The Big Picture - ‘Stop Making Sense’ and the Top 5 Concert Films

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Sean and Amanda briefly discuss the news that the Writers Guild of America has a tentative agreement with the AMPTP to end their strike (1:00), before bringing on The Ringer's Rob Harvilla to discuss A24's re-release of Jonathan Demme's Talking Heads concert film 'Stop Making Sense' (7:00). Then, the three rank their five favorite concert films (44:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Rob Harvilla Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. This is David Shoemaker here with a very exciting announcement. Your favorite wrestling podcast feed, The Ringer Wrestling Show, is now going daily. And you can hang out with me and Kaz on Mondays and Thursdays for The Masked Man Show. And you can join me, Peter Rosenberg, alongside Stat Guy Greg and Dip every Tuesday with Cheap Heat. And on Fridays, I'll welcome a friend or special guest from the world of wrestling. And on Wednesdays, we have a very special new show called Wednesday Worldwide that you're going to want to check out. Pay-per-view reaction, one-of-a-kind interviews, fantasy booking, talking about bagels.

That's what we do here on the Ring of Wrestling Show. Follow the show now on Spotify. And do us a favor. Give us five stars. And do us another favor and stay mage. points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about talking heads, talking heads. Joining us today is the host of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s and the author of the upcoming book of the same name, Rob Harvilla. But first, Amanda, we have some news we need to address before Rob joins us. Of course, the 146-day writer's strike has tentatively been resolved.

The AMPTP and WGA have come to an agreement. How do you feel? I feel great. Okay. I mean, I feel better than the alternative. Yep. You know, we are recording Monday morning. The particulars of the deal have not really been made public or more germane, like been announced to the writers.

And whether it meets, you know, their needs. And it's totally fair. We don't know. And also, you know, we are not in the WGA. So who are we to say? Except I hope that it is, you know. Satisfactory. Satisfactory.

Yeah. And I hope it means that people can go back to work soon. I echo that. This is a 146-day work stoppage. It's the third longest in WGA history. Just missed cracking that record. In 1960, they struck for 148 days. In 1988, it was 154 days.

Obviously, the next domino to fall, should it fall, to get this entire town of Hollywood back up and running as the actors. Presumably, the actors will sit down with the AMPTP very shortly. We've seen a few films get pushed into 2024, which for the sake of our show is not ideal, but for the actors and the writers is significantly more important. I'm curious to see, I don't think anything's going to move back into 2023. Do you have any sense that anything will actually be reshuffled now that we're getting some resolution on some of these issues? I think the machine is too large to get going again. And some of the things that are unclear when we are recording is when people can actually get back to work.

And that is like in the very technical sense of when would the writers guild and the writers like get approval from the guild to actually start working again. But also, and that applies to SAG as well, should they get back to the table and get a deal which hopefully they will but you know then there is like the just it takes a long time to get production going so everyone hopefully gets the all clear at some point but then you gotta put all the other pieces back together so it seems unlikely that production will really get rolling before like December, which really means January, right? Yeah. I mean, in Hollywood, everybody stops working on November 14th. You know, and goals for you and me.

One day, if we work really hard, maybe that can happen. That's not our life. But also, I think in terms of promotion, like that is not as much a machine, but that's a machine too. So putting like the whole world tour in place and everything for June 2, which you've written, you know, on this outline. I'm disappointed that it's not there too. It would have been nice to have June 2 on November 3rd, but I understand that that's not going to happen. Even though Timothee Chalamet has been on the unofficial promotion tour. He's on the Wonka campaign tour, yeah.

Yeah, but... He's Wonka-ing. He's Wonka-ing, but he's like at Beyonce. Yeah. He's making out with Kylie Jenner at the US Open. I got to tell you, I didn't want anybody to be out of work at all. But the celebrity parade at the U.S. Open because they can't be anywhere else

was like tremendous. I'm very happy for you. Thanks so much. I'm glad you got that content. I'm also told that Fashion Week has just been like nuts and everyone is just out and about because the actors need visibility

in order to make money. I get it. Retain their Q score. Yeah, but their Q score is how they make money, man. You know? Who am I to judge? Like, I'm here for it.

But, so they're just everywhere that they're allowed to be and it's quite amusing. It's time for them to retreat and to get back on set. That's what I say. And I say A and PTP. Give them a fair deal

so that we can watch more films. I completely agree. I don't care about the US Open. I don't watch it. I don't care who's sitting in the chairs watching it. It's not important to me. What's important to me is films. I like can watch more films. I completely agree. I don't care about the US Open. I don't watch it. I don't care who's sitting in the chairs watching it. It's not important to me. What's important to me is films. I like to watch new films. I agree. My other reaction to this is just like, what took you so long? On this deal? I mean, we all know, but it like sucks. And it's

like, and it really, it sucks that we don't get to watch Dune 2 this year because certain individuals didn't decide to get to the table until they decided to get to the table. I think that was the issue. But I think it really sucks that people were out of work for so long. That really sucks. I agree with you. I think that that was really the issue was how seriously were the, particularly the four chiefs of studios who decided to sit down and actually negotiate in good faith with the WGA. And it seems like they ultimately did that after that Saturday night best and final brouhaha. I don't know if you followed any of that, some of the language that was shared by that

negotiating body. Sure, I did a little bit. But at some point, I was just kind of like, I'm not going to be following the strategic leaks anymore. I mean, I am because it's my job and I have a brain disease. But it was clear that that's what it was, was people negotiating in public instead of in private.

Happily, they went back in private. For more details, I'm sure that the town with Matthew Bellany, I'm sure that the Watch podcast will be digging in deeply into these issues. In the meantime, let's talk about a far happier subject let's let's bring in rob harville and talk about stop making sense rob harville is here hi rob yo how you doing guys

uh it's been a while since you've been on the pod we were uh communicating about the last time the three of us were figuring out what to cover and And I think it might have been the Trolls movie, the second Trolls film. It was Trolls World Tour. Oh, yes. Yeah. That was the second Trolls film. The rockism, popism one. Right.

The rock critic. I'm really concerned, actually, that you have invited me back to talk about something cool, but actually you have tricked me. And now you just want me to talk about the third T but actually you have tricked me and now you just want me to talk about the third Trolls film for two hours. This has all been a ruse. Let's see where we take our lists.

We'll be talking about our favorite concert movies and Stop Making Sense and in a way, when the Trolls perform, it's not on Talking Heads. They're in the same orbit of performance wouldn't you say right it's the last waltz but just bergens instead of of uh people on cocaine it's the same thing i can't believe you remembered bergens i i did pull bergens

in your own life we did that. That was very early pandemic. Yes. Wasn't that one of the, oh, we get a $20 movie at home like it was very novel? It was. Okay. And so we did that

and we for sure did the first one and they got really into Can't Stop the Feeling, the Justin Timberlake disco song. I've heard that probably a billion times. Okay.

So yes, I have some, I've had a lot of trolls times. Okay. So yes, I, yeah, I have some, I've had a lot of trolls in my life. Well, I'm sorry. We've moved on to other more horrifying things

now that they're pre-teens. I can't promise you there won't be any trolling on this podcast. That's just something I want to put out there. Is that a dad joke?

That's fine. Sure. Yeah. I'm here with my fellow dad. Yeah. Rob Harvilla. That's right. That's right.

No one brings more dad energy than Rob, so I feel very safe right now. That's very rude, but thank you. We're talking today because the film Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme's 1984 concert film of the Talking Heads 1983 tour has been re-released. It's been remastered. It's been reissued in 4K by A24. And that film is available to see right now in IMAX theaters and then this coming weekend in even more theaters across the country, which if you know anything about Stop Making Sense, you know that this is an incredible, this is a movie holiday. This is an amazing, wonderful thing that is happening nearly 40 years since it was released. A movie that I think for anybody who has seen it, they probably

have a deeply emotional relationship to the film. And if you don I think for anybody who has seen it, they probably have a deeply emotional relationship to the film. And if you don't have one and you've seen it, you're probably a very strange person and shouldn't be listening to this episode of this podcast. The movie did quite well in its release this weekend. How about we correct that? If you haven't seen it, go see it in a theater. Treat yourself. It's a big tent.

Yeah. This podcast. We should talk about that because I had not seen it in a theater and I'm curious if you guys had, but it altered my already passionate relationship with this movie. So why don't we start with that, actually, before we really get into the nitty-gritty of the film and what we think makes a great concert film. So Amanda, how did you re-see this movie? This was the first time that I had seen it in a theater, and I went with my husband on a date at 1230 p.m. on a Friday to the local mall to see Stop Making Sense. And the theater was full. And I, at the ripe age of 39, was possibly the youngest person in the theater. Interesting. And it ruled. It was amazing.

We saw it in IMAX. So, you know, the sound was also on point. It was very large. And we had recliner seats. So I guess Zach and I were just kind of like bopping along. You know, no one was standing. I had some anxiety about that. It's like, what was going to be the interactive level

of seeing this in a theater? Because it's a concert and it is like very exciting, but also you're in a movie theater. So everyone was like pretty quiet and respectful. One gentleman got confused and walked out the exit into the daylight mid, you know, mid show and then came back, which is trying to give you a vibe of the audience. But it was amazing and also played so fast. And I don't know whether that's because I'm so familiar with both Stop Making Sense of the Film and the music. I mean, I've seen it many times. I've listened to those music even more,

but it just, it moves. It's so beautiful. It's so cool to see it that big. You really understand like the filmmaking that goes into making it so great. And it was just an absolutely excellent movie going experience. Two thumbs up.

