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Summary
In this episode, Vince and AJ Marotte discuss a variety of topics, starting with March Madness and their basketball brackets. They delve into the current music trends, particularly focusing on salsa music and the influence of artists like Bad Bunny. The conversation shifts to the impact of streaming services on music discovery and the challenges artists face in the digital age. Finally, they review the Netflix series ‘Adolescents’, exploring its unique storytelling style and character dynamics. In this conversation, Vince and A.J. Marotte delve into the complexities of relationships, particularly focusing on the impact of social media on youth interactions. They explore themes of masculinity, toxic culture, and the emotional depth of family dynamics, especially in the context of adolescence. The discussion shifts towards the influence of TikTok and social media on music trends, highlighting how these platforms shape the listening habits of younger generations. In this engaging conversation, A.J. and Vince explore the impact of iconic albums, emerging artists, and the evolution of pop music. They discuss their favorite tracks, the influence of social media on music discovery, and the cultural reflections found in contemporary songs. The dialogue flows through various music recommendations, highlighting the importance of understanding the depth of artists and their work, while also touching on the changing landscape of the music industry.
Takeaways
- March Madness brings excitement and unpredictability to sports.
- Understanding current music trends is essential for staying connected.
- Streaming services have changed how we discover and consume music.
- Artists face challenges in getting paid fairly through streaming platforms.
- Salsa music is gaining popularity, especially with artists like Bad Bunny.
- The Netflix series ‘Adolescents’ offers a unique viewing experience.
- Real-time storytelling can create a compelling narrative.
- The relationship dynamics in ‘Adolescents’ reflect real-life struggles.
- Music can evoke nostalgia and enhance experiences like road trips.
- Engaging with new media can help bridge generational gaps in music appreciation. The complexity of relationships often goes beyond surface-level actions.
- Social media plays a significant role in how adolescents communicate.
- Understanding the meanings behind social media interactions is crucial.
- Toxic masculinity is a pervasive issue that needs addressing.
- Masculine energy can be defined as skill and risk in service of others.
- Family dynamics are deeply emotional and impactful during adolescence.
- Acting and storytelling can evoke powerful emotional responses.
- Music trends are heavily influenced by social media platforms like TikTok.
- Younger generations discover music through social media rather than traditional means.
- Artists must adapt to the changing landscape of music consumption to remain relevant. The album is often more than its hit single.
- Emerging artists can gain popularity through viral moments.
- Music recommendations can lead to discovering new favorites.
- Pop artists are evolving with their sound and image.
- Cultural reflections in music can indicate societal trends.
- Listening to entire albums provides deeper insights into artists.
- The influence of social media is significant in music discovery.
- Understanding the writing process behind songs is important.
- Music can serve as a reflection of personal and cultural experiences.
- The conversation about music is ever-evolving and dynamic.
Transcript
Vince Marotte (00:00.972)
All right. Suburban Kings new thing, AJ Marat, my daughter was on here. So in keeping with the theme of what we’re trying to do with this podcast is, which is a bunch of dads from the suburbs trying to stay connected to art. So I’ve asked AJ who’s like, you’re like the, you’re like the queen of the playlist. Like you always got the aux there basketball team. So
But keep me up to date. Let me know what’s up with the music that I need to be checking out. What’s the latest, greatest? What’s the new hot mess? Because I don’t want to rely on the algorithm. I want to know what’s really happening on the streets. So that’s what we’re going to get into. You excited? Nice. Nice. Well, let’s start at the top. It’s March and it’s basketball. March Madness, how’s your bracket?
A.J. Marotte (00:41.956)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Let’s get into it.
A.J. Marotte (00:53.562)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (00:58.658)
It wasn’t looking great for a second. I had some upsets in there. I love a good upset. Especially us, but didn’t work out.
Vince Marotte (01:04.856)
Which we’ll we’re talking men’s side first. I’m talking about pull up the men’s side. So I got, I not too bad. mean, you’re at a 91.9%. You’re ranked 2 million in, the nation. have 10,040 possible points remaining. And then I am at you’re, you’re the, it’s AJ’s bracket. have Duke national champs.
A.J. Marotte (01:08.728)
Yeah. Mine’s not doing too bad, I don’t think. I’ve been checked on it.
A.J. Marotte (01:24.858)
Okay.
Vince Marotte (01:34.168)
Not bad. Not bad. And then I have, I think you got me beat because you have 10 40 remaining at 91 % ranked 2 million. I’m ranked 6 million at 76%, 920 possible points remaining. have Florida winning it all. So.
A.J. Marotte (01:35.194)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (01:51.706)
Are they, did they already get knocked out or no? okay, okay.
Vince Marotte (01:54.09)
No, no my my final four is not intact because I had Tennessee beating beating Duke aren’t and so but duke made it. Let’s see. Where was that game? Yeah, so today I would have had or have 10. Yeah, so I actually my final four is intact. No, it’s not Because I had tennessee beating houston Yesterday or whenever that goes today, and houston beat tennessee 69
A.J. Marotte (02:11.45)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (02:16.784)
Mm.
A.J. Marotte (02:21.722)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (02:22.254)
to 50, so my final four isn’t intact. kind of lame is the final four on the men’s side is all number ones. All the number one seeds are in the final four. So op.
A.J. Marotte (02:32.432)
Yeah, that’s by the end of my bracket. I had number ones in the final four and I was like this. I know nothing about what’s going on on their side of things. I just picked the number one story.
Vince Marotte (02:40.536)
Hahaha
And then on the women’s side, it’s similar, where the very few upsets, you know, across the women’s bracket. it was kind of, you know, they call it where they call it when it’s just straight chalk, you know, usually what I have like a, like a full pool, like it worked with all the friends, everybody’s in there. We’ll create a control bracket where it’s just straight ranks ranking, you know, it’s full chalk. And if you can’t beat that, then you’re, you know, that’s, that’s just shameful.
A.J. Marotte (02:51.481)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (02:59.225)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (03:04.229)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (03:07.542)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (03:13.71)
But the women are looking like we have one more night because they’re a day behind the men UCLA South Carolina in the Final Four so number ones and the the number ones in the other regions are still live USC and Texas I Think USC is gonna have a problem against you con tomorrow with juju out
A.J. Marotte (03:18.501)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (03:22.746)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (03:33.912)
And Paige is out for blood right now. She had 40 pieces the other day. I feel like-
Vince Marotte (03:36.491)
What?
Vince Marotte (03:40.146)
out for blood. I thought she was out like she had a blood problem. Yeah, she’s, what’s she averaging like 34 for the three games so far in the tournament?
A.J. Marotte (03:42.832)
Oh no no, she’s- I’ll burn my butt.
A.J. Marotte (03:49.616)
And she’s what is she’s 50 40 90 right now or the season like She’s playing insane. Yeah, it’s about time. Yeah
Vince Marotte (03:54.676)
absolutely killing it, which is good for her. With her career being riddled with injuries up until now, I’m good for her because it’s kind of like there was a lot of hype when she came out of high school and she kind of wasn’t delivering. They normally don’t root for for UConn, but it’s good to see a kid who’s gone through a lot starting to produce. And the juju out, that’s a huge bummer.
A.J. Marotte (04:09.551)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (04:15.248)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (04:21.028)
Mm-hmm. 100%. Yeah, that was sad.
Vince Marotte (04:27.598)
And then watched Tamiya Gardner blow up today. It went like five for seven from deep. Killing it, killing it. Awesome. So I love March Madness. Game’s been on. The YouTube TV’s great because I can sometimes watch four games at the same time, which is awesome. Have we done that?
A.J. Marotte (04:31.792)
Yeah, she was shooting at the scene.
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (04:43.92)
Mm-hmm.
I had my set up with UCLA, but then anime, a little different, but let’s see a little bit of both.
Vince Marotte (04:56.429)
Oh Awesome. Well, I want to shift to music a little bit. So current earworms I want to touch on this every few weeks like just kind of because I tend to your same way but I think it’s in it runs our family where you you kind of get sucked into like a genre or an artist or even an album or just a few songs that like you’re on
A.J. Marotte (04:58.416)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (05:05.999)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (05:15.887)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (05:20.946)
Heavy rotation for a period of time anything anything landed in there for you right now?
