Sade's "Smooth Operator"
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00:59 Diamond Lai Love a boy He moved in space with minimum waste Maximum joy Minimum waste and maximum joy I mean just think about those lyrics I think there was something in the water in the 80s Like the fact that she's able to work this
01:22 Into an International Pop single Minimum Waste with Maximum Joy It reminds me of Dig if you will a picture of you and I engaged in a kiss Like, these are poems. Yeah. I don't know that we get poetry like this. That we get like, I've got my Gucci bag.
01:43 Luxury. Today, we're diving into the work of one of my absolute favorite artists of all time. It's somebody who became one of the most recognizable stars of the world without giving the world very much of herself or her behind the curtain self at all. That's right, D'allel. Sharday has built a career around elegance, restraint, and mystery. But while her voice and image made her an icon, the sound we know as Sharmes. was created by a full band for musicians who understood how to leave just as much space as they filled. So today we're covering a song built around a baseline that never breaks a sweat chords that make you feel sexy even when you're completely alone.
02:19 Which is just fine. We don't sex shame on the show. And a saxophone that has been invited to every late night scene since 1984. So coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago. We're talking one song, and that song is Smooth Operator by Charday. Your movement's got to be minimal on this song. Just like a tiny little box and you can't break out of it. A little Marcel Marceau. Sexy Marcel Marceau. That's why I do the show with you, I can't get Marcel on the phone.
02:56 I am so excited that we are talking about Chadee today. I even got a little dressed up because I feel like I needed to be a little sophisticated and I needed to like bring my best, you know, like, because it's Chade. How can you not get a little bit of fancy for Chade? I feel the same way about Charday. And we're going to get into these different sounds we're making. Oh, here we go. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Diyah Riddell.
03:20 And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist, luxury, aka the guy who whispers, Interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories, kind of iconic songs across genres, and tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before. And you can watch one song on YouTube and Spotify while you're there. Please like and subscribe.
03:41 All right. So I'm just going to break the script for one moment here and say one thing. The pronunciation of this artist is a contentious subject. It might be the most contentious subject. Have we ever disagreed more violently? It is the most violent disagreement between my co-host, DiLiore, as a brother and myself. So let's just, like, rip the Band-Aid off, if you'd say. How do you say this artist's name?
04:02 Listen, I know how you're going to say it. Oh, do you now? So presumptu it. Me and the rest of the world say Shadee. Hold the phone. Do you want to go ahead and tell us why you say? Sharday with a hard R. There's a major reason why.
04:15 And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to show you on the screen. I have evidence. I have mountains of evidence. By the way, I've seen your evidence, but laid out for the people. What is the evidence? I've seen the evidence. It's not a counter argument. There's a reason why we say Sharday and that our sound is in there, but is it not?
04:33 Is it, is it not? I'm saying Sharday. What are you saying? Let's just start with that. Here's my pronunciation. Sharday. Okay. No, I'm going to hear you.
04:41 yards, just back to back. No, Shade. But here's the thing. Shaw. Like the Shaw of I ran. The Shaw of I ran. Let's take a second to break this down. You showed me a piece of vinyl, one of her very early releases, and right there on the label, it says pronounced sharday. That's right. We're showing you on the screen right now in the video version of this podcast. The evidence, Exhibit A on the album itself. Not only just does it say it on the album, it says it on the spine of the album. On the album, Diamond Life, from which the song that we're talking about today arrives, it doesn't just say Sharday, like the name of the artist and the album title. It says pronounced Sharday. With an R. Okay. Now, Exhibit. That haven't been said. First off, her name is Helen Fulashadeh, Adieu. Great pronunciation.
05:27 Thank you so much. You're welcome. But here's the deal. I think it's because she came to us, she came to the world via, she's Nigerian, but she came to the world via England. That's right.
05:39 And we know that the English don't really respect ours like that. So I think that they took, you know, technically it is Charday, but they're British, so they say Shadee. And the rest of us say. I'm just going to support what you're saying, to your point,
05:52 the British adding in R more explicitly still leads to it being kind of halfway up the mouth. Let's just pause for a second. What is an R is important? Because an R is formed in the mouth. I was a minor, a linguistics minor in college, okay? Take it away, Pygmalion. What's happening in your mouth to form the sound of an R
06:11 is literally tongue placement in the back of the mouth. Try it right now. You know, pause the video or just do it while you're listening to me. Shah. Giving our listeners whole work. The tongue is sort of in the middle of the mouth. And if you go from Shah, the word, Shaw without an R to shaw with an R, you'll feel your tongue kind of go up a little bit.
06:28 Sharr. By the end of it, it's at the roof of your mouth for the hard R. Shr. Like pirates are at the roof of their mouth all the time. What's going on in England is that their R sounds are more in the middle. Their tongue is more in the middle. But the suggestion that you go sharday with the pronunciation on the label, essentially, instinctively you'll do this.
06:51 You won't be thinking about it, but it means lift your tongue a little bit more. Not to the roof, but a little bit higher. And you can kind of feel it shifting gradually. Shah, shah, shr, shr, shr, shr. So to your point, you're right. I think the Englishness is mitigating the hard arness that happens outside of England where ours are already dropped. Here's a deal. I'm never going to say sharday.
07:13 Like, that will never become a common thing for me. It's just like when we were talking about Ariana Grande, and it's like technically her name is Ariana Grande. You know, like, that's never going to happen. Right. It's also in common use. Your name evolves because that's what people are saying. And you just kind of got to deal with it. Every time you say Charday, I'm just like, oh, God, it's just because he saw that label.
07:32 I'm just going to enter into evidence, though, in addition to the label, which we put on screen. Here's Exhibit B. This is an article from the Face magazine. We'll be talking about this. The article is literally called the hottest name in contemporary music is pronounced Charday from the Face magazine. The Chicago Tribune said, it's not Saad, not Sadd, not Sadie, not Shard. I'm sorry. This is all evidence I'm entering into the record. And last but not least, here's Charday pronouncing her own name. And I have a feeling this is going to be a Yanni Laurel moment for everybody.
08:03 But just, we're going to put it to rest after this because we may never resolve it. But this is how she pronounces her own name. Well, it's Helen the first one. What is it? Helen is my first name. And then Follah, Sharday. Follah, yeah. Listen one more time. Listen one more time. What's your name? I'm not going to bring it out. Well, it's Helen, the first one. What's it? Helen is my first name, and then Fola Charday.
08:27 Follah Chade. Yeah. Fola Shade. Her tongue is like not quite at the roof, but it's not, it's really close. It's really close. And that's what I'm trying to do. No, I love it. I love it.
08:37 Listen, I think Chadee should pronounce her name however she wants to pronounce it. Of course. But I have definitely trained my lips to say Shadee, and it's going to be hard to be like walking around. Like, hey, you want to hear some Charday? I think where we're at, and maybe we can just end it here, is I think you're a little too Shah and I'm a little too Shard. And it's right into the... I'm not too shah. Do not say that. I think you're a little too shaw.
08:55 I am not too shaw. I'll admit to being a little too shaw. I'm trying to negotiate with you here. I think one of my earliest memories of shot is actually the smooth operator video. It's like, you know, kids nowadays, it seems weird. We used to, as a family, sit around the TV and watch music videos together. Really? The whole family? The whole family.
09:12 I mean, we had, I remember my mom's opinion about, yes, owner of a lonely heart. That was a crazy video. What did she say? I think she didn't like the part on the roof. Oh, that was scary. That was scary. But, you know, that was a thing. People would literally sit around TVs, and we would watch VH1 because, you know, it's come out a lot in recent years.
09:30 Like, MTV was primarily a rock station in the early days. Video hits one, VH1, showed a lot more, like, R&B and, like, British pop. Like, I got all my, like, you know, flock of seagull stuff and, and Peshmo stuff. I imagine the mission statement at VH1 was everything we don't play on MTV, meaning leaning black. and leaning older, skewing older and skewing older and Yeah, there was older stuff on there too. Like, you could definitely watch like a Stevie Wonder video on there. You know, Earthwind and Fire, Let's Groove was probably on VH1.
10:00 But all the R&B and funk and disco and like all that stuff and the slow jams were going to be on VH1. I remember just being completely enthralled by Chaudet and the smooth operator video. I was a kid, but I was like, oh, these are adults. Like, you know, they're driving in cars. They're drinking wine. They're, like, all the stuff that this con man is doing. associated with adults. This video was platinum in my house.
10:24 Everybody was watching it. Let's take a look at this video. And I just want to point out, I think the con man looks like Count Dracula. Check this out. That's kind of look like Count Dracula. No need to ask. He's a smooth operator.
10:44 The saxophones have never quite gotten the love that they got in the 80s. Yeah. Oh, for sure. They were all over the place. And now when you have a saxophone, it instantly evokes the 80s because of its ubiquity back then. Sure, yeah. Smooth operator. He was a smooth criminal. Am I correct?
11:04 He was basically a smooth criminal. He's a sexy, elusive man up to no good. He's a near-do-well. And that's why we love him. You know, I really hesitate to use the word cool because it borders on having no meaning because it's overused. But it is absolutely perfect for Sharday, her voice, this song, this video. Everything about the moment where she burst into the world fully formed, it would seem. because of the coolness, it was what locked it all in. And I think this video was also my first exposure to not just the song, but to Charday. I think it was the world's, a lot of the worlds. Actually, this was the third single in the UK and I think the second one in the U.S. Right.