Rob, were you able to see it in a movie theater? Well, I'm here in Columbus, Ohio, you know, which is just a backwater, you know, in middle America. You know, we just project films onto the sides of barns and so forth. And so I don't think I thought that I looked right when this was announced and it wasn't in the initial run of theaters where you could see it, but now it is, as you say, like, I, I, I'm not sure exactly what's happening here, but it's gone a lot wider like now, right? Like, I think I can go see it now. And so haven't yet and i absolutely am going to i've only

ever seen it on dvd basically i feel like i bought three or four dvd copies of this movie i possibly the same you know iteration of them like just whenever i see it i just buy it instinctively so i've only ever seen it at home you know on a tv and i'm dying to see it in that kind of environment i will be up and dancing and making everyone uncomfortable around you well that's that's no but i can imagine that i will be you know like i it's that's the person i want to be that's not the person i am but that's the person i will be imagining as i sit there very politely watching this and just letting it all wash over me i'm super psyched to do this that's an interesting frame for how I saw it. So as I was walking into the movie,

I saw it at Vidiot's. I saw it at a special screening at a local rep theater that just reopened in our neighborhood. And as I was walking in, I went to go see with a friend and we were talking about how in many ways Stop Making Sense is the ultimate house party movie, where if you go over to someone's house for drinks or for a halloween party or whatever that's you would see that movie on in a lot of apartments when i was in new york or or even growing up in many ways it's just sort of like uh it felt safe and it felt like you're it's a good idea to have a good time right now that's kind of what the movie communicates and then it's also the kind of movie where over time if it was still on the tv as the part as the party went on and on you'd be more likely to turn the tv up and the music down

that was playing at the party you know like it's the kind of thing that you want to click into and then people stop talking they start looking at it so this special screening that i went to which was not an imax but was the 4k uh i would say it was a fairly like star-studded screening. There was a lot of notable people from the East Coast or the East Side community of Hollywood that were attending and the band Talking Heads were there.

They introduced the movie and they were interviewed before the movie started by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. That's really sick. Another East Side legend these days. Yes. And it wasn't just david

burn and chris france and tina weymouth and jerry harrison though they were all there but it was also lynn mabry it was also edna holt it was also scales that's amazing like they were all there and you know obviously the the band themselves have had a complicated last 25 to 30 years you know david burns relationship to the other band members they did stand next to each other The band themselves have had a complicated last 25 to 30 years. You know, David Burns relationship to the other band members. They did stand next to each other. Actually, I think David and Tina stood next to each other.

Um, wow. That's what never happens. People analyze those photos and they, they see that Jerry is usually a buffer. Jerry was on the end in this case. Um, I think it was helpful to have Lynn,

um, uh, Lynn and Edna there because they are in the same way that they're in many ways the glue of the movie. You could see that they were the glue of this evening at least. So anyway, they were interviewed. It was a nice interview, you know, fairly anodyne, but just great to see Tina, for example, just like so excited about this happening. But then the film started and, you know, the movie is this progression. It's a very clearly designed movie.

We can talk about that a little bit but by the time we got to burning down the house i would say 60 of the movie theater attendants just got up and started dancing and not like they like went to the front of the movie theater and then they dance and then they just dance the whole time so and it didn't obstruct the view i didn't dance because I'm a loser but it was not distracting and it was actually just really fun

and I would honestly say it was probably among my top 10 best movie going experiences in my life I turned down a ticket to this from Sean

you could have come I could have come I could have been there now it wasn't in IMAX so maybe you lost that it really does have that really nice like front stage thing

it's very cute they also sometimes they when children are there they let the children run up in front of the screen oh I love those stage thing. It's very cute. They also, sometimes when children are there, they let the children run up in front of the screen. Oh, I love those. Yeah, the kids see screens and they're just crashing the place. It was absolutely intoxicating. I mean, in addition to it being such a special movie to watch people,

and this was mostly older as well in my theater, you know, it's a lot of people who are clearly in their 40s and 50s, but who have just such a huge relationship to it. And it's not dissimilar from some of the live screenings that we've done related to this show where people know when to get excited or when to laugh or when to kind of turn their energy up because they're anticipating,

oh, the lamp dance is coming or they're about to do this song or Jerry and Lynn and Edna are going to be doing their little two-step together. You know, the little moments in the movie that are so memorable. So it was kind of like, forgive this comparison, but it was kind of like when you're in an MCU movie in like 2018, and people are like, it felt like a communal movie going experience,

you know, where people were like, yeah, and like that felt like the only time it had happened in the last 15 years. I was joking, I think with you, like earlier about how I've had more conversations with like people my age about specifically how they are going to arrange their childcare so they can go see Stop Making Sense in theaters. Like multiple, but you needed to, and we did as well so that zach and i could go together but it's like a it does feel like a very specific generational and also like interest set touchstone that's obviously not that specific like millions of people love this but i do bobby is

not here with us right now but bobby does know about stop making sense but i remember talking to some younger ringer people about talking heads and they were like that's a very my parents thing you know like it it is of a certain defined uh fandom i guess even if it's a very large it is i thought this was an interesting data point from the weekend, though, which was that according to Deadline, 60% of the audience for the movie this weekend was under 35, which I found surprising.

And I think it also says something. Well, one, I think the A24 brand is very powerful. And I think that that's a factor. This movie was previewed aggressively. People were, you know, and I think that there was a sense of, like, you'd missed out on something or you hadn't quite like you don't quite know what your parents were so interested in or maybe your favorite slightly older podcasters were interested in you know Rob I did want to ask you to kind of like frame some of this conversation for the three

of us talking heads are kind of like a I don't know about a way of life but they are intrinsic to our cultural existence. I mean, I've said before, like, they are probably my favorite post-1975 American band. Yeah. You did like a nine-hour pod about them on Bandsplain. It was a very long podcast. Could you boil it down to like a minute and explain why Talking Heads are important? Yes.

Oh, absolutely. What I said, like, I remember them from when i was a kid you know like first of all they were a big mtv band like in the 80s like my first the first time i ever saw talking heads it was the burning down the house video at the end when it's david burns face like projected onto the road like that's i can still picture that from when i was like five or six years old like i they were just a really cool visually fascinating mtv band when i was a kid in like the mid 80s you know in the in the era of burning down the house and and she was and once in a lifetime of course like they were an mtv hits band and then you get a little older and you realize that they were also

like a punk band you know and they were so important to CBGB in that whole scene and like it's like finding out that like Jem and the Holograms were critically acclaimed right like this thing that I loved when I was five is actually like super important and super critically revered and so then you go through that whole phase and throughout the 90s when I was a teenager like they had broken up like super acrimoniously and they have always been for me like the band that would never reunite you know like this is the band i would go to coachella to see but it's never gonna happen you know so there's this mythic scarcity to them the sense that you missed it but i i felt like they were looming over the music of the 90s without any band from the 90s ever really sounding like them or ever managing anything any achievement on the scale of stop making sense

right like they just they became instantly elder statesmen in this impossible ideal you know of sound and image you know through this movie but through their records as well. And so I do think that they're a band now that it sucks to be one of the older people at The Ringer, doesn't it? Sometimes you just want to strangle these people. I'm not allowed to say that. Gently. That's fine. But no, it's incredibly frustrating. It's just I don't want to hear that you weren't alive during 9-11.

Don't tell me that. It's ridiculous. Are people telling you that frequently? weren't alive like during 9-11 like don't tell me that it's ridiculous and so i but i do think are people telling you that frequently that's probably just dm me all the time it's just it's the parasocial relationship you know you know all about this but yeah um i think people know enough to know that they are important yeah you know and they are sort of unprecedented i'm really curious about this wave of rapture you know and the delight of seeing them reunited if only to take awkward photographs i feel like most for most of my life if there were a sight and sound poll that was only music

like concert movies i i think that there are like two it's dominated by two movies and Stop Making Sense is one of them and I wonder if this wave of rapture you know and Richard Brody writing glowing reviews and everyone being able to see it in 4k I wonder if this is the moment where it gets officially canonized as the

greatest concert film of all time I think Spike Lee has weighed in in the affirmative. Like, this is a moment where, you know, the old people are telling the young people that this is the greatest thing ever made. And it's heartening to me, as Sean said, if like a lot of young people are at least checking this out

to see if we're telling the truth or not. Yeah, I do think that that is happening right now. Spike said that at the toronto international film festival where another dance party screening i think that was the first screening of the new 4k remaster of the movie i do think that generationally amongst our cohort and the cohort you know the the gen x cohort right above us i think softly agrees that this and the last waltz are kind of competing for the title of best concert film now there's we're going to talk about our favorites we have excluded stop making sense

from our individual lists and we challenged ourselves to to not have any overlap here on for the for the picture we doing a lot of work there but continue and by we i mean i just we were just told to do i just do what i'm told told, man. That's exactly right. Thank you, Rob. At least one of us on this podcast gets how this is supposed to work. Nevertheless, Stop Making Sense is, I think it is understood at this time to be the best. Now, obviously, if you were my mom and dad, you might say Woodstock is the best or something like that. You might say something more generationally adherent. I think that the reason

the case can be made for this and i'd be curious to know how you guys feel about obviously we have this emotional attachment to the songs and to the performances and to david byrne and the big suit and the dance choreography and um you know i think particularly the band always clicked for me because i could understand their progression in real time in terms of how they were like evolving or improving their sound and the way that they were kind of expanding their band and what their band represented over time from that punk moment that Rob was talking about to something like truly largely more representative of the best directors of all time to make their movie yeah which was yet another indicator of their taste and the way that they imagined how to communicate their message and their art that just it's just meaningfully helps because i watched so many concert films over the last three days and even the very best ones even the ones that we understand to be iconic even the ones that are on my list,

often are direct cinema and are like lucky to capture a moment. Yeah. And this is a movie that is fully constructed and executed in the vision of, you know, I think primarily David Byrne, but obviously the entire band and Jonathan Demme and the cinematographer and the producers, et cetera, et cetera.

