small verse, big guitar solo, small bridge. it's really cool how that energy gets dialed up and down across the entire. Yeah, and I like the explosion on the chorus there. That's really fun. Like, you know, happy and healthy, not me. You know, just going through it. And that happened in the first two choruses, but now in this third chorus, the first half of it is just the vocal with a little acoustic guitar underneath it. So we have another energy dip. And that leads to the best moment of the song, Fight Me, which is that TikTok thing I alluded to. The best lyric of the song, I think, is this. What's so funny about that in retrospect is like that's such a TikTok moment.
Starting point is 00:47:58 But in 2020, 2021, when they were making it, like, that wasn't like a cliche yet. They just happened upon like, oh, this is going to be, everyone's going to use this section in their video. And they were right. We haven't heard the chorus vocals. Let's hear those chorus vocals explode into our ears and across YouTube. Let's play it. It's so perfect for a teenage girl, emotional diary, anger, boyfriend jilted her. It's like it really encapsulates.
Starting point is 00:48:34 That's better is that it actually taps into the inner teenage girl that we all have inside. Thank you. Like, all of a sudden, I'm just like, yeah, how could he? I share that emotion. I share the emotion that I just heard in spite of not being the target audience. No, I mean, like. It's there. It's really there in her lyrics and in her vocal delivery.
Starting point is 00:48:51 It's who she is. It's very authentic and genuine. It moves me. It moves both of us. Not to Roy Ayer's tears, perhaps. I want to, like, punch my fist. Yeah. I'm mad, too.
Starting point is 00:49:00 It's the rock and roll energy that she was aiming for. Exactly right. She's belting. And I think one thing I like about that is because, you know, until this episode, I'd often lumped her in with some of her other contemporaries more like, you know, the Billy Ilishes and stuff. But like Billy's got her own way of being open and honest and emotional. This is something very different. And like you said, to go towards genre, even though they would often be lumped together, they're doing very different things. Absolutely. Yeah. They are different artists and they're quote unquote playing different characters, I suppose you could say. But those are sort of important because that's what pop music is.
Starting point is 00:49:33 is it's a forum for, especially for teenagers. I keep saying that, but pop historically is historically music on the radio that forms the fabric of a social experience for younger people because it's shared by a lot of young people. It's, you know, when you are listening to the radio on the way to school, et cetera, et cetera. But of course there's a lot of different ways to be a teenager. So all of these different artists can appeal to different people that see themselves or hear their stories reflected in the songs and in the people that are singing them. Can we hear some of Olivia isolated vocals towards the end of the song. Here it is.
Starting point is 00:50:08 For you, I guess you moved on really easily. Which is the first line of song. So we're kind of going and making a little loop back to the beginning there. You know what's really cool about that is that after all this explosion of emotion and everything she's been trying to express at the very end when this guy is completely emotionally beaten. She's basically like, congratulations, you moved on very easily. But because of her song, he did not actually move on easily at all. Well, the elephant in the room about, like, how this song's lyrics are is that they're sarcastic. It's the opposite.
Starting point is 00:50:40 It's not really good for you. She's not really happy. I'm happy, you know, happy and healthy. But so, you know, the irony, oh, another Alanis, isn't it ironic? Don't you think? Yeah, absolutely. Except that song isn't actually ironic. And we didn't talk that much about Atlanta at this episode, but clearly the jagged little pill effects are there.
Starting point is 00:50:58 I mean, like, it's throughout. Absolutely. As an inspiration for the storytelling and just the idea of a woman. being mad at a man. Like, that's an old, that's an idea as old as time. So it shows up in the 90s as well as in the 2020s, as well as in the zeros. Exactly. And what's fun about that is, again, from an arrangement perspective, it's just a completely
Starting point is 00:51:18 new section that shows up at the end with just a bunch of little sounds. Here's a little sound effect that's happening underneath that. I like it. A little rising, like, theremin sounding thing in there. Another Beach Boys illusion, maybe. And then over the part that we just heard her sing, we have this one more allusion. and I think it's an allusion to another band, another band that she likes.
Starting point is 00:51:40 But tell me what you hear here. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-a-a-a. Oh, yeah. It's two. I didn't even get that one. But you're right. Hold on. Let's play.
