Speaker 1: Hello everybody.
Speaker 2: This is Morgan Richter from Miami Vice Changed Everything on
YouTube and you are listening to the Shirley you Can't
Be Serious Podcast.
Speaker 3: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley you Can't
Be Serious Podcast. We are here today to cover the
soundtrack to the TV series Miami Vice. And before we
get started, I have a bit of a bomb I
have to drop. This is going to blow not just
your minds, but several of our listeners' minds. Okay, are
you ready for this?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I'm ready.
Speaker 3: I have never seen an episode of Miami Vice, not
one single episode. Obviously, it was a pop culture nuclear bomb.
I'm totally familiar with the concepts and all of that.
But when Miami Vice aired, I was like eight years old.
I wasn't staying up until ten watching TV. My parents
were certainly not going to let me watch cop shows
about drugs and cocaine. Horosh. Yes, So, so I never
grew up with it. My sibling I Rafe, watched Magnum
Pi and that was that was it. So I have
never seen a single solitary episode. And so to make
up for this gaping hole of knowledge that I have,
we have brought on a special guest who knows literally
everything about every single episode of Miami Vice, even the
stuff that people who know everything don't know.
Speaker 4: That's right, So welcome to the show, Morgan Richter, who
is author YouTuber Miami Vice Expert. Morgan, Welcome to our show.
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for inviting me. I am extremely
excited to be here, and Miami Vice is one of
those subjects that I can talk about all day. So
that's what I'm looking forward to doing.
Speaker 3: As I understand it, it's MTV Cops.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yes, that is exactly how it was
pitched to the executives at NBC and TV Cops, And
indeed it had the look and the feel and most
importantly the sound of music videos. So I think that
was a really great way to describe it. I'm always
leary of people who make big, sweeping statements, but I
would say that Miami Vice's legacy is that it made
music important to television. There have been many television shows
that have made excellent use of music before and after
Miami Vice, but I'm at a loss to think of
another example at which the soundtrack and the score are.
Speaker 1: As crucial as they are in Miami Vice.
Speaker 2: So MTV Cops MTV premiered in nineteen eighty one, Miami
Vice premiered in nineteen eighty four, and I think it
rode that wave of music videos.
Speaker 4: Absolutely And so we're at the end of this, we're
going to compare it to the Beverly Hills Cops soundtrack,
which we covered last week, and we just put you
on the spot. But you're familiar with that soundtrack, so
you're going to weigh in with your own final judgment
at the end of.
Speaker 1: The absolutely prepared for you that well fantastic.
Speaker 4: Well, De's got his pastel's over here and he's wearing
his white jacket and no socks and no socks and
love for I've got my sawd off shotgun over here,
and we're ready to be the Crocket and Tubs along
with Morgan, gonna be Gina with this tie.
Speaker 2: I'll be a combination of Gina and Trudy. Actually, I'm
just gonna be the Castillo in all this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go. Well, just Claire at us if
we do something wrong, right right, Okay, So just a
quick overview of the Miami Vice soundtrack. So this album
went four times platinum sowed four million copies. This is
no slouch of an album. This is actually the first
of three soundtracks from Miami Vice to be released. That
struck me because I remember the first one. I don't
remember the other two. It spent eleven weeks at number
one on the Billboard Hot two hundred and is the
best selling TV album until High School Musical came along
in two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: Well obviously, I mean High School Musical was an atomic
pop right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, how can you measure up to the
legacy of High School Musical?
Speaker 4: Right right? And I mean this had number one hits
on it. So I'm ready to dive into the songs.
If you're ready to dive into the songs. These songs
are too good to wait any longer. Let's just jump
in right now. Number one out of the bag.
Speaker 3: Sure thing? You got to intro with the TV theme
to Miami Vice. Yes, okay, So the sound of the eighties?
Is that too much? This is the sound of the
mid eighties, right, Like every other serious cop drama before
this was orchestral or maybe the piano from Hill Street Blues.
But nothing was as pop synth heavy as this intro
theme until this moment in time.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This is composer performer Jan Hammer, who was born in
the former Czechoslovakia. He's known as a synthesizer pioneer, which
of course he should be. And I think people sometimes
when they're thinking of eighties music, when they're thinking of synthesizers,
just think of some guy standing at an electronic piano essentially.
Speaker 1: And in this case it's much more complicated than that.
Speaker 2: He is using since and sequencers like the Faarrelight CMI,
which was very popular and contributing to what we now
think of as the sound of the eighties. To build
the layers of the sound. In this track, we hear
synth guitars, and we hear all different kinds of drums,
and I think there's like a xylophone in there, and
there are all these electronic sounds that we can't quite identify.
It's extremely complicated, and I think this one minute track
is brilliant for showing people the possibilities of synthesized music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he was a genuine pioneer in the electronic
music field. Everybody remembers the keyboard that was held like
a guitar from the eighties. That's him. He did that,
and I've listened to several interviews and I really feel
like he was a guy who wanted to be out
like the lead guitarist is and not stuck behind the keyboards.
