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- [00:00]
A
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Just what you mean to me. Hey everybody, this is Chris Melanfy, host of Hit Parade, Slate's podcast of pop chart history. Welcome to the Bridge. That's the Bee Gees Jive Talkin', a number one hit in the summer of 1975. We're playing this song not only as a final callback to our latest episode, which is about the brothers Gibb, but also because this song was written while Barry Gibb was crossing a bridge in Miami, Florida. As I described in the episode, the rhythm of the slats on the Julia Tuttle Causeway connecting Miami to Biscayne Bay made its way into this irresistible single in the Bee Gees career. This hit was a bridge to the Gibbs new phase as disco kings. And as always, these mini episodes bridge our full length monthly episodes and give us a chance to catch up with our listeners and and enjoy some trivia. This month I'm delighted to be joined by a Slate podcasting luminary host of the daily podcast the Gist, my friend, Mike Pesca. Hello, Mike.
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B
Well, thank you for having me, Chris. Now, I have a follow up question here.
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A
Shoot.
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B
Can we forensically go back to jive talking and find out if they were speeding over the Julia Tuttle Causeway? Can we isolate the rate of speed?
- [01:47]
A
So it's interesting you mentioned that, because I have heard that the rhythm that that the Bee Gees use at the beginning of Jivetalkin clearly indicates they were speeding over the bridge because it only makes that chicka chicka sound if you go above the 55 mile an hour speed limit. That is the lore of the bridge story on Jivetalkin. So yeah, it's possible.
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B
So they can't drive 55 either?
- [02:09]
A
No, clearly not. So Mike, I wanted to kick this off as long as we're talking about the Bee Gees and your sense of humor by playing a couple of clips from your daily podcast, the Gist, on which I have been honored to be a guest couple dozen times. We do a series on that called Hits of the Year, in which we take a year and talk about the number one hits from that year. And the Bee Gees have come up multiple times and that's their fault for.
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B
Having so many hits. I know so many number one hits.
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A
And so if our producer can play me these two very short clips from the Gist, I would appreciate it.
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B
You're this unofficial tracker of Bee Gees. You're a Bee Geesologist. So where were the Bee Gees? Yeah, you always know more about the Bee Gees than I think any man should know.
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A
Well, okay. Well, that's probably because I grew up in Benson Hurston and I think fondly of the Saturday soundtrack. We'll get to that later.
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B
Going through the hot hits of 1978. And I'm joined by Chris Malampi. He is the man behind why is this song number one, the Slate feature, whose name I sometimes forget. Hello, Chris, how are you?
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A
I'm good, Mike. How are you?
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B
Great. You know why? Because I'm starting with the Bee Gees. Your favorite band? Just about. You love the Bee Gees.
- [03:15]
A
Oh, man, I. I have such a reputation now for the Bee Gees. So I fully confess that this episode, our September episode of Hit Parade, was inspired in part by the fact that you caught me admitting my love of the Bee Gees. I mean, you kind of nailed me on that.
- [03:34]
B
I did kind of nail you. But how deep is your love of the Bee Gees?
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A
I mean, it's pretty deep. You know, I grew up in Travolta Central in the 70s. And, I mean, the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever is. Were shot, like, about a dozen blocks away from my house.
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B
But did you have a shirt? A nice shirt? That's my nice shirt.
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A
Yeah. Or. Yeah, don't touch the hair. No, I did not have either the shirt or the hair because when the movie came out, I was six.
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B
Yeah.
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A
A little bit of trivia. When the movie came out, it was rated R, and so I couldn't actually see it, despite the fact that my cousins were playing the soundtrack nonstop.
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B
Do you think you know them? So if I played you a song from early Australian Bee Gees to later Bee Gees, you'd know they were the Bee Gees. But if I put their music in front of a person who was so expert at identifying music that they could do this, but yet somehow didn't know the Bee Gees. Would you be able to tell those early. Was it sticks and stones?
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A
What was their specs and specs?
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B
Fix and specs? Bee Gees from Jive Talking. Bee Gees from later Bee Gees.
- [04:32]
A
I mean, here's the thing that I discovered as I was listening through all the material, including songs I really hadn't ever heard before, like the 60s stuff or the Australian stuff. They had a tone that, okay, it's hard to hear when they were trying to sound like the everly brothers in 1960. But pretty quickly on something like, I was a lover, a leader of men, which comes out in, I don't know, 63, 64 you can already hear it's not just the falsetto. The Gibbs voices have a certain braying quality that even when they're singing in a normal middle range male voice, it's got an ah to it that that comes out in their vocals. And so I think the Gibbs have a pretty signature sound even before they're trying to sing at the very top of their range. It really had been ramping up all through the 60s on the songs that Robin sang lead on Like I Started a Joke on tracks like how can youn Mend a Broken Heart. It's like they're getting a little higher on each hit as they go along, but then they make this leap over the cliff into full blown falsetto in 75.