11:42 But she blew up because of this song. It is still her biggest song to this day. And what's interesting is I was doing the research, I was remembering back, the first time I would have heard it, it would have been presented to me in these British magazines like NME and Melody Maker, but it would have been presented alongside what we would have called, you know, back then it was college rock or alternative or indie, right? But it's Depeche Mode, it's The Cure. It's a lot of white rock acts and maybe synth pop acts and Cheers for Fears.
12:09 And then it's Charday with this soul-infused jazz pop. Yeah. It doesn't have really, it has a little bit of funk, I suppose. It just doesn't sound like anything else. Yes. Or look like anything else on the radio or on MTV at the time. But what I was going to connect all these dots, what it did have in common with it, was this idea of coolness, visual coolness, and kind of a vague kind of sense of importance and mystery. And we're going to talk a little bit about that how that came to be, because that's not unintentional.
12:41 No, I think that I love the fact that you use the word mystery because I think that that's what makes Chaudet timeless. She's mysterious. And she almost feels like, like you said, like she's pulling from pop. I don't hear a lot of funk. What I actually hear, I think, is I'm going to use a term rare groove, which I feel like a lot of the BBC radio DJs were starting to use for music coming out of the 70s into the 80s that had these jazz influences, had soul influences for sure. I would argue the rare groove stuff has a little bit of soul, little funk, a little jazz, a little bit of dust sprinkled on top to make it magical. A little bit of rarity, too. A little bit of obscurity is what makes, by definition, rare groove music, which became kind of a jealous people. Peterson and, you know, talking loud.
13:26 I was going to say Jowles Peterson and all that kind. And I also feel like it's nighttime music because I feel like, you know, certain songs like Smooth Operator searching. Yeah. By change, featuring Luther Vandros. Go back and check out that episode that we did a few months ago. Or a year ago, actually. Those kind of songs evoke like going out at nighttime to me.
13:44 But it's adultness like you were saying. As an adult. It's VH1. It's on MTV. It's VH1. You kind of have to have on like a nice suit and a cool car. and you're living in this sort of jet set international environment
13:58 and because she's Nigerian by way of the UK, she sort of embodies this scene that she's singing about. You know, it should be said that Chade and her bandmates are getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. One of the reasons why we're so excited to do this episode. And it's, you know, it's interesting to me
14:14 because at least in the earliest days of this group, you listen to the music now and you sort of imagine her not being on the thing. And it's almost like easy listening. Like it almost feels like smooth jazz maybe not in the best way Yeah, but for whatever reason when you introduce Shade's vocals over this music It feels like easy listening with an edge I would argue that her entire presence is part of that
14:39 It's both her don't mystery the mystery if the visuals matter a lot but not exclusively But also a lot it's this is this conundrum and I'm just gonna say rip the band-aid off about the whole show Which is that we've and this has been a theme in recent episodes I've been saying saying this a lot, some version of it. We break things down, but you will never get to the heart of it. The beauty of trying to understand music is that it's elusive forever. You can get little bits and pieces, and hopefully something is interesting or of use on this show and in general. But why is Charday so mysterious and everything that she is? I don't know. Can I just say, ever since we started this podcast, Shade is one of those artists where I was, I was desperate to hear
15:18 her isolated vocals and to just live inside that voice because there's an intimacy when she sings. Like, even in preparing for this episode, when I was listening to certain songs, I'm like, going back and listening to album cuts, like a tattoo. I'm hungry for life. Thirsty for a distance. River. And thirsty for the distance? I mean, come on. Come on.
15:46 Who can sing that line? Akingly beautiful. It feels like a stab to the gut, man. Certain parts of those songs sound so intimate and so. crystal clear that you just feel like how is she not just singing to me? But there is a warmth to her voice and intimacy is the right word.
16:01 I mean, we're gonna, we will probably list 100 words today to do our best to try and understand what we're hearing that's so evocative emotionally. But that's all that matters is that Chaudet resonates with us emotionally in a way
16:15 that wonderfully will never piece together. But we're gonna try a little bit on this episode. Yeah, we're gonna try. We're gonna try a little bit on this episode. And the backstory of this band is fairly complicated, but I'm going to try to really crunch it down to just a few sentences. It begins with a band called Arriva,
16:30 who are a Latin soul band with a gentleman called Ray St. John, who's a lesser-known part of the Sharday story, but an important one because he is the co-writer of today's song. And Arriva was, according to Sharday's boyfriend, Robert Elms, who we'll be talking about a little bit later. The story begins with the two of them in a van on the way to see a band, and the driver was the manager of this band, Arriva, the Latin soul band with Ray St. John.
16:54 And the driver asked Shadea if she could sing. And according to Elms' telling, she said she could. And then he looked at her like, really? Because they'd been dating and he'd never heard her sing before. Wait, was she just in the van with them? They were going to a gig together. It was a friend of his because he worked for the face, which is this really big music magazine, like fashion magazine at the time.
17:14 So I just sort of knew all the other journalists and bands and artists. So they're going to this gig. The manager, I suppose, took a look at Shade. It was like, wow, that's an interesting-looking person if they can sing. Maybe there's something that could be done on stage with this person. So she said she could remember his elms. I thought there had been no evidence of this. So when we stopped at a petrol station, I asked her about it, and she goes,
17:35 how hard could it be? So the origin story of Charday singing is given a sort of opportunity. She joins that band. It becomes a band that's known as Pride. This is a seven-piece band in London, and Charday is a background singer for the band. Let's watch a little bit from 1982. This is a song called When You Can't Back Down with Chade, the video that we'll be showing in the video version of this, she's singing background vocals.
18:09 And you can see she's fully formed in the video. She's one of three singers. She's one of the two background singers, I should say. The lead singer was a gentleman called Nick Moxin. And she's got, I mean, listen, this is the, this is the like wisdom of hindsight, but she was looks like a star already, fully born and bred. She looks amazing. I mean, she's riding on a bus so they're like, can you sing? Can you sing? She definitely had something going on. Exactly. So enter at this point the other members of future Charday, which is not yet called Charday. These are sax player named Stuart Matheman, a drummer called Paul Cook, who also features in some contentiousness to be discussed later on this episode. And the bass player, Paul Denman.
18:49 There's a member, and Ray St. John is still in the band at this point, who would later not be the band, but co-wrote smooth operator. And it's roughly around this time that they write that song. So at this point, remember, there are a seven-piece band. They're called Pride. Future members of what would become Sharday are among those members, but there's still a seven-piece
19:08 and Shardy's a background singer. But at a certain point, Mathamon, the sax player, and Sharday form their own songwriting unit. They just kind of vibe. They just kind of get along, have something in common. And they start writing songs on the side. But they bring them to the band, and the band's like, hey, these are pretty good. why don't you guys open for our band? So there's a shared backing bass player and drummer.
19:28 And then it's Charday and Mathamon. And they are a new band opening for the major band. Right, exactly right. And they get the response. The crowd are like, wait, this is what we came for. And everyone kind of feels it. And the rest of the band are pretty chill about it. Like, you know what?
19:43 We get it. Why don't you guys, we understand if you want to kind of develop this separately from the overall. Totally. When I was reading the story, I was like, everybody seems really chill. Yeah. It sort of fits the music that they're like, hey, you know, if people are liking shot A, then we'll just kind of shift over to that. Exactly right. So there's actually an early version, the first ever recorded version that I'm
20:02 aware of, of what was then called Diamond Life. Right. And this is from 1982. This is live at Ronnie Scott's in London. The band is called Pride. And it has the original drummer. It's Paul Cook, but not the Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols. It's a different drummer called Paul Cook. This is the first recording I could find of the band.
20:22 still called Pride. Yeah. The song is at the time called Diamond Life and would soon become Smooth Operator. So this is from a live gig in London in December
20:31 1982. Let's have a listen. And notice how different it is and yet a lot is the same. A lot is fully formed already. Right on. Gosh, so much I want to say. First off,
20:55 she is like the queen of, in her writing, like the first words or the last words of the song will often be the title of the song. Yeah. Oh, interesting. I always noticed that Diamond Life was the name of the album. It was the first lines of the single, at least the first single I heard or whatever. But so there's that. That's already sort of built in. I earlier played like a tattoo.
21:19 Like a tattoo comes in at the end of the song. Okay. So that's sort of like a writing style. But can I just take a step back, a big step back, and say, I already thought of Shade as like Blondie because, you know, for a long time, everybody thought Blondie was the name of the girl. They didn't know Debbie Harry. Blondie was the group. Shade is the group. Right.
21:37 So there's that similarity. But also, this version of the smooth operator would sound totally at home at CBGBs. You're right. This could be a Blondy, 19708, you know, demo. I mean, this is what, 1982? Eighty-two. So, like, it wouldn't have been out of place at CBGVs to have a rocking drumline like that. Yeah.
21:55 At the beginning of it sounds very, very post-punk to me. I love it. Super post-punk. And 1982 would be the time for postpunct. Can you imagine a double bill of Chadee and Blondie? That would have been insane. That would have been insane. And it kind of would have made sense in 1982.