And so here's something interesting. He's done a cover of
a Jimmy Hendrick song called Manic Depression. Okay, it's fantastic.
It's all on keyboard, but he sounds like Hendrix playing
the electric guitar. Actually met he met Hendrix when he
first got involved in music, met him and they talked
and Hendrix was telling him he was interested in getting
into the jazz side of things, like Jon Hammer was
doing at the time. Unfortunately, that also was the year
that Jimmy Hendrix died, so that didn't get to happen.
But he grew up in a jazz household like in
Prague and the former Czechoslovakia. His mom was a renowned
jazz singer. His dad was a cardiologist but also played
jazz music with his mom. He had Louis Armstrong over
to his house when he was a little kid because
they were so prominent in Czechoslovakia. Wow. And then obviously
he started playing piano at four. He goes on and
obviously becomes very proficient at it, and so they go
with him to the US to study at the Berkeley
College of Music in Boston, and they're thinking, this is
just his opportunity to really hone his skills. He had
actually wanted to be a doctor, but somebody talked him
into being a musician and how that happens. But it
was the beginning of his career. But it was the
end of theirs because when they went back to Czechoslovakia,
which was communist run at the point. At that point
they were like, hey, you guys just spent a year
in a western country. We're not going to let you
produce records anymore. And so she couldn't produce any records
for twenty years after this. But John gets started playing
with Sarah Vaughan. He plays prominently with Jeff Beck and
Neil Shoon, Oklahoma's own Neil Shoon Journey from Journey then,
so their band was shown in Hammer What Yeah, Shan
and Ham not kidding, Not kidding. And then in eighty
four he gets back with Jeff back on Jeff Beck's
album called Flash and he has a song on there
called Escape that wins the Grammy that year, and of
course that's the same year that he gets a call
from Michael Mann who says, I want you to not
only do the theme song, I want you to do
all of the soundtrack for this new series I'm doing.
Speaker 4: It's incredible. So this song shows up in My Brother's Keeper,
which is the first episode of Miami Vice.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: Number of nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: Though the version that was used in brothers Keith brow
of the pilot episode is not that one minute version.
It's the one that will appear later on in the soundtrack,
where it's a much longer, extended and slightly different one,
And in fact, the first few Miami Vice episodes used
a slightly different version. It wasn't until I think like
episode five or something, I think part of Darkness around
that time, that this version of the theme specifically started
being used.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's fantastic. You know that. I watched that first
episode and there's Jimmy Smith's as Crockett's partner, right right,
I was.
Speaker 2: Right, what yeah, And then immediately Jimmy Smith gets blown
to smithery Yeah up in the series again.
Speaker 4: Yep, that's exactly right. So, due to the show's popularity,
this was released as a single August of eighty five,
it hits number one. November ninth of nineteen eighty five,
an instrumental from a television show hits number one on
the Hot one hundred. What that shows the extreme popularity
of this show. It also shows the kind of the
weakness of the chart. So I got this for you. Okay,
here is the top five from November ninth of eighty five. Okay,
number five. I know people hate this song, but I
actually kind of have a soft spot for Number five
We Built This City by Starship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a weak spot for it too. I
know it's I know it's terrible. I don't truly know
all the reasons why people hate it, but I like
it anyway.
Speaker 4: Number four You Belong to the City by Glenn Frye
off of this soundtrack. Number three Head Over Heels by
Tears for Fears.
Speaker 3: That's a good one.
Speaker 1: That's a good spot.
Speaker 4: That's a fantastic song, and we're gonna be covering that
here in just a few weeks.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for you to get to the weak spot
on the on the chart.
Speaker 4: Okay, you're ready, ready? The number two song, maybe maybe
the worst song of the nineteen eighties. I hate this
song part Time Lover by Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 3: You hate all Stevie White, I do not.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 3: Stevie Wonderson, you're a Stevie Wonder hater. I think that's
a fantastic song. I think the analysis of the charts
in eighteen is absolutely wrong.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of anyone hating part Time Lover until
right this moment. We built the city. I will grant
you it's a terrible song. But okay, okay, but I
grant you that's a terrible song.
Speaker 4: But still I'm going to I'm going to default to
our lovely guest and just say, okay, sorry, my bad.
And then, of course number one is the Miami Vice Team.
Now get this, I've got I've got a couple of
connections to a previous show that we did. All right,
so this is the last instrumental to hit number one
since you.
Speaker 2: Know this, Morgan, I don't if I had to guess
of an instrumental theme hitting and say mission impossible, but
I don't know that's.