A.J. Marotte (05:28.226)
salsa music. That’s my that’s my earworm. Bad Bunny, salsa, anything like that right now.
Vince Marotte (05:29.678)
Salsa music.
Vince Marotte (05:39.084)
Is Bad Bunny considered salsa or does Bad Bunny do some salsa? Right. Okay.
A.J. Marotte (05:41.742)
He has some songs, yeah, he has some songs. But yeah.
Vince Marotte (05:47.982)
How do you fall into that, down that road? How do you get into salsa? Like what led into it? Like what mood were you in? like, ah, I’m gonna listen to and now you’re hooked, for now.
A.J. Marotte (05:58.8)
I don’t even know where it started. It started because Bad Bunny dropped an album I think in January and there was a couple songs on it that I really liked and my Spanish teammates were listening to it all the time and then they would keep playing songs on their playlist and I’d be like, wait, I’ll shazam it really quick to see what it is. I don’t know, or like Spotify, love clicking the go-to radio on a specific song to see other songs like it.
Vince Marotte (06:03.97)
Okay.
Right.
Vince Marotte (06:17.08)
Ha ha ha.
Vince Marotte (06:26.039)
Right.
A.J. Marotte (06:27.076)
That’s probably what I do the most as opposed to like making playlists. Like it’s just whatever vibe I’m in.
So I feel like I found more like that when I really liked one song off his album I would just keep going down like the rabbit hole of like okay go to radio for this song go to radio for this song yeah
Vince Marotte (06:40.174)
I usually, usually go to radio for an artist. I haven’t tried it for a song yet. That’s, I haven’t even tried that. didn’t know it did that. I always just looked at the artist one. So that’s kind of like, usually in the morning I do that. Like I’ll put something chill on like yesterday or last Friday was the last weekday in the morning when I come down first thing, let the dog out and I turned Spotify on and I usually, whatever artist I’m in the booth. it was actually Paganini. So we’re on classical last Friday.
A.J. Marotte (06:52.76)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (06:58.062)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (07:09.602)
So I put Paganini on there and it just wrote, you cause it’s, his is simpler, a lot of chamber music. So it’s not always like these big, you know, violent orchestra shifts. So it’s good background music. like that. Or I pick like an eighties. I think I go to the Howard Jones radio a lot. If I want like chill eighties music in the morning, that’s just kind of the background, but I want to try a song that might be a little more focused. I like it.
A.J. Marotte (07:19.554)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (07:28.964)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (07:34.624)
yeah, it’s very inconsistent. I feel like sometimes it’ll be just like songs that I listen to currently. I’m like that has nothing to do with this song at all. But it is nice, especially when I’m on aux in practice and there’s like a vibe for the day of song we really like and I want to keep a similar vibe going. I’ll try to find songs like it, you know? Yeah.
Vince Marotte (07:46.669)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (07:51.587)
Yeah.
Yeah, okay. Okay. Well, then we probably you know, need to do we do we need to do a song draft you and I I have an idea but we’ll talk about later, but it’d be very Very basketball oriented. I got an idea. But yeah. Yeah. No, I went back to I Think it was so I just did like a massive road trip You know to see some games and see some friends a couple weeks ago where I drove all the way down I5 stopped in the Bay Area Went down to LA Malibu
A.J. Marotte (08:02.384)
Well that’d be fun. Yeah, yeah.
Let’s go.
Vince Marotte (08:25.1)
And then stayed in San Diego for a few days. So I did pretty much all Portland, Oregon, all the way to San Diego on I-5. And then I made my way over to Vegas and then took I-15 all the way back up through Utah and Idaho and then back over here into Portland. So I did like the whole great Western loop, I guess. you know, I out for like 18 days and, and for whatever reason, I think when I was rolling through,
I think it might’ve been when I was in the Bay Area and music was a big part of skateboarding for me. was just kind of, you listen to some music on the way to the spot to kind of get into some rhythms, similar to playing hoop. And so I put on Liquid Swords from the Jizza and I spun that like the entire road trip and I still listen to Liquid Swords. So I’d say like,
A.J. Marotte (09:07.215)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (09:19.12)
Thank
Vince Marotte (09:20.962)
I think, you know, 36 Chambers gets all the credit as like the greatest Wu-Tang album. But Liquid Swords, although it’s technically, you know, a genius or Jizza album, you know, pretty much all the Wu-Tang does some stuff on there. In fact, I think my favorite song is the Jizza and Inspect the Deck. That’s cold world on Liquid Swords. That’s been on heavy rotation. I’m stuck in the vortex of the Wu right now.
A.J. Marotte (09:25.754)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (09:32.261)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (09:45.04)
The vortex.
Vince Marotte (09:49.806)
Liquid sword. It’s just great driving music like it’s old-school hip-hop very lyrical pretty simple, you know And so I’ve just been I’ve been digging liquid swords. That’s been that’s been my jam I’m curious. I got to try some of that. I’ve been afraid of the Spotify algorithm Because I I don’t understand like I’m because we just did an episode on on the main pod we dug into
A.J. Marotte (09:52.559)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (10:08.272)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (10:16.278)
you know, streaming media, how they pay artists. Cause I saw, I’ve been seeing a lot of like on social, I’m quitting Spotify. Spotify gets the most hate because it’s the biggest. Quitting Spotify because they don’t pay artists enough. Right. And I’m like, I mean, obviously we’re not buying CDs. mean, have you ever bought a CD? Yeah. So, so I mean like, I don’t even know where my CDs are anymore.
A.J. Marotte (10:29.36)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (10:36.72)
No.
Vince Marotte (10:43.618)
We bought digital for a while before we just went to subscribe streaming where I have all the music in the world. don’t have to worry about losing or damaging disks or managing files and putting them from one computer to device to the next. And so it’s just a different world anyway we went into that. I was what I learned was that there’s a lot of people trying to game the system to try and get paid. So the like.
make fake songs and put them on the streaming services to get plays. It sounds like they’re getting better at cracking down on that. But I know, I know like when an artist wasn’t on Spotify and you went to search for it, you know, like for the longest time, I mom ran into this where, who is it? Van Morrison wasn’t on Spotify and she loves Van Morrison. So she had to go, you’d search that and you get some whack cover of Van Morrison song. Yeah, I think Garth Brooks is still the same, right?
A.J. Marotte (11:16.581)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (11:35.696)
That’s what I do with Garth Brooks.
There’s Friends in Low Places, but it’s by DJ Garth. That’s what he has.
Vince Marotte (11:43.566)
So you get this stuff and so One thing I worry about is the algorithm like I know a lot of people like your daily mix and all this stuff like I always worry about clicking on those because it’s like What’s behind that? You know, like who’s What’s the algorithm who’s informing it our record labels like paying extra to put music into my ears that I might not like or doesn’t quite match
A.J. Marotte (11:58.288)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (12:11.266)
Like that word, like I’m worried about the algorithm picking music for me. You know, we’re to fall back into radio where it’s, you know, it’s very narrow what gets played because, you know, the A &R people are paying the radio station to play their music. I’m worried about it. So I don’t, you that’s kind of why I’m doing this podcast. I want to learn from some people what they’re listening to, you know. So it’s a different, it’s a different world. That said.
A.J. Marotte (12:11.557)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (12:15.268)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (12:22.468)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (12:25.968)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (12:32.73)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (12:36.975)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (12:38.35)
You know, we’ll get into it after after we go through some some some uh, don’t want say movie like a tv show We’re going to talk about but I want to I want to hear how the how the kids I say kids you’re 22 how the how the how the youngsters are, uh are discovering music right now because That’s it’s so different from when we discovered music And so I want to make sure i’m tuned into that so I can find the new stuff. I love hearing new stuff so All right adolescents
A.J. Marotte (12:54.981)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (13:01.721)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (13:09.762)
The show that was on Netflix, right? So we watched adolescents on Netflix. So spring break seasons over AJ’s chillin. We’re at our place and we’re looking for something to watch and you said you heard it was good. And so we put it on and it was weird at first. Right? Like you first watched it, took a minute to get into it. just describe it a little bit. Like what’s the, what’s the premise of the show for it’s only four episodes.