22:07 They could have played together with this version. Hey, we got lady friend singers who we've kind of built a band around. It's crazy. That's amazing. So those similarities there. So in 1983, Charday, Mathamon, Cook, and Denman, the four that we just heard performing that song as part, you know, opening for pride, leave pride officially at this point.
22:27 They split to form the band Chade. And there's a story behind the name there. and Ray St. John separately leaves in 1983. They've written the song together, but he doesn't go on to form, to be part of the band with them. He does his own thing. They do separately. And they add a new keyboardist called Andrew Hale, who's also on the recording. So we'll get into them in the Sims more.
22:47 But I found this quote from the producer, Robin Miller, who said, who's explaining how that name change happened. Like, how did it come to pass that we went from Pride to Shade. He said, Shade just said, look, we're called Pride at the moment. I just think Shade is a better name than Prade. Ride. Shade said that. That's Robin Miller
23:04 explaining the origin of the name change. The rest of the band apparently agreed with her. I thought to myself, this is just chill. I thought to myself, this is somebody who gets what she wants.
23:13 Because none of them said anything against it. That's, that's Miller's telling of how come we went from Pride to Sharday overnight. What happened to my drummer? What happened to Paul Cook? Well, we're going to be talking
23:23 more about him later, but I will have a perfect question for the button I'm about to give you, which is that on Sharday's wiki, which is interesting because, you know, I love looking at Wikipedia because it is crowdsourced. And sometimes you see a little piece of information. And if you've done a little bit of other homework,
23:39 you're like, I know exactly who wrote this. I know exactly who this wiki editor. I know exactly who's trying to get a little retribution here. It's factually probably true. Anyway, I'll just read it. It says in October 1983, Adieu Charday, signed with Epic Records. And in 1984, quote,
23:56 the rest of the band signed to her as contractors. and then the citation says unreliable source. You know, I love that. One of my favorite things that was ever on Wikipedia was on the rapper Spice One's entry, which was like a very typical
24:12 bio, but then at the very, it was like one time in 1996, a man approached Spice One at a bar and asked him for his number and he gave it to him. I was like, why does this exist? I love that because like, you know, it's not there anymore. You can't see it.
24:28 on his... You grew up like I did at least. Like, you know, you go to the library, the encyclopedia Britannica. Yeah. That was the final word on it. That was the final word. They printed it. It looks like this. This is factual. So you go into Wikipedia with a sense of like factualness. Like, I mean, for the most part, it's pretty reliable. But you can, you can also just write whatever you damn want. Shadee gets what she wants. And I will also point out that one of her albums is called Stronger Than Pride. You know what? It's hard not to think about that. And her name is above the title says, Shaday, Stronger Than Pride. It's hard not to think that there's a little bit of her that's like,
25:01 er, poke, poke, poke. Can I say that is absolutely one of my absolute favorite songs of all time. Love is stronger than pride? That song comes in so strong. Like, no other artists could start a song like that. That's also the song where she says, I can't hate you, although I have tried. Love is stronger than pride.
25:33 So beautiful. Oh, come on, man. I just add to the never-ending checklist of descriptive words that do no justice to Shadeh, like, innocent. Yeah. Lovely. Like, guys, every time we stop and listen to something, I'm just like, there are so many qualities to this voice. It's so evocative. And it's for me very personal like it was for you with the intimacy.
25:52 I feel like she's talking to me. I feel like we're friends. And she also nails the heartbreak of it all, doesn't she? Like, I love that line. I think it's in Boomerang where Annie Murphy's like, I just want to stay at home and listen to Sad Shaday's songs. So that's basically the concise version of how we get to the band, as we know it, being Sharday. We're going to get into the details of the recording of the song in the stems in just a moment. Before that, there's one more step in the process of the band coming together.
26:17 And that's this coolness factor, because it was a conscious attribute that was added to the mix. In addition to the musicians, the songwriting, there is a conscious choice. And I mentioned before this gentleman called Robert Elms, who was Shade's boyfriend at the time. he worked for the face. That's very important. Because the face, I grew up reading the face, is one of the coolest magazines. It was fashion, music, it was very stylish, very sexy, kind of, it was expensive.
26:43 At least the import version was. Remember spending a lot of money on paper? Oh, for sure. Yeah, my son just bought a magazine. The other day, he bought a copy of Rolling Stone home with him. I'm like, so cool. I'm like, it was $16. It was eight pages. I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it.
26:59 You're like, what is this pamphlet? Oh, that's Rolling Stone. I mean, and it look beautiful. I'm glad magazines still exist. Support your local magazine newsstand. Remember when LA was filled with magazine stands all over the place? By vinyl. Magazines, by all the paper.
27:13 We don't save the trees. Maybe we can save the trees. Good point. Well, getting back to Robert Elms, he worked for the face, and the story goes, that one day he was at the office, and he happened to have this fashiony photo of his girlfriend, who was in a band, and he was trying to promote her, right? And it turns out that there was an advertisement
27:28 for the back page that the face fell out. Like, they thought they had the money locked in, and it went away. So at the last minute, he suggested, hey, why don't we put this picture of my girlfriend on the cover? Everyone at the face fell in love with her. They ended up putting her on the front cover of the magazine a little bit later. They called her The Face of 1984. And one more important step in this process was there was a little club called Heaven in Charing Cross in London.
27:50 And he told... Oh, I've heard this story. Yeah, he told all of his journalist friends to come to the gig. So a thousand people queued up. I mean, I'm sure the telling... That number is probably gone from 300 to 500 to 1,000. thousand people got turned away, so how many people did they even let in? I think this night was legendary, and the numbers may have shifted with the story telling.
28:08 It's their first show. It's their first show. Hundreds of not thousands of people are queued up, get turned away. There's instructions given to the door of people that if any record label come to tell them not to, that they're, that to turn them away to, to deny them. I like to think it was empty inside. This is all just like PR stunt. So they made this feeling of exclusivity, which we kind of take. for granted now that you do this with anything PR. But at the time, it was kind of a new,
28:36 relatively, if not a new idea, it wasn't executed as frequently. So people, quote, unquote, fell for it. People were like, what is this gig we can't get into? Who is this artist? And suddenly there was a bidding war for the band. Epic ends up signing them. I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but my point is that the creation of the band as an entity going from not zero to 60 overnight, it took two or three years for them to go from Pride to Charday, signed to Epic. But, they had incredible songs, they had incredible presence, and they had the face magazine at a bunch of journalists and a bunch of turned away record executives who are like, there's something special here, there's something mysterious, we want part of it. And at the heart of all of it is Chadeh.
29:16 Because I just think that like, clearly from the time she was on that bus when Uriva, like, there was just something magnetic about her. People wanted to get into that club. People, she played dance ataria. Yeah. You know, I just, I love the idea of like, you know, you have Debbie Harry and Blondie. You've got Madonna, you know, starting to jump off. And then you've got Chaudetay playing at Dancateria. Like, this is definitely, like, a moment for, you know, compelling, larger-than-life female vocalists. And it's hard for me not to come to the conclusion after this many years of life and paying attention to superstars that, like, sometimes superstars just have it. Yeah.
29:51 And you can't put your finger on what it is, but it's charisma, it's magnetism, it's beauty. And it's something that you just want to pay attention to. You want to listen to. You want to watch. and clearly Sharday had that immediately. And after that Heaven show, she signs with Epic. That's right. Yeah.
30:07 I think that's interesting because she could have left her bandmates behind. Like, clearly everybody wants Shade, but she was like, no, you know, the band comes with me. Well, according to this, like, unreliable source, it's only Shadee that does get signed to Epic. We don't know if that's true. It may or may not be true. But it's quite possible, given how she took her own name and made it the band name. She may have decided, hey. And, hey, this is my band, and you guys, I'm going to hire you for quite some time.
30:34 But you are contractors. Again, we don't know if that's true. But we certainly know that Charday took command and the band she made her own in terms of not just the name, but the voice and the sound. And the sound, because they were saying that maybe she should be doing more synth pop. Yeah. You know, she walks away from that sound that admittedly I like. I like that early version of Smooth Operator. But she was willing to walk away from that.
30:56 And she was like, I'm going to do something that's very jazzy. Yes. And they said that like the labels sort of fought her a lot about the sound on that first thing. Yeah, exactly. How do you put that on the radio? Jazz? You want to do jazz? So according to sax player Matheman, Stuart Matheman, he said when they did that gig, their manager invited all the record companies and told the doorman, who I think was Steve Strange, famously from Vizage, not to let any of them in. Quote, that was the punk way of doing things. It meant record companies wanted it even more. And sure enough, according to the producer Miller, the. phone began ringing off the hook from all the labels that had turned her down. We'll get into the turning down, which is crazy when we get in the stems. But this was the moment that everything turned around and all the pieces came together. All right, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, you will hear Shadei or Shardais, isolated vocals.
31:46 And trust me, this is like, ever since we started this podcast, this is something that we've wanted to bring to you. So all that comes when we get back. Stick around. We'll break it down. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest experience. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager.
32:07 Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. All right, welcome back to one song, luxury. Let's get into the stems.
32:30 Where do you want to start? And that's obviously how the song begins. Okay. Right. Is that a drum machine or is that a drummer? I'm so glad you asked. So I have done a lot of digging and here's my theory and my thesis. And I think it's correct.