Speaker 4: A good guess. It's actually the Harlem Shake from twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Oh you went in a different direction there.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I wasn't even following. But yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 3: Wait a second, Wait a second, you're saying the Harlem
Shaked from twenty thirteen was the first instrumental since this one. Okay, yeah,
I thought I think you said you were asking about
what came before it.
Speaker 4: The Harlem Shake is the only instrumental since my advice.
Sorry if I said that wrong, that's okay. Guys, you
might have you got it on tape, so we'll check
your mouth here in a little bit. Okay, now, wait,
I got more. I got more. There's only one other
song from a television show to hit number one since
the Miami Vice theme. Any guesses on this? Yes? Are
you looking at my notes?
Speaker 3: No? But the answer is obvious. What I mean, we
talked about it. We talked about it when we did
our last episode. The answer has got to be I'll
be there for you on from Friends.
Speaker 4: That's a good guess. That is not the right answer,
Oh it is. How do you talk to an angel
from the television show The Heights? He yes?
Speaker 1: Oh I never Yes.
Speaker 2: The Heights has been off with my radar for so
long that I forgot that song existed. But yeah, it
was a juggernaut for that brief moment in time when
the Heights was the thing, very.
Speaker 4: Brief, yes, okay quickly. When this song hit number one,
the album was already number one, And that's the first
time a TV show had a number one song and
a number one album at the same time. And in
two thousand and three, readers of TV Guide voted this
the most popular television theme song of the past fifty years.
Andy Griffith theme finished second.
Speaker 3: Wow, Morgan, and I get a quick question for you.
Do you like the Eagles?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, absolutely, Well, the.
Speaker 3: Next song is by a former and then again an
Eagle got the rest of soul, somebody named Glenn Frey.
Speaker 4: Next song Smugglers Blues by Glenn Fry. This is my
favorite song on the album.
Speaker 3: That's fine with me.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: I'm okay with that being your favorite song.
Speaker 4: So as I understand it. Michael Mann heard the song
and went to his writers and said, hey, guys, we
need to build an episode around this song. Is that right, Morgan?
Speaker 1: That is cracked?
Speaker 2: Specifically, he saw the music video for Smugglers Blues and
was directly inspired by the music video, and they kind
of just came up with an episode that was a
riff on that video, except just using crocket and hugs
and going on this. Yeah they're undercover, of course, but
it's sort of a drug smuggling adventure that goes horribly wrong,
as it does in the lyrics of Smugglers Blues.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry when down like this so lose. It's the
major of the business. It's the Smugglers Blues, which.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great song, and I love the lyrics,
which are just very clever and fun. And it's this
blues song and it's ostensibly a cautionary tale, but you
always get the feeling that Glenn Fry is having an
awful lot of fun while smuggling.
Speaker 1: So even though it goes terribly.
Speaker 2: Wrong, you'd be cool for twenty hours and I'll pay
you twenty grand.
Speaker 1: He's having a good time.
Speaker 3: This is the one where like he and the partner
go to do the drug deal and then his partner
comes out shot right.
Speaker 4: You're exactly right. I love this video. I told d
I texted him this week. I'm like, the four minutes
of this music video could be one of the best
episodes of Miami Vice in season one. It's just you
get everything packed in there. You get a murder, you
get a drug deal, you got a bad thing going
gone wrong, and then you got a betrayal and it's great.
The music video is awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this beautiful little film. And I really missed
the days kind of when people were doing music videos
that felt comfortable telling a complete story with a beginning,
middle and end.
Speaker 3: So this one the album that this one is off.
Glenn Fry's album is called The All Nighter and he
co wrote this song with a guy named Jack Tempsin.
Jack Tempshin wrote peaceful, easy Feeling. He co wrote already Gone, Yes,
not too shabby, I.
Speaker 4: Mean two of the ten off The Eagle's Greatest hits
right there. Plus he also co wrote you Belong to
the City, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes.
Glenn Frye obviously is a musician by trade. He also acts,
but he is one of several musicians to appear in
Miami Vice. Okay, list for me, because I got a list.
Speaker 2: I have a top of head list for I mean,
obviously you've got James Brown, and you have Little Richard,
and you have Gene Simmons, and you have Frank Zappa
and the night kind of derail.
Speaker 4: After that, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1: There's some big ones.
Speaker 3: So as I understand it, James Brown in the episode
that he was in was an alien, and that's not
to say an illegal immigrant.
Speaker 2: He was an abductee of aliens.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's a season four episode and it's missing ours and
it's quite widely regarded as the worst ever episode of
Miami Vice. But in my review, I come up with
at least ten episodes that I like less than that one.
It's it's kind of it's a failure, but it's kind
of a fascinating failure, and that it actually has a
very Twin Peaks feel several years before Twin Peaks premiered,
and James Brown is great in it as the legendary
musician who happens to have deep connections to Walliens.