A.J. Marotte (13:12.122)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (13:28.324)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (13:38.326)
Well, I heard about it because people on like TikTok and Instagram were talking about everybody in this show deserves what is an Emmy for TV shows or whatever. I was like, OK, if everybody deserves one, I should take a look. And I mean, what it starts off, this kid gets arrested first thing. That’s how it starts off. He’s getting raided by the house is getting raided by the cops. They’re digging through looking for evidence. Everybody’s screaming. He’s like in his bed. It’s like six a.m. or something like that before school.
And the first 30 minutes of the show, feels like it’s going in real time of him getting arrested, going through the whole process of being at the police station, going through all the processing and everything. So you’re like, what is going on? Nobody has explained a single thing. We’ve just been sitting here for 30 minutes waiting for something to happen. This kid just got arrested. We don’t know why. And they’re at his house talking about we’re looking for evidence. Somebody’s been murdered. And that’s all we really know.
Vince Marotte (14:28.066)
Right.
A.J. Marotte (14:35.298)
So it kind of just at first you kind of want to turn it off because it’s going slow But you’re also like no, I’ve sat through this much. I need to keep watching
Vince Marotte (14:42.516)
It’s jarring. It’s a jarring start. There’s no intro. And like you said, there’s no, what we call in like movies, exposition, which is where they’re filling you in on what’s going on. Sometimes that’s through dialogue. Sometimes they use a narrator, really good directors like Denis Villeneuve can, can actually give you exposition just by shots and framing things and just giving you people’s emotions to understand what’s going on. That’s kind of what the first act.
A.J. Marotte (14:58.051)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (15:05.465)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (15:10.816)
of a movie is about. Like, let me meet everybody. You know, don’t give me the problem first. Like, let me meet everybody. Let me understand the universe we’re in. And it just goes straight into it. And it’s so it’s jarring. So you have to be ready for that. And we weren’t, but we were committed because it was compelling. It was compelling because the acting was so good. Right. And about halfway through the episode, like you said, you start to realize, wait, this is
A.J. Marotte (15:12.89)
Yeah. Yep.
A.J. Marotte (15:19.556)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (15:33.4)
Yeah. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (15:39.598)
One, this is in real time and two, there’s only one, the camera shot never changes. It’s continuous single shot for like the whole hour. think each episode was maybe a little over an hour. It never changes. So it’s kind of like, what was that movie? 1917? Where was, the whole movie was one, was shot to appear like one shot. And so each episode, all four of them is like that. It’s so it, then you’re mesmerized and you’re like, Oh, what’s going on?
A.J. Marotte (15:47.566)
Yeah. Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (15:59.632)
Mm.
A.J. Marotte (16:03.289)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (16:08.698)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (16:08.77)
But then you get, found, maybe this was, I know true for you, but I found I got caught up, and for everybody listening, there’s nothing to spoil here because there’s no plot twists. There’s no spoiling. There’s no like surprises at all. So I want to qualify my next statement by saying that I’m not spoiling anything because this isn’t like a normal movie where there’s stuff to figure out. And that kind of, got caught up in that about once you started to understand what’s going on, there was a murder.
A.J. Marotte (16:31.961)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (16:36.12)
the kid, you know, our main character or the main character in this one, Jamie is being being accused of this. We’re in England. So the law is a little bit different in terms of, you know, how someone is interrogated and questioned. It’s much different than America. And and so you’re once you’re there, now you’re caught up in like, this is a murder mystery. OK, so you’re trying to figure you’re trying to figure it out. So you’re looking at it that way. Remember, we were talking after the first episode like, I wonder if that was that and that was this. And was that really him on the video? And
A.J. Marotte (16:56.237)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (17:01.808)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (17:05.548)
And so you start, you go into there and so you’re disoriented. You try to find something familiar. Okay, it’s a movie, a murder mystery. I gotta figure out the murder mystery. And then that episode ends, know, we’re done with the arrest part of it. And then it goes into the second one, which is, I forget how it starts. I think it starts them just walking up to a school, right? Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (17:22.477)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (17:30.916)
Yeah, the cops. Pretty sure.
Vince Marotte (17:33.354)
So the two detectives that are working this crime go to, guess it’s like a, it seems like it’s a school that’s not just a high school or a middle school. Like I think it’s a much broader age range because the 12 year old or our character was there. Plus there’s like clearly kids that are 16 plus that are at this school too. So it’s at least like a.
A.J. Marotte (17:47.556)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (17:55.756)
Yeah, the woman they were with said she worked with the lower school or whatever it’s called, something like that.
Vince Marotte (17:59.468)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So they’re walking up to there and there is a little bit of exposition there where I think they hint that like his son is at the school and he’ll try to to behave himself around his son. But they’re at the school just trying to interview some people, some kids and get and learn some stuff. And again, in the moment, the whole time I’m trying to solve the murder, because that’s just how my brain works when I watch movies. I’m trying to solve them.
A.J. Marotte (18:12.943)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (18:25.008)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (18:27.948)
the murder and that’s not what this is about. Like you can forget that. I’ll save everyone the brain. Just enjoy, just enjoy the moment because it’s not about solving the murder. It’s about how amazing the acting is and just how incredible this is. And again, this episode it’s jumped forward, what three days, I think it said three or five days, something like that. And, it’s real time. One shot the whole time, one shot for like an hour. And they’re going around trying to talk to kids and the kids are laughing at them.
A.J. Marotte (18:30.489)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (18:39.802)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (18:45.336)
Yeah, three days.
A.J. Marotte (18:51.888)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (18:57.708)
And this is kind of where like, think you can provide some insight. The kids are, kids are laughing at them or giggling or just not being cooperative or just like, you know, whatever. And then the, the cops, the, the lead detective’s son, who’s maybe 15 or 16 or something in the show, you know, pulls him aside and pulls him into the room and is trying to explain to him what’s going on. Right. You remember that scene? Like, what was he, what was he trying to
A.J. Marotte (19:15.354)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (19:23.12)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (19:26.414)
to clarify like it was, was, at first it was weird cause you’re kind I’m frustrated too. I’m like, what are we talking about? Like, what do know? Cause I’m still trying to solve the murder.
A.J. Marotte (19:32.618)
Right? Yeah, they have like a terrible relationship. Like they’ve kind of established that, that he doesn’t have a good relationship with his son. So the conversation’s already kind of frustrating because he’s just not talking to him very well. And you’re like, my gosh, spit it out. Like, what, why did you have to pull him aside privately? Because this whole time he’d been trying to avoid his son’s for like, gosh, like this must be a big deal. The son was like, dad, I need to talk to you. And he’s talking about you guys look dumb, like you’re not understanding. It’s,
Vince Marotte (19:39.128)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (20:01.346)
it’s more than what you think it is. wasn’t just, you just stabbed this girl. Like it’s more than that. And they were like, you’ve looked at his Instagram, right? And first of all, I could not understand what he was saying. First of all, his accent was so thick. It took me a second to figure out he was talking about Instagram. But he was talking about the comments that Jamie, the main character left on this girl’s posts or that the girl left on Jamie’s posts. And it was just like little emojis to the cops. So the cops are assumed that
Vince Marotte (20:12.79)
Yeah, they got thick accent.
A.J. Marotte (20:30.372)
They were friends, so they’re like, why did he murder his friend or whatever? If they’re friends like this, how could this happen? He’s like, that’s not what this is. Each of these emojis have these different meanings, and she’s actually bullying him is essentially what we get from that conversation. Yeah, that Jamie’s getting bullied by all these people, and these people are laughing at him, and there’s all these different meanings that are pretty mean.
just from these like little emojis and he had no idea so he was like dad you’re not getting it like there’s more to it so
Vince Marotte (21:01.07)
Right? And that was, that’s the shift. And so that, so the first episode was really just about the intensity of an arrest and what everybody’s going through as parents and every, all the emotion. The second episode is really about just, there’s a, cultural differences between adolescents, between teenagers and kids and the parents. And specifically when that substrate of social media and how they communicate, like the cops, who was literally their job supposedly to understand these sorts of things.
