God, Your Mama, And Me – Spotify

God, Your Mama, And Me – YouTube (It’s blocked, but you can hear a snippet)

Everybody hates Florida Georgia Line but its fans. One of the biggest acts in country, FGL is excoriated by traditionalists and so many modern listeners, but they keep burning up the charts because they’ve managed to capture the zeitgeist of the younger generation, mashing up rap and other elements of today into a genre that prefers to be walled off from pop and the mainstream. But…

I’m addicted to Release Radar. All the publicity is about Discover Weekly, but it pales in comparison to Release Radar, Discover Weekly will tell you where you’ve been but not where you’re going, it’ll hook you up with your old girlfriend and take you on a tour of your high school, but Release Radar is like a trip to a destination you not only have never visited, but didn’t even dream of, but one that fits like a glove. I find myself skipping through Discover Weekly, but I LISTEN to Release Radar.

And that’s where I heard “God, Your Mama, And Me.”

The funny thing about music is you know immediately, not always, but usually. A sound resonates, you start nodding your head, you begin singing along. I’m riding the recumbent bike and I’m asking myself…WHAT IS THIS?

Oh, I knew it was FGL, the lead vocal is unmistakable. But, other than that, it’s not country, and then in the second verse a mellifluous voice that feels so right takes over and…

IT’S THE BACKSTREET BOYS!

Do you own “Millennium”? Released in the spring of ’99, it only sold 40 million copies world wide, a mere trifle, ha! I had to go out and buy it because of “I Want It That Way,” the Max Martin/Andreas Carlsson nugget that superseded anything recorded by the legends of the era, it made the Backstreet Boys superstars, an incredible follow up to one of the great breakthrough cuts of all time, “Quit, Playing Games With My Heart.” If you don’t like “Quit, Playing Games With My Heart,” you don’t like Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day Without You,” possibly SBK’s greatest hit, it’s moody and infectious and… Never forget that the Beatles started as pop, then they expanded the medium, tested limits, classic rock was birthed and dominated and ever since we’ve gone down a rabbit hole of ever more derivative numbers that are so far from the garden that…people have tuned out.

And speaking of rock, as good as “I Want It That Way” was, it was the opening cut on “Millennium” that sealed the deal, that made me a Backstreet Boys fan, that had me blasting the CD in my car to the point my BMW shook, because “Larger Than Life” rocked harder and more endearingly than anything on rock radio, which is not hard to believe, since Max Martin started out in a metal band.

So, if you haven’t tuned out yet…

That’s the problem, self-identifiers stuck in the past. You know them, wearing their black clothing and silver jewelry, waiting for the eighties to come back, putting down all that which is not pure…the train has positively left them behind, times have changed, they’re the ones who are out of the loop.

And now the people being left behind are all those mired in the modern machine pop/urban landscape, playing it safe to appeal to a brain dead audience. Meanwhile, Florida Georgia Line goes back to the well and comes up with something that can be loved by EVERYBODY!

“That Sunday morning choir, church doors open wide”

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I winced. That’s a big problem with country, they appeal to right wing canards. Turns out the nation is becoming less religious. Country acts drug and booze, can they stretch the paradigm a bit, stop pandering? Sturgill Simpson had it right, the Nashville establishment is two-faced, it runs Merle Haggard out of town and then wants to embrace him. Didn’t catch that memo? It burned up the country newswires, Sturgill excoriated the establishment on Facebook, read it here: http://bit.ly/2bR2lKx?utm_source=phplist5547&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=God%2C+Your+Mama%2C+And+Me And while you’re at it, listen to Sturgill’s “Brace For Impact (Live A Little),” which I also discovered via Release Radar. I’ve been hyped on Sturgill for years, but this track finally closed me, listen to it if you like to go to dive bars in your cowboy boots and sip a longneck as you twist your toes in the sawdust and get your juices flowing. This is more rock than modern Metallica, more soulful than Sharon Jones, it’s the ghost of Waylon with some Willie and even if you think you hate country you’ll like this, it’ll sex you up to the point you’ll stop reading this to relieve yourself.

ANYWAY…

I’ve got to calm myself down, get back to where I once belonged.