Speaker 3: So we kind of touched on the fact that you've
got this knowledge base and that you are a YouTuber
if you will tell us a little bit more about
this channel, because you literally go through episode by episode
and review each each one. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, my channel's essentially defunct now because I got
through all of Miami Vice. I did every single episode
of Miami Vice and I also did one hundred eighties
films that kind of defined the eighties for gen.
Speaker 1: Xers like myself.
Speaker 2: But yes, I did every single last episode of Miami
Advice on YouTube.
Speaker 3: And so you mentioned that this one was that the
James brownd episode was from season four, like as Michael
Mann was there for was it one through three?
Speaker 2: One through two, and then Dick Wolf took over in
season three, And my hotly controversial position on Miami Vice
is that people really like season three and that's the
one that I'm really met on where I think Dick Wolf,
for all of his strengths with television, he does crime procedurals,
and Miami Vice was kind of two weird for Dick Wolf,
and he kind of stripped it of a lot of
the elements about it that were kind of jarring and
off putting. Like the example I always use, and this
is just a stylistic thing, but in the first two
seasons Michael Mann's episodes, they would end usually with a
freeze frame right after the climax, and you would have
no Dane Wire and there would be no time for
the audience to kind of unsold what they'd just seen,
and it was really jarring, but really good. Like there
are several episodes in those first two seasons that end
with a gunshot and you know, and the freeze frame
and you know, something terrible just happened, but cut to
credits and you know, you go off to your Friday night.
Kind of deeply unsettled with season three, with Dick Wolf's
things after Michael Mann left, you'd get tag endings where
you'd get a gunshot and somebody would be shot and killed,
and then you'd get Crockett and Tubs being really sad
for a while about how that didn't work out the
way it planned, and it was just very much more
a traditional cop show. Season four got really weird, and
that's where all of a sudden we're having alien abductions
and they have a lot more of failures. But I
like it more than season three, and I prefer weird
to a very generic cop show. Not that there's anything
wrong with, say, a Dick Wolf cop show, it's just
not what I was watching Miami Vice for.
Speaker 4: Okay, I got the rest of the musicians. Okay, you
got Geene Simmons, Like you said, we have Leonard Cohen,
we have Phil Collins, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course, Bill Collins as Yeah, Phil Collins, Ted.
Speaker 4: Nugent, who shows up? Who's stealing cars?
Speaker 1: Playing a murderer? Of course?
Speaker 4: Yeah right, James Brown, Little Richard, Barbara Streisan, Franks Zappa,
Like you said, Willie Nelson, Harry Shearer, Miles Davis, you
get the Power stations show up, Sheena Easton as Crockett's
love interest. M you get Isaac Kay's David Johansson singing
a a at a party. But I wanted to bring
up somebody who I'm wondering if you know who this is?
Speaker 3: Do you know who.
Speaker 4: Janeie Beggs is. So Jannie Beggs is Glenn Fry's wife.
She is the woman in the Smugglers Blues video. Okay,
so that was his then wife. They were married from
eighty three to eighty eight. She was a deputante from
Fort Worth. Her family owned a big cattle company. Well
she married a big crazy rock star. Well they have
since divorced, and post divorce, when the Eagles would play
Lying Eyes, you would dedicate the song to his wife,
quote unquote plaintiff. And that's the woman in this video
who did not stay cool for twenty hours twenty grand
I don't know, I don't think she got the twenty
grand ether. Okay. Next song on the album is a
song called Own the Night by Chaka Khan.
Speaker 3: Okay, so this is interesting to me because if you
just played me this song and said, is this on
the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack or is this on the
Miami Vice, had been like Beverly Hills one. Right, this
sounds like it comes off the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack.
Speaker 4: So Chaka Khan has this big nineteen eighty four eighty
five Chuck Tuck Talk Chalk Talk con mainly due to
the song I Feel for You written by Guess and
it's Ali Willis is not Ali Willis, Prince Prince Rolle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. She did have some high moments and
eighty four was a pretty good year for her. Sure,
so it makes sense they would put her on this album. Now,
if you didn't know, she began with playing with Rufus
band Rufus, which tell me something good. And then she
of course when she went out solo, she did the
original version of I'm every Woman, which Whitney Houston made
huge around this time too. A few years later, I
guess sure, and then she went on around the time
that Whitney Houston was doing that and did Higher Love
with Stevie.
Speaker 4: I Love Now you're talking my language.
Speaker 3: I knew, I knew that I would hit you on
that one you pop this.
Speaker 4: So this song shows up in the episode called Buddies Morgan,
I'm gonna put you on the spot. What do you
got for somebody?
Speaker 2: Buddies is one of those things that obviously I have
done an entire YouTube episode on it, and it's one
I've seen several times and it just leaves my memory
banks as soon as I've seen.
Speaker 1: It, Like Buddies is the season one episode that it's
got some good guest stars.