A.J. Marotte (21:11.716)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (21:21.36)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (21:30.606)
didn’t have a clue. They were completely missing the energies and the communicate everything that’s going on there. And his son’s trying to explain it to him. And they surface this idea of, I don’t know how much you know about it, but it’s kind of, it kind of is the red pill culture, which is like dudes who have been, you know, said his Jamie, who is an incel is how his son says he is, you know, it’s this, this culture of
A.J. Marotte (21:30.788)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (21:38.746)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (22:00.756)
of boys and men who kind of think women owe them sex or owe them relationships if they do certain things. Like it’s almost transactional or something. And it’s like a very toxic masculinity. And I was talking with my hairdresser, the woman who cuts my hair. We always had great conversations about music and movies.
A.J. Marotte (22:16.408)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (22:26.646)
And we were talking about, cause she watched it and we were just kind of talking about toxic masculinity and the red pill culture and just how awful that’s become. and, that’s kind of what, what they get into a little bit. So you’re learning that. And it really kind of made me think more about that. Like what, you know, what is masculinity and all those sorts of things. And we, kind of talked into that and I heard somebody say this.
A.J. Marotte (22:35.376)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (22:42.415)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (22:54.758)
And when I say masculinity, think a lot of people get caught up, especially the red pill people, that one, masculinity has to be the key thing that a man exudes, like a gender man. But in reality, anybody can exude masculine energy. Anybody can touch into the feminine energy. they’re both, it’s a spectrum and we should all be in touch with all those things just to qualify. I heard someone say what masculine, a good definition of
A.J. Marotte (23:17.924)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (23:24.13)
Maybe a good analogy of what masculine energy is and he said it is skill and risk in the service of others I thought that was really good. I thought that was a really good take of it. It’s not Being loud. It’s not being physically strong It’s leveraging your skill and taking risk to serve other people whether whatever that is and you can be
A.J. Marotte (23:37.966)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (23:50.326)
be a male, female or whatever anywhere on the gender spectrum and exude that masculine energy. thought it was great. But yeah, it was, it was, was, that was interesting. Eye opener. That’s when the show pivoted for me where it was like, okay, we’re not watching. We’re not trying to solve a crime anymore. Let’s just follow along. And I was able to just kind of relax and then get into it then get into it. And then the third episode goes completely off the rails again. So the third episode we’re in the, it’s like,
A.J. Marotte (24:05.082)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (24:15.312)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (24:20.042)
It’s it’s almost it says 13 months later. So, know, the judicial system goes slow, you know, once you have lawyers pretrial all those things, it can be it looks like we’re probably either getting close to sentencing phase or maybe in the middle of the trial. Anyway, there’s a psyche valus like a psychiatrist goes to the the the youth jail or juvenile detention facility where Jamie is to interview him. And it sounds like it’s.
A.J. Marotte (24:23.376)
you
Vince Marotte (24:46.712)
Her fifth time there and there was another person who did it as well and hers, she’s just there to evaluate him. And that one, knowing after this one connects to that masculine red pill, manosphere, you know, kind of thing. And that’s kind of what the topic of the conversation they have to try and understand Jamie. And that is just incredible. It’s just two people in a room for almost a whole hour.
A.J. Marotte (25:14.063)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (25:14.776)
This kid, the actor, what’s his name?
His name is Owen Cooper. He freaking killed it, this kid.
A.J. Marotte (25:24.024)
It’s like his first time acting on a show or movie I read and like yeah, he did insane.
Vince Marotte (25:31.97)
He’s, yeah, I’m looking at his IMDB. It’s the only thing he’s credited for is his adolescence. And he flippin’ killed it. I mean, was not only did, it was very believable. It was very believable for an actor that young. know who his actual age is, but he, yeah, he, I was totally sold that this was a 13-year-old kid going through all this stuff. It was crazy how good he was.
A.J. Marotte (25:36.197)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (25:40.42)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (25:46.138)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (25:50.928)
I think he’s actually like 13 or 14, like he’s pretty much the same age.
Vince Marotte (26:01.196)
psychiatrist was fantastic as well. Might as well mention her name. Her name is…
A.J. Marotte (26:03.653)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (26:11.288)
Go.
that might be Christine Tramarco? No, I’ll have to look because they don’t give her name as like doctor this in the credits, but that was incredible. the… he just snaps a few times and those two times, those couple times he snaps, I’m like in hindsight when I thought about did he, was he really, did he really snap or is that was he just
A.J. Marotte (26:24.026)
Hmm. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (26:42.68)
projecting what he thought he had to be. You if I’m going to be a man, you know, I have to be power powerful. And you know, this is a woman, you’re not going to tell me what to do. Did he really believe that?
A.J. Marotte (26:46.905)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (26:51.406)
huh. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (26:54.39)
Or was he just acting himself?
A.J. Marotte (26:57.434)
was so hard to tell, like, cause she kept asking what he thought about, you know, what it is to be a man. And I feel like that’s when he started to snap, cause he was like, this is dumb, why are you even asking me that? And then she would keep like pushing his buttons and then he would snap. So I don’t know.
Vince Marotte (27:06.744)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (27:11.374)
It was powerful. again, you have to be in a good place to watch that because you can’t just kind of have your phone on and flipping through your TikToks. You got to lock into this thing. And so then it goes into the fourth one. These are completely different movements. I think we’re a couple of years later, maybe.
A.J. Marotte (27:16.132)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (27:23.056)
Mm-mm.
A.J. Marotte (27:35.536)
Yeah, I don’t know how much.
Vince Marotte (27:37.318)
And now we’re with the family. So his mom, his dad and his sister and his sister’s got to be late teens, maybe maybe approaching college age or, or, or that, and just a day of their life. And again, it’s real time. And this is the, this is the one that really like impressed me acting wise because there is so much dialogue, so much emotion and so much range. you know, they, they, it’s just powerful and
A.J. Marotte (27:48.03)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (27:51.802)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (27:56.282)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (28:02.255)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (28:05.954)
to the point where like we’re watching mom and mom was like, I can’t take this anymore. It’s too boring. But I’m like, I’m like locked in to like, if you can just focus on the fact this is amazing, especially that the acting job by Stephen, Stephen Graham, who plays the father, most people would, at least for me, I knew him most as Tommy from snatch. you know, if if you love that movie, so Tommy, gun, I think you got the minerals. And so I see him as that for the first.
A.J. Marotte (28:09.808)
She needed to go.
A.J. Marotte (28:19.248)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (28:23.034)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (28:36.09)
most of it but but man he locks in and just carries this thing the the emotions he goes through and after watching it you know and for a minute there you’re like fidget like this is uncomfortable you know watching this family go through this struggle
A.J. Marotte (28:43.653)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (28:50.85)
Yeah. Right. It was his birthday too. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (28:55.918)
Yeah, it’s his birthday. You know, his own business. For me, I could relate so hard to it as a father who’s been through hard stuff and have to have to step up for your family. Like it was really heavy for me to watch this. It was powerful. just a series of terrible things are happening and him just kind of going through all these emotions. It reminded me of Captain Phillips.
A.J. Marotte (29:03.824)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (29:10.224)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (29:25.058)
Remember that movie?
A.J. Marotte (29:26.576)
I don’t know if I ever saw it, but I know what it is.
Vince Marotte (29:28.558)
Yeah. So Tom Hanks plays this captain. It’s a true story. And so you’re not of the age where you remember it, but we, you know, we remember it and it was on the news. Like, Hey, this ship has been hijacked by pirates and they’ve taken the captain in a lifeboat as a hostage. And so we knew how it ended. We knew that Navy seals went out there and they, were on, they had sniper rifles on a boat next to it and they were just locked in and waited until they could.