32:50 I believe what you're hearing is a combination of Paul Anthony Cook, the aforementioned drummer disgruntled. You think he's in there? I think Paul Anthony Cook's recorded part is in there. He claims on his own YouTube channel, which I encourage you to go watch. He has a lot of videos. Like and subscribe. Listen, the guy. obviously was, I believe, asked to leave the band
33:13 early on for reasons we don't necessarily know, but I also think he was there for the recording of this song. I think you're hearing his part based on what he presents as quote-unquote evidence. And the absence of anything to the contrary, I will say that, you know, he certainly was in pride. He was one of those three core members of that band. He laid down a killer groove in the original smooth operator.
33:33 He absolutely heard him in that version, the live one with the rock and drum version. Yeah. But there are no song. writing credits with his name. He's not pictured on the record. And in fact, he only gets a quote unquote thanks to. So in other words, in the
33:46 track listing on Diamond Life, the band is listed as Charday, Mathamon, Hale, and Denman. Literally, it says Charday R. And then it's those four names. And then his name, this guy, Paul, Anthony Cook, is thanks to. Is thanks to, with the word drums next to it.
34:02 And that's it. And, you know, you know what's funny is I've gotten into TV making and filmmaking. I'm learning more and more. This only confirms it, because I've gotten a thanks-to credit when I wanted more. Interesting. So I feel like that thanks-to credit is when you push too hard. It's like a, it's a rogue gallery of people who couldn't get a bigger title. Yeah, it's really, you know what, I have a lot of empathy for this gentleman's situation. He, I think, was in the band, and then his part in the band ended. And then they became global superstars
34:35 and made lots of money off of a song that he contributed to that he was cut out of. So I have a lot of empathy. I'll say one last thing about him that he brings up in his own channel, which is that apparently there was a lawsuit in 1997. He, in his own description, underneath the video where he shows that he played the part or talks about how he played that part. He quotes from Sharday's witness statement in 1997. It says, quote, unfortunately in Vienna, apparently there was a gig in Vienna,
35:04 where it says, unfortunately in Vienna, it was not possible to cover up his deficiencies as the rest of the band had become particularly tight being in the studio, quote, his inability
35:14 was noticeable to the point of embarrassing the band and humiliating me. This is Charday's own words as reflected by Paul Cook telling us that this happened in the lawsuit.
35:25 So it sounds like things... How does that help his case that she said that? I don't know, but I mean, what it means is that apparently things got a little ugly and he felt like
35:32 he was deserved more than just this sort of sub-credit without any publishing attached to it. What's interesting is I feel like Paul Cook definitely lays down that, like I said, killer groove in the original version. This version, not only sounds nothing like that version, where I could believe, like, I guess what I'm saying is if the reverse were the case, you would be like, oh, that's a drummer there, and he's inventing something.
35:57 This honestly feels like this could have been a drum machine. So that leads us to part two of what you're listening to, answering your question. When I was listening, doing the close listen for this episode, I immediately was struck by the, sort of on the Tears for Fear's episode, we talked about this too. It sounds like a lindrum, which I've spent many years working with and hearing in songs like Human League, don't you want me, baby. It's an extremely distinctive kick and snare sound, but also... It's very regiment, and it feels very... You're nailing it. It's the sound is the same, like the volume level, like the attack, the decay, there's no change.
36:42 There's no change from one note to the next in the kick and snare. And that was confirmed. I found an interview with producer Robin Miller, who we will now present as the unsung hero of our episode. I'll tell you a little more about him in a moment. But he confirms in an interview that he replaced the bass drum and snare drum on this song and on Your Love is King with a kick from a lind drum, but also a snare drum that he owned. But the point is he sampled his own snare drum and then replaced every instance of it. So it would sound exactly the same. put in the sequencer.
37:12 And that's why we hear this sort of sonic perfection. But that's mixed within his, again, his own words, he kept the overhead mics of the drum kit being recorded open, and he mixed that in. In 1983, we take for granted now that you do this all the time, blending samples, drum machines, and live recordings. He's doing this in 1983 with the technology of the time. He doesn't have MIDI yet.
37:34 It's no pro tools to say anything of anything screens. But he's mixing a drum machine kick, a sampled snare, and the kind of percussion of, I believe it's both Paul Cook on drums and then on percussion. Dave Early, who then becomes their regular drummer, is playing the congas and sort of the percussion sounds. Wow. So he's doing this incredible kind of early production job before there's anything remotely related to computers to work with to do that kind of thing. That's insane. Do the drums ever change from how they start in the beginning?
38:13 So there's this iconic break, of chorus that is going into the chorus. No need to ask. Let's hear that. Oh, okay. So that little conga there, one, two, three, four, five. Is that, is that, do we think that's Paul Cook? That's clearly not a drum machine. I believe that's Dave Early, the percussion player who gets a credit. And again, goes on to become the regular drummer in the band. Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
38:40 I believe this is his first appearance in the band is da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It totally created the mood. So props to him. Yeah. Unsung hero Robin Miller. What else can you tell us about him? Let's talk about Robin Miller, the unsung hero, who was the producer of this song, had a kind of eclectic music career he went on after this. This was his big break to do Fine Young Cannibals
38:59 and Big Country, did some stuff with Malcolm McLaren. He actually bought Chrysalis Records, the brand recently, and it helped re-release the De La Soul Records. Oh, that's great. I was going to say, I was like, yes, I think about that often as I start re-downloading my De LaSoul Canal. Cool, dude, and at this point, he's just getting started in London. He's got his own recording studio,
39:19 which is called Power Plant Studios in Northwest London. and the story of how they come to meet the band, the story of how Robin Miller meets the band, is he's putting together a record to raise awareness of General Pinochet and the disappearances in Chile. So this is like a political record. Right. Did Pinochet sound like penis too much?
39:39 Is that why you laughed? I didn't know where your sentence was going. But thankfully, it went towards, you know, autocratic dictators. I couldn't tell if it was a laugh about disappearances. No, I'm a child today, apparently. I'm a freaking child. I did feel as I was saying Pinochet. There's nothing funny about Pinochet, by the way.
39:55 There's nothing funny about him. Just his name is ridiculous. Absolutely true. So Robin Miller puts together a track. It's called Ven Ceremos. We Will Win by a group kind of for the project called Working Week. And it features Tracy Thorne from everything but the girl on vocals. Let's listen to a little bit of it just to get a vibe.
40:13 Because it also demonstrates that there was this other strain of music happening at the time that wasn't just on the pop charts. and had this kind of Latin influence to it. Just to get a little vibe. I mean, this is a kind of more on the rare groove tip kind of teaser. I was just about to say. Bossa Nova beat going on. So for those who aren't aware, there's a,
40:47 there are a couple of DJs who this is associated with, but one of my absolute favorite DJs of all time is Jiles Peterson. I think the stuff that he did at the BBC and his show worldwide. He's still doing it, yeah. It's so good because it really does sample jazz, and soul and just groovy music from around the world and all these influences. Growing up, there was nothing cheesier to me than music that was classified as world music because I was just like, I didn't listen to that stuff.
41:16 But for some reason, when channeled through the right influences, I guess you'd call it, it's some of the coolest music on the planet. But you're absolutely nailing part of what this Sardais story is. It's kind of like what I said about the Face magazine and the kind of exclusivity of the event. there's something about tastefulness and how tastefulness is often dictated as a strong word, but it often comes from a trusted source where you're like, oh, if Giles Peterson, who I know to have good taste
41:43 that seems cool and is backed up by being on the cover of such and such magazine or such and such radio station, then I will listen probably differently. And I think that's kind of sometimes the nature of music. Sometimes music just hits you with no context and you just like it or you just don't. But sometimes you're brought into it because the context of how you're being introduced to it a trusted DJ going, Hey, check this out, I think it's cool. I was just talking to my family about this
42:08 because my kids are basically growing up without any concept of really what the radio is. But I was saying that... They don't listen to my radio show every Friday night from 10 to 12 on KCRW? But they're like, they're like, tell local luxury to take our request. Seriously, though, we need more curation.