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B
Yeah, I would consider it more getting.
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A
Raptured up into the so we received a lot of great feedback on the Bee Gees episode. Much of it was on Twitter, some of it was on the Facebook group for Slate plus members. Thank you to those of you who are Slate plus members. And I must say there was a theme that ran through a lot of the feedback. We got people basically saying that the episode was a balm after a tough week. It came out at the end of the last week of September that had been a tough week in the news with the Supreme Court fight. And just to quote a couple of the tweets that we received, quote, I can't tell you how much I needed this episode as an antidote to the toxicity of this week, said Doug Joubert on Twitter. Swoopy said, going to my happy place now. And I just want to say back to Swoopy hang on. Swoopy, Swoopy hang on. Ophiblio on Twitter said, what a beautiful and necessary gift. And finally, Charles Hughes said, I always love when a new hit parade pod drops, but at the end of this week it feels like a particular blast. So thank you for all those comments. And I must say, when we started preparing this episode based on the timing, I certainly didn't think of it as that kind of respite from the headlines. But I guess because of the timing, it served that function.
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B
But you know what else? The Bee Gees were dominating the charts at a really dark time in American history.
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A
This is true.
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B
The 70s inflation, little bit post Watergate forward to New York, drop dead. Things were not good. Crime was out of control. This was a story about Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, when Bensonhurst was an enclave that, you know, regarded the rest of Brooklyn as besotted with crime and the whole country wasn't really doing well. There is probably something about the high falsetto cheer of these lads from Australia with a little bit of the Isle of Man that inherently acts as a bomb. And it's always good to have music intercede in tough times. And actually there was a musical act who was caught up in the news of the day. I assume the news that people are obliquely referring to UB40 in the news as part of the Kavanaugh bar fight up in New haven.
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A
Yeah, our UB40 episode improbably was dragged into the Twitter sphere this past week when news got around that Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, had gotten into a bar fight in New Haven after attending a UB40 concert in September of 1985. Which was interesting to me because September of 85 is that kind of nether period in UB40's history where red Red Wine has already been out for a couple of years, but they're not really chart toppers in America yet.
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B
No, that's the kind of guy Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Chris Dudley were. They just knew where the next big was gonna hit.
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A
I went there, I guess. I guess. And that episode was consumed more heavily than usual last week, and I got a lot of tweets from people saying they were boning up on the history of UB40 by listening to the pilot of Hit Parade, the Rogue DJ Edition. If you are looking for that episode in your Hit Parade feed, it is episode one, the Rogue DJ Edition.
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B
And hang up and listen. Can also say their Chris Dudley episode got a lot of, lot of attention.
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A
I'll bet it did.
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B
No Chris Dudley episode. Chris Dudley, a guy who could not hit a free throw for his life, was apparently pretty good at hitting guys with glasses. Allegedly. Okay, moving on.
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A
So we're about to do some trivia, but before we do, a brief epilogue to our last set of questions at the end of August, Mike, you'll appreciate this as an occasional issuer of addenda on the gist.
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B
Yeah, I love epilogues and addenda and codicils. All of it. Yeah.
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A
Yeah. With your lob star of the Antenn twig, I want to issue a correction. We themed the last set of questions around the recordings of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. In our third trivia question, I said, in the early 70s, Aretha Franklin recorded covers of songs by a string of white men from the world of rock. Which of these songwriters and songs did Franklin not cover? And one of the choices I gave not the correct answer by the way was Robbie Robertson, frontman of the band and writer of the song the Wait, which Aretha covered. My mistake was using the wor word white, which frankly, I regret, not least because it was unnecessary. I could have simply said a string of men from the world of rock and left out the word white. A listener brought to our attention that Robertson is of mixed race heritage. His mother is from the Six Nations Reserve from the first nations of Canada. And in fact, Robertson's music often alludes directly to his indigenous heritage. I regret the error and I thank our listener for bringing this to our attention. And now let's bring on this month's trivia and this month's trivia contestant. Joining us on the line is Claire. Claire, are you there?
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C
Yep. Hi, Chris.
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A
How are you?
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C
I'm good. I'm really excited to be talking with you today.