A.J. Marotte (29:32.516)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (29:44.784)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (29:55.778)
kill all like four or five pirates at the same exact second from with sniper so we knew all that was gonna happen so the whole time i’m watching it i’m going how are they gonna make this interesting because i know what’s gonna happen right but one tom hanks’s acting carries it and in that final scene like when they kill the and i’m gonna spoil this i’m sorry but when they kill and and i still the first time you see it i still think it’s gonna be great when they kill
A.J. Marotte (29:59.491)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (30:09.455)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (30:22.969)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (30:24.78)
the pirates and they grab Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips out of the lifeboat. Tom Hanks picks up this movie, puts it on his shoulders and just carries it into the end zone because he just goes through, he takes you through this emotional release that’s been building for the whole movie that just is just a waterfall. It is so amazing. There’s just an awe of what he did.
And I feel like Stephen, Stephen Graham did the same thing here at the end of this, where he just finally just loses it. You never really see him cry. And the way it builds up to it and the conversation with his wife and, and, you know, and, and everything they go through, like it was, this needs to be studied. Like the, the release he had. as a, as a dad, man, it just, it just hit this thing home. Like you go through stuff and you just, you gotta, you gotta.
A.J. Marotte (30:51.376)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (30:54.895)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (31:00.068)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (31:08.048)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (31:16.91)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (31:20.738)
Your family is it. Your family is the core. You know, and you got to keep that thing working and you want to how bad if things happen. It was just it was powerful. Like I loved it. So. Adolescence, adolescence, everyone should see it. But at the same time, it’s not for everyone. You know, if you just want to watch, you know, dudes and tights beat up people, you know, like that’s, know, with capes and stuff, you want to watch superheroes, it might not like it because it’s not that this is like.
A.J. Marotte (31:23.371)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (31:27.416)
Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
Vince Marotte (31:50.414)
This is just an exercise in brilliant skill of acting and directing. It’s phenomenal. I want to watch it again, just so I can go back to those first couple episodes where I still trying to solve the crime.
A.J. Marotte (31:56.163)
Yeah.
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (32:04.034)
Yeah, I thought we were getting into like a true crime show, so I was excited and then yeah, when I figured out that I wasn’t gonna know what happened, I was just like, whatever, it’s really cool anyways.
Vince Marotte (32:09.208)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (32:15.694)
So awesome. Well now, hit me. Hit me with the new stuff as we shift gears. The one thing I need from the young people, especially you because you’re my music maven. So Steel. Steel’s got me turned onto some killer stuff in the last year or so. His stuff’s cooler, but sometimes it’s like too cool. Well, hip and I’ll talk about it. We’re like.
A.J. Marotte (32:24.164)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (32:30.842)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (32:36.312)
Yeah, Steel’s music is probably way cooler than mine.
Vince Marotte (32:44.254)
Like it’s, you know, black MIDI he turned me on to and I’ve listened to black MIDI and everybody should probably give black media spin. If you’re a music fan, I, I keep listening to it. I’m still don’t know if I like it or not. It’s just so weird, but it almost, it makes me laugh because it’s just the surprises and how different it is. And the fact that I haven’t heard a new sound like that in, forever, just blew my mind when I, when I first.
heard it, but I don’t know how listenable it is. Like you gotta be like, it’s, it’s just such a intense type of music. So, but that’s black MIDI, but gimme, gimme what, what are the kids listening to?
A.J. Marotte (33:21.584)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (33:27.664)
I feel like it’s all over the place. TikTok is like the main source of new music, 100%. Which sometimes I’ve, I, sometimes I don’t even realize that I got a song from TikTok and then I’ll hear it being played somewhere. I’ll be like, why do I know that? Like, and it’s because I will listen to it 80 times in a day, but I don’t even realize cause I’m just like staring at content. And I feel like that happens to us like in practice a lot, like while we sing the same song, we’ll be like, how the heck.
Vince Marotte (33:33.752)
How does that work?
Vince Marotte (33:49.113)
A.J. Marotte (33:56.376)
are we all singing the same song right now? And it’s because of social media, honestly. So I feel like sometimes like steel has very interesting music and I don’t because I probably listen to more mainstream stuff because of social media. But I don’t know.
Vince Marotte (34:13.634)
which is why I want to hear from you. So what’s the hot jams right now? What should I be listening to?
A.J. Marotte (34:23.342)
Well, Drake came out with a new album not too long ago. So I know Nokia by Drake is a big, big song right now, especially like in basketball and stuff that’s played in every warmups in every gym across the country. And it’s again, all over TikTok as a dance or another big thing on TikTok is like sports edits. And I feel like I find it because I like rap and hip hop. I guess probably my favorite.
Genres, so I feel like sports edits I’ll see a really cool sports edit of like Steph Curry and it’s still like a really cool song and I have to go look up the lyrics because I’m like, wow, that was really cool and That’s where I’ll find like rap and stuff cuz it’ll be like to the Like one of the songs I have in the little playlist I shared with you Mo Chicken by BossMan Dlow That was on a lot of sports edits. So that’s how I got onto that one
Vince Marotte (35:01.152)
It
Vince Marotte (35:10.446)
Okay.
Vince Marotte (35:15.82)
Link that up in here. Give me the playlist so can see it. Put it in the chat. So BossMadele, you played me that, which got me thinking, and I’ll talk to him a little bit. I wanna go, I wanna kind of think of some old school analogs to the new stuff you’re showing me for all the old people that listen to this. So I can kind of give them something that.
A.J. Marotte (35:18.274)
Yeah, yeah. Let’s see.
A.J. Marotte (35:23.449)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (35:39.524)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (35:44.802)
that might make sense, you know, they can understand. So yeah, no, but Nokia by Drake. I played that and it kind of.
A.J. Marotte (35:46.778)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (35:59.285)
It’s the kind of poppy hip hop that is not something I ever got into. So you know, my hip hop taste is one old, it’s old school and I really love lyricism and I love most of the hip hop I listen to is pretty hard. And Drake is most certainly not hard. I never.
A.J. Marotte (36:07.696)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (36:14.832)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (36:27.118)
It’s catchy And I heard I heard someone I think I saw I think I saw a tick-tock in like every old person I watched tick-tocks two weeks later when they’re reals on Instagram And so one of those came in there and Someone said it started off Drake is the greatest actor ever. It’s I was hooked. Okay, I got here that what this guy’s saying and he said because the the
A.J. Marotte (36:29.604)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (36:56.876)
The rapper, the persona he plays as a rapper or musician or whatever is not real. He’s a child actor, industry plant, whatever you want to call it. So he’s acting and he’s done such a good job. He’s one of the greatest selling, air quotes, rappers of all time. And it’s not real. He’s like, yes, he’s doing the rapping and singing and probably has a part in the production and all that sort of stuff.
A.J. Marotte (37:07.312)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (37:17.84)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (37:25.336)
But it’s not real. Like he didn’t come up wanting to do that. Or maybe he did, but he came up as like a child actor in Canada, right? Like on a kid’s show. He’s the equivalent of like a Disney actor who, what was show he was in? What was it called?
A.J. Marotte (37:34.104)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (37:40.452)
Degrassi, I think.
Vince Marotte (37:41.688)
Degrassi I’ve never I yeah, I never watched it was that you know in the US was it was it something you watched as a kid No, it was like a saved by the bell kind of thing or something Yeah, so he’s on saved by the bell so imagine like Zack Morris, you know, AC Slater would probably be more obsessed us becoming a rapper later like if I wouldn’t believe it and so that’s but I thought was a brilliant take like not to take away from the fact that his music is entertaining he’s done a great job like his music has been phenomenal
A.J. Marotte (37:47.202)
Mm-mm. think it was… Yeah, I think it was before me. Let’s see.
Vince Marotte (38:11.436)
The Drake’s never really done it for me. It’s fun. I don’t know if it’s going to stand the test of time, but let me get this one here.