And so the totality of it is so profound as a statement that it almost separates it from a lot of the films that we'll talk about today. Do you feel this is the best of all time? Yeah, absolutely. And I do think a little bit of that is because it is like a concert film

rather than a film of a concert, you know? And I do think that, I mean that i mean obviously demi is like a genius and thinks very much about like where the camera is and how to both capture those moments that i think you're right like feel revelatory but not serendipitous it's like oh you intentionally got this and you cut it in a way where we would see this and then that. Then there's like, you know, the amazing composition of those like the wider shots and like burn in the various suits where you even see intention there and you're like, oh, and you know, I don't know whether that's I'm curious how much of like burn and and talking heads like put it together and because it does seem also like the concert itself is like thought of as a as an entire as a whole piece and almost a little bit like a film like you know it's paced as you said it progresses they add everyone to in together visually there's always like some new visual trick you know that whether it's the lamp or the suit or

or the various choreography so like the whole thing is very intentional in a way that even the other great concert films feel sort of like we just want to give you a vibe of this moment and what it's like and it's like no this is an art product um that just totally works one thing that i gleaned from listening to Bern talk about it at that screening that I was at and then reading a bit more and the band has been doing a lot of interviews, which has been fascinating to check out, is that the stagehands working on the film in real time,

moving the sets onto the stage, moving them off, and then the audience having a chance to see that, it meant a couple of things. One, it meant that they had to sound check and then remove all the stage, moving them off, and then the audience having a chance to see that. It meant a couple of things. One, it meant that they had to sound check and then remove all the equipment, which is kind of a nightmare for a band, if you think about it. Usually, you sound check three hours before the show starts, and then you leave all the stuff on stage instead of having to move it on while the show is happening, which is a fascinating little wrinkle. And then also just that that concept was informed by Japanese theater,

which is something that David Byrne had been studying and that the idea of moving the sets in real time and letting the audience see the sets moving in the way that they were staged is this very intentional

artistic choice that is made that contributes, I think, to this bigger concept of, you know, Talking Heads are, you know, a band that are kind of constantly kind of showing you what's underneath the hood. Like a lot of their songs feel joyous.

And then if you look at the lyrics, they're like, we're on a road to nowhere. You know what I mean? They're like an existentialist paradise in a lot of ways. And I feel like the show also is very much in sync with that. Did you rewatch the movie ahead of this conversation, Rob? Absolutely, I did. Yeah.

And it's a movie and they're not band members, they're characters Absolutely, I did. Yeah. And it's a movie and they're not band members, they're characters. And I think that helps. The way they're introduced, you know, David comes on, then Tina Wayman. Tina is always going to be my favorite, right?

I fixate on her from the moment she appears on stage. But just the musical progression, you know, from punk to new wave to what they became later, you see that in the way that they come on one at a time but then when the other people come on like lynn and edna are so important and so exuberant like bernie worel up there you know i it's they bring a joy and a

passion that like the talking heads aren't supposed to have right the entire value proposition of david byrne is that he's awkward. And like, these songs are really cool, but he's off-puttingly weird, you know, and you can't really tell if he's enjoying himself and you don't know what his deal is. But just the way that the concert builds musically, but also builds just emotionally, you know, to the point where for the first four or five songs, you're not sure know if they're enjoying themselves but once everybody is on stage and it becomes this massive glorious ecstatic thing i it just the emotional arc is equal to the musical arc for me and it feels you know the staging of it and the framing and they feel like characters and it feels like broadway without getting into any of the rock opera sort of trappings of that it It doesn't feel pretentious.

It just feels like you know these people and you understand what each individual person is bringing to the music and to the project as a whole. Do you remember when you first saw it? I do. My friend John Hancock, real name, in college, showed it to me. Yeah, it's Jonathan, but he's wonderful. I think he's a history professor now.

I see. Yeah, sure he's a history professor now I see and he's like yeah you should you should see this uh and I was just like what is this uh and then talking heads were like very big at parties in college for me so it was a full college experience but I vividly remember the first time I saw it I can't remember the first do you remember the first time Rob I was trying to think i do think i was in my early 20s um but i don't remember you know i i don't remember exactly i don't think i saw it as a kid in full and i really wish that i had though i don't know how i would have was it released theatrically at the onset i believe so yeah, yeah. I believe it played a significant number of theaters

when it first came out. Okay, okay. So yeah, I wasn't nearly enough. I wasn't cool enough, or my parents weren't cool enough, I guess, for that to happen, certainly. So I think I did have to wait until my early 20s. But yeah, it's always been a TV thing.

And I mean, immediately I was drawn to it. They've been my favorite band forever you know I feel like I got to the soundtrack before the movie actually I think like initially the soundtrack didn't have all the songs on it or like the vinyl version initially didn't have all the songs from the movie and then they re-released it on CD with everything and I was on college radio at the time in the late 90s. And I think that's where I heard it in full and heard the version of Heaven, right? Where it's just Dave and Tina and then the other Lynn maybe offstage singing the harmonies. That's the moment where it really

turned for me. That's where I really gravitated toward it. It's like, I got to watch this whole thing now. Yeah. I feel like for a while, maybe even upon release Big Business and I Zimbra them together like we're not in the cut of the film and I feel like that I think that is something that has been added to the movie as well I was thinking about how this this wasn't when I became aware of Talking Heads but I think I my interest grew for a very weird reason which is in around 2000 there was a david byrne solo song called like humans do are you guys familiar with this song this song this song was used as the sort of introduction song on windows xp okay and it was used it showed you how to use windows media player which as a young nerd on a computer desperately trying to get illegal songs and watch movie trailers and movie clips

windows media player was very important and you could download like seven seconds of reservoir dogs you know just be like seven seconds of tim roth saying something and i'd be like this is the greatest day of my life i can watch this over and over again. But every time you opened it, the only file that you had downloaded when you first opened it was just like humans do. I think the song

in entirety and an image of Burn. And I think I just got kind of obsessed with that person and that led to getting really, really into the band

in college like you do. I still kind of don't care that much about David Byrne's solo career. I don't really either. I just, so Microsoft is what got you into... I mean, this shit works, man. That's amazing.

We all live in the hell that they imagined in their songs. I mean, like Rob... Did you get really into U2 after they put their new album on your iPhone? Yeah, I think that's their best album. What do you think? Yeah, totally. That's five stars.

I've definitely heard it a lot, many times. I listen to it all the time. I'm a big fan. Yeah. No, but when you're 16, that can be powerful. I'm not judging. I just, I was like, that's really, that's a talking head song in a nutshell. Very much so.

I think, you know, in retrospect retrospect that's what's so funny about it is that david burn was like absolutely use my image and my song and your giant machine even though i've been writing songs about slipping into the giant machine for the last 30 years uh so revisiting the movie what was the like what moment jumped out to you the most well i just i can't believe how young david burn is in it and like how time works you know I just that's sort of the that was astonishing and my husband and I were talking when we left like when we were first introduced to it you know they were like cool older people to look up to like amazing artists and they definitely felt older and then I know he's supposed to be weird Rob but I was just

struck by like how handsome and charismatic he is throughout the entire film. I was like, oh, I get it. Everything that I know about myself is fitting into place here right now. So just really that for two hours. That was very special and also haunting because I'm old. It's very weird to think that David Byrne is the same age as my father. I'm trying to imagine a world in which my father lived the life that David Byrne had. They're almost the

exact same age. It's quite chilling. Rob, what do I have for you? Do you have a favorite moment from the movie? I was trying to think of one that isn't this must be the place, which is probably the answer, right? And because of the lamp dance, but for reasons beyond that, which maybe we'll get into

i i always love um life during wartime when they run in place right at the beginning and i think that's when the stuff that like the words on the screens behind them i think that's the new visual element there's something very striking about the wide shots of the full band as life during wartime kicks in and they're all running in place. Like that's the moment that always gets me also take me to the river, you know, obviously,

but just, that's, that's, that's an incredible moment, you know, and, and I, you know,

the cross genre pollination that occurs right there between talking heads and Al green and just the groove of it. You know, like this is one of the only credible like white funk bands in world history, right? And that's where it happens, right at that moment. Greatly aided by a backing band also that is, you know, P-Funks keyboardist, you know, and at times musical director. That definitely helps.

I feel like girlfriend is better is my favorite song that's performed there i think some a lot of times people say like oh the live version is much better and i almost never feel that way but girlfriend is better is one of those cases where it is and then also i think the decision to end it with cross-eyed and painless which is this um repetitious kind of like slipping into a trance song that is also from their previous album and not the album that they were kind of selling on this tour. And that as this kind of like end point for them.

And you almost feel like that song could go on for two hours and you would be willing to sit in your seat. Because I'm like, I don't want this to be over. I don't want this to be over. It's such an exciting feeling. And then obviously like the big hits play very well, you know, like opening with Psycho Killer. You know, if you had to guess, what do you think are the top five most streams on Spotify

for Talking Heads? I think that you're about to say that Psycho Killer is, and you were surprised, but Psycho Killer was like, Psycho Killer is the and you were surprised, but Psycho Killer was like, Psycho Killer is the first talking head song that I knew because it played on loop at every party that I went to in college. Yeah. And the live version,

which I think is amazing. Like we arrived a little late and like in the hallway, I heard him say, I got a tape I want to play you. And I just started sprinting, you know, because I know exactly what that means.

I love Psycho Killer. Would you have guessed that that was number one, Rob? The number one most streamed song on Spotify? No, I was shocked when I, I would have guessed Burning Down the House. Burning Down the House is fourth. Right. Can you guess two and three?

Let me see here. Wow. They're both performed. This must be the place. This must be the place this must be the places number two wonderful and take me take me once in a lifetime take me to the river once in a lifetime is three uh all right four and five is and she was oh yeah oh sure but well some of this is also i get a lot of talking heads suggested to me and my algorithm, which is fine by me. But doesn't that count towards the thing?

So, And She Was is always playing. If you liked this song, then you'll like And She Was, which I do. But I wonder if that has something to do with it. Yeah, I think I'm just looking at the numbers and that's what's so shocking to me. Like 425 million streams for Psycho Killer and 182 million for Once in a Lifetime. Like when I was a kid, Once in a Lifetime, that was the song. It was, that was the video. That was the song.