So, my point is “God, Your Mama, And Me” is the best Backstreet Boys track in excess of a decade. It’s got melody, you sing along, it makes you feel good…ISN’T THAT WHAT MUSIC IS SUPPOSED TO DO?

But most people have not heard it. That’s the modern era. You can make it, but if it’s not marketed, if it’s not pushed, it’s like it doesn’t exist. But I’m sure Scott Borchetta is gonna push the button on this. It’s stuff like this that used to be the song of the summer before we moved so far from the mainstream there was no way we could hit the target.

That’s right, sometimes you’ve got to go back to basics.

There was a reason those Backstreet Boys records were so successful. They appealed to EVERYBODY! Maybe not you, but you’re the minority, and right now the minority is ruling in music, its tail is wagging the dog.

Not that I want to give Scott that much credit. FGL’s new album is not on Spotify, only cherry-picked hits. I just don’t get it, are the people not on the service really gonna give up their CDs and files? As for Jason Aldean keeping his new album off all streaming services… He’s like the last guy to use a wooden tennis racket. Yes, you can win that way, but really it’s all about metal and composites. The bleeding edge is much more satisfying than mopping up the past with the lemmings. As soon as I heard “God, Your Mama, And Me” I immediately wanted to hear the rest of the new album, but I couldn’t.

And “God, Your Mama, And Me” is not perfect. It almost seems unfinished, it could use another section, but it’s like…seeing a beautiful woman and being attracted without speaking to her, not yet knowing who she truly is. But you want to know more. (And feel free to flip the script, think about your hunk.) And isn’t that what we’re trying to do, isn’t that our mission, infecting the public and making people want more?

“God, Your Mama, And Me” is infectious because it builds upon the basic blocks. Employ good voices, have choruses people can sing along with, never underestimate the power of melody, create something so ear-pleasing it can’t be denied.

And one can argue, as Tom Petty has, that country is the rock and roll of the seventies. But I’ll argue that was a golden era, a peak much higher than today, and better to go back to the garden and grow from there as opposed to working untillable soil.

It was a stiff upon release. It cost $3 million and grossed $4 million in a pre-home video era. In other words, it lost money, with only half of gross receipts coming back to the studio. Sure, there was television income, but this was pre-cable. No one knew the movie and no one knew the songs. Yet today, it’s a classic.

Originally it was called “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” A twisted story by author Roald Dahl, there were no songs, but he had a cult following, one of whose members was my younger sister Wendy, she bought all his books, I read it, I saw the movie back in ’71, when it first came out. The Oompa Loompas were too orange, but one viewing and I knew their song by heart. And the kids all had different personalities, not all likable. That’s a fiction of media, that characters have to be likable, no, the story has to be good. And I was the only person I ever knew who saw the flick and then…

Gene Wilder dies yesterday and it’s the first movie listed in his obit.

Mind-blowing. I too first saw Gene in 1967’s “Bonnie & Clyde.” I remember 1968’s “Producers,” which caused a kerfuffle to the point where the Fine Arts in Westport, Connecticut, edited it itself. The scene with the blankie, it was incomprehensible.

And then came “Young Frankenstein.” The Mel Brooks tour-de-force, it cleaned up at the box office at the end of ’74. It was a cultural staple.

Not that I had not followed Mr. Wilder. I remember going to see “Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx” just before I shipped off for college in 1970. Gene played a mentally-challenged dung salesman who fell in love with Margot Kidder. It was the first time I ever saw her, before “Superman,” before the exploits revealing her mental issues, it was a small movie that stuck with me, but don’t they all.

“Willy Wonka” was a small movie. Not shot for a hundred million and marketed at half that number. Sure, the studio wanted to make money, but comic book heroes were not the only stars who could get a green light. But today, today, if you’re not shooting for the moon, the studio doesn’t want to play.

Nor does the record label. There’s all this hogwash about costs, both real and opportunity. No one wants to hit singles, never mind bunts, and…

The movies come and go.

But not “Willy Wonka.”

I was with a bunch of Gen X’ers and we were discussing the greatest comedies of all time.

All of theirs came from the twenty first century. I was stunned. No “Stripes,” never mind thirties classics.

But that’s today, when almost nothing from the past survives, when it’s all new and then thrown away.

Except for “Willy Wonka.”