A.J. Marotte (38:24.078)
I feel like he’s been, he’s been very smart to like play into the TikTok crowd. Like with a song like Nokia where it’s viral with like dances and stuff and it gets stuck in your head. Like, feel like artists are playing into that more, which can be a little annoying when like a favorite artist of mine drops an album and it’s like, are all these poppy dancey songs? That’s not what I was expecting from you. But then like half of the album is viral on TikTok for months and that’s all I hear. So I’m like, okay.
Vince Marotte (38:46.071)
Right?
A.J. Marotte (38:52.753)
There had to be something behind, you know, like I feel like Drake plays into that really well
Vince Marotte (38:57.876)
He knows how to get a viral hit that has 30 seconds that that bang That’s
A.J. Marotte (39:00.13)
Yeah, like, and I think at this, like you kind of have to. Yeah, like I’ll see little artists on TikTok, really pushing their music to be like trendy like that. And I’m like, geez, artists out here, that’s their goal, their whole goal is to just push everything on TikTok and get it big on TikTok. Cause that’s kind of how you’re going to reach our generation now. Like if you’re not on TikTok like that, it’s not going to be big.
Vince Marotte (39:10.126)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (39:18.754)
Right?
Vince Marotte (39:24.206)
I discovered my favorite artist of 2024 that way on Instagram in the reels prof, right? so Prof if you haven’t heard me talk about him like it’s When I first saw it like I said he was so he’s he’s an independent artist. He doesn’t have like a label. He runs his own thing and Don’t you know I’d say thing like I’ll get like the sports edits where it’s you know, there’s a cool song, know, like with it
A.J. Marotte (39:30.042)
Prof. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (39:52.066)
That one that was popular that I heard a lot was the Big Dogs one. And now it’s like on a commercial during March Madness. So it’s kind of, you know, it’s getting licensed there. So whoever made that is now getting paid for it. But yeah, so we had my generation had a similar experience where you’d get you heard it on the radio. So you’d get a single on the radio. And not always did the rest of their album sound like that.
A.J. Marotte (40:17.957)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (40:19.712)
One of the ones that just pops in top my head right now is Blur with song two. You know Blur is the gorillas. Before they were the gorillas, Damon Albarn was Blur. Although I think he created gorillas because he was just kind of tired of the fame and he’s like, I’ll do cartoons and that can kind of be invisible. like we saw the gorillas, we caught the gorillas a lot, gorillas live a little bit, Steele went and I saw him. But they’re.
A.J. Marotte (40:26.862)
Okay.
A.J. Marotte (40:40.506)
Holograms or whatever.
Yeah, I love the gorillas.
Vince Marotte (40:46.914)
Biggest hit in America is a song called song two It’s that woohoo That’s blur Right, so it’s blur, but it’s damon alvarez who you know, most people know, you know these days from gorillas, know They’re huge in england. So there was know, we got oasis over here Which I don’t know how much you know about oasis and that they were like both like the two biggest bands in in europe or in england at the time and so
A.J. Marotte (40:53.806)
That’s blur. Okay, got it.
A.J. Marotte (41:08.101)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (41:16.45)
When they made the, I think it’s a self-titled album, one of my favorite albums, they made that album. They were done with it and the record label or A &R or whoever said, you need another song on there for the Americans. So they quickly whipped up song two, which is a song about nothing with a simple guitar riff and some goofy vocals and some drums. it essentially sounds nothing like any of the songs on the album. So you had all these Americans buy the album, you know, cause that’s how you had to get the song.
A.J. Marotte (41:40.986)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (41:46.01)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (41:46.626)
buy the CD and then listen to it and it didn’t really hit. But the album is freaking amazing. Like it’s one of my favorite albums of all time. And that is the worst song on the album. If you like Blur, you and you liked them from before from like their Parklife album and that sort of stuff, the rest of it sounds like Blur. But then there’s this other song that’s like this kind of almost Nirvana ripoff for the Americans. And so you could tell.
A.J. Marotte (41:58.191)
haha
A.J. Marotte (42:12.857)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (42:15.278)
when an album had one song nobody else liked because we had used record stores where you could go buy used CDs and you could go to the blur section and see that and the self-titled album there’d be like 20 of them in there because everyone bought it only like that one song and then return the album so we had we had that same problem although we discovered on the radio and then the rest of the album did we did like um you know i think uh Counting Crows
A.J. Marotte (42:21.882)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (42:34.063)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (42:40.239)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (42:43.726)
August and everything after album, you know, cause I listen to it every pretty much every time I do a long drive and the mr. Jones song that one That’s the big that was the big hit single that broke them Great song. It’s not not as bad as song two by blur. It’s a great song, but it’s the worst song in the album Like the rest that is it’s it’s a awesome album So I get it. Yeah, we had the same thing Okay, Drake and now boss man D lo
A.J. Marotte (42:49.274)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (43:05.88)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (43:13.25)
I need to learn about this cat. Tell me about boss man D-Low.
A.J. Marotte (43:15.856)
I feel like he got… He became known to me last year during March Madness because, know, NC State had their little run and who was their big man? Their big man DJ Burns. It was like he was going viral on everything because he’d walk out before their games with a giant speaker. Yeah, like he was just the guy last March and like he came out on a speaker blasting boss man D-Lo.
Vince Marotte (43:31.426)
huh.
Vince Marotte (43:36.002)
I love DJ Burns, yeah.
A.J. Marotte (43:44.846)
Like every game, so that’s when I started to listen to him. I can’t remember, I think the song was Mr. Pot Scraper was last year. So that’s probably his most popular one.
Vince Marotte (43:53.71)
Now.
Vince Marotte (43:59.135)
me a D-Low.
A.J. Marotte (44:01.018)
think it’s Mr. Pot Scraper. Yeah, Mr. Pot Scraper. That’s what DJ Burns would walk out to, so that’s where I was introduced to Boss Panty Love.
Vince Marotte (44:06.562)
Yeah, his biggest…
Vince Marotte (44:12.782)
Boss man’s boss man D. Lo’s biggest spins. I’m looking at there it is. It’s It’s Get in with me at 77 million plays so not huge and then talk my shit with 75 million plays
A.J. Marotte (44:29.744)
All of them, I like. I have all those downloaded. Getting with me is good.
Vince Marotte (44:34.772)
I think the older dudes are gonna like Bossman D-Low.
A.J. Marotte (44:40.652)
I just like him. I don’t know, he’s kind of funny. He’s a big dude, so his latest song that I have on Lil Playlist there is called Moe Chicken. And the chorus is literally saying, he’s literally saying, I’m fat, give me Moe Chicken. That’s the line he says.
Vince Marotte (44:53.806)
So when you first play it for me, I could hear some trap influence. I’m like, he’s got to be from the South. out, yeah, he’s from Florida, Tallahassee. 26 years old, got a few albums out. Not huge. He’s got 5,700,000 monthly listeners. And his biggest track, like we said, 77 million, that’s Get In With Me. Mr. Potscraper is on doing
A.J. Marotte (45:00.622)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (45:16.688)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (45:22.914)
doing well at 60 million spins. And he’s kind of.
A.J. Marotte (45:25.24)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (45:29.708)
want to say almost vocal sonically, he’s kind of like, almost like a, like a tone low. He’s got a raspiness to him, but cleaner, not as raspy as tone low, but just kind of real simple, simple bars, not a lot of flow change, just, you know, real simple reps and just pretty simple beats. You know, just someone’s just got a drum machine and putting it out there and not throwing a lot of wild samples, not super dynamic. and so,
A.J. Marotte (45:52.346)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (45:59.468)
That made me think of it when were in the court, when we played it for me was the other guy who’s like this, who I think is a better rapper and he’s independent. Probably it looks like Boss Mandilo might be independent as well. Is Norman Sand. We’ll put that in the show notes. I played some Norman Sand, which I think he deserves some credit because he’s starting to crack, starting to get out there. He’s playing a big show later this month that
Steel wants to go to I want to go to it’s at Red Rocks and in Colorado, which I’ve never been to Red Rocks and it’s it’s Mexican OT Who’s big right? He’s hot, right? The kids like the Mexican OT
A.J. Marotte (46:30.885)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (46:42.196)
I’ve never actually I’ve like seen clips of him and listened to like snippets of songs, but I’ve never actually like played a song by him. I think still probably has more than I have, but. I think he’s he’s one of those guys where I if you played a song, I’d be like, yeah, I probably heard that on TikTok, but I couldn’t tell you.