That was the song that was used endlessly in movie trailers. That was the song. If you were trying to identify a sense of ennui and confusion in our modern times, that was the song that the corporations used to communicate it to us, you know,

and I felt like it got into the DNA of a generation. So it's interesting that that isn't the song that stands out now. I mean, not to be like

too technical, but also like Psycho Killer is the first song on Stop Making Sets. So is it just like people start there? It could be,

but this is from Talking Head 77 is the version that is number one. So is it just like people start there? It could be, but this is from Talking Head 77 is the version that is number one. This is the studio version. Oh, interesting. So it's the studio version of that song, which is a great song. You know, I'm certainly not denigrating.

I don't know. Maybe people are just trying to learn French. Well, I was wondering if there was like a TikTok trend or something that led that song to getting a boost because I couldn't make sense of it being significantly bigger than other songs. Anyhow, that's all pointless. Wonderful movie.

Like, I really just think everybody in America should be forced to see it and then spend time talking about it with people they care about. I think that this would be

a better place, like a better world. I agree with you. People just looked at it and thought about it. Just an amazing thing that they decided to re-release it.

You know, even if it's entirely like financially motivated, whatever, that's great. I don't care. I don't care either. Chris France probably needs more polo shirts, know like let him let him get some more

thank you for doing this great stuff um rob are there any you have any final thoughts on stop making sense i mean i'm delighted that you're delighted by honestly you know i could never quite figure out if they were primarily a critics band or not you you know, and, or if they became that, you know, as they went away, right. Like the fact that they never reunited, you know, they never had this new wave of interest. You know, I, people get concerned about the legacies of bands like this, like REM, right. Like, are the kids going to get into REM, you know, or, you know, pavements like the algorithm is messing with pavement, right. Like some weird B-side is the most played pavement song on Spotify because it's on some playlists. Like, band's legacies get scrambled a little bit.

Yeah, exactly. That's it. And so band's legacies get scrambled a little bit, especially when they're not around to tend to them. So there's something tremendously heartening about the fact that, you know, this is being so rapturously received by everybody, you know, and this consensus that it's one of the best, if not the best,

concert film of all time. Like, it's just, it's delightful that we all seem to agree on this, right? That doesn't happen very often. I think you could make the case

that short of the Beatles, you know, really a short list of bands that they are the ultimate convergence of critical acclaim, um, true fandom, general commercial success and lasting impression.

You know, that they're still influential, that they're still admired and appreciated, that they didn't do any of the things that you suggested, that they didn't really, I don't want to say sell out, that they didn't do any of the things that you suggested that they didn't really i don't want to say sell out but they didn't you literally learned about or got into talking heads because of microsoft so they did sell out that's not actually true but i was i think i got obsessed yeah yeah yeah um yeah i mean just just an amazing band and an amazing feature film.

The concert film in general. Now, Rob, still to this day, a professional working music critic. I would argue the best working music critic. Oh. You host a podcast. Do you look back to the past on your podcast? I do. Do you find that you go back and look at concert movies?

Not really. And especially the 90s, there is certainly no Stop Making Sense equivalent or even really candidate for that. I wonder if the continued dominance of MTV is partially responsible. MTV fulfilled all the needs of a movie like this, right? You think about Unplugged. You think about this is the heyday of the vma is actually mattering you know it's like in terms of going out to a movie theater to see a concert movie like there's a we have mtv at home type feel to that right i guess and so i i don't think that there's any real equivalence to this from the 90s or onward frankly you know and so i don't but only in recent years something something has started happening in recent years where i feel like this format

has gotten more popular i have some theories about is that just a streaming thing i mean is that's just that's just the need for content i think that the reclaiming the image making in the vision of the artist is at a is at a peak right now you know not just in in the way that you share your music or your art but the way that you narrativize your own story so you see this in documentary a lot with a lot of artists but you also see it in concert films there's there's i'm sure there's at least one film we'll talk about it's come out in the last 10 years but it does feel like it is having a little bit more of a moment the concert film then certainly it had from 1990 through 2010 that i agree with you that felt like a very infertile period for what for our parents

generation was kind of a vital style of movie making that in many ways captured quite literally what was happening amongst the generation in not just the music culture but the culture at large. So I think it's interesting that it might be making a comeback

though it's coming back in a, I would argue, a slightly more sanitized way. Yeah, I mean, the sub-narrative to that is just also that musicians need to make money

in different ways than they did from 1993 to 2010. So they are seizing those opportunities. What kind of a concert movie do you like? What do you look for? Well, I found this a tricky exercise for a couple of reasons. Stop Making Sense was off the board.

But like, what do I look for? I look for Stop Making Sense. I mean, and I think it is probably one of the earlier concert movies that I saw in full in college. I don't know. I guess I think my dad actually did try to make me watch Woodstock. Didn't really take totally, totally a dad thing.

Yeah. You know, I think it was like, also was it 94 was the first time they did like woodstock again right correct and i was kind of interested in that and then he was it was like a real no if you want to know about woodstock let's teach you about woodstock not like my dad went to woodstock anyway so we look for stop making sense so as a result not many things live up to stop making Sense, so that's tough. And then also, you, Sean, disqualified MTV Unplugs from this. And I understand why, but I am a child of the 90s.

Well, let's discuss it briefly. I disqualified it because those are not conceived as films. And I get it. They are a series that MTV produced. I loved Unplugged. I'm not degrading Unplugged in any way. If you could have chosen an Unplugged movie. Nirvana.

Nirvana. Yeah. I don't think there's any question. Right. And that is like when you say concert on film, like a visual experience. I see Kurt Cobain on the stools. And that is the closest that they got to making a movie, a concert film. Even though there are other Nirvana concert films. So that was tough closest that they got to making a movie, a concert film. Even though there are

other Nirvana concert films. So that was tough when I wasn't able to do that. And so I have, I'm going to make some maneuvers on my list

when the time comes. I see. Can I ask you guys briefly about Taylor Swift, the Heiress Tour? Sure. So this is coming soon.

It's coming to movie theaters on October 13th. Did you happen to watch the Kansas City Chiefs game over the weekend? I walked into the living room during one of the many cutaways to Taylor Swift. We're going to talk more about this on Jam Session. But I actually feel like I'm going insane on this. Because all of this is just promotion for Kelseysey the amazon prime docu-series right well but also for yeah probably but also it's also love sure yeah and now but it's all i just it started it was very one-sided for a while there have been rumors of like

travis it's travis who wants to date her right travis kelsey and then jason tight end in nfl history jason is the Eagles player. Jason is the Eagles offensive lineman. Right, okay. So I just, you know, I have to be respectful of the Kelsey family

and particularly Jason during this time. But this has been just like a thing that they were doing for weeks. And I just like, as promo and then, you're right that Taylor Swift,

who knows how to seize a promotional moment like jumped in and i i just honestly feel like i'm going insane um did you watch the chiefs game rob it was on in the background for a while and every time i looked at the television it was her it was taylor and travis's mom that's right donna donna i'm quite taken by donna i think that they really get along i think that they really get along. I think that they have better chemistry than Taylor and Travis do, quite frankly. Donna rules.

She'll do two-a-days when she can, right? And she'll go from Philly to Kansas City or wherever so she can see both sons play in a day. And then the Super Bowl. Yeah, you know a lot about Donna. I'm into it. Listen. Oh, did she have the... You know who I live with. Yeah, you know a lot about Donna. I'm into it. Listen. Oh, did she have the... You know who I live with.

Yeah, I'm aware. Yes, he's a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. You make it sound like you live with Nick Sirianni. Who's to say? You know? Like the amount of time we spend talking about Nick Sirianni. So I just try to find my angles of interest. And I like Donna.

Sure. And it seemed like Taylor Swift had a nice time. It was like a blowout game, right? So they needed something to show on the television? Yeah. How much money do you think Taylor was paid by the NFL? Oh, I don't think any money. I think she has, once again, very savvily identified the only absent audience that she has,

which is like lunkheads in the middle of the country. Your nostrils are flaring. They're not flaring. It's like the real, I know, but you're keeping it in check. I feel completely at peace with this. I'm excited to see She has come for the last remaining audience she does not have. I'm excited to see Taylor

Swift, The Heiress Tour with you, Sean Fantasy. Yeah, I'm going to see that film. Have you softened at all on her just broadly? I just haven't participated like in 10 years. I don't really know anything. You've excused yourself from this narrative. No, I get that. Yes.

I was obviously very anti in the early days, but I don't even, Amanda was asking me on the show recently, like, have you heard this song? Have you heard this song? I was like, I don't know this song. Well, he hasn't heard all too well, the original. So he couldn't receive my,

I'm sure I heard it like in a target distress about the 10 minute version, which Rob, I just have to say it's not good. Editing exists. You're against the 10 minute version. That is, that is. Yeah.

Yeah. That is, I, I felt, I filed this 3000 words over. Yeah. Yeah. I get you.

Yeah. And I focus on the scarf. Yeah. You've never done that before, right? Rob, you've never filed anything. No, no, no words over yeah, I get you. Just focus on the scarf. You've never done that before, right, Rob? You've never filed anything over. No, no, no. I have never written 10,000 words about Pantera in my life, so I can't relate to this experience at all. Okay, this is good to know. You're against

the 10-minute version. You are my editor. I take your opinion on these things very seriously. I think the original is just incredibly powerful songwriting. And I've seen her perform it live twice because I went to the Reds tour twice. The Red tour. Not Reds. Reds is a film by Warren Beatty.

I went to the Reds tour. I went to that also. It was Warren Beatty reading from a book for four hours. I loved it. I went to the Red tour twice. You know? Twice? Yes. All right. I didn to the Red Tour twice. You know? Twice? Yes.

All right. I didn't know that about you. I'm like working through my, I was like, you know, I was there back when feelings with Taylor, which is not true because so are millions of other people. I don't know. I'm going to see the Heiress Tour with Sean. Are you going to see it, Rob? I think I am. I should take my kids, shouldn't I?