42:27 Yes. I actually, I never would have thought I'd say this maybe 20 years ago, but like there should be some gate kids. keeping because what I think we are losing and what we are lacking nowadays is a sense of like where can I go to hear new music? Hopefully you come to this podcast. We still do our one more song segment sometimes. But like that idea that like not just you are listening to music is sort of key. Full support. This is your subway take. I'm on board with it because it's not controversial. I think
42:55 the pendulum is swinging back after maybe 15, 20 years of ubiquity from Napster and Spotify. And just the algorithm just feeding you what it thinks you want. That's great for some situations, but sometimes it still helps to have somebody's ears, and first of all, narrowing it down because there's so much. And second of all, giving you context, associating kind of whether it's literally telling you that this is important because it connects to, you know, mentioned Basanova. It's part of the lineage of 60s Brazilian jazz. Like, the information and the context can help bring you into something you wouldn't
43:30 normally listen to. I worked at Hollywood Records in A&R briefly, which is not so that I'd get to bring up a whole lot. One of the reasons I ended up at that label was because I was able to convince one of the A&R guys that I had good taste. And truthfully, I was getting a lot of my taste at the time from Jals Peterson, from guys like Rob DeB and Bingy B. Like these are guys that were putting Oson Lade next to Jill Scott, but then they would go back to the 60s and get some rare, you know, ballet funk or something like that. and that's something that the algorithm can't do because if you put in Dapunk, it's just going to give you a whole bunch
44:03 of French electro-sounding stuff when that's not necessarily what we want. I'm not trying to quote-unquote to our own horn because we're part of the KSairW family. But the fact of the matter is is that I do feel the pendulum swinging back to people really wanting and enjoying the community feeling of being a real DJ
44:20 and having ideas of what music to listen to helpfully provided to them because you're swimming and it's too much and most of what gets attention is pop music, which is wonderful, but there's no challenge to it, by definition. I think you guys at KCRW are doing good work. I think that the idea of, you know, more music, let's talk. Like, no, there should be a little bit of talking. There should be like, like, seriously, like, I want to hear a DJ, a radio DJ come on in between songs and be like, hey, you just heard this. And here's a song that I was just listening to. Like, that means something. So getting back to Robin Miller. So the song is Vince Ray,
44:57 most, he decided he wanted to have like a remix of that song, a 10 minute quote Latin jazz freak out extended version. So he literally just puts the word out to get any musician who wants to be a part of the remix. Again, it's for, you know, it's to raise awareness for general Pinochet's disappearances. He gets 20 people, 20 musicians to come by for no money and work on this remix. Let's just hear a portion of it. That's funny because I'm just noticing that that's like, the original version was like a Basanova slower. And that was like a samba, which is where Bossa Nova came from, a slowed down version of the samba music that existed. That's funny that the remix was like the 30s style and the original was the 60s style.
45:48 So the 20 musicians that put together this remix include a couple of members of who at the time were pride going into Charday. So the next day, Robin Miller gets a call from a manager who says, hey, two members of my band came last night. They liked your studio. They like working with you. They're in a band called Pride. Hey, can we send you some of their music? And if you're interested, maybe you might want to produce them.
46:08 So he listens to their tapes. He likes their sound. He invites them back. And that's the beginning of the connection between Robin Miller and the band that is now turning into Charday. Apparently, Charday showed up wearing a pair of baggy jeans and an old t-shirt. They said, we don't have any money. would you consider let us using their studio?
46:27 Like, it's important to remember that these guys are living in squats. The song, When Am I Gonna Make a Living? Is a real lyric. Like, that Charday song is based on her writing on the back of a laundry ticket, a truth of her life in that moment.
46:41 When am I going to make a living? It's a great song. They don't know. So they end up recording two tracks, smooth operator, and your love is king. And what's interesting is the exact same demos they made.
47:03 that day, that they then shopped around and were rejected by every record label, ended up... For being too jazzy. For being too jazzy, or what we hear to this day on the 10 million selling Diamond Life record, it's the demos they made that day. Wow. That were rejected by every label until they had these, like, you know, exclusivity, you know, you guys can't come situation shows. I love that.
47:24 You heard of here first. Smooth operator, the song you love, it was a demo. It was a demo. It's actually a demo. What's next in the stems you want to play for us? Let's listen to Paul Denman on bass with the iconic kind of, like I was saying, Basanova-E, descending line in the intro. I'll bring in some drums.
47:49 So we hear the full groove. Here we go. You know, it's simple, but it's groovy. And, you know, maybe just because we love the song, like, it's enough. You know, it's not show-boaty. It has a lot of flavor to it because it's chromatic, meaning it's descending. We're getting all the notes, the notes in between the scale notes. And it has that really satisfying pickup when he comes in.
48:25 Yeah, that's true. It's so sexy and slinky. You can just see the flowy dress. Yeah. So the overall effect is very Brazilian. It's very Bosa Nova. In fact, that descending chromatic thing, was just referring to, it reminds me of this Astrid Gilberto song from 1963.
48:47 Listen to the baseline. We're going to go down another half step from Mary Gryrdeson. Another half step coming up next. Oh, let's keep going. That's the note. That's the best part, that one note in the background there. sincerely You know what's interesting
49:16 as I'm listening to Astrid Gilberto She's very charday It's very shoday It's sort of satisfying the same Yeah It's sort of satisfying the same It hits our reptilian brain Yeah
49:27 I think as As cisgender males Like I'm just like Oh I want to listen to her sing It's very simple And it's almost naive In fact famously You know Gilberto
49:39 This is her first you know Record she ever made She was a very young woman at the time I think she was a teenager even but there's something very honest and direct and not schooled it's not a bluesy belty no growing up in the church
49:53 I've been singing my whole life kind of thing it's almost conversational and it's again the word naive comes into it I wouldn't say Chargette doesn't have the naivete necessarily but it's innocent I will say this I think that for astrood it's it sounds like it sounds like innocence yes but it's also
50:11 just beautiful in its own way And I'll always think of Black Orpheus whenever I hear her voice. But also, because of Antonio Carlos Jobim. Yeah. But who wrote this song. Who wrote the, gosh, there's something about Charday. I actually feel like Chaudet can sing. I know we haven't gotten to the vocals yet.
50:31 Yeah. But I think the one difference is that Chardet steps it up a notch in just being an amazing singer. I mean, we're going to continue as we get closer to Charday. And then when we get in Chardin, it'll double. the words that associate with her voice, none of which are perfect by themselves. But form a word cloud of Chardinus. One of them is innocence, like we were just talking about. One of it may be straightforward.
50:54 One of them might also just be realness. It's just kind of conversational almost. She's not, like I keep saying, like, by contrast, she's not Aretha. No. She's not Shaka. She's not belting it. She's not coming from a bluesy tradition of bending every note and putting deep emotion into, like, again, the bluesy. She's not using the pentatonic blues scale notes for the most part,
51:16 but there's an emotion that's there that's extremely that pulls you in like a tractor beam. She's having a conversation with you. Sometimes she's upset with you. Sometimes she's in love with you. Sometimes she's just in her own thoughts. I think about a song like, you know, hang on to your love. I feel like she's, you know, kind of singing to a person, but they're not in the room, you know? Maybe I just found another word, natural.
51:39 It's very natural. That's kind of incentive. Autotune has no place. with us strewd or shutting. Well, I just want to be careful because, like, unschooled and, you know, that means like, that's not the association I want. I just mean it's natural.
51:49 It's natural. I feel like she just might start. It's untreated. Yeah, it's untreated. And in the verses, he changes the baseline a little bit. So we just get kind of a straight up 1545.
51:58 Let's listen to that. I'll give you a little tease of the vocals. For context there. And then we go to the pre-corpses. chorus. And then in the pre-chorus, what does he do? Let's listen. Five important conga notes. Beed-bidi-bid-bup. No! Sorry.
52:37 Acid jazz is good. Diles Peterson version is good? We're not going to go there. Us three, is that what it is? I put it out of my brain. I love that you dislike us three more than me. We've talked about us three ten times on this podcast and I always eliminate their name. Let's just get them on this show. Let's get them on the show. Let's get him on the show. Nothing wrong with us three. Just not my favorite acid jazz. And then in the chorus, he's sort of doing
52:58 basically the same thing he's doing in the verse with slight variations. I lied, it's exactly the same. There's no difference in the verses in the chorus. And then he's a little variety. Oh, you like the post-chorus? Yeah, let's, can we take the drums out? I kind of want to just appreciate it.
53:26 Okay. Let's have him. Can we hear the bass and the, I guess it's the post chorus. You like the walking? He's just walking around. Getting in his steps. I'll bring some drums in.
53:50 I think that's the end of it. So Paul Demmon was in pride, the bass player, and he'd been playing with drummer Cook since they were teenagers together. Oh, okay. And I believe we're hearing him play his 1978 Music Man Stingray bass like kind of at his neck.
54:05 He's one of those bass plays like Peter Hook almost... I've seen him in some of these videos and he's playing it really high. Peter Hook, bass player for a New Order and Joy Division, almost to his ankles. You know what I mean? I like that too, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can be cool, but it's kind of a little less cool when you're playing it super up high. But that is a cool, that is a choice.
54:23 That is a stylistic choice that Paul Dedman does make full respect to Paul Dedman and his skills. It's funny because they're playing these instruments around the same time. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. New Order and shot A around the same time. And that goes to you. your point about natural. Like, the band Charday has a very organic sound. Right. And New Order
54:42 is like beating you in the head in a good way with synthesizers and drum machines. Well, now's as good a time as any to put another connection in there, which is that by their own telling the three core musicians who aren't Charday in the band that are making the drum bass, key, and sax sounds,
54:58 are by their own telling not super accomplished musicians. And this, again, this is literally a quote from Mathamon, quote, none of us were great musicians, but we sounded good. Andrew Hale could play simple chords. Paul was a simple bass player. I could get a nice sound with my sax, but I never studied jazz. Sharday had a gorgeous voice, but she wasn't a trained singer. Basically, I love this quote. Shaday is punk. This is a punk. This is a punk band. This is a punk band. And that's the ethos that they're coming from. That's the connection in your order.