“Willy Wonka” is Nick Drake. A film from the classic era which got a second chance, which resonated and held on. That’s right, it was re-released in 1996 and made $21 million.

And the lion’s share of streams on Spotify are catalog, old stuff, that just lasts and lasts.

So in an era of flash are we doing it wrong? Are we focusing on blockbuster me-too product when it’s the challenging stuff that tests limits which survives? Led Zeppelin sold out to Atlantic, their manager felt the records wouldn’t be worth anything in the future. Jim Morrison was dead for ten years before “Rolling Stone” put him on the cover. Led Zeppelin and the Doors not only survived, they flourished! Who from today will flourish in the future? Who are our “Willy Wonkas”? Are we even producing “Willy Wonkas”?

It was the sauerkraut that put it over the top.

Don’t let yourself get too hungry, that’s what my nutritionist says. And I’ve been oh-so-good, avoiding carbs, last Thursday I was at a dinner party where Tom Windish and his bride-to-be brought a blueberry pie and a three berry cake from Sweet Lady Jane and I did not partake, not a bite, not even Rachel’s tiramisu, because I’m insulin resistant, and when I eat carbs my blood sugar spikes and after being wide awake I’m sleepy and then I feel like crap for two days and…like I said, I’ve been very good.

But I was hungry.

And I’m lying on the PT table in Century City dreaming of food.

There’s an entire stash in the fridge, if I can just make it back to the house, but I’m thinking of something savory, something that will hit the spot, like a burger from Five Guys or…

A hot pastrami sandwich.

Not that I’m that big on Five Guys. But at least there’s enough beef, but they play the music too loud, as if they want you to exit immediately, and the fries are tasty but there are way too many of them so…

I decided to go to Brent’s.

It all made sense. I had all three papers with me. It was gonna be a field day.

Now I checked Google Maps. Never use Apple Maps, the timing is way off. It said it’d be fourteen minutes beyond home. I could do that. Hell, I’d write off the entire afternoon, not even check my phone, this was gonna be FUN!

And with Howard on vacation I was switching back and forth between No Shoes Radio and the Highway on the satellite, but when I hit a bummer I decided to go all news, I was taking a break, I worked my way from left wing to right wing, from MSNBC to Fox, and ended up on some Sirius news program dedicated to tech, they were talking about AI, artificial intelligence for the uninitiated, and it rang my bell as I crested the hill, passed under Mulholland, and the temperature began to rise.

Instinct would say to take the 405 all the way to Parthenia.

But Google said to transfer to the 101 and take Tampa. And you should never argue with technology, it’s always right.

And when I got to Brent’s parking lot, it was 104 degrees. East coast hot. You know, where you don’t need a jacket at night. It’s rarely this hot in L.A.

And needless to say, Brent’s was empty. It was 3:30 in the afternoon. Well, not completely empty, but I could get a booth and not feel guilty for hogging it, being one person only, but I needed the real estate, to spread out my papers.

So I pointed out my place to the hostess, she exhibited no resistance, and I took the proffered menu. Many people don’t take a menu at a deli, they know it all, and what they don’t know the kitchen will make.

But I wanted to peruse the sandwiches, I wanted to drill down to the right one, I needed pastrami with Swiss cheese and Russian dressing, like they do it at Langer’s.

Yes, the pastrami is better at Langer’s. It’s the thicker cut, the twice cooked bread. And actually, they now imitate it at Brent’s. They’ve even given it a number, 13, to compete with Langer’s famous Number 19. But on the facing page…

I saw it. The black pastrami reuben!

Once upon a time reubens were only made with corned beef. And as much as  I love pastrami, that’s how much I hate corned beef. But as the years have passed the rules have been bent, and in my salad days at Brent’s I tasted one of these reubens, and it was off the charts, that was what I was gonna get! Rule number one of eating out, get what feels right, not what you think is right.

But then it got better, the black pastrami reuben came with FRIES! it was my lucky day, that was one of the reasons I was craving Five Guys, I had a smile upon my face.

Which at first I did not, because I realized my chosen abode was so close to the kitchen, and my OCD was kicking in and I thought I was gonna have to move but then I realized that the shrink’s exposure technique would work, and it did, I got over it, it didn’t bother me a whit!

But as I unfolded the L.A. “Times” I realized the next table over had two little kids. Would this be trouble? No, they were very well-behaved, near quiet, the stars were aligning!