That would be nice. That would be like a cultural experience. Do you think you'll do a Donna Kelsey thing when your kids are in the NFL? Will you travel from city to city just to see them on the same day? I've thought about trying to get Max to be like an offensive lineman. I think he would be. And so, yeah, that's... Does he have the horrible height?

He's getting there. He's almost taller than my wife. So I think there is a strong possibility. Did you just ask me if I am going to be Donna Kelsey? And so I will be standing in a skybox next to a pop star who is dating my son. Because I'm really into that. I wish you did. Can we come to the box also?

You can absolutely. Thank you. We're going to have chicken wings. Okay. You know, and jalapeno poppers and just the highest end skybox type food. Okay. Yeah. Let's all party and watch my son blow out the bears, you know, 42 to 13 or whatever it was.

It's a date. Yeah. Let's do our Top 5 concert. All right. Okay. Can I go first? Yes. Okay. So I, well. 13 or whatever it was it's a date yeah let's do our top five concert okay can i go first yes okay so i well so here's the thing there's one more rule that sean said um which was an arbitrary rule

that uh in 2021 was that when you did this podcast you and rob did a podcast about music documentaries there is a fair amount of overlap between you know documentary and concert film and so you set a personal uh you set a rule for yourself and rob that you cannot have any repeats um which meant that neither of you could pick the last waltz um i think it was in the spirit of not wanting to spend another 20 minutes broing down about The Last Waltz. Sure. Even though, you know, Robbie Robertson passed away this year.

Obviously, The Last Waltz is an incredibly significant concert film. Right. I think it's really stupid that The Last Waltz is not on this podcast. And I could choose it, but I think that's an insult to The Last Waltz because I have, you know, positioned myself as a person who's like, yeah, I had to watch The Last Waltz in college with all,

like with a lot of boyfriends. So I'm going to take a movie from Rob and Rob can put The Last Waltz wherever he wants on his list. Is that okay with you, Rob?

This is awesome. Yeah? That sounds fantastic. I misunderstood this rule, first of all. I thought that we couldn't overlap between ourselves

because Sean took at least one of my i thought that we couldn't overlap between ourselves because sean took at least one of my movies okay that 2021 conversation for himself now and so i i i i understand this now you did well we'll i'll tell you when we get to it okay okay but uh but yeah i accept this so you're taking one of my movies i'm gonna take Shut Up and Play the Hits, the LCD sound system movie, from you. Oh my God, that is not what I thought you were taking from me. At number five. Okay. And then you can reorder your list.

And I'm doing that because I lived in Brooklyn from 2006 to 2016, but somehow I did not go to the LCD sound system final week of concerts. Actually, I went to the Strokes instead. They also played MSG that week. So I have this film instead. That's an incredible arc on the New York rock revival of the early 2000s is we all started and thought it was the Strokes, but then we realized at the end it was actually LCD.

That was the band that was most representative, but you were stuck in Losertown watching Julian sing while we were all rapturously enjoying lcd that show ruled and i love julian and i love the strokes forever great so um and i also strokes too and i also i'm doing shot and play the hits because my favorite lcd sound system film which is a film someone made of the muppets performing dance yourself clean uh somewhere in the uk it's really good it's on youtube Watch it with your children. Yeah, no, it's amazing. And when like

when it comes in all the Muppets like animals losing his mind like on a balcony. No, I can picture this vividly. It's really, really good. So, but that is not a I don't think that's eligible.

So shut up and play the hits. You just reminded me of something I forgot to mention which is that apparently there's a Tina cut of Stop Making Sense in which it's a 24 minute movie that is only images of Tina of Stop Making Sense in which it's a 24-minute movie

that is only images of Tina from Stop Making Sense. That was made by me. Thank you for promoting my work. That's very kind of you. Yeah. I like Shut Up and Play the Hits.

I love LCD Sound System. Yeah, so do I. LCD Sound System is very much in the lineage of Talking Heads to Me where it's like this funky white boy really knows how to make

great dance music. He does, yeah. And I don't know how he does it, but he's got the juice. Can I tell you where I was when that concert at Madison Square Garden occurred on April 2nd, 2011? Please.

Nicole was in labor with our first child. Oh, wow. That's nice. In Northern California. Okay. And so there was a moment there where they were like, all right, let's all take a break.

Everyone just chill out like check your phones or something. Just take your mind off it. And I looked on Twitter and everyone was live tweeting from this show. I was like, this is a nice little closing of the loop on my New York City rock star. Sounds like you blew it, Rob. I totally blew it in multiple respects really, but in that respect

especially. The death of youth, you know in real time. Yeah multiple respects, really. But in that respect, especially. The death of youth, you know, in real time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that was James Murphy's death of youth as well. No, I know. Very much. He hung it up and then he came back.

We all come back. It is very funny that you can tell in the movie that he's coming back. You can tell that he just, he's like, why did I do this? Like, I contrived this great cathartic ending without realizing that like it had to end like i wasn't allowed to keep going like it's he realizes it's a mistake you know talking to chuck closterman you know or walking his dog or whatever it's so it is a very cute dog petunia i think is a name it's a french bulldog it's very cute dog yes so what's going to be your number five since you just said your number five stone man okay all right so i just

get to put the last wall somewhere all right okay my number five then becomes woodstock okay uh from 1970 it was michael wadley i believe. Because I'm about that life, I watched the director's cut of this film, which is three hours and 45 minutes. It's very long. It was extremely long. It was nice. It's like a meta moment where it replicates the exhausting music festival experience. You're just like, I'm through with this. Two hours in. right like you're just like i'm through with this you know two hours and um i i think if we're

charting historical importance as one of the factors here i think that this is probably objectively the single most important yeah you know live music event of all time even if as we've been saying it's sort of been foisted upon us by our parents right you know and they bring it back in 94 and it goes okay and then they bring it back in 99 and it's a world historical disaster and like we fail as a generation you know to live up to the the greatness and the importance of woodstock but i this is it's it's a fascinating mixture you know the the performances themselves you know it's three and a half hours from when you start this movie till you get to jimmy hendrix you know doing the star spangled banner like you have a lot of time you know to absorb the crosby stills and nash of it all but i as great as the music is are you

people are you who people in particular do you care about what do you think the answer to that question is i'm guessing not but i just wanted to clarify that you are not. No, I mean, I am. I didn't want to presume. Yeah, I love The Who. I mean, they're not my favorite band, but they're pretty meaningful in the arc of rock and roll. All right. I never really got super, super all right.

It's just like you're just historian you know critic Sean logging on I'm just like okay I really got into that

when they were on Microsoft Word you know in 2018 you know they put okay they're a highlight

of this movie and at least one other movie I think we're gonna talk about right you know like I've never

done the deep dive with them but I think that they are quite striking in this movie and at least one other movie i think we're going to talk about right you know like i've never done the deep dive with them but i think that they are quite striking in this movie and like they're one of the only like super rock rock groups like across these four hours like you know there's a lot of folk happening here but i i gotta tell you the most incredible part of this movie for me is right near the end like they interview a ton of different people, like people who live in New York who are super pissed that their town's been invaded, though they say that everyone's

really nice. They interview the chief of police, they interview the organizers, but there's an interview right near the end with a guy who is cleaning a porta potty as they're talking to him. He's got the big pipe or whatever, and he's he's and he's the he's the happiest person in the entire movie this is a four-hour movie of like

stoned and drunk semi if not completely naked person people and like the happiest person in the entire movie is a guy cleaning a porta potty who's being interviewed and right at the end he's like yeah my one son is here at the show and my other son is fighting in vietnam you know and then he smiles and he walks off and i was just and then jimmy hendrick shows up and i was just i was just blown away by that moment and just as as as a historical document you know and of this moment that i think we've been told all our lives is like super important and there's is the peak of civilization. And this is the dream that died in other movies that we're going to be discussing.

I do think that this movie does manage to bring to life the ideal that we have been sold for 50 years. I wanted to revisit this and I just didn't have time. It's very long. It's have time. It's very long. Yeah. It's very long. It's very long. Incredibly long. 224 minutes the 1994

extended cut of this movie. Wow. You know edited in part by do you know who? No. Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker.

This is one of their big projects before they went on to become the great filmmaking team that we know them as today. Yeah. I just grew up with Woodstock my mom went to woodstock and was obsessed with woodstock and i don't really remember hearing too much about the music of woodstock um but certainly the cultural experience of woodstock is very resonant in my house and i i will i i will

talk about some movies that are yeah that kind of buttress Woodstock that I think are quite interesting. Because this is sort of what I'm talking about. We don't have movies where it's like in this four-year period, the entire shape of the music that we listen to is rendered on screen and watching people experience it in real time. There was just this fascinating thing happening in the late 60s in documentary film and in pop music. Well, but to your point about hearing a lot about the cultural experience but maybe not the music and to and rob's point about one of the highlights being you know a moment of of a person there and the scene and the experience as much as the music itself and i do think that like stop making sense of sort of the exception in a concert film where that is just like that is like pure performance and like there's no crowd and art at all.

And and you are the experience is the show. Yeah. Whereas a lot of the other concert films, the experience is the vibe, the people there, the people around it. And maybe even like some of the behind the scenes and what the performer itself is putting into the the show you're right it is singular in that way yeah it's really hard to just film like an actual like top tier show as perfectly as stop making sense does i'm with you my um my number five is is not like stop making sense it's much more like the last waltz actually and it feels very self-consciously modeled after The Last Waltz.

It's Fade to Black. It's the 2004 Jay-Z documentary chronicling his quote-unquote final concert performance at Madison Square Garden, intercut with the making of the Black album, his retirement album, which of course was not his retirement album. Similar to LCD Sound System in that respect, too.

Yes. A very strategically aligned and yet somehow still emotional document the thing I like about this movie the most is not the concert footage though I do like the concert footage and I've been to many Jay-Z concerts and I love Jay is very good live especially by the standards of rappers in the 90s which was not always the best way to experience live music in big crowds he was particularly good at staging a show and creating a set list. He always put a lot of mind to that. And much like The Last Waltz, a lot of guest stars on stage for the show.

