Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs

We're wrapping up our second "embarrassing radio hip-hop" ep with Marky Mark, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, and two by Young MC. Different Wahlbergs for different times in one's bunk, Myra Cormier truthering, rap conceived by dudes named Kev to sell plastic toys, the drums you find in the dumpster behind KMart, and cheekbones that could cut ham -- it's all here in the lucky (?) seventh episode...

We had so much to say about embarrassing radio hip-hop of the H.W. Bush era, we had to split our convo into two episodes! Here in the first one, we're confronting C+C Music Factory, the Fat/Beach Boys, Gerardo, Kris Kross, and the erstwhile Jesse Jaymes; we're wondering who's getting hit with a brick; we're asking who saw  Disorderlies more times, and we're reminiscing about bosses who wear cyclin...

Tone Loc was everywhere; then, he wasn't -- or so it seemed. Did Anthony Terrell Smith really disappear, or did the nineties just make him less visible? What exactly is in a Fuzzy Navel? Why does his work keep stumbling into trans panic? And will MC Hammer ever see chart justice? With a little help from Robert Stack and LL Cool J, we're contemplating the mystery of Tone Loc. Our intro is Kris Kros...

Sarah is  obsessed with late-'80s Bronx/Central Islip outfit JVC Force! Mark...is also on this podcast! ...But seriously, folks: we're unpacking a handful of tracks from "Doin' Damage," peering into the 1990 divide, and pouring one out for our shortest episode. Wheel that seafood tower on over to our table and listen in. Our intro is J.V.C. F.O.R.C.E., and our outro is the Commodores. To...

Salt-N-Pepa's here and they came to out-rap you -- but not in a mean way! Today we're talking about six Salt-N-Pepa hits across a handful of albums, the difference between '80s and '90s SNP, when #smarternotharder comes to hip-hop, and how talking "About Sex" sounded 30 years ago. Nobody's getting on OUR nerves in the third Beats Around The Bush ep of MASTAS... Our intro is the Yo! MTV R...

In our second Beats Around The Bush-isode, we're (re-?)introducing the world to the joyous, winking, horny turn-of-the-nineties sound of Jeffrey Fortson, aka Def Jef. We're also remembering Def  Leppard , early  Law & Order : Mothership , regrettable t-shirts of freshman year, and Gowanus Bob. Grab a lemon-lime bev and prepare to have your vision corrected with an all-new episode of MASTAS! Ou...

Welcome to our Beats Around The Bush season, in which we investigate the rap and hip-hop that brought us joy during/near the  first Bush presidency, 1988-1993ish. After we try to explain our construction of this framework, we dig into our first BATB topic: "hippie hop," the relaxed/baked grooves of the time from artists like De La Soul, PM Dawn, Us3, Digable Planets, and Arrested Develop...

Who is the Lilith Fairest of them all? At last, our answer -- but first, we look at last-comers Heather Nova, Jewel, Paula Cole, Des'ree, and Natalie Merchant. And we ask a few more questions, like which sophomore year lyrics belong to, high school or college; whether we feel truly confident in our Lilithosity metrics; who's our favorite liberal scold; and when someone's going to form a lit-mag EI...

The second-to-last set of 5 songs joins the Lilith fray by zig-zagging all over the map: Ani DiFranco, India. Arie, Natalie Imbruglia, Aimee Mann, and Chantal Kreviazuk take us from a soggy subbasement of the Brill Building, to the desert, to the diner for a celery soda, to the valley of the shadow of WTF. That's where the doctors with butterfly nets found us; where did the Top 35 rankings find YO...

The murderers' row of artists joining us for our Top 30 episode -- Joan Osborne, Tracy Chapman, Fiona Apple, Shawn Colvin, and Lisa Loeb & 9 Stories -- might actually literally kill us? Primitivism without authenticity, dorm-room BS, a plea to send all the puppies, and the unexpected pleasures of representative democracy all have a moment this week, so while we figure out how the Hooters got i...

We're in the #LilithFair40 homestretch now with our top 25, joined by Bif Naked, The Juliana Hatfield 3, Jill Scott, Patty Griffin, and the Cardigans. Discovering Toni Morrison, the sophomore-pox that ravaged college radio, commercials for shampoo that contains absinthe, and Wednesday Addams's private moment with Christian Slater -- you won't want to miss this ep, so kick off one shoe and have a l...

The Lilith Fair 40 reaches the halfway mark -- what better time to confront the contribution of festival founder Sarah McLachlan, along with Macy Gray, Dionne Farris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Dido? We also remember childhood soundtracks, acknowledge "listen boo-boo" energy, blank on Shiri Appleby's name (sorry, lady!), spread German mustard on car singing, and play hacky-sack at the ce...