55:26 And I think the confidence to get on stage, remember, this is also the era, you mentioned him before. This is Quincy Jones. This is big orchestras. This is soul and art. and B has earthwind and fire. George Benson. Musicality, musicianship. You have almost an intimidating like in front of you what one is intended to do if one wants
55:46 to play the music. It can be intimidating. But then punk comes along and says, you know what? You don't need to have that level of skill. And in his own words, again, Mathamon goes on to say, if any of us had been 10 or 20% better as musicians, it would have been horrible. It would have been too much. What made our sound special
56:02 is that we were young and naive and we didn't really know what we were doing. And I love that because I hear that in the music. What they're doing is exactly right for the song, serves it, but nothing fancy, nothing ornamental. First off, I love that, and it convinces me more than ever we have to get
56:18 instruments and music back into schools so that, you know, people can try stuff, you know, like, I feel like my, our kids are coming up in a generation where like, really, honestly, only the rich kids are even picking up instruments because that's just not provided in public school education. That makes me think that
56:34 you don't have to be the best musician, but you can have great ideas that lead to great music. And if you just get a foundation of it, somewhere in the public education system, that's going to make for a better culture. And don't even get me started on how the AI conversation with music also includes this as a problem that is not being solved or helped along by AI.
56:55 But can I also say another cool thing that comes out of this conversation about the band is that Chadei, they are taking some of this. Like I said, they played dance ataria. They played heaven. they play live aid and they get up there and she does is it a crime which is kind of balzy because think about it like this crowd is out there they want to hear queen they want to hear all these gigantic songs she gets up there basically does a slow jam and brings the people to their in a bit of a whisper of a voice as well let's not you know she's not belting it is it you know is it a cry let's play a little bit of that from uh from wimbly
57:26 live aid i mean like i don't know that i would take the stage to play these slow jams but like she did it And the crowd loved it. It's wild to me to think of who her contemporaries are. And she was very comfortable staying in this lane and doing exactly what she wanted to do. I think punk and post-punk and just the general creative attitude in London and in England or, you know, in Western music perhaps at the time, thanks to punk rock, yeah, is that you, it demystified one's ability to try and be creative. That's what this show is for. Which I love. We're trying to demystify a little bit just so you'll get in front of your.
58:20 instrument or laptop or whatever you do. It just create something. That's 100%. All right, what's happening with the keys on this song? All right, so Andrew Hale is playing keys. And I love this detail, because what you're about to hear is a mix of real piano and a Rhodes, but they're mixed together not using MIDI, not using any kind of current modern day technology that would easily enable you to match the parts.
58:44 To mimic. There's no screens, there's no MIDI. So they painstakingly in the telling synced up the exact. the exact same parts played on both instruments on different takes by the same player. So let's listen to a little bit of that. I'll bring in some other instruments so you can your context. That's a synthesizer, right? It's not really a piano.
59:27 What I'm hearing is a Rhodes, like just really hit, you know, with full attack. The Rose? I hear it. That other piano in there, is that a piano? A keyboard, do we know? Based on Robin Miller, the producer's telling, it's a piano. and erodes, I can hear how those two alone can make that. It also certainly evokes maybe, man, I don't know if this DX-7, there's certainly the synths of the time, have a certain attack sound, which is also in there, but they're emulating a lot of times, erodes. So I think it's a in a piano, and that's why the attack,
01:00:03 the emphasis on the sound beginning, is what I mean by attack, is so strong because both of those instruments, when you play them hard, have really solid attacks and merged, could be why we're hearing that sound the way it is. That's great. That's my speculation.
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01:00:43 Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. So let's listen to a little bit of the pre-chorus, and I'll give you some contact. They bring it right back. All right. Now, when we first decided on this song, I was like, I got to hear what that saxophone is doing, isolated. So, sax me, baby. Stuart Matthewman. And again, I hope I'm not mangling your name. I think it's Matheman. Could be Matthew Man on saxophone. That sounds like a superhero. Matthew Man. This is power is to be the ultimate Matthew.
01:02:03 Here's that sax solo. That sounds like a smoky alley in a film noir movie. Uh-huh. Apparently that line, the main line, that he said that in rehearsal he had, quote, wailed out the sacks, and they decided to use that line for the intro. It was just something he came up with for later in the song. It turns out to be the
01:02:37 intro. And one thing that really strikes me, and it'll make even more sense when we get to Charday in just a moment and her vocal, is this melody, the like, going basically all the way at the scale. I won't sing it. do do do do do da fuck it I can do it
01:02:56 da na na na na na na na na na thank you that melody especially the fact that it bookends the song
01:03:06 or rather begins it and shows up later in the song as well it's a more adventurous melody than anything
01:03:12 you're going to hear Sardaising so what's interesting about that is it gives it balance it gives it energy
01:03:16 that's right or had there not been the sax doing both the crazy solo but also just that melody at the very top
01:03:21 of the song and showing up periodically. It balances Chardais' chill, cool. Yes. Well, she's the reporter, I would argue. She's, like, telling you what this guy is doing. Okay. That saxophone is him.
01:03:34 He is the smooth operator. That sax is the smooth operator. I think that's right. I think she's the narrator. Yeah, she's just there to narrate. And he's the wild man with that, you know, growl and sax solo that comes in. He's nasty and he's gritty. It's a nice gender flip because usually, like, an old movie's like when the hot dame comes in.
01:03:52 She's brassy. Yeah, they always give her like some horns. But in this case, he's the one with love for sale. That's right, she's a brassy sax. And in this case, we got it backwards. He's the one with love for sale. Exactly. With all these wonderful instruments now laying down the bed,
01:04:06 we get to the main attraction. Shadei, I do. I've looked forward to this day. Again, you know, we have, we still have to do a Bjork episode. We still want to do a Maxwell episode. Yep. I want to hear Shade's vocals. Diamond Lod.
01:04:22 Love of all He moved in space with minimum waste Maximum joy Minimum waste and maximum joy I mean, just think about those lyrics I think there was something in the water in the 80s Like the fact that she's able to work this Into an international pop single
01:04:44 Minimum Waste with Maximum Joy It reminds me of Dig if you will, a picture of you and I Engaged in a Kiss, like these are poems Yeah I don't know that we get poetry like this That we get like It's very visual.
01:04:56 I've got my Gucci bag. The imagery is very visual. Absolutely right out the gate. Diamond Life. I mean, there's a reason they picked that for the album title. I love the fact that she starts the song with the title of the album. Like, that's just bold. But it's such a great encapsulation of this character in those two words,
01:05:13 Diamond Life. That's what this guy's doing. Lover Boy. Diamond Life, Lover Boy. I always thought that maybe I should name my production company that, and then I got married. One thing to point out, as we're listening to her vocals, is especially, I'm going to go section by section of the song, but again, calling back to the sax that we just heard with that more adventuresome,
01:05:33 jaunt all the way up the scale and beyond. We are only hearing four notes right now, A, D, E, and a little F. Wow. That's the fourth one. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Same four notes. We're about to hear a fifth note as we get to the second half. She goes up.
01:05:53 But it's only one more note, though. And what's crazy about that? Okay, so it's the fifth note. That's there, yeah. But it creates so much tension. Yes, it's contrast to the first two. So she's just essentially repeated the same thing twice with a little variety, and then she goes into this.
01:06:08 City line. That's the fifth note. That's the tension. Business start. When you request street car desire for higher high. And it also ends. It's an unresolved. Oh, it's unresolved.
01:06:31 And as a kid, I knew there's something messed up in this relationship. Like, I knew that, like, and I think other kids were getting caught up in, like, the, oh, he goes from coast to coast. He's living this great life. But I was like, no, this is not a good, this is not a good scene. The note selection. He's doing bad stuff. He's doing bad stuff, the lyrics and then the note selection with the melody. And the fact that, again, we're ending each of those phrases on the second to.
01:06:55 essentially, which means that you're like, it's unresolved. I need to get back to the route. Da-da-da-da, you want to go here. Diamond Live. Get me home, which is here. One down. So we're not getting that resolution. We're kind of floating in ambiguity, melodically speaking, for a moment.
01:07:14 And higher, for higher heights. Yes. Yeah, she's not bringing it home because it's because he's not going home. She's doing so much with so little. essentially. Very few notes and that delivery is very intimate and conversational and uncomplicated, but we're engaged with the storytelling. We're already engaged. And she starts us off, you know, she starts us off with a spoken word. Can we go back to the intro? Sure. And hear what she says at the beginning there. He's laughing with another girl and playing with another heart.
01:07:51 Placing high stakes, making heart safe. He's laughing seven languages. Okay, so this is really making me wish that she were my friend because I feel like we're talking right now because that's just how Chaudet talks. She's in the room and she's saying stuff. Sounds like she's in a really big room. I was going to say on this part and on her singing vocals,
01:08:13 there's a whole lot of echo. Sure. There's some kind of reverb that was at it, I'm sure, right? Two bucks live, diamond nights and ruby lights. High in the sky. heaven help him when he falls when he falls that's right she says when he falls when he falls so sexy i was trying to avoid saying sexy this whole episode but i can't listen she is natural relaxed flowing effortless gorgeous smooth we used to jokes she was a vampire really why because she just
01:08:49 does not age every time i see her i'm just like this woman just doesn't get any incredible who's blood is she drinking can it be mine But can we talk about that high in the sky? Yeah. Heaven help him when he falls. Like, this is poetry, man. Mm-hmm. He's on that Concord Jet or Pan Am.
01:09:09 Yeah. But he's going to fall. He's going to fall. Let's go to the pre-course. One thing to point out, four notes again, and they're mostly the same ones. And yet, it is different. No place for beginners or sensitive heart. when sentiment is left to charge.