But this as like a making of a document is a really cool movie. Seeing Rick Rubin and Beastie Boys join Jay in the studio for the making of 99 Problems you know seeing Timbaland in his in his purple drink

crafting you know dirt off your shoulder or what have you seeing Kanye West at that time giving songs or Pharrell at that time

giving songs to Jay very very like just incredibly uncommon like you just never saw anything quite like this that didn't have the feeling

like you were watching an electronic press kit, you know, that it felt like you were watching Verite movie making, um, the directors of the movie are Patrick Paulson and Michael John Warren. Uh, you know, this was also like the era's tour,

like so many of these movies, a marketing document and a mythologizing, a self mythology. But if you were a fan of Jay at the time, this was like, it's kind of as cool as this was as cool rap movie as you were a fan of jay at the time this was like it's kind of as cool as this was as cool rap movie as you were ever going to get um i i didn't re-watch it ahead of this but i just i have a very crystallized memory yeah i don't i don't really want to threaten right now um so i love fade to black is this a movie where memphis bleak takes outcast

steakhouse orders you remember this yes i don't know if that's another documentary where they're backstage and memphis bleak just walks through his legs they don't want anything from i can't remember that might be the that might be the movie backstage is it the movie backstage i think i think you're right i think it's something you know backstage okay it's like a def jam tour yeah anyway um okay number four my number four similarly has a lot of behind the scenes moments including one where kevin costner comes in after the show and describes it as neat neat and also just he's got a mullet and is wearing an ill-fitting turtleneck. What's going on with Kevin Costner in this

moment? Anyway, it is Madonna, Truth or Dare, the 1991 film directed by Alex Kashishian. And it is a concert film. It's following the Blind Ambition tour. And the behind-the-scenes stuff is shot in black and white. And it's absolutely beautiful. And Madonna looks so stunningly beautiful. I rewatched it last night. was just like wow once again time is uh I just you know she I always looked up to Madonna and she looks so young uh so young in this movie and then um the the concert footage is in color and I would say this kind of the Oppenheimer of concert yeah exactly yeah the movie is remembered for the behind the scenes stuff as opposed to the concert performances you know and I think because to Rob's point Madonna is like the MTV generation and you you know even I like I remember

the videos and those images are so influential. I mean, just, I know it's been, I hope Madonna as well. I know it's been a tough time, but like Madonna's incredibly important. For whom has it been a tough time? For Madonna. I mean, she had some health issues. She had to postpone her tour. Okay.

But, you know, she's, you don't need to be that much of an asshole. For the proletariat? I know I've been, yeah, that too. But I know I've been poking you, but just like simmer. Okay. Let me talk about Madonna. You're protecting Madonna. Yeah.

I listened to a lot of Madonna while I was pregnant. Okay. And it just like really gave me. Like Papa don't preach? Like what are we talking about here? No, maybe that was germane. It just gave me a lot of power personally. So it was it's I like to have the record

of like 1990 Madonna in concert on film because I was not old enough to be there. And it's very important. Great pick. Thank you. What's your number four Rob? Warren Beatty is in that too. You saw him on the Reds

tour. Yes exactly. He was inspired by his experience on Truth You saw him on the Reds tour. Yes, exactly. Well, he was inspired by his experience on Truth or Dare to launch the Reds tour. That's right. I love everything about this. I think that is where Taylor got the idea for Red. Now that I think about it, seeing Beatty do Reds.

It's true. I can understand that. I started this pod after seeing that show. There we go. Rob, what do you got? Man, this is my number four now. I know, I'm sorry. I should have given you a head up, to this pod after seeing that show okay um there we go rob what do you got man see i'm all confused this is my number four i know i'm sorry i wanted to i should have given your head up but it's more fun tonight no it's better this is way more fun for me to just be very confused uh my number four

is instruments a movie about fugazi from 1999 it's directed by jim cohen i think that this is the best music documentary of the 90s as i said like i was trying to think of a concert documents that wasn't an unplugged that sort of measured up here and this this movie is sort of split half between documentary and concert footage but i do think the concert footage is the best concert footage of the 90s. Like the indelible image that you can see all the time, like on Twitter, just randomly is Guy Pizziato hung upside down in the basketball hoop. Right. Screaming. I think that's in a gym in Philadelphia, actually. So good for Philadelphia.

But just the footage of them doing waiting room, you know, just the energy in the room, you know, just the intensity. Like there's, it's just them yelling at the crowd. Like there's the constant thread of Ian McKay, just yelling at people to not stage dive, you know, or crowd surf.

And like somebody jumps up on stage and like, he gets them in a headlock. He's like, apologize. And the guy just goes, woo, apologize. Woo. and then Ian

kicks him out like there's just some fascinating interplay between the band and the crowd like there's just such a grouchiness and sort of combativeness between Fugazi as a band and like Fugazi as the idea of a band and just the way that they were constantly sort of

at war with their audience over how to behave at their shows but I also think that they were constantly sort of at war with their audience over how to behave at their shows. But I also think that they were just one of the best live bands, you know, of their or any generation, you know, best punk bands, post-hardcore rock bands, whatever. Just the footage, the live footage from this show, you know, if they had released it Stop Sense style, as a live album, they put out an album, a soundtrack, but it was all B-sides and weird instrumental stuff. If they had just released this as a live album, I think it would be one of the best live albums of the decade. But I think it's one of the greatest encapsulations of one band in the last 20, 30 years. I think the Fugazi episode of 60 songs

60 in the 90s is one of your best really good one I don't understand why you chose merchandise and not waiting room

or repeater or something else but I do understand as well having listened to the episode waiting room was 89

repeater probably could have that's what did you say that on the episode I probably did he says a lot of things on the episode.

I love it. Night Swimming was the correct pick. Oh, thank you. Thank you. People are still mad about Jay Kang as the guest. I get five to ten emails a week about that episode. Like now. It has been two years or so.

So will you be bringing Jay to the live show you're doing for the release yeah me and my mom and Jay will be the special guests yes okay my number four is it's a bit of a recommendation is discovery for me a movie I'd never seen

before that I watched last night that I had heard about for a long time didn't really know a ton about it's called Jazz on a Summer's Day. It's a true concert film. Takes place at the Newport Jazz Festival. It was shot over a few days in 1958 and features an incredible collection of artists performing, but it's intercut with something really interesting, which is the 1958 America's Cup. So there's all sorts of boating footage cut into Anita O'Day singing and Thelonious Monk playing the piano

and Louis Armstrong performing. And it was shot by Burt Stern, the legendary photographer. It's the only film that he directed. It was edited with Aaron Mavakian, who is kind of now seen as the co-director of the movie. But I thought that those movies in the 60s that we started talking about with Woodstock,

and we'll get into as we get further down our list, were kind of the invention of this form of movie. And that's not the case. This is the movie that invented this kind of crowd reaction, conversation with people in the crowds, uptight, closely choreographed performance footage capturing a scene in a vibe over a weekend um this is just photographed beautifully it's only 80 minutes long every song is thrilling it's a nice collection it's not just you know um jazz trios performing like chuck berry performs here. Mahalia Jackson closes the show. It's really an incredible slate

of performers over this weekend. And people who seem to have a real admiration for all different kinds of music. It feels like a picture of America in 1958 that is maybe not what I understood the country to be.

And so in that way, maybe it's a little dishonest, but it feels like this really utopian weekend of art and community. So I wanted to recommend it. It's called jazz on a summer's day. The title is great.

And boats. And boats. Yeah, it really is. Um, okay. Number three, let's keep it moving.

What do you got Amanda? Oh, that's for me. Oh, um, I couldn't have sound making sense. So I have American utopia, which is the 2020,

uh, film of the Broadway show starring David Byrne using many Talking Heads songs and many references to Stop Making Sense, directed by Spike Lee. This was a COVID film. I believe we saw it at the Toronto Festival online. I mean, I was in my couch and I vividly remember watching it during peak COVID and being brought to tears basically by this experience. I think it's like a beautiful show at that moment in time, getting to feel like a part of that community of that theater was like very moving hearing David Byrne's voice again and this is you know it is definitely in conversation with Stop Making Sense and fascinating to watch young David Byrne and older David Byrne but I just found it very moving and you know beautifully directed by Spike Lee who obviously as we discussed has like a lot of respect for Stop Making Sense and Jonathan Demme's work.

So just an A-plus experience for me. Great movie. Thank God this came out during that time. That was something I remember vividly. Rob, did you figure out what your number three is? I cried to it, American Utopia. Yeah. And I think for the same reasons. And I think it's fascinating being in conversation with Stop Making Sense. You know, David Byrne is such a weird guy, right? He's handsome, but he's weird. You know, he has this very bright and open vibe, but he's been fighting with his band created this lockdown era, universal. We can all feel like we're part of the human experience still, even if we're all sitting at home watching this on HBO.

But it's really cool that he did it. I was also very moved by that. That's a great pick. Where are you going with number three? Number three, I'm doing Prince, man. I'm doing Prince, Sign of the times uh from let's see here 1987 directed by prince because of course it is i you know part of the appeal of a concert movie is just to see somebody at the height of their powers right and so here is here is an hour and a half

of prince in 1987 right and it's a very Prince experience. Like there's dialogue, like there's cheesy sort of acting and like intercut between the songs, you know, there's like a super Prince, like sort of weird and suave corniness to the whole thing. But there's also, you know,

the move where you're, you're standing and you do the splits and then you like return seamlessly to a standing position you know while you're singing you know that move absolutely very familiar it was like clarified it for me right yes that's right that's right while you're singing taylor swift songs you know you're just doing that it's they're there's a moment during housequake where the camera is on a is on a backup dancer and then prince slides like flat on his back he does like the reverse worm all the way across the stage from left to right and i just cracked up like i laughed very loud like in the middle of the night watching this movie i just how delightful he is like you know

just the way he moves sheila e is on drums the whole time the keyboardist is named dr fink which i really appreciated um you know kind of a doctor was cross i i was he a podiatrist a psychologist i think a psychologist yeah yeah A psychologist and podiatrist actually, you know, it's just, yeah, it's like a pizza hut, Taco Bell situation.