Mark gets emotional, Sarah gets confused, and the Lilith/WB Venn gets unpacked: it's the third #LilithFair40 episode, with the Indigo Girls, Letters to Cleo, Alanis, Liz Phair, and Michelle Branch rounding out the top 15. Secular hymns, hidden fists, zines, cool girls, and Dawson Leery (...again!): the quest for the Lilith Fairest of them all continues. Our intro is by Laura Barger and Jack Baldel...

The rankings get exponentially tougher in our second episode, with k.d. lang, Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow, The Cranberries, and Melissa Etheridge joining the countdown. Raisin girls, genre-defying voices, The Hall Of B-Plus, and when a window is just a window as we introduce the 10 Lilith Fairest songs on our chart. Our intro is by Laura Barger and Jack Baldelli, and our outro is by The Ladybugs. Inter...

It's the first "real" episode of the Lilith Fair 40: Dar Williams, Meredith Brooks, Frente!, Suzanne Vega, and The Corrs inaugurate our chart, with help from the MCSL "listies" mixtape, greasy-haired sad boys, how to sing about a building collapse, incomplete subversion of the male gaze, and sibling bands to fall asleep to. All this, and Mark may have identified his overall #1...

Welcome to The Lilith Fair 40, in which we put on broomstick-pleated skirts and Pride jewelry, light some Nag Champa, and set off on a journey of discovery: what is the Lilith Fairest song of all time? This season, we're looking at the woman-forward festival of the late '90s; our own musical attitudes from that time; and misogyny in pop music -- and in THIS episode, we're revealing the 40 songs un...

We decided NOT to write a book about all the pop songs that "only" (or..."somehow") hit #11 on the Billboard charts...but you wouldn't know it from our voluminous notes on the 11 Number 11s we  did decide to contemplate, including Stevie Nicks, Stephen Bishop, Dead or Alive, Heart, Digital Underground, T. Swift, the Thompson Twins, the KLF (with Tammy Wynette), Gloria Estefan,...

It's the America's Damp 40 season finale! Dave Mason, Silver, Leo Sayer, Barbra Streisand, and Chicago file onto the big stage, and Shaddo and Peej discuss moist chord structures, running over cassettes in Grimsby parking lots, the return of the "DON'T TOUCH THAT!!" shriek, unmodulated Broadway belting, and the Jordan-almond schmaltz shell that is mid-'80s Peter Cetera. We talk about wha...

There was a "35 moisture-units per hour" joke here but Sarah just couldn't get it to go. YOU should go listen to the second-to-last episode of our America's Damp 40 countdown, as America, Dan Hill, Seals & Crofts, Kenny Loggins, and Foreigner all slosh onto the chart. How did George Martin get in here? Did one of the legion of Dans solve toxic masculinity -- from Canada? Why did the...

Three quarters of the way through the America's Damp 40 countdown! Wading into the swamp this week are Nicolette Larson, Bread, Barry Manilow, Jim Croce, and the Garden State's own Dr. Hook, and as Mark fondly remembers a bank vestibule and conjures a mating dance involving a drink with grenadine in it, Sarah wonders if the titular Mandy has called the police. Foundational texts of moisture, drama...

It's getting real -- real soggy, that is -- as we wrestle with the next five songs in the America's Damp 40 countdown. William Joel, Kenny Rogers, Randy Vanwarmer, Bertie Higgins, and yet another Dan (Fogelberg) have us talking about emotional-labor issues, when vulnerability is actually wimpiness, songs that sound like karaoke stock videos look, whether the poor man's Jimmy Buffett is in fact Jim...

We've reached the halfway point in our America's Damp 40 countdown, and with Steely Dan, Ambrosia, England Dan and John Ford Coley, Olivia Newton-John, and 10cc entering the chart, it's getting dark AND damp in here. The condescension of older boyfriends, saying the quiet part out loud, sexual grift, calling the Seals family onto the (shag) carpet, vicarious embarrassment, and that time Sandy from...

America's Damp 40 countdown "welcomes" another five songs to the fray, including selections from Orleans, Melissa Manchester, James Taylor, Lionel Richie, and Dolly Parton. Is Manchester the girl from "Chevy Van"? How do the paradigm challenges of drag relate to moisture levels? Was JT low-key hateful this whole time? And did Sarah crack the anti-moisture code of country music...

The next 5 songs join the America's Damp 40 countdown, so buckle up for Gerry Rafferty, the Eagles, Todd Rundgren, Sammy Johns, and our old friend Paul Davis as we settle our first top 10. Penthouse letters gone feloniously awry, Glenn Frye-colepsy, predicting saxophone sales, the one time Sarah will let herself use the word "iconic," and a side of toasted nuts: it's Episode 02! Our intr...

America's Damp 40 is now officially underway with our first 5 songs! Art Garfunkel, Juice Newton, Christopher Cross, Styx, and Player form the foundation of our moist pop-chart project. The mystery of Dudley Moore, Michael McDonald's mentholated support, the difference between longing and a boner, sonic butter, the Garfunkel/Midler Venn, and Ridge Forrester -- this episode's got something for ever...