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A
Likewise. We're very excited to have you on the program. Can you tell us where are you calling us from?
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C
I'm in Massachusetts, about an hour out of Boston.
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B
Well, that's appropriate, is it not?
- [10:57]
A
Yes. As Mike points out, Massachusetts is the title of a pretty big Bee Gees hit from the late 60s. Maybe not famous from their disco years, but a pretty big hit. So, Claire, I understand that you are a Slate plus member. How long have you been a Slate plus member, if you don't mind me asking?
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C
Probably about a year and a half to two years.
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A
That's wonderful. I just want to bring this up and remind the audience that while this bridge episode is available to all Hit Parade subscribers, that's why you're listening to it right now, we only open our trivia rounds to Slate plus members. So if you are a member and would like to be a trivia contestant, visit slate.com hit hit parade signup. That's slate.com hitparadesignup all one word. So, Claire, as I think you probably know, if you've listened to previous episodes of Hit Parade, the Bridge, we're going to ask three questions. One is going to be a callback to our most recent Hit Parade full length episode about the Bee Gees. And the next two are going to be kind of a foreshadowing of the next episode of Hit Parade. And at the end of that, you're going to get an opportunity to turn the tables on me. So I understand you have a question for me when we get to the end. Is that so?
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C
I do.
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A
Wonderful. Question one. In our Bee Gees episode, I talked about all nine of the Bee Gees number ones on the Hot 100 from how can you mend a broken heart in 1971 to the many disco hits on Saturday night fever in 1977 and 78. Although they continued writing number ones in the 80s, their final number ones as artists came in 1979 from the Spirits Having Flown album. Which of these 1979 hits was the Bee Gees last number one, A, Tragedy, B, Love you inside out. C, too much Heaven, Or D rest your love on me.
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C
Oh, I am torn between tragedy and too much heaven. I think I'm gonna go with tragedy.
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A
I'm sorry. The correct answer was B, Love you inside out. Love you inside and out.
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C
Oh, wow. I didn't even narrow it down. Right.
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A
I know. Not one you saw coming. That was the third of three straight number ones from the Spirits Having Flown album after Too Much Heaven and Tragedy. And while the Gibbs would write 80s number ones for Barbra Streisand and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Love youe Inside out was their last as artists.
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B
All right, Chris, do you remember which song it replaced and then was replaced by and at the number one spot in 1979?
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A
Yes, I believe that was Hot Stuff by Donna Summer.
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B
Ding, ding, ding.
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A
Thank you.
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B
Are you a Slate plus member? Because I can't ask you that trivia if you're not.
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A
Amazingly, yes, I am a Slate plus member, so I'm allowed to answer that trivia question. So, Claire, no worries. You got one down, but we're gonna try for these next two. Are you ready?
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C
I am.
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A
Okay, here we go. Question 2. Rap songs started appearing on the Hot 100 in the 1980s. But it took until the 1990s for an all rap song buy a rapper to Top the Hot 100. What was that number one song? A, Tone Loke, Wild Thing, B MC Hammer. You can't touch this. C Digital Underground, the Humpty Dance, or D, Vanilla Ice. Ice Ice Baby.
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C
I'm gonna go with MC Hammer. Can't touch this.
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A
I'm sorry. The correct answer is D. Ice, Ice Baby. Ice Ice Bab. The other three songs all peaked on the charts before Vanilla Ice had his breakthrough hit. But none of them got higher than number two, which Tone Loke's Wild Thing reached in early 89. Believe it or not, before the fall of 1990 when Ice Ice Baby went all the way, no full on rap song had gone to number one on the Hot 100. All right, that was a tough one. But we're gonna. We're gonna give you one last opportunity here. Are you ready for question three?
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C
I am, I am.
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A
All right, here we go. One year after Ice Ice Baby, in 1991, Billboard converted its flagship charts to the new, more accurate SoundScan system, and it gave a huge boost to rap on the charts. In fact, the week in 91, they converted the Hot 100 to SoundScan. The chart was immediately topped by another rap pop crossover hit. What was that number one hit? A Third Base, Pop Goes the Weasel, B PM Dawn Set Adrift on Memory Bliss C LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock youk Out or D. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Summertime.
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C
Oh, my gosh, I really have no. I don't even have a guest on this one, but I'm gonna have to.
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A
Go with C. I'm sorry. The correct answer is B. Set Adrift on Memory Bliss by PM Dawn. It hit number one on the chart dated November 30, 1991, the same week Billboard added more accurate sales and airplay Data to the Hot 100. PM Dawn's hit famously samples Spandau Ballet's hit True, which reached number four in 1983. Yes, set adrift on memory bliss topped the original Hot 100 peak of true. Well, I'm sorry that we stumped you on all of those, Claire.