Uh, this is just a delightful portrait of, of, of one of the greatest pop stars of all time, you know, at the peak of his powers, you know, and I think that's a,

a fine thing for a concert film to be. Um, I had the summer list and I took it off. I'm a huge fan. It's definitely in my top 10. For all the reasons you said. It's like, right when he is at his very best. Right when he is

post-Purple Rain but not quite Batman. We're really in the sweet spot. That's exactly it. My number three is dave chapelle's block party um i talked about this recently on a pod i think is chris drafted he did a movie draft and i was like this was kind of the only thing i was interested in in 2004 and it was um the artists and the comics and uh in brooklyn and what whatever was happening in that convergence of common black star,

you know, most have solo career, the, you know, Chappelle show, Michelle Gondry, who's the filmmaker behind it. Um,

all this amazing, you know, Erica Badu, the roots, you know, see, see, right.

Yeah. Seeing, um, uh, black Panther leaders from the 1960s giving fiery speeches in a big public gathering in Brooklyn in the 2000s. The movie is kind of a miraculous thing. It's an interesting movie because the performances are good. I would say the way that the performances are captured are not really all that innovative.

It just looks like the bands are performing and they're having fun. But what it's intercut with is Chappelle kind of putting the whole thing together, you know, recruiting a marching band, going to his local neighborhood and talking to people that has his idea, spending a lot of time with Chappelle really in the last time when we could probably spend some honest time with him because, you know,

things really kind of devolved pretty quickly and he had a hard time and he abandoned his show. And then he's since come back as this kind of agent provocateur, I would say, in our culture. And I still like what he does, but I also am mystified by his desire to fight with everybody all the time. And this was a time when he didn't, that wasn't on his mind. This was like the opposite of what his present mind state is, which is he was like, why don't we all just come together and appreciate things that we love? And so I think this is a really cool act of community culture that feels really hard to replicate 20 years later.

I don't really feel like I could even see a world in which Dave Chappelle's block party could happen right now, which is kind of depressing to me. I also, you know, none of us have Summer of Soul on our list, but I feel like Summer of Yeah. replicate what was accomplished on that day too so you can kind of pair those together as as my pick um okay are we done at number two we are okay so rob my number two is an overlap with your film one of your films but i don't know what the final ranking of this film for you so uh you can do you do you want to keep do you want it to be number two uh yes yes okay yes so we have let's just have this be both of our joint number two which is 2019's homecoming uh starring and directed by beyonce nils garter this is a filmed version of her um headlining performance at Coachella, which was just an incredibly

elaborate and a technically astonishing tribute to historically black colleges, HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities, and just a huge production that it's amazing that she you know pulled off live and which is really true of every single beyonce performance and then is like captured on film and this is a real just it's like it's wonderful that we have a document of someone like beyonce performing visually as she does. She is astonishing. I am in wonder when I watch her do the thing. I've never seen her live. I didn't get to go this summer.

That's okay. I feel like I'll have an opportunity to see a film version of that at some point, and that would be great. Of her most recent tour. I hope so yeah um this is just this is like pretty pure concert there are documentary moments and i think about them often it does include the immortal line until i see some of my notes apply it doesn't make applied it doesn't make sense for me to give any more which is just i think about that every day you said that to me verbatim in our professional relationship so yeah i don't know

if she got that line from you or you got it from her but i have said that to me it's just it's the best part of that is that jay z is sitting right next to her throughout that whole thing. And the meeting ends and he just kind of stands up and he's like, okay, guys, and walks out, which is just wonderful. The great Jay-Z line. So there are documentary moments, but just watching her at the peak of her powers on stage is, to me, exhilarating. No, it's exhilarating. Did either of you watch the Coachella stream in real time? Cause there's like layers of FOMO to this,

right? Cause there was the actual Coachella event, but I feel like people who were watching the actual Coachella stream as it happened, this is a different era of Twitter. Like people talk about that as an incredible, sacred experience. I don't know. I remember watching the...

Knowing that it was happening in real time, because it was on a Saturday night. I don't know if I... I also think... I don't know if the stream stayed up the whole time because so many people were excited. Anyway, I remember that being an event and everyone being like, OMG.

And then came the film. No, this is the best concert movie since the Stop Making Sense era. I don't think anything touches it in the last 20, 30 years and beyond. And I do think that it just gives you a sense of how hard she is working and i feel like every pop star gets a documentary now right you know from gaga to katie perry you know beyonce had one several years back you know taylor's had a bunch and the theme of all of those is like look how hard i'm working look how hard this is Look how hard it is to be me. You know, in some sense, that's part of the subtext of this. But I just, the interstitial things between the actual

performance and then the performance itself, just the scale of it, you know, just this pyramid of people, you know, and the dancers and the band and like the orchestra. It's just such an incredible undertaking that it gives you a sense of how hard it is to do something this huge and this great you know in a way that no other movie i've ever seen does you know it just gives you a sense of how hard something like this is to do i don't think i've seen this since it came out i mean i saw when it came out but i don't think i've seen it since is it is it netflix it's on netflix yeah okay that's interesting netflix yeah is there a physical version of this movie that you can buy i don't know you just want the criterion i mean yes

that would be really exciting to see the criteria i think lemonade was hbo right yeah and that is i prefer lemonade to homecoming yeah because i Lemonade is obviously more of a kind of compilation of music, video, imagery, rather than a concert performance. And I, you know, I like Homecoming fine. I might be more interested in Renaissance as a concert film because of the songs that, on that versus what was on the previous record. But anyway, neither here nor there. My number two is Amazing Grace. This is actually a fairly recently released film though not a recently captured film um it chronicles uh a performance from 1972 the live album of the same name by aretha franklin and at her father's church

they organized a live performance of that record and Sidney Pollack, the late great filmmaker, filmed it. And then the movie went into a state of loss, confusion, rights, frustration. It just disappeared. It was gone for over 30 years. In the 2000s, a man named alan elliott came along and he discovered the footage and he desperately tried to get this concert performance effectively aretha franklin arguably the single greatest female pop performer in american history um in a small church singing her absolute guts out and she refused to let alan elli this movie. The reason why it was hard to get it out into the world because the tape sync wasn't working, the audio wasn't set to the imagery effectively. So Elliot figured it out, got it all synced up and he tried multiple times

while she was still alive to premiere the movie at film festivals to get it into wide release as it was originally conceived. And I think because he just had a massive appreciation for what was captured. And Aretha Franklin tragically died around, I believe in 2017. And then within a year, Elliot was able to negotiate with her estate to actually allow the film to be released.

It's an amazing document of an artist at the height of her powers, not dissimilar to how you're describing Prince, Rob. And it's also an unusual movie because it's a very intimate setting. So you very rarely see movies like this not shot in concert halls or at massive festivals. It's one of the only examples I could think of with an audience of fewer than 500 people. And it doesn't make it any less rapturous. It's amazing to watch Aretha go.

And to see her father and to see her church and the people that she's known since she was a little kid in the church with her singing beside her. Just like a one of one, like a singular kind of document and a really cool movie. If people haven't had a chance to check it out, it's called Amazing Grace. Okay. We're down to ones. Amanda, what's your number one? My number one? My number one is a similar, I can't believe that they got this on tape, moment, but it's roughly nine hours of it, that does culminate in a concert.

And in fact, the last time that the Beatles performed together live. It is the Beatlesles get back um also a similar like originally really well there was a 1970 film directed by michael uh lindsey hogg who just really takes some hits in the in the new version uh great but that footage uh was taken by peter jackson and expanded re-edited expanded into a docu-u series, a film that was released again during the pandemic on Disney plus, um, where it's like locked away by the way, to like peak mature audiences because they curse. And it took me like 10 minutes to figure out how to get back into my Disney

plus account and set the permission so that I could watch the Beatles get back, which just I feel is unnecessary. Just putting that out for everyone. They have like porn on Disney Plus. Like, what are they trying to protect kids from? I think it was because they curse and smoke. And so it's like I legit I had to go to a second device and like, you know, sign in

at whatever. I made it. Watched it again. This is one of the most extraordinary things and even you know the to talk about the concert itself since this is about concert films um maybe it all sort of did like an impromptu roof concert and didn't let anyone in the neighborhood know so when you watch this film it's intercut the performance is cut in with the cops coming to try to shut down the concert and they're

like negotiating and people are stalling and you know people are calling out it's i mean it's a an amazing behind the scenes thing while also just the beatles are like undeniable even if they like have some complicated things to work out among themselves at this moment in time. I put this on for my son this morning and he just stood in front of the TV. He just like, he stood there and watched them play for like five minutes, which for, which for my son, I've never,

he just, he literally just stood there not moving. And then I turned it off and he did the sign for more. He loved it. Did you show him any of the scenes of John Lennon completely zonked on heroin? I didn't. You know, we went straight to the concert.

But, you know. Yeah, I mean, okay, let me pause at a theory. Is it possible that the culture we were getting in COVID was actually better than what we're getting right now? When I think about the last dance and the Beatles get back, American Utopia, that shit was good.

Yeah. And I was at the time, I was like, I'm having an existential meltdown. Right. Upon reflection, some good stuff. That's,

I think some of that, it's just American Utopia was filmed before the pandemic. I just mean during that time. Sure. But now that we're fully back and I'm watching like Blue Beetle, you know, American Utopia was filmed before the pandemic. I just mean during that time. Sure. But now that we're fully back and I'm watching Blue Beetle, things are going fine. That's a little rude. Blue Beetle, the first 40 minutes, you and I had a nice time.

I don't know why Blue Beetle has to take that shot. What's a better example? The Flash. The Flash. Yeah. Did you see that, Rob? Did you watch that with your kids? No, no, no, I didn't. I saw the Mario movie.