Speaker 2: It stars James Ramar as Crockett's old army buddy who
drags them down into trouble, and it's got guest stars
include Nathan Lane and Frankie Valley. Yeah exactly, And there's
a lot about a baby and I just never really
remember it and like to prep for this podcast because
you know, with Own the Night, I don't really remember
the scene that Ow the Night.
Speaker 1: Appears in, so I should rewatch Buddies.
Speaker 2: And then I had a moment of like, no, life
is too short for me to rewatch Buddies, so I didn't.
Speaker 4: I've got to answer for you.
Speaker 1: It plays in.
Speaker 4: A bar right when krackt and tubs ce Robbie. Yes, Okay,
this song was released as a single. It's the only
one that didn't hit the top forty. It only made
it to number seventy eight.
Speaker 3: Deserve released up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's got a great song.
Speaker 2: I had no idea it was released as a single.
I knew it's one of the ones that was written
specifically for Miami Vice, I believe.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's fine, right.
Speaker 3: It sounds like the song is about as memorable as Buddies.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, let's move on. Let's jump back into
Glen Fray again. Call him Glen Fray again, a detroit
z own Glenn Fry. Now. The first song that we
listened to was obviously off of an album that he
had already done. But he came along and wrote a
song specifically for Miami Vice. And that's this song called
you Belong to the City.
Speaker 4: You Don't get Belong Sacks intro on the radio cut
Sexy Sacks.
Speaker 3: Right, there is this in your list of top Sacks
pop songs?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Of all time. Yeah, this hairless whisper.
Speaker 4: Yeah, got the sexy sacks. So this song has written
specifically for the show and shows up in The Prodigal Sun,
which is season two episode one. Yeah, what can you
tell us about that great episode?
Speaker 2: Season two premiere. It's a big two part one and
it's crocketted. Tubs end up going to New York, so
it's almost completely out of Miami, and you Belong to
the City plays while Crockett is Tubs Pubbs is from
New York and this is his hometown, and Crockett is
kind of the fish out of the water, but he's
walking the New York street streets at night and the
song is playing. I really like Smugglers Blues, but I
love you Belong to the City. It's one of my
favorite eighties songs, and it just kind of hit my
sweet spot.
Speaker 3: To night.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I lived in Los Angeles for nineteen years, and
then I moved to New York and now I'm currently
living in Seattle, and whenever I go back to Los
Angeles for a visit, this becomes my theme song for
whatever reason, where I start feeling very deep and soulful
when I think of the lyrics saying, now you're back again,
you're feeling strange. So much has happened and nothing has changed.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that really.
Speaker 2: Resonates with me, but it's used just so beautifully in
Miami Vice.
Speaker 4: That's cool.
Speaker 3: So let me ask this question as I understood it,
and I, like I mentioned early on, I have not
seen even episode one of this, But as I understood
at the original script, Tubbs going like he's a was
it a Chicago cop or some New York comet? Your
cop who comes down to Miami to investigate the death
of a friend of his, his brother brother brother? Yes, sorry,
so Beverly Hills cop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, spot on Beverly Hills cop. Right right.
Speaker 4: It's not as funny as Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he's much prettier.
Speaker 4: That's maybe so yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, So so this song is also by Glenn Frye,
also co written by Jack Tempson. Did I mention he
wrote Piece with Leezy Feeling and Already Gone and co
wrote Already Gone. He also co wrote Somebody, So here's
somebody like Bryan Adams, Oh somebody by the Eagles ufus. Okay,
all right, done with you, sir, so okay, so here's
what I've got on this on Glenn fry Have you
guys seen Almost Famous?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Did you know that the Eagles were inspirational for the
band and Almost Famous?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 1: Did not know that, but that actually makes sense.
Speaker 3: Okay, So apparently at least the key line in the
movie came from Glenn Frye. So he's, I mean this
this can Crow was like sixteen years old, and nobody
at Rolling Stone knew how old he was when they
sent him to go do this report on this band. Right,
And so he comes and he's, I mean, these guys
are in their mid twenties at this point, but they're
hanging out, treating him like a little brother and teaching
him good stuff. And right before you know, they're about
to leave. Cameron Crow is about to leave. He's Lynn
Fry says, I don't care what you write about us,
just make us sound cools.
Speaker 1: Right, It's a good quote.
Speaker 4: That's cool. Okay. So this song reached number two on
the Hot one hundred. We talked about this last week
when we discussed The Heat Is On. The Heat Is
On also reached number two. That's the highest charting solo
songs for the Eagles. Don Henley never got higher the
number five.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Crazy, So can't fight this feeling blocked? The heat is
on and we built this city blocks. You belong to
the city, Are.
Speaker 1: You kidding me?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 4: Of course, Man Marconi plays the mamba.
Speaker 3: Of the radio. I know I love this song, but
I really, really, really am anxious to get to the
next song. Anybody with me? Yep, let's go all right.