Starting point is 00:51:54 I'll play that first and I'll play what I heard. So again, rhythm. It's the rhythm of the notes, not the notes. In this case, it's a guitar versus a bass. So, like, it evoked that for you with so little. Rhythm is so underrated. like compared to melody sometimes. By the way, before we say anything,
Starting point is 00:52:19 RIP to Ozzy, we actually found it during the tape of this show that it happened, and we will be doing an Ozzy episode very soon. What was the song that it evoked for you? Yeah. Green Day. Again, rhythm. I heard both. They're both there.
Starting point is 00:52:36 They're both little winks. They're both homages to influences. This and may be the cure rhythm on the bass. Yeah. And again, just to be really clear, nobody can own. These are building blocks that are available to all musicians in the public domain. and anyone out there who tries to like latch on and own something like this, I would say that's ethically irresponsible, so don't do that.
Starting point is 00:52:54 And to all those people listening to our show. All you publishers out there, don't be ethically irresponsible and greedy. Keep the music in the public domain for the rest of us to use. And to all those listeners who want to make music, hey, the world is your oyster. We talked about the raw deal that Olivia got with the Paramoire situation. No shame on Paramore, but like, you know, we think that she could have been better represented. In fact, to be clear, Paramore's writers came out and said this had nothing to do with us, and I believe them. I believe that totally.
Starting point is 00:53:18 I think the publishers are the ones that made it happen. But what kind of effect do you think a decision like that has on the music of today? Well, listen, I meant what I said earlier about there being something of a political goal for like this show in general. And certainly a lot of what I do between the show and the book and everything. I really, this moment in time from 2015 till kind of recently, hopefully it's ending, was really not cool for musicians because there was a lot of, I think, ethically questionable choices made about how these lawsuits were pursued. and how they ended. And it meant that musicians had to be really careful about what I think is better for music at large,
Starting point is 00:53:53 which is about attribution of your influences and inspirations as opposed to not being allowed to talk about it because you might get sued. I mean, I guess my question is, how does the industry get out of this sort of like post-blurred lines depression? They're getting out of it a little bit because, as you said, there have been some subsequent decisions.
Starting point is 00:54:10 You know, I actually have an answer to that. There's two answers. One is understanding the law, but also understanding the intent behind it. The public domain is meant for more people to have access to ideas than it is for a smaller group of people to own and protect them and lock them out of being used. So part one is understanding that. Like, go deeper on copyright law, music industry people. And the second part of it is to take note of the recent court cases that have taken us back to where we ought to have been long time ago.
Starting point is 00:54:37 The subsequent decision. The thinking out loud decision with Ed Shearan, to me, takes us in a much better direction. That was absolutely, not only was that literally an evocation comment. case, Ed Shearhan took his acoustic guitar and did a similar medley in the courtroom to prove that having the same chord changes with little rhythmic similarities. It's what you call prior art. It's been done. We have hundreds of examples of songs. So if this other song did it, well, they should be sued by the songs that did it before them too. So it's recognizing that we're hopefully bookending this era from blurred lines through Ed Shearin where you had to be careful and worried about like being a
Starting point is 00:55:14 normal musician. And last but at least I'll say, there's a limitation that comes from genre. There's only so many notes that are going to sound good over those four chords. You've got eight notes to play with, and some of them are going to come up again and again, the root, the third, the fifth, for example. So these limitations to me are not what people should be owning. What should be owned is your specific lyric and melody choice sung by you in a specific way. That's where the uniqueness comes in at the compositional level. That's a pretty over. simplified case to be made for changing copyright law. But I think we should start from that standpoint and not, hey, you can't use these chord
Starting point is 00:55:52 changes anymore because I did. Take all your legal advice from one song. Yeah, definitely get it from me, this lawyer, right here. So Olivia dropped a second album in 2023 called Guts, where she and Dan recorded some of the songs on the album 100% live. She told Dan she wanted to capture the energy of what it was like, you know, playing with the tour band. Yeah, that's cool.
Starting point is 00:56:11 We think Olivia's next album could go in a number of directions. is, do you think one of those directions could be fully live? Like, she just goes full band. Her recent Netflix special, like, it really, there's a live band. There's like seven or eight performers, drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, vocalists. Clearly, she's really doubling down on, like, she's a musician, and this is a band and rock and roll. And I love that, too.
Starting point is 00:56:32 And there's no reason that has to end. She doesn't need to, like, you know, we love Beyonce, but, like, she's not necessarily going to be like, I did my Renaissance dance record. I'm going to do my country record. I'm going to do whatever comes next, my folk record. She can continue down this. as much as she wants, and she can own it to a certain degree. She can kind of own this pop, rock space, maybe until Beyonce comes in, actually.