So I ordered my sandwich. Along with a Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry, I mean you’ve got to go all the way, or don’t go at all. And I was intellectually saving room for a slice of carrot cake, but…

The sandwich came with so many fries, skinny cut, my preference, that there was no way I could eat anything after I devoured what was on this plate.

I ordered extra Russian dressing. The sandwich has to be wet.

And I was worried I was gonna run out of reading material, I’d covered too much of the “Wall Street Journal” on the phone the night before.

But, when I bit into the black pastrami reuben…

How am I gonna describe this?

Brent’s is not exactly a dump, but it is a deli, with no atmosphere and a constant din.

And it’s not like I’m fine dining, not even slumming at a fast food joint. Rather, I’m eating the food of my people, my heritage, that heartburn-generating fare of my youth.

So you’ve got to picture it…

The bread is toasted very brown. You can barely see the white of the rye. This is a serious sandwich, not for wimps, not for the faint of heart.

And the cheese is gooey and they put enough Russian dressing on it and…

I can’t describe it! I can’t tell you how it all came together in my mouth, poured down my gullet and satisfied me in a way that I felt fully alive and life was worth living, if I didn’t die of a heart attack on the way out.

Yes, I had misgivings. Just before I sat down. What was I doing here?

What are we doing here, what are we on this planet for? To work, to achieve, or to EXPERIENCE!

You don’t have to be rich to buy Brent’s black pastrami reuben, you don’t need a graduate degree, you just need taste buds and a hand to lift it.

Yes, I ate it one-handed, my other arm is only just now coming back to life.

And there was enough.

The more upscale the restaurant, the smaller the portions. And the cheapie places don’t give you enough protein, that’s what my nutritionist says, it’s the protein that satisfies your hunger.

So the first half of the sandwich… The toast, the pastrami, the gooey cheese, the Russian dressing…and the SAUERKRAUT! That’s right, there was a taste of sourness that shot this sandwich into the stratosphere, a delectable delicacy you can buy all day long which most people never consume, even though it’s hiding in plain sight.

I started with the fries.

But when I switched to the sandwich I couldn’t let go. I dipped it in some of the extra Russian dressing, figuring if I didn’t partake of it the waitress would judge me for requesting it, stupid, I know, but that’s me, and when I finished half…

I just dug into the other half. I wasn’t gonna take it home. I was after the full effect, this was full on GLUTTONY!

To the point the mountain of fries left after the sandwich disappeared seemed way too much, but I consumed them anyway. Who knows, there might be an apocalypse on my drive home from Northridge, I might not be able to eat for days, I’m gonna DENY MYSELF??

And when I finished, I just sat there. No need to rush out, I’d already blown the afternoon. But when only the last pages of the front section of the “New York Times” were left, I sidled out of there.

That’s right, just me, anonymously. No one cared who I was and no one cared what I did. I was in charge of my own life, and I’d just had a peak experience.

I haven’t eaten anything since.

Although I did pound five Caffeine Free Diet Cokes. You see I’m dry, dry, dry. Reminds me of drinking back at Middlebury, when I’d wake up Sunday morning and go in search of Pepsi, which controlled the concession on campus. They didn’t refill the machines on weekends and sometimes I’d have to march through four dorms to quench my thirst, to survive, you’ve always got to have the effervescent elixir on hand.

And now it’s after midnight, I’m reading the CAA book about Tom Ross going to fat rehab and that’s when it hit me, the sauerkraut, how it put the black pastrami reuben over the top.

And I just had to write about it.

Because it’s these moments in life that really count, that make it worth living.

I cried when I wrote this down, sue me if I went on too long.

Just call me Deacon Pastrami, Deacon Black Pastrami Reuben.

“Brent’s Deli Presents: How to make a Pastrami Reuben”

“Brent’s Deli Makes the Meanest Pastrami Reuben in Los Angeles”

“Ratings Are No Hit for MTV Video Music Awards”

It’s the content, stupid.

24 million people tuned into Fox last August to see the initial Republican debate. But only 6.5 million people tuned into a multiplicity of Viacom channels to watch the train-wreck known as the VMAs.