Speaker 4: Next song on the album is called In the Air
Tonight by Phil Collins PULLO.
Speaker 1: Nine.
Speaker 3: Okay, so I know that we started with the beginning
of the song, but if you ask anybody about this song,
they're gonna talk to you about the middle, the drum
vill right, the Drumville. So In the Air Tonight was
the debut solo by Phil Collins. Was released as the
lead single from Face Value, which came out in January
of eighty one, so it was already well into its
run by the time they decided to use it in
Miami Vice. But we have talked about the co writer
of this song, guy named Hugh Pagem before when we
did our Synchronicity episode. Hu Pagem was the pretroducer on Synchronicity,
and I brought up at that time. He is the
guy who came up with the gated reverb drum sound
that makes this song as iconic as it is interesting.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know who else contributed to the creation of this.
Speaker 3: Song, Bill Collins, wife's boyfriend.
Speaker 4: More specifically Phil Collins, his wife's interior decorator.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, so there are two stories about this song,
and one is an urban legend and the other one
is not right. The urban legend was some sort of
idea that he had seen a camp counselor see somebody drowned,
or maybe his brother drowned, which is why you get
these I saw what you did lyrics in the song.
But that one is not true. But there is a
story that is true related to the interior does painter
for the Collins household. He performs this song live on
top of the Pops. On top of the Pops, and
just before he begins the song, before the camera's roll,
he sees a paint bucket sitting off stage right. He
picks up the paint bucket and puts it on top
of his piano.
Speaker 4: As a as a message.
Speaker 3: To his soon to be ex wife, I know what
you did.
Speaker 4: You know, I saw her discuss this, and she saw
that and knew it was intended for her, and the
interviewer was asking her about She's like, I was really
hurt by that. That really bothered me. That really hurt
my feelings. And they're like, so are you saying you
didn't have an affair. No, I had the affair, but
I didn't like the paint bucket.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bill Collins, my feelings were a little hurt too.
Speaker 4: Okay, Morgan, this is one of the best uses of
music in all of Miami Vice. Like you think of
one moment in time, this is it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is one of the best uses of music
in television history. It's one of those songs that's so
intrinsically linked to Miami Vice that even people with only
vague memories of Miami Vice can probably come up with
that scene from the pilot, Brothers Keeper with crocketted tubs
driving around Miami at night in the Ferrari while this
song plays, and it's so good. Overall, the pilot's pretty solid,
but the series isn't quite fully formed yet. It still
has those cop show elements, like a more traditional cop show,
like it's the Little Hill Street Blues or a little
Starsky and Hutshish, and you have you know, it's before
Edward James Olmisus Castillo joins the show. So instead you
have greg Orycierra as more of a conventional gruff police lieutenant,
and you have a lot of business with Crockett's wife
and they're struggling to make their marriage work, and so
you know, these things that we have seen in a
million cop shows. So the pilot's not quite there yet,
but we get to this scene, and this is Miami
Vice in its final form. This is why Miami Vice
just became a cultural juggernaut and why it's still beloved today.
I think Michael Mann and everyone involved with Miami Vice
instantly realized that with this scene in the pilot, this
kind of song specifically is perfect for Miami Vice. It's
that MTV cops, but it's also you know, which always
sounds sort of dismissive, and because Miami Vice is very MTV,
but it's also very cinematic. It's just beautifully filmed, beautiful music,
beautifully shot, beautifully lit. And I tend to refer to
Miami Vice a lot as substance through style, and that's sort.
Speaker 1: Of what I mean, and that this scene.
Speaker 2: It's a really kind of profound moment with and it's
all it is like, if you describe it to someone,
it's like, well, yeah, two guys are in a hot
car and they're driving down in the street at night,
and a music and a song place and everyone goes,
if you haven't seen it, you don't get it. But
when you see it and in the art to night,
it is such a great song for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Can we touch on that for just a moment, because
even though I haven't I was not a watcher of
the show. There is a style about the show that
is so distinct from anything that came before it. Like
if I think about cop shows before for this, you
got Chips, you got Starsky and Hutch, you got Hill
Street Blues. All of them were still TV shows and
they looked like TV shows. And when you get to this,
this looks like a movie, which, of course now in
television you know, thirty whatever years later, that's oh my gosh,
is it forty years later it is Oh, it hurts
my heart forty years later. That's what they do. They
make TV to look like movies. But at this time,
I don't know that I'd ever seen it done like
this before.
Speaker 4: I don't think it had been done.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Miami Advice was so meticulous and so careful in
every aspect of it in our sink of production design
where famously the series had a rule that they couldn't
use the color brown, you know, but things like that
really made a difference, and it really led to such
a very distinctive look and feel. And as we're talking
about the music sound of Miami Vice, that nothing on
television before it looked or sounded like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: We talked about how the use of this song is
perfect in this TV show. However, I would be remiss
if I did not bring up another piece of entertainment
that uses this song wonderfully.