Vince Marotte (46:52.942)
Doesn’t he? Doesn’t he?
Vince Marotte (46:59.598)
Yeah, so his biggest hit has 180 million hits. That’s Johnny Dang.
A.J. Marotte (47:06.736)
See that sounds familiar, but I’ve never actually.
Vince Marotte (47:10.626)
So he’s kind of a he’s kind of a mumble rapper Kind of trappy, know pretty good and then in that show JPEG mafia is playing who I I’m starting to get into JPEG mafia. It’s different. It’s it’s rap centric but almost Kind of there’s a lot of guitar and just noise rock going on but he’s rapping it’s not rap chorus not like Rage Against Machine and then Norman Sand is in that show and the prof is headlining
A.J. Marotte (47:25.295)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (47:39.69)
at Red Rock Soul. So coming up Norman Sand. So he’s kind of old school. If he’s one of those old school lyricism, I like Norman Sand. But yeah, Bossman D-Lo, I’ve added some to my rotation based on your recommendation. And then you got two more recommendations this week. Hit me with those. got Leon Thomas.
A.J. Marotte (48:00.112)
Okay, so this is more like R &B, a little more chill vibes. I don’t know, this is… Yeah, he was… We didn’t have Nickelodeon growing up, but he was big Nickelodeon star. Like a show that everyone loved to watch that was around my age, Victorious is the show, I’m pretty sure. I hope I’m not wrong. But he is one the main characters and they’re at like…
Vince Marotte (48:06.082)
Yeah, he’s got the gold gold chains leather jacket in his photo.
Vince Marotte (48:15.086)
Vince Marotte (48:20.651)
Okay.
A.J. Marotte (48:30.116)
I’m not going to say too much about the show because I don’t actually know that much about it, he, aside from acting, went to music school and everything and is like, think a really talented artist. I need to listen more to this album because I really like this song. But again, kind of trending TikTok sounds where I found it. I think I actually started listening to it because I was watching an interview of Issa Rae and Kiki Palmer talking about their movie.
one of those days, one of them days, I need to see it, I haven’t seen it yet. But they were talking about Leon Thomas and how much they like him because in Issa Rae’s show, Insecure, which is a really great show, he was featured on an episode, so they were talking about the song and they started singing it and I was like, wait, I kind of like how it sounds, so I went and watched, or went and started listening to it because Issa Rae and Kiki Palmer said they liked it, so.
Vince Marotte (49:00.984)
Okay.
Vince Marotte (49:23.448)
He was.
Leon George was the singing voice of Tyrone on the backyardigans.
A.J. Marotte (49:32.098)
Yes, he was a backyard again. I knew that. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (49:35.31)
I think he was just to the singing but not the talking. So there’s probably two people that played Tyrone one when he sang one when he talked played Andre Harris in Victorious So he signed with Columbia. He’s got a few albums out Leon Thomas. Yeah, very Very slow jam like he does. I don’t I as I spun through his playlist. I’m not or his tracks all of its pretty chill. He doesn’t get into like the You know like the Keith Sweat
A.J. Marotte (49:40.317)
Mm-hmm Yeah, you’re Yes
Vince Marotte (50:04.748)
you know, kind of stuff, you know, even Bobby Brown where it’s a little more danceable. Like this is very, very chill. This is almost coffee shop R &B. I like it.
A.J. Marotte (50:10.543)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (50:15.216)
Yeah, like this is like when we’re driving from the airport and I’m chilling on the bus like thinking about taking a nap but not totally there. This is what I put on in my headphones to just lay out on the bus chairs, chilling before we get home.
Vince Marotte (50:31.256)
Dig it, Leon Thomas. Very nice.
A.J. Marotte (50:33.08)
I to look more into this album because I’ve heard some snippets of songs that I’ve liked but I just haven’t actually, I think…
Vince Marotte (50:40.152)
Yeah, the kids don’t listen to the album anymore.
A.J. Marotte (50:43.212)
Yeah, I am so bad at that because I will say that I like an artist and I really only like like three songs and I actually have no idea about the rest of like their anything because I just don’t. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (50:50.754)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (50:57.174)
I still try to listen to the album. Like I did, did Chapelle Rhone. I listened to her album, front to back, to give it a chance. I didn’t like it, I get it. Like after about the fourth song that was really the same song where it’s like, get the girls together and let’s go to the club. Dance, dance, dance, spell a word. Like it all felt like the same. And it kinda, and here’s my worry right now.
A.J. Marotte (50:59.758)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (51:05.57)
Yeah, really? Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (51:16.836)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vince Marotte (51:25.688)
When I hear that is I saw a Tom York interview and Tom York is our Lord and savior of alternative music. He said, we’re in trouble when people stop listening to sad songs.
And I thought, that’s true. Like we’re so, we’re so in hurt and pain as a culture that we don’t even want to touch emotional music. So when I heard Chappell Rhone, and maybe there’s a sad song and I just couldn’t hear it past the sonics, which is fine. Cause you know, the Smiths and Morrissey, all their songs sound happy and they’re most certainly not. So, but yeah.
A.J. Marotte (51:59.64)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (52:05.765)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (52:08.75)
Love the album. I love I always want to hear the album because I want I want to just kind of understand the depth of the artist the musician I’m listening to and see where they go. So you got one more in there Sabrina Carpenter
A.J. Marotte (52:16.064)
Yeah. Yeah. yes. Sabrina Carpenter. She’s like my guilty pleasure, I think, because I feel like the people that like. Yeah. She had a great year. Like this album was extremely popular. The album, what is it? Short and Sweet came out in last year and she’s been touring everywhere.
Vince Marotte (52:26.466)
She’s hitting billions. She’s hitting billions on a couple of days.
A.J. Marotte (52:45.146)
viral on TikTok. I mean, she’s very pretty blonde. So like she’s very popular on social media. Like she’s pretty, she’s funny. She was a Disney actor. like people are very, yup. I remember watching shows with her and she was really cringy. I think the main show she was in is Girl Meets World, which is the, if you ever watched Boy Meets World, it’s like, what’s his face from Boy Meets World is the dad now. And Girl Meets World is about his daughter.
Vince Marotte (52:51.662)
Right.
Disney kid, another Disney kid.
A.J. Marotte (53:13.712)
And this is his daughter’s best friend, is Sabrina Carpenter. I forget what her character’s name is, she’s very cringy in there.
Vince Marotte (53:20.246)
Is she doing okay with the transition? know like your Miley Cyrus’s and stuff, had to work harder. Like, no, I’m not Disney anymore. Let me show my ass, which I’m fine with. Show your ass, do whatever. But like, it felt forced because like, no, I’m not Disney anymore. So she’s doing okay with the transition, sounds like.
A.J. Marotte (53:24.976)
Yeah, it wasn’t that dramatic. It wasn’t that dramatic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (53:38.25)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, think her songs are definitely pretty sexual, but like not in like I don’t know. She wasn’t as big as Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana was. It wasn’t that too much. know, Girl Meets World wasn’t like the biggest show ever.
Vince Marotte (53:50.67)
All but five of the twelve tracks on the album are marked E for explicit.
A.J. Marotte (53:56.696)
Yeah, it’s not too bad.
Vince Marotte (53:57.902)
So sounds like she swears a cuss or talks about.
A.J. Marotte (54:01.52)
Yeah, I don’t even know.
Vince Marotte (54:03.04)
Okay, I know the song. Espresso. Two billion plays.
A.J. Marotte (54:06.07)
Yeah, that was I think that was the single for this album. That was extremely popular. And you know where that that I remember hearing that was at camp last year or like middle school camp for basketball. All the girls were seeing that all day and it was stuck in my head for like two weeks because that was all they would sing. Even even though there was some boys, some of.
Vince Marotte (54:19.864)
Right.