01:09:34 She rhymed harsh with chance. And I bought it. I bought it. Hookline and sick. I was like, those words rhyme. I never noticed that before. Yeah, she just, she melded it. She blended it. You want to name the band after you? Do it. She's got charisma. She's got charm. Whatever you want, Shaday. There's a question that I have about the harmonies, by the way, because I read somewhere.
01:09:57 It's not just her stacked? Miller is quoted Robin Miller is producer quoted as saying quote The third verse Charday and Stewart
01:10:06 sing together on one mic and it's like the rose and piano being so in tune you can't tell what the instrument is because I can't tell them
01:10:13 apart I can't hear that it isn't Charday in there but I also am not sure what he means by third verse Oh I was going to say
01:10:19 because there's only two so I don't know if in this song the harmonies are all Charday against herself until later on when one time
01:10:28 Matheson comes in, Matheman comes in. What's funny is I always thought that maybe I heard her, maybe I heard a male vocal on the choruses. Well, let's listen. Where do you think it is? No place to be ending, but somewhere to start. No need to ask.
01:10:47 He's a smooth operator. Could that be a male singing in falsetto? It could be because Mathamon himself says, Sarday had such a unique voice that anyone else singing with her stands out. so I wouldn't quite pronounce the ends of the words to help it blend more. So it's possible because... So he knows his vocals are on the track.
01:11:06 Yes, his vocals are on the track. It might be there in the chorus. It may not be. Again, going back to Miller, it's in the quote third verse, which this song doesn't have. What a confusing thing to say. But it's also what's interesting about that quote from him is it's true. Like the identifying marker of any instrument or any sound or any voice is the beginning and the end. The middle of most instrument sounds is famously,
01:11:33 if all I play for you is after the attack and before the end of a sound, it could be a trumpet, it could be a piano, it's really hard to tell a part. So a way of blending vocals is you can kind of let the other person begin a little bit and then you jump in and then you jump out before the end. That's right. By cutting off the beginning and the ending of a note,
01:11:50 it becomes almost impossible to tell what instrument is playing. Do you think that you can guess though? Hopefully. Okay, this is the first one. Is this like a piano? It's actually acoustic guitar. Right. Right.
01:12:03 All right. So it sounds like that's what he did, and successfully so, because as we listen to all the harmonies, I'm not sure where he is and where it's Sardet. That's super helpful for all you producers and singers out there. I did not know that. That's really cool. Maybe it's actually to try.
01:12:20 Let's hear the whole chorus. Smooth operator. Smooth operator. Smooth operator. Smooth operator. By the way, in the chorus, even fewer notes. Only three. The notes of the chorus are F-E-D.
01:12:48 Here's the verse. And you can really hear on the piano like, and then she goes up that one time in the third phrase of the verse. And then there's harmonizing, which kind of brings in more notes. But then in the chorus, it's... She's in the same, it's the same notes we were hearing in the verse, which is unusual,
01:13:15 because usually, frequently, I should say, the chorus will not only be a different melody or use different notes, they'll be higher, it'll be more elevated because the energy. But can I say, like, this always felt to me like a guy was walking into a smoky jazz club, and, you know, unless it's a different kind of scene where it's, like, raucous, you can totally see her just, you know, sitting on a stool, you know, seeing this very measured and cool, almost like Sarah Vaughn or somebody like that, as opposed to like, you know, the rambunctious saloon where you have to scream over the people yelling. Like, this is a very different scene.
01:13:52 Yeah. So interesting. Yeah. That second, the E, which is one above the root note, D of the song D minor. Smooth operator. She ends with smooth operator. So again, we're ending with ambiguity, which carries us over into needing to hear some resolution in this. next section. That ambiguity is so cool
01:14:11 because she's telling a story. Yeah. And she's not telling, she's not done yet. Keep listening. She's not giving us the ending. Here comes one of my favorite lines we used to laugh us because we were like, well, let's just play it. Post chorus.
01:14:25 Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago, Western Maine. Again, just three notes there. And now they're harmonized. Across the north and south to the Kielago. Love for Sets. We used to always laugh We were like
01:14:42 Shaday doesn't know her geography Like L.A. To Coast to L.A. to Chicago Like they only got halfway there. That's not the full coast. But I think Chicago just sounds better than coast to coast L.A. to New York City
01:14:55 Like that doesn't fit. But maybe she's only halfway to the end of her sentence because Kilargo is in Florida. Well, yeah, but it's like the northern part of Florida. So north, across the north and south to Kilargo, not to Miami, mind you.
01:15:08 But this is her storytelling. Remember, she's keeping the ambiguity of the second. We're not done with the story. Keep listening. We're in Chicago. We're not to the other coast yet, but then Keeler are going to the coast. Perhaps that's a generous reading of her geographical school. Listen, Chadee can do what she wants.
01:15:23 If she said Chicago's on the East Coast, then damn it, it's on the East Coast. That's always the answer. Look, I'm amazed that we're now three sections of different vocals, you know, melodies in. But what she does with three to four notes per section is incredible. The chorus and the post chorus, both. only have three notes each. They're different notes and they're different melodies. They're different lyrics, but she does so much with so little. I like the fact that she doesn't even just change the lyrics on the verses. She changes the lyrics in the pre-chorus. Can we hear the second pre-chorus?
01:15:53 The license to love insurance to home. Chained into gold. His eyes are like angels, his heart is cold he's a smooth operator his heart is cold like all this time like she's been sort of like semi like sort of
01:16:29 almost sarcastically singing his praises but like she's pretty definitive about like no his heart is cold no ambiguity stay away from this gentleman he's a rogue stay away for this guy here's my favorite part fight me there's no fight
01:16:43 I never fought except over the pronunciation of her I do think over the course of this episode, I'm hearing you go deeper into the Shaw zone. Like you're getting more and more H. I'm getting... Are we talking about Shaw Day? Shade. I'm hearing Shah, increasingly Shah. I am increasingly anti the R in her name. I think the tongue
01:16:59 is getting... You're like, I don't want any tongue here. It's all shaw. Tongs at the bottom of my mouth. I definitely have been self-conscious about the Sharr, so I don't think I'm doing the Sharr. You're not doing the Sharr as hard. When we were working on this episode, you kept... So, the Shard A episode. But this might be
01:17:15 my favorite part of the song. We've heard the chorus now four times. It's pretty much the same every time. But then we get a little variety at the very end. And you'll know what I mean. Yeah. Smooth operator. And then here. And it blends in with a sign note. Yeah. So she finally brought us home. Yeah. You know, like I feel like that is the conclusion of the story. We're concluded. Yeah. And an interesting choice. I mean, it's a really small choice. But, you know, musically speaking, the whole song is basically one four or five. We're playing like the three core chords. It's tonic, subdominant, dominant, just in various arrangements across all the different sections of the song, one, four, and five. But at the very end, they
01:18:01 introduced, like, right as the song's about to end, we get a seven in there, just for variety sake. I'll play you the whole thing in the mix, so you'll know what I'm talking about. Just this one bar. Seven. And then the song ends. So the song starts with something interesting. It catches your attention. We shift gears with, don't forget, the arrangement of this. song. It's intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, post-chorus. But then we have this little bridge section and then we have the sax solo and then we come back for the cycle all over again of the second verse through the end. Yeah. But there's lots of different parts so you're constantly changing even though each part is simple. It's one of the things I love about her and I feel like once again
01:18:44 you see this in other songs of hers that she'll build in a chorus and then a post-chorus. It reminds me I love that song, Kiss of Life, because it has, like, several choruses in it. And I was like, man, she just, it was almost like Little John when he was like, I just wrote choruses and I strung them out. Like, she's kind of the same way. There are, like, many different choruses in Kiss of Life. They remind me of this. Like, and none of those are the Kiss of Life chorus that you think of, but they're in the song,
01:19:24 sort of like is this post-course one, post-course. to, there's a stunning amount of construction that goes into her. A stunning amount of construction and interplay with Denman, the bass player. He's playing all these little delicious melodic fills that are, I won't compare them, not equally satisfying, but in dialogue with Charday. And as you listen to the song and they sort of take turns with their moments of melody and deliciousness, it really is, it's sort of like an unsung story within the music of the band.
01:19:53 Everything matters differently. Yes. But the bass and the vocals are really locked in in Sharday's Cablon. You can argue that a lot of these songs feel like duets, even though she's the only one singing, because they're sort of like supplying the other voice in it. Can I say my favorite part of this song is the second pre-chorus? Because it has this crazy chord in there. Can you play the second pre-chorus for us?
01:20:17 All right, let's listen to the interplay here between the Sax and Charday in the pre-course. Second pre-course. Oh, this chord is great. The license to love, insurance to home Your memories chained into gold Those eyes are like a cage of his heart is cold I mean That sacks and that sax and her going like this is so good
01:20:54 That interplay, yeah The beautiful color of color. I love that nose. I love that court that they strike. All right, now that we've heard smooth operator, luxury, what are the splits on this song? It's straight up 50-50 split between Charday and Raymond St. John, who mentioned, who had been part of the earlier incarnation, but didn't get all the way from Pride into Charday. You know, he's own way.
01:21:13 Usually I'd say it would be weird to not include some of the musicians on this. But when you go back and listen to that demo that you started this episode off with, the song's all there. The song was all there. Yeah, fully formed. Well, it hardly needs to be said, but Chadee went on from this song to have an extremely long and prolific career. I mean, we could do many more episodes based on Charday songs. Some of my own personal favorites are, and some of these might be decuts. It occurs to me that, like, the current generation doesn't know Chadee.