It was an unwatchable show. Unmoored from its previous iterations, wherein the audience was king and the acts were paying fealty, last night’s travesty was a mess wherein the acts got unlimited time to ramble and sing… Not only did Kanye get mic time, he got to debut his new video. I’ll argue the VMAs nosedived when Macy Gray advertised her new record was gonna drop on the back of her dress, but the lunatics have now taken over the asylum, it was all promotion all the time. And if Beyonce was that damn good, why were the ratings so piss-poor?

Most people don’t care.

The VMAs used to be a tribal rite for not only the younger generation, but the country at large, the world at large, we lived in a monoculture and MTV was the heartbeat. If you made it on MTV you could tour the world, everybody knew your name.

Today, pop is the dominant format, but most shrug their shoulders. What’s a poor boy to do? What’s a poor industry to do?

Never has it been this bad, never has the industry lost touch with the mainstream to this degree since the Beatles. I’m not saying all the wannabes fighting on YouTube for attention deserve it, but I am saying the nation hungers for music with a bit more gravitas, a bit more quality, a bit more there there. Dancing is not music, and lip-synching is not vocalizing.

Meanwhile, Adele reached everybody. On “21.” Before she made a dash for cash with “25” and marginalized herself. That’s the Adele story, not how much money they made selling albums, but how she lost touch with the audience, went from being a cultural icon to a niche player. Just because you’re big today, that does not mean you’ll be big tomorrow.

But “21” was ten times bigger than anything else. Why?

It’s not like Adele played the game. Appeared everywhere and did endorsements. Rather, the music stood on its own, and appealed to a broad swath of human beings as opposed to the pop and hip-hop niches of today.

No, this is not a racist rant. No, this isn’t even anti-pop. It’s just pointing out a giant hole that someone could drive a truck through if they just made music most people wanted to hear!

A certain segment of the population will never listen to hip-hop, never ever.

As for rock… It’s so far from classic, it’s laughable. Bad voices with unmemorable tunes…

And pop can stagger us, listen to recent Bieber hits, those of Major Lazer and DJ Snake. But most is exactly what it appears, lowest common denominator tripe constructed for a young audience that doesn’t seem to care, otherwise they’d have tuned in to this broadcast.

We need a reset. We need bold actors who truly embrace artist development. We need to emphasize skill and talent, developed via practice. Enough with the youngsters propped up by old men, those whose vocals are fixed in the studio, raw talent alone can wow us, assuming people have got it.

And songs have umpteen writers and lose their soul in the process. They’re like Doritos or some other snack, cooked up in a lab to titillate your taste buds but they leave you wincing over the empty calories. Fast food tanks, replaced by fast casual, the Food Network trumps MTV, but we’re still selling crap music to a young audience of ignoramuses.

We’re ripe for a revolution.

We’re ripe for someone to sign acts whose success is not dependent upon radio. To care about radio is akin to placating physical retail, both rearguard enterprises thrown over by the public. You can’t let the tail wag the dog.

So, what do we know?

MTV is history, extinct. You can’t read the obit in the paper, the nitwits are too busy fawning over the “stars,” but Philippe Dauman wouldn’t have lost his job if there was anything left, and there’s not.

People love music, they’re hungry for it.

We live in an era of blockbusters, how come today’s musical stars are so niche?

Disruption comes from outside, from those who don’t see the game the same way. Major labels only sign that which they can market via traditional channels. Innovators break rules, they don’t adhere to them.

But anybody with a brain neither makes music nor markets it. There’s just not enough money in it.

But money isn’t everything, power is. And nothing is as powerful as a talented musician playing and singing from the heart.

You can win, if you pay your dues and speak your mind, do it your way and not theirs. We’re hungry for that which satiates us, not music we need a manual to understand, but that which we get on the first listen. We used to have the formula, but now we’ve lost it.

Once again, it starts with songs. And the scene is healthiest when those who perform them write them, because it adds a layer of credibility, of authenticity, which is key to lasting stardom.

And then comes skill. Practice. Ability. If you can’t wail, on your axe or with your voice, if you can’t improvise, if you’ve got no facility on your instrument, you’re a momentary player waiting to be thrown upon the scrapheap.

And then comes vision.

It’s not hard to out-Kanye Kanye, you’ve just got to believe in yourself.

Something the music business gave up on years ago.