Speaker 3: And talking about the Cadbury commercial.
Speaker 4: No, I'm not talking about the cave. I'm talking about
in the Hangover when they come in and Mike Tyson
tells him to shut up so he could listen to
the drum fill. Oh yes, and then at the end
of the drum fill, he just decks that guy all
this moment, classic classic use of this song. All right, Morgan,
are you a lover or hater of Elvis the Alligator?
Speaker 2: I admire Elvis for kind of adding this kind of
I guess whimsy to Miami Vice, where if you've noticed
throughout the series, Elvis goot dated out, phased out throughout,
and then finally, you know, in the first couple of seasons,
Elvis was around a lot and always on Crockett's boat,
and by the end of the season in your series,
you would just never knew that Crockett ever had a
gator named Elvis. I think Elvis works. I think it's
possibly a little broad, but you know, Crockett's got a gator,
why not?
Speaker 4: Okay, So one more thing on in the air tonight.
This song we talked about Phil Collins run through the
eighties and how many number one hits he has and
how successful Genesis is and how every other song on
the radio was a Phil Collins or Genesis song. This
song peaks out at number nineteen.
Speaker 3: Shut up.
Speaker 4: This song barely cracks the top twenty. So was this
in eighty one or eighty one? August of eighty one
is when it tops out? Wow, Now listen to this.
Songs that placed higher on the chart in August of
eighty one included songs by air supply, The commodores. John
Schneider of The Dukes of Hazzard.
Speaker 3: I've got no problem with what you're saying.
Speaker 4: I love Air supplies, The Pointer Sisters great, the Alkridge
Boys loved them.
Speaker 3: Kenny Rogers huge at that time.
Speaker 4: The theme for the Greatest American Hero.
Speaker 3: Which is my favorite TV theme of all time. Okay,
that's a that's a graveyard of It was not a graveyard.
We can say that in the air Tonight was ahead
of its time. I Will, I Will, There we go,
I Will.
Speaker 4: Jesse's Girl was also on that chart. So yeah, yeah,
that's right before MTV changes our lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is right before. Okay, so is this the
point you hit stop on your tape player, Hit stop.
Speaker 4: On your tape player, kick it out, flip it over
for side two.
Speaker 3: Here we are back again with the Miami Vice theme.
This was longer, though, So this is our opportunity. Since
we already talked about Jon Hammer and the music, we
can talk about the video in this one. You guys
remember the video, Crockett.
Speaker 4: And Tubs are chasing Jon Hammer around his synthesizers.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the video does this marvelous job of intercutting
scene from the actual Miami Vice TV series with scenes
that they filmed separately of John Hammer running around with
some sort of briefcase of something or other. Now, Jon
Hammer is dressed in very much the Miami Vice style,
but Jon Hammer is a short, very balding, slightly tubby man. Yes,
I don't know if he'd gotten the part in the
actual TV show, but they have this great moment where
the police chief is like he's back and puts the
piece of paper down and it's a picture of Jon
Hammer and he looks like the most unintimidating, like crossing
guard at your school guy in the world.
Speaker 4: Nice. Nice.
Speaker 3: I was watching. I actually watched a video on the
making of the video, and the director of the video
was one of the editors from the TV show. Like,
I feel like somebody was walking through the hall like,
oh hey, we got to go up to New York
and do Jan's part of the video, and they're like,
who's still here?
Speaker 4: Jimmy, has it left for the weekend? You got it, Jimmy.
Speaker 3: Would you like to direct a music video? Yes?
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, why not? Okay?
Speaker 3: That moves us right into the song Vice by Grandmaster
Melomel Melly Mell. You have the light to remain signing.
Anything you say can it will be used against you
in the corner blow All right. If this song reminds
you of the song White Lines off of the Beat
Street soundtrack, there's a reason for that. It's grand Master
Flash Baby.
Speaker 4: Grandmaster Melly Mill was a member of Grand Master Flash
and the Furious Five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where's Dev Dave.
Speaker 4: When we need him?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I listened to White Lions on
repeat back in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 4: I can tell you that, speaking of White Lines, that
music video starred Laurence Fishburne and was directed by Spike Lee. Right,
how about that nice here?
Speaker 3: That's all you have?
Speaker 4: Well, that's pretty much all I got. I do have
something else for you. Melly Mel is believed to be
the first rapper to use the term mc mc melly Mel.
He is also the rat voice that you hear on
Shaka Khan's I Feel for You Chock Con Chuck Chuck
a Con.
Speaker 3: I did not know that I love that part of
that song that I liked, Chuck Cohn, Chuck Con, everybody
Chuck Con.
Speaker 4: Actually, I was talking to Jeff Johnson about what we're
doing Miami Vice soundtrack and He's like, oh, I remember
that one song they give you your Miranda rights at
the beginning of the song, this is it?