Oh, yeah. Me too. It was okay. It was no Trolls World Tour. Let's just put it that way. Rob, what's your number one movie? Is it Trolls World Tour? Well, shit, I'm taking The Last Waltz. Yeah.

There we go. This is the agreement uh you know i i'm curious again if the stop making sense last waltz conversation is ended by this huge run that stop making sense is having but i this is of course the band's playing their final show on i believe thanksgiving day of 1976 at winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. I once ranked every performance from this movie on Deadspin.com, classic Deadspin. There's a disgusting amount of star power here, of course. You got Joni Mitchell, you got Bob Dylan, you got Neil Young, you got Van Morrison

doing the high kicks. You got Neil Diamond, for some reason. Martin Scorsese,ese of course directed this you know i think this is the birth of the idea of the concert film is also like an auteur proposition and you know that you can film this not in the way that like the woodstock movie was filmed you know it's just somebody standing there capturing it you know that just the thought put behind everything and just the visual effect and the grandeur of it, you know, and just trying to shoot it. I Rob Tannenbaum wrote about it for the New York Times, I think when Robbie Robertson died and he said something about how that it's shot from every angle, but the way that concert movies are usually shot. I forgot the exact term you to describe it, but like low angle fronts like it's never it's always shot from an interesting angle versus virtually every

other concert film certainly at the time but it's it's just i i can i know every song by heart you know and like for the record the best song on the last waltz is rick danko singing it makes no difference you know and leave on helm doing the night they drove old dixie down number two that's on The Last Waltz is Rick Danko singing It Makes No Difference and Levon Helm doing The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Number two, that's canon. I think it's still on Pittsburgh. I don't know. I'm a stop-making-sense man always, but I think it's easily

number one and two for me, and The Last Waltz is number two of all time. You seen this movie? Once or twice. Yeah. It's a good one can i tell you i was asking my husband zach for help putting together this list and you know he was just like well i know what you're gonna say but i really feel like the last waltz is pretty important and i was like i know zach i know i'm gonna make sure it is pretty important. And I was like, I know, Zach. I know. I'm going to make sure. It is pretty important.

Yeah. Yeah. It's wonderful. I'm going to revisit it as we prepare for Martin Scorsese. Yeah. You know,

a lot of great things coming up in the world of Scorsese. My number one pick is Gimme Shelter. I wanted to use Gimme Shelter as a portal

into this period that we were talking about which Rob touched on with Woodstock. But, you know, Rob, you suggested that there's a movie that signaled the end of something

that was happening during Woodstock, and that's obviously in Gimme Shelter, which is this incredible document. I'm not sure if it's a good movie, but it is a profound viewing experience. It's directed by Albert Maisels and his brother David and Charlotte Zwerin, and it captures both the kind of creation and construction of the Altamont Speedway concert,

which was this not just a Rolling Stones concert, but a big concert with a number of acts that were slated to play. You know, among them Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead was on the bill until they saw what was transpiring at this event. A number of other well-known acts. And the Hells Angels were hired to work security for this event. And there was a lot of intensity, anger, mismanagement, and ultimately violence leading to the death of a man at the concert

who was stabbed by a Hells Angel after brandishing a gun in the crowd. And it's just this remarkable metaphorical representation of the end of free love, a society that is aspirational, that feels like it can accomplish anything if it just comes together and celebrates artistically. And so all that kind of comes

spring-loaded into the expectations of the movie. You don't sit down and watch the movie without that but the Maisels have done something really interesting in this movie which is that at various times during the movie they make Mick Jagger watch what happened and then they film him watching what happened and it is just a

brilliant conceit and like the Rolling Stones remain like the most successful band of all time like if this happened to a band now I don't know if you'd ever hear from that band again. And they went on for more than 50 more years to extraordinary success. But, you know, the Maisels are kind of progenitors of this direct cinema style where they also don't film this like a concert film. The camera is usually in the wings most of the time. It's very close up on some of the artists' faces. Jagger is going through this incredible amount of angst

during this concert where he's confused and frustrated and he doesn't understand why people won't get off the stage. They won't step back. He doesn't understand why the angels are having a hard time. There's a moment earlier in the film where Grace Slick is trying to communicate to the audience like, hey, it's not cool to disrupt the good vibes here at the show, but also it's not cool for the angels to bust people's heads open.

But hey, sometimes you got to bust heads open. So don't do anything that would make you bust heads open. And it's just this weird real-time negotiation between the violence

in the world and people seeking safe harbor from that violence. Amazing document. I kind of wanted to put Monterey Pop and this movie Festival in conversation with it. Festival is the Newport Folk Festival. It kind of captured three years of that festival and sort of the rise of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul, and Mary and all these kind of significant folk artists.

And then a year later, Monterey Pop is released, which is this Northern California rock festival where Jimi Hendrix really makes his name, where Janis Joplin has an incredible performance, where Otis Redding has an incredible performance. It's kind of the best ever rock concert you could have without the Beatles and the Beach Boys and a couple of significant, meaningful artists. It's just an amazing series of performances over and over and over again, culminating in this long Ravi Shankar performance at the end of it. and when you get to the end of that movie and Ravi Shankar performs and then everybody is like oh my god music music can change lives and can bring us

together and it is such a joyful and happy and ecstatic movie and that movie leads directly to Woodstock one year later which of course is like 400,000 people having that same feeling and then it all comes crashing down with Gimme Shelter. And in this four-year window, you get four movies, all of which are widely considered masterpieces in this form. They're all about what's happening in this very specific moment in pop music. And it's the beginning and it's the end. You can watch the whole life cycle in these four movies. It's just an amazing thing that happened. We don't have this now. And I don't know why we don't. Maybe that happened. Like we don't have this now. And I don't know why we don't, maybe it's just because we don't have events like this. Maybe

it's because the world is too, um, uh, the diaspora is too scattered, you know, like there's just not like a center. And so it doesn't make as much sense to pursue this or we don't, we're not as good at narrativizing our center as previous generations. You know, the boomers, they were awesome at being like, this is the most important thing that ever happened. And we don't do that as well. We do, but we do it individually, right? That's why we have like every single pop star. Well, Rob, as you said, you have every single pop star documentary.

And it was funny. I didn't pick any of the, you know what? I put on Katy Perry part of me and turn it off about five seconds. It's a great music movie. And it has that amazing moment of her like learning about her divorce. And then like the thing, you know, which is like pop stardom in two minutes. But that is a,

that is a movie about one person, you know, and you have the Bieber one, you have the, all of even like, even the bands, it's all, we're not a movement. The Bieber one was a huge deal. The Bieber one was a big hit.

The Bieber one like sort of created Scooter Braun. Yeah. Yeah. That's a John Chu movie. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, but it's not, it's, it's all individual, right? It's all about narrativizing yourself.

Yeah. Well, I don't know what was better. I don't think it was better necessarily to be at Altamont that night. You know, like it's not as though all of that hope and promise really led to a ton of progress. Nevertheless, these are great kinds of films.

Rob, is there anything else you want to say directly to Amanda about it forcing you to do a trade on a podcast or anything else? No, I loved that. I enjoyed the the audible very i just had to bring some common sense you know i had to we yes you're are you are you gonna take this out on me like uh off mic for like a day or two no i got no beef okay i don't

know i have to think you as the arbiter of common sense is debatable but okay I just love watching you bicker in real time I spend so much time you know driving around listening to you bicker to be just you know a fly on the wall here over Zoom

is just a delight why not bicker with us why not join that's next time it's gonna be a next time bring me back for

the third Trolls movie and I'll just yell at you guys for two hours. Absolutely. I mentioned it at the top of the podcast, but why don't you just tell us a little bit about not just the show that you're making, but the forthcoming book?

Wow, yikes. I have, yes, the podcast called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, which is now up to like 105 songs, will be coming back in mid-October. Honest to God, it's final run of episodes. I think Sean is sort of in charge of whether I can do any more and there's absolutely no way that Sean will authorize us doing any more.

I want you to do more podcasts. I don't know if you need to do more Barenaked Ladies songs. That is the problem, right? I'm going to start doing exactly one week by the Barenaked Ladies episode number 235 That's a very 90s song

It is I'm not against it One might say excessively 90s Have you done 10,000 Maniacs? No, and I probably should No, you don't have to It came on the other day These Are Days would be a pretty good

these are listen they still it still has it that is just an absolute smash these are the days i was just vibing out also speaking of like mtv unplugs that was a that was a really powerful one natalie merchant killing it yeah when i was 12 years old i thought that natalie merchant and michael stipe should get together that's how perceptive I was back then. Just, just in general. I just, I thought they made a cute couple.

Incredible radar. I didn't see how it could work. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's just, it's just very shrewd.

I have a book coming out also called 60 songs. They explain the nineties in on November 14th. And I will be coming out for my first, like too many songs, man. It's like a hundred plus songs. The title is hilarious. Right. And I will be coming out for my first, like too many songs, man. It's like a hundred plus songs. The title is hilarious. Right.

But I, yes, a lot of songs that I covered that I've covered on the show, but also a lot of other songs as well. It just great illustrations. I got from Tara Jacoby, someone I worked with at Jezebel a long time ago. And I'm,

it's my first book, man. And I, and I have like a box of them in my house and I can't believe it exists. I'm still sort of wrapping my head around all of this. I've read it. I'm very excited. Thank you. That's awesome.

Rob, you're the best. Congratulations on the book. Congrats on the show. Congrats on your incredible job fathering children that you're doing right now. I wish you well in seeing Trails 3. We'll see. Amanda, thank you. We'll be there for opening night of Trolls 3.

Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on today's episode. Later this week, Chris Ryan's going to join me. We're going to talk about the creator. What do you want for robots to be free? I've seen the film. Have you seen the film? You haven't seen the film. No, I've just seen the trailer

4,000 times. Is that a line? That is a line. Yeah. I want to know if your kids want to see The Creator and if they don't, that's what's wrong

with our society. I'm just putting that out there. We'll see you when we talk about The Creator. Thank you.