Justin Richmond
Appearances
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
R&B. I knew it. Look, when you think about it, it's really the shorthand in music and in audio for love. If you were scoring a love scene in a movie for Netflix, for the most amount of people possible to watch, you would probably throw in an R&B song. Maybe Al Green, Let's Stay Together. Yeah. Come on, that's really, those are the sounds of love right there, you know?
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
The first day. Right. The first the first slow dance. It's your junior high welcome dance. You know what I'm saying? Or your senior prom like it's going to be R&B. It's kind of the cliche genre that we go to. And I don't I think I should give a deeper reason here because I think R&B kind of gets short shrift in in the music world.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Malcolm Gladwell is a best-selling author, the host of Revisionist History, and Pushkin's resident country music aficionado. When I heard we were doing a Valentine's Day music episode, I knew we were going to have to get a stake.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
And no piano to lift their spirits.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Yeah, I'm looking at this church. I'm like, this is Roy Orbison. They're all Church of Christ. They're all Church of Christ. Loretta Lynn. Woody Guthrie.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Like, you know, rock and roll and hip hop have taken up all the air in the room for years. 60 years now, you know, since the British invasion. A couple of years were spent on EDM, but yeah. A couple of years. Yeah, right. Skrillex was big there for a second.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
So stands to reason, then, that, like, in the continuum of, you know, when it comes to love songs and the continuum of sort of emotions that go along with love, country music would fall more on the side of...
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
sad over a breakup, sad over unrequited love, sad because I'm in a marriage that I don't want to be in, but I'm still in love with my high school sweetheart or whatever, you know, whatever those songs are that these sad kind of loves not going right or breaking up.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
It's not a sexy topic for some reason. I think because it's so ubiquitous, because in some ways it's so ever present and we just find it very easy to ignore. But when you think about the fact that R&B comes out of really, like it comes out of gospel, you know, like gospel is about love and devotion to a higher being, to God.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Yeah, they're not enough in the details in rock.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Hey, everyone. Welcome to all you lovers out there. This is Justin Richmond.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
So he's saying that you left me to be with him. He's saying Dallas with a level of disdain.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
But you see, this is why, and you know, when I was talking to Leah, this is why I think R&B is the greatest genre for love songs. I don't ever want to be the guy in Fort Worth pining about the woman who left me to upgrade to go to Dallas. Like, that's why, like, Whitney Houston, like, you know, in her song, she catches, like, the guy cheating. And she says, it's not right, but it's okay.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
I'm going to make it anyway. Like, I want to, you left me, fine. I'm not going to wallow. I'm just going to move on with my life. Bigger, better things. Like, that's...
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
So, I mean, is there a hope for the country music? I mean, like, you know, I guess there are country music songs explicitly about love. They're just not as good. They're just not. They're not the A-tier country music songs, right? I mean, there's like Forever and Ever, Amen, Randy Travis. People play at their wedding or whatever.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
And at some point, all these gospel musicians that go out, they want to write popular songs or sing popular music instead of just singing in the church. And they take everything they've learned in gospel music about how to sort of create a stir and a fervor around God. And they just sort of center romantic love. So they just take God out and put in a man, a woman, a lover.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Oh, man. What does it say about you, Malcolm, that when you're asked to think what genre might be the greatest for love songs, your mind goes to the breakup song?
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
But there's no part of being around you that feels mired in sadness or depression.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
leah i mean several points well taken from malcolm uh you know i love country music dearly i think songwriting is impeccable and they certainly do a love song and a sad song incredibly well but you know i i just i guess i just i just like a more happy song i like a more i just i don't know i don't know if i can live like in that kind of misery
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Well, Leah, you know, I feel like we're back to where we started, which is, you know, I mean, you're probably right. Look, the whole idea of genre is, it's a man-made creation, and there's probably no way to categorize what sort of genre and what culture does the love song the best. It's just, it's so subjective. It's so totally subjective.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
And, you know, it's for me, based on my personal experiences, still R&B. I mean, I think I'm even further entrenched in my position now at this point. But, you know, I love that Malcolm and Ben both have their strong feelings. And I love that you're ever sort of non-committalness around any of this.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Well, you know, no, no, no. Celebrate Valentine's Day. I made a great playlist of love songs. Listen to that. We'll put that in the show notes and listen to that, not the sad songs, please.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
You know, a classic example is Sam Cooke, who's originally with the gospel group, The Soulsters. And he releases a song, He's So Wonderful, which is, you know, it's a gospel track. Then when Sam Cooke wants to cross over, like about a year later, and wants to just make an R&B cut, he reworks that same song and instead of wonderful, becomes lovable.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
This episode was produced by Isabel Carter and edited by Sarah Nix. Our mix engineer is Sarah Bruguere.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
We're the host of Broken Record, where we interview your favorite musicians and bring to life the stories behind their music, behind some of your favorite recordings. If you're listening to this in the Broken Record feed, welcome back. But if you're hearing us as a listener of another Pushkin show, that's because today we're doing something special.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
So then how could you not say that R&B isn't like the preeminent genre for love songs? It has to do with the ethereal and the theological down to the romantic and the platonic. It's everything.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Yes, it goes thong. Shout out to Cisco. I love Cisco. That's a great album.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
But then who takes, and we love Dolly, but then who takes a Dolly song like I'll Always Love You and takes it to the next level?
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
I mean, he wrote some of my favorite Whitney songs. Forget about his. This is some of my favorites. And, you know, a million other unforgettable songs that, you know, yeah, they also happen to be hits. Boyz II Men's End of the Road, Mariah Carey's We Belong Together, Breathe Again by Toni Braxton.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
Yeah, man. I mean, I'm sitting there with Babyface and I'm watching him play guitar in front of me. It was just crazy, you know? And he's left-handed. He plays upside down like Hendrix. I mean, he's not as good as a guitar player as Hendrix. But I mean, it was just incredible to be that personal up close with him and seeing how...
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
He wrote these songs and he played for me a song he's never recorded with anyone. It was the very first song he ever wrote about an early love of his and for his first love, actually, in high school.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
And for you, songwriting was about writing songs for? The girls you were in love with had crushes on. Yeah, crushes.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
And you would have been like 10, 11, 12? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Can I play a Deal song? Sure. Sweet November? Yeah.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
We're also going to be talking to some of our friends here at Pushkin, people who have equally strong opinions about the songs they love. I'll be talking to Malcolm Gladwell, who has a very Gladwellian take about why he believes country is the best genre for love songs. And I can guarantee it's not for the reason you may think. It's depressive music. That's what it is.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
And would you have written the words or would you write the words first? I sat with the piano and wrote it. You sat with the piano? Yeah. Wow. So... Because it's kind of beautiful even just divorced from the music. If you just look at the words, it's high level, you know? Yeah, it was when autumn first arrived, you were my lady.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
So that song was really personal. Exhale was more from watching the movie. Watching the movie. You don't necessarily have to write from personal experience. You can, but you can watch others.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Breaks Down the Perfect Break Up Song
You can hear all of my conversation with Babyface in the Broken Record episode that we're going to link to in the show notes. There's so much more to it, including how some of his biggest influences were singer-songwriters like James Taylor and the Beatles. Coming up after the break, Pushkin producer Ben Atta-Paffrey tells Leah about writing his own love song.