A.J. Marotte (54:32.636)
our coaches kids, they’ll come hang out. And I had a group of like middle school boys following me around for a week singing that song too. So it got to everybody. It’s so addicting.
Vince Marotte (54:42.302)
Short short suite released August 2024. So it’s not even out a year two billion plays on the top track espresso Let’s see who wrote these songs I’m always always curious on the industry plants Who’s involved in writing it? So Sabrina Carpenter I Got it. I have ways I have sources. It’s in Wikipedia. So
A.J. Marotte (54:55.638)
yeah, does it?
Where do you see that?
A.J. Marotte (55:03.517)
Okay…
Vince Marotte (55:08.866)
by all takes. So nowadays they’re getting smarter. So I’ll link this up for you here in the chat so you can click on it. But Sabrina Carpenter, and again, I’m not bad-mouthing it because sometimes art takes people, it takes a team to do it. She is listed as a writer on every track.
A.J. Marotte (55:28.666)
Yeah, there are a lot of other ones.
Vince Marotte (55:31.374)
But we’re looking at one, two, three, four, between two and four other writers on there, including no names like an Ian Kirkpatrick, Steph Jones. know those people. They’re writing. He writes Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Dua Lipa, Jason Derulo, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Nick Jonas, Pitbull, Selena Shakira, Chainsmokers. So that’s who he’s writing for. John Ryan.
is One Direction, few others, Southern Belle. So he’s hired guns. she’s not, they’ve gotten smart and they’re putting the performer’s name on there as a writer now. think really Beyonce really kind of led with that because she was using, people were writing her music and but she wanted,
A.J. Marotte (56:04.474)
Mm-hmm.
A.J. Marotte (56:17.188)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (56:23.312)
Mm-hmm.
Vince Marotte (56:24.812)
give me the credits, know, so I wrote, so did I wrote it. But really, is she writing her music? And again, I don’t care. Good music is good music. I don’t care who wrote it. you know, as an old school guy, it’s like, man, how, you know, I always want to jokingly ask someone like a Sabrina Carpenter, hey, how was it coming up, you know, when you first started out and you were just trying to get gigs at college parties and then got got some bar gigs and then toured in a
A.J. Marotte (56:26.382)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (56:32.259)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (56:50.958)
in a greasy van, trying to scrape together some dollars. And it’s like, they never did that. Like went from acting to a studio with a team of writers and it’s a fabricated artist. nothing wrong with that, but it’s definitely something that’s like, I’m trying to get my head around and just enjoy the music, enjoy good music. So I enjoy it. I I enjoy a little Bruno Mars and that kind of stuff. Yeah. So.
A.J. Marotte (57:10.202)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (57:14.88)
I love Bruno Mars.
Vince Marotte (57:17.966)
It’s different, but I’m always curious. If I see Ian Kirkpatrick in there, I know they brought in, he’s a guy that probably costs a lot of money to come in and write your songs, because he knows how to write pop hits. But a 58-year-old white dude writing Sabrina Carpenter’s songs.
A.J. Marotte (57:39.568)
feel like she had a somewhat of an impact in there. A lot of them were about her boyfriend at the time who was, I don’t know if you ever watched Saltburn, but he was the main character in that. Barry Keegan, you haven’t? Oh, I just asked you that I think. It came out, when did it come out? Really weird movie, I, like, yeah, I feel like you would like it.
Vince Marotte (57:44.236)
Well, that was just da-
Vince Marotte (57:48.248)
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (57:51.854)
No, I haven’t watched Saltburn.
No, is that the kids are watching this?
Vince Marotte (58:04.93)
It was a movie?
Vince Marotte (58:09.326)
want to find out a bit.
A.J. Marotte (58:10.544)
There’s so much to think about. don’t… It’s like a psychological thriller.
Vince Marotte (58:15.318)
Sultry is one word.
Getting a seven out of ten on IMDB right now, which isn’t bad. You always kind of qualify that. You know there’s zero movies rated a ten on IMDB. So a nine is like a ten. So an eight is really like a… Rosamund Pike is in there. I know her.
A.J. Marotte (58:30.442)
really?
A.J. Marotte (58:36.28)
It’s a great cast. So we Barry’s, Sabrina’s ex.
Vince Marotte (58:40.526)
A student at Oxford University finds himself drawn into the world of charming and aristocratic classmate who invites him to his eccentric family sprawling a state for a summer never to be forgotten. Interesting.
A.J. Marotte (58:51.504)
I like usually things don’t make me squeamish or uncomfortable, but I did have to stop this movie and like, presume it the next day because I got uncomfortable. Well, okay. was really, again, TikTok. TikTok influences everything at this point, but it was all over TikTok. was like, my gosh, like Saltburn’s crazy. Like people would do videos like, this is us before watching Saltburn and then like.
Vince Marotte (59:03.148)
You’re not selling it. You’re not selling it really well.
Vince Marotte (59:11.884)
Right.
A.J. Marotte (59:20.73)
would post a minutes later and be like, my god, like we just finished Seltberno so crazy. So I was like, okay, I have to watch it. the reason I watched it was because my teammate Adley watched it and I was like, you know what, if Adley can watch it, so can I. So that was my main motivator, but a couple of us watched it together. So I felt like I…
Vince Marotte (59:43.574)
I might I might watch it. We’ll give it a we’ll give it a look
A.J. Marotte (59:47.672)
I feel like you just have to just to say you did, but it was…
Vince Marotte (59:50.202)
I don’t like movies like that. I don’t have time for movies. But maybe I will.
A.J. Marotte (59:52.943)
it
A.J. Marotte (59:56.75)
It’s just… What’s his name in the movie? Oliver. He’s… He’s sneaky. He’s… He’s a weird brain. It’s interesting to watch.
Vince Marotte (01:00:04.014)
Then we’ll do it we’ll watch it. All right, so AJ’s tunes now Mike though I do have to give a an analog to Sabrina carpenter and it won’t be the Carpenter’s but I I had a left field I want to say I Want to say Sarah Cahoon?
Vince Marotte (01:00:31.95)
Did I ever play Sarah Coon for you? She’s a singer-songwriter, you know, without all the production, but she’s just got a…
A.J. Marotte (01:00:32.346)
Do I know? I don’t know.
Vince Marotte (01:00:45.774)
She’s got a great voice, singer songwriter, almost folky, Sarah Cahoon is the old man’s version of Sabrina Carpenter. Or know what? Churches.
A.J. Marotte (01:01:01.604)
I could see that.
Vince Marotte (01:01:01.9)
of synth pop and I heard she’s gonna be making her own solo she’s got some solo tracks out and it escapes me what her name is
Vince Marotte (01:01:17.656)
But yeah, churches I really like. That’s kind of when I think of girl pop. That’s probably one of the ones I’ve really liked in the last, you It’s a V. Yeah, it’s churches, but with a V. Yeah. So, reportedly terrible live, but which I can understand, but just really, really good listening, good driving music. So, churches. So, there it is from AJ. Sabrina Carpenter, Drake, which we all know.
A.J. Marotte (01:01:24.208)
It’s like the churches with the V, right? Churches. Got it, got it. Okay, that’s what I’m thinking of. I can, yeah, I can see that one.
Vince Marotte (01:01:46.262)
and his new album. Bossman D-Lo, you’d like, if you kind of want some old school hip hop, you know, simple lyricism, almost trap sonics. And then Leon Thomas for the slow jam R &B. I could get down with that. awesome. Well, awesome, AJ. Thank you. First episode. We’ll see where this goes. You know, we’ll get…
A.J. Marotte (01:01:46.608)
Yeah, he’s always coming out with something.
A.J. Marotte (01:02:07.204)
Nope.
Yeah.
Vince Marotte (01:02:11.586)
We’ll get better at this. We’ll figure it out. We’ll learn some more music. But yeah, I want to talk about what we’re watching and what we’re listening to and help us stay in touch with what the new hotness is. So we’ll see you next week.
A.J. Marotte (01:02:18.447)
Yeah.
A.J. Marotte (01:02:26.787)
Yup.