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C
I'm stumped. I'm so embarrassed. But I'm still really excited to be talking with you.
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A
We're excited to have you. Thank you. And here's where you get your revenge. You now get to ask me a trivia question, and hopefully you've got a stumper for me. Are you ready to ask me your trivia question?
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C
I do have a question for you. All right. More than one hip hop song snagged the number one Billboard spot by sampling a song from 1983, much like as you just discussed PM Don's set adrift on memory Bliss did with Bandao Ballet's Tru in the late 90s, the bad boy label run by the artist known then as Sean. Puffy Daddy Combs found incredible success with the very simple formula. Borrowing heavily from 1983 pop&r and B, which of the following songs held the most weeks at number one? A Can't Nobody Hold Me down by Puff Daddy featuring Mace B One More chance by Notorious B.I.G. c I'll be Missing you by Puff Daddy or D Been around the World by Puff Daddy featuring mace and Notorious B.I.G.
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A
That is an excellent question. I love the premise of that question. I love the 1997 Ness of it, and I love the fact that it all has to do with Puff Daddy. Now, among those four choices, I know that two of them were Number one hits, and two of them weren't. And I think the two that were number one hits were Can't Nobody Hold Me down. And I'll be missing you. And I'm just gonna take a flyer here and say, can't nobody hold me down.
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C
Actually, Chris, we are 0 for 4 this episode. The correct answer is actually C. I'll be missing.
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A
Every move I make.
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C
Puff Daddy's dedication to the aforementioned Biggie after his untimely death, which famously samples Every Breath youh Take by the police, and sat at number one for 11 weeks. The only other number one among these choices, as you said, was Can't Nobody Hold Me down, which interpolates Matthew Wilder's 1983 hit Break My Stride. And that spent six weeks at number one. Wow.
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A
It was a great question, especially given all the samples and at least I remembered which two are the number one hits. But. Oh, well. Well, Claire, it was such a delight having you on the show. I'm kind of glad we stumped each other. That feels a little more karmically appropriate to me. And thank you so, so much for calling us. We really appreciate it.
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C
Thanks, Chris and Mike. I was really happy to talk with you guys, and I am excited about the next episode.
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A
Thank you so much.
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B
Thanks, Claire.
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A
Thanks.
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C
Bye.
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A
Bye.
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B
So it was really a perfect week in terms of trivia. Chris. Chris, what is on the Hit Parade coming up next?
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A
So, as indicated by those last two trivia questions, our next episode of Hit Parade, coming the final week of October, will be about the moment.
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B
Let me guess. The Monster Mash.
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A
They did the Mash. They did the Monster Mash. The Monster Mash.
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B
Graveyard smash.
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A
It's a graveyard smash. It will be about the moment in the early 90s when the Hot 100 is converted to a new system that more accurately tracks sales and airplay and how that boosted hip hop on the charts. As we said in that middle question, prior to 1990, there were no all rap number one hits. It took until Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby for there to be any all rap song at number one on the Hot 100.
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B
Some would argue it took for the next song for there to be an actual rap song.
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A
Many would argue that, yes, indeed. And we're gonna talk about that, Mom. When the methodology changed and what that did for the fate of rap on the charts. Because the 90s were a decade that was great for rap, great for hip hop on the charts, and more accurate data had a lot to do with that. Really capturing what people were buying and what people were listening to. And that's what our October full length episode of Hit Parade is going to be about.
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B
I can't wait to listen. It will be spooky good fun.
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A
Mike, I want to thank you again for joining us for this episode. And I think now's the time when we should tell people about where they can hear you every day.
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B
Yeah, every day. It's a show called the Gist. And every once in a while I have my special friend and BG's lover, Chris Melamphion. And in our archives there are those this year in number one song shows that we do. Those are always a good time.
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A
And honestly, folks, the Gist is a terrific listen every day. And I really thank Mike for taking time out of his busy daily podcasting schedule to join us on Hit Parade. The Bridge.
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B
Oh, the show will suffer for it. Don't you make a mistake.
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A
Yes, of course. I want to thank Claire again for playing along with us. And one more time, I want to remind everyone that trivia is open to Slate plus members. So if you become a Slate plus member and want to become eligible to be a trivia contestant, just visit slate.com hitparadesignup until next month, I'm Chris Melanfi. Keep on marching on the one.