01:21:45 And if we don't tell them about Chaudet, it could slowly be forgotten. That's why this episode is so important. Forward it to all of your friends, all your family, all your co-workers. Under 30 years old. Yeah, they need to know. They need to know about Chade. I'm going to call out some personal favorites. And some of these are album cuts, because she's.
01:22:02 has great album because War of the Hearts. Yeah. The big hit, Sweetest Taboo. There's a song that I think a lot of people don't give enough play to. It's the song Maureen off of her promise album. I'm realizing how all her songs have a bit of sadness
01:22:50 in them. Like Maureen, I'm never going to see you again. You'll never meet my new friends. She's clearly singing to someone who's dead wore the hearts. It's the sin how we hit where it hurts. You know, there's so many songs. We could go on and on. Paradise. You know, by your side. Like, if you don't know the Chatea catalog, you're just, you cheat me yourself. Oh, just because you're done talking. It doesn't mean, I don't have a list to continue. Oh, my God. No, I'm just saying. I want to hear your list, too. I'm so glad you said Paradise because that one hits so hard, that baseline. I mean, you cannot be in a lyric, I'd wash the sand off the shore.
01:23:34 Why do I get goosebumps if I think about that too hard? That is gorgeous. I think that's why we have this love affair with Chaudet, because it's not just her physical beauty. It's not the beauty in her singing voice. It's actually those lyrics that she's hitting you with. Like, she's, you know, everybody's heard, ain't no mountain high enough.
01:23:51 But, like, her words sound personal. Yeah. They feel intimate. And they have just this way. again, I'm going to say, it feels like someone's stabbing you in the gut, but in a good way. A devastatingly beautiful melancholy that is in every syllable. It's wistful. It's nostalgic, but it's also warm, friendly, encouraging at the same time.
01:24:10 It's like, listen, you know what, Sarday is a siren? That's what it is. She is a siren. She's literally a siren, beckoning from the shores, beckoning you to your death. Is it because I just saw the odyssey? But I'm like, yeah, she's absolutely a siren. I'm crashing the ship. This is why you're crying because it's beautiful and glorious, but you can't stop.
01:24:27 to it and you don't know why. And I'm not done with my list because there's hang on to your love. Yes. Is it a crime? I mean, no ordinary love. That is a devastating song. So good. I love all the songs. I think it's one of those, if you don't know Charday, just honestly, the best of Charday, not a dud on it. It's 15, 16 songs. It's an okay entry point. It's an okay entry point. But I would argue, go by Diamond Life. Go by Promise. Go by Love Deluxe. No ordinary love. Oh, Love Deluxe.
01:25:12 I'm just doing the albums. Love Deluxe. And then Lovers Rock. I mean, like, her album catalog is insane. I can think of nobody who's more, who needs to get, you know, thrown into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm surprised they haven't happened right now.
01:25:27 Throw her in there. Throw her and Matthew Min and Denman and all those guys in there. Absolutely. 100%. Throw him into. Yeah. And I want to say something about the band here because we are spending some time with the band because a lot of people don't know these guys.
01:25:41 They had a follow-up. And, you know, we'd like to talk about the legacy that these songs leave. They had a follow-up band called Sweetback. And Sweetback worked with everybody from Amel Leroux to DiAngelo to Maxwell. And they put out some really incredible songs. Say, yeah, yeah. You will rise. Right.
01:26:01 There is a sky. With sky. I'm not to let nobody in my head with a hell. And look, we've said a lot about, like, oh, we've got to expose the younger generations to Shadei, so she's not forgotten. But she's really not forgotten. I mean, like, she's created art that's going to be around for a long, long time. Her legacy is secured, which I also think is extra mysterious because she's been mysterious. Like, she's not, you're not going to find her on social media.
01:26:29 Like, she's not, you're not going to have, like, paparazzi following around. It was very difficult to find interviews with her, especially after her initial. you know, sort of breakout. She's been very, she disappears. She's been very hard to locate. And I think that she does so in a way that actually only increases her stature, her mystique. The fact that she's not out there just popping up everywhere means that when she does come out with an album and sometimes it'll be eight or ten years between them, you know, it's a big deal.
01:27:00 Look, I'm not here to say that it's bad when artists are telling us, hey, here's, you know, my outfit that I'm going to be wearing and here's where you can come see me. I'm not saying that's bad. I think it's good that some people want to reach out and touch their fans, so to speak, but I do think that there's something very old school and very cool about a person who can literally go missing off the radar, let the music stand for itself, and then decide at some point, you know what, I will drop a song for a soundtrack here or I will pop up at this event. You know, there's a political side, Ashaday. You know, she was at Live Aid. And, you know, even, you know, songs off a lover's rock had a political angle.
01:27:39 I think that she's, you know, far be it, as a fan of her, she's done it all very right. And I think the lesson of her saying, like, let the music stand for itself, I'm not going to do interviews, I'm going to sort of disappear in between these albums. You see that now an artist like Frank Ocean. There are some artists who've sort of taken that lesson and run with it. So not only is her legacy in music secure, but also her legacy in handling fame and sort of pushing the cameras away has its own legacy in itself. All right, Diallo, it's time to bring back our one of our favorite segments.
01:28:11 We haven't done it in a while, but let's bring it back. One more song. One More Song featuring Diallo and Luxury. That's right. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem with you, the One Song Nation, and with each other. I'll go first because we've been talking a lot about Giles Peterson and the world of rare grooves and curation that leads you into strange corners of the music world.
01:28:33 If you don't know Victory to Play, check out his character. catalog, great artists. And if you don't know, this song, it's Manhood. And I believe it was included on one of the worldwide compilations of Jalice Peterson put it out. But whether it was or not, check out those worldwide compilations. Jalas Peterson, an amazing, amazing curator of songs. That song, Manhood by Victory to Play, it has like sort of the weird staccato approach to dance music that you find in a lot of early Chicago specifically house. I heard that song and I was just like
01:29:25 man I got to get into music. This is around 2002 2003. I was like if that's what people are making overseas now I come to find out Victor's from Philly. But as it's always the case, the British have a good year for music from this country and
01:29:41 I was like if they're making music like this I got to be a part of it. It has that sort of borderline garagey like total garray. Two-step whatever kind of vibe to it. Yeah, exactly. That Roy Davis Jr. But then again, Todd Edwards also from New Jersey, I think. Yeah. New Jersey. But it has
01:29:57 the international, you know, kind of thing going, dialogue going between. It's got an international vibe, but it's, you know, in a perfect world, you would be able to play this on urban stations, too. Amazing choice. Thanks to y'all. What about you? What is your one more song? All right, this week I'm bringing you something that I discovered
01:30:13 when I was in Tokyo last month and I went to a place called record shop Nat. There's a whole bunch of incredible Japanese culture. They love vinyl and collecting, but they also have the subsection of like really dub enthusiast, reggae enthusiasts. So I found, I sought out this
01:30:29 one record store. And when I went in, the guy was playing stuff on the turntable. And the thing that he was playing ended and I was looking at a burning spear record and it was 100 bucks. I was like, I don't know if I'm going to spend 100 bucks. Maybe he'll play this for me. He dropped this next song and within five seconds, I was like, take my
01:30:45 money. This is everything that I am. Yeah. And this is loud in Tokyo on a hot summer's day. This is what I heard. When the baseline kicks in, you know. Every desktop starts with four bars of intro. Someone I know what I recently figured out because I've been five years into my obsession with dub music It reduces my anxiety To constantly be listening to this Like I think for some people smoking weed
01:31:49 Which I've just never been a weed smoker I love the fact that you're so into dub And you're not a smoker I know But I understand why there's a connection to a certain degree But it reduces my stress level it gives me a physical sensation
01:32:05 that no other music genre does it's extremely special to me so this record I spent the hundred bucks it's on the turntable right now at home and I can't get enough of that one track that baseline is so sick
01:32:18 if you have an idea for one more song you can find us on Instagram and TikTok we actually open those up and you guys are really turning us on to some new music so keep doing it you can find me on Instagram at Diallo DIA LLO and on TikTok at Dialla Riddell.
01:32:33 And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-R-Y and on TikTok at LuxuryX. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok at One Song Podcasts for all kinds of content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify.
01:32:48 Just search for One Song Podcasts. While you're doing that, we'd love it if you like and subscribe. And don't forget to subscribe to our, well, not so new anymore, but it's our established Patreon. We have a separate channel where we get deep dive,
01:33:00 We've got interviews coming up with Arthur Baker and we've got Jeff Barrow from Portishead. Really special stuff we're very excited about. Also be sure to check out the One Song's Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of the One Song Nation.
01:33:18 Show us some love. Give us some stars. Preferably five. Keep that two-star review to yourself. Leave a review and send this episode to a fellow music fan. It really helps us keep the show going. All right, luxury. of this thing. I'm producer DJ songwriter, musicologist, and KCRW DJ every Friday night from
01:33:36 10 p.m. till midnight right after Henry Rollins, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Diyala Riddle. And this is one song. We'll see you next time. One song was recorded at Spotify Studios, Engineering by Ryan Tide. Produced, edited, and mixed by Eric Hicks.
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