Starting point is 00:56:51 I heard Beyonce is doing Afro beats next. Oh, is that right? That's going to be huge for that genre. That's so cool. And the perfect point. Like, every pop star can do something different. Like, that's their prerogative. It doesn't have to be one thing for everybody.
Starting point is 00:57:02 What about you, Dialla? What do you think the legacy of Olivia Rodriguez and good for you is? It's interesting because I might have had a different answer before we did all this listening to the individual parts. But now I think the legacy of good for you is that, as you said, sort of earlier, the best pop sort of like takes influences from all these different places, you know? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:57:21 Vocal stacks like the Beach Boys and guitar work like The Cure and even like some vocals like a Fiona, an Alanis, or a Katie. And put it all together in a new pot with some hip hop influences, some electronica influences. Like I think in the best case scenario, like we are all just sort of throwing things into, like I said, sort of like this, we're bringing everything to the potluck and we're sort of seeing what works and what sticks. I really enjoy the youthful energy of this song, and I'm so curious to see what she's going to do next.
Starting point is 00:57:52 Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song. It's the segment where we share a deep cut with you, the One Song Nation, and with each other. All right, D'all, why don't you start? What did you bring to the one more song table today? I'm bringing this artist for the second time in the course of One Song, but he's got a new album. This is an artist named Jarv Dee.
Starting point is 00:58:08 He is a Seattle-based house producer, but he brings it so much heavy hip hop influence. And as anybody who follows the show knows, I am all about electronic dance music with sort of like overt black and R&B influences. So he's got a new album out called Black House 2 Trial by Fire. And I like the whole album, Blackout is a great song. Beat Drop has the most plays.
Starting point is 00:58:32 Right now I'm loving a song called Run It Up. This is Jarv Dee, Bad Colors, KAS, and Jay Park. This is Run It Up. That is so good, man. It's so fun. Why is that so good? Where are they from? He's Seattle-based.
Starting point is 00:58:56 I came across him thinking that he might be like a Chicago dude who's like, you know, bringing the South Sides, you know, black roots back to house. But Seattle-based guy and really cool. And Jarv-D. It's like Harve with a J. That's the pronunciation Jarv? No, his name is Jarv-D. Jarv-D-R-D-E.
Starting point is 00:59:16 J-A-R-V-D-E, an artist I fully support. Thanks for making that jarv. All right. Listen, since I did mention that I'm nearly done with this book, not quite. I do write with a playlist, which is called Songs for Writing Without Getting Distracted. So it's all this like instrumental electronic music. And there's one tune that whenever it comes on, it's so good that actually kind of distracts me. So I have to like listen to it.
Starting point is 00:59:36 So this is Motor City Drum Ensemble, and this song is called L-O-V-E. So just picture me sitting with my laptop with this Scribner document. I'm listening to that and I'm just viving out. That was outstanding. Give me the name of the artist again. writing. That's Motor City Drum Ensemble. I really dig it. I like the synth. Yeah. That's like sort of the bed.
Starting point is 01:00:08 Hypnotic baseline. And it's kind of like ambiguous tonality and you're kind of floating in space. But that's me typing, typing, typing, writing the word interpolation over and over again. Writing the word. It's like Jack Nicholson. Evocation combination. Evocation combination. All working no fun. I'm working no fun. As always, if you have an idea for one song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, Dio.
Starting point is 01:00:32 L-L-O and on TikTok at Diallo-R-R-L. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-R-Y and on TikTok at Luxury X. And you can follow our podcast at One-Song podcast on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song Podcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. Also be sure to check out the One-Song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss on our episodes. You can find the link.
Starting point is 01:01:02 in our episode description. And if you made it this far, we think that means you like the podcast, so please don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review, and share us with someone who you think would like the show. It really helps us keep it going. Luxury, help me on this thing. Well, I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury. And I'm actor-writer-director-sometimes DJ D'Allar-Riddle.
Starting point is 01:01:21 This is one song. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duanyas. Our video editor is Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Bimbo, mixing by Michael Hardman, and engineering by Eric Hicks. Production supervision by Razak Boykin, and additional production support from Z. Taylor.
Starting point is 01:01:38 The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Gettings, Eric Wael, and Leslie Guam.

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