Speaker 1: This is it?
Speaker 4: Okay Morgan, you know when this appears in any episode?
What do you got here? Yeah?
Speaker 2: It appears in the season two episode Whatever Works and
this is here is the thing. I like the song
a lot, and I the season two episode it appears
in Whatever Works is among my favorites, But in the
context of the episode, I barely ever noticed the song.
Speaker 1: And that's because Whatever Works is.
Speaker 2: Is one of the very few Miami Vice episodes that
has a live band performance in it.
Speaker 1: That's the one where the power Station appears, and you.
Speaker 2: Know, the power Station, at the height of their fame,
performed live in a bar, and there's a show stopping
bit in it in which an extremely drunk John Taylor
of drandur Ann and power Station he's playing himself and
before the set he's chatting with a visibly annoyed Crockett
and you can tell it's a hilarious scene because John
Taylor is so drunk and he can barely get his
words out, and Don Johnson is just so mad, and
you can tell he just he's so mad. At the
drunk English pop star who is ruining his show as
this beautiful exchange, and that Pamela d Bars, who of
course was used to date Don Johnson, but also was
married to Michaelda Bars at the time, who was the
lead singer of the Power Station after Robert Palmer left,
writes about this not in I'm with the Band, but
in her second memoir, Take Another Piece of My Heart,
and she just she's hilarious on it where it's exactly
what you think is happening, where our.
Speaker 1: Station to show it up super duper drug you know.
Speaker 2: I just we're not taking it seriously and Don's just
going great, this is my show.
Speaker 1: And you idiots are ruining it.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: But so anyway, quite being.
Speaker 2: To go back to Vice and Mellie mel great song
and it's a lot of fun. It reminds me of
Smugglers Blues and that it's another Beast songs that ostensibly
a cautionary tale with oh boy, you don't want to
be involved with drugs or prostitutes or mobsters or anything,
but it kind of comes across as a celebration of
all of that because it's such a fun song and
White Lines has the same things.
Speaker 1: Speaking of White Lines.
Speaker 2: If I know anything more about Miami Vice, anything topics
that I know more about than I know about Miami Vice,
it's Duran Duran. So I worry that I'm going to
just segue here. But Duran Durand covered White Lines. They
did a great version of White Lines that they incorporated
into all of their concerts even today. And it's one
of those songs that when Duran Durand does it, when
Grandmaster Flash does it, it just comes about as a
celebration to cocaine.
Speaker 4: It's all right, Moving on to the next song. This
is better Be Good to Me by Tina Turner. Oh yes,
I'm touched by this show of emotion shrabby of Devotionho.
Speaker 3: Okay, everybody knows that this song is by Tina Turner.
Yes except let's cover. Oh yeah, okay. This song was
originally released by a band called Spider in nineteen eighty one.
Not really sure what happened with that particular release. They
don't really have anything else to speak of beyond that,
but fortunately Tina Turner picked it up and made it
into something incredibly good.
Speaker 4: Okay, I got something for you on Spider. You ready
for this I'm gonna blow your mind on Spider. Okay,
so this song was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman,
who were in the band's So Holly Knight is responsible
for writing the song Ragged All by Aerosmith, Obsession by
an Emotion, Wow, Love is a Battlefield, and Invincible by
Pat Benatar. Lse wrote the Warrior by Scandal. Mike Chapman
wrote the song kiss You All Over and what ultimately
became Mickey by Tony Basil.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's right, that's right. Oh my gosh. Well there's
two huge hitters for the songwriting there you go. Wow,
how about that nice? That's a good one.
Speaker 4: So this song reached number five November of nineteen eighty four.
Much better top five this week. Okay, you have better
be good to be at number five. You have out
of Touch by Holly Oates at number four, you have
I Feel for You by Shaka Khan at three, you
have Purple Rain by A Prince at number two, and
you Wake Me Up Before you Go Go at number one.
Speaker 1: Very good.
Speaker 4: This song comes from the episode Give a Little, Take
a Little. This was a depressing episode for me. Morgan
tell us about.
Speaker 2: That Give a Little take a little Oddly enough, was
the first Miami Vice episode I ever saw and when
it first aired in nineteen eighty four, And yeah, it's
a very depressing episode and undercover Gina gets forced into
sex with Polly from Rocky Bert Young and then later.
Speaker 4: We'll stop right there. It's horrible enough, right.
Speaker 2: Right there, it's horrible, and then later kills him in
the line of duty, and it's extremely pressing. But yeah,
I watched it while visiting with my aunt who she
had just discovered Miami Vice and it was her new
favorite show. And I was ten in nineteen eighty four,
and I watched it with my aunt, who at the
time did not have kids and everything. And after it
was done, she was like, I probably shouldn't have shown
that to a ten year old, and I was all, no,
that is great. I am now going to shape my
life and personality around this series, which you know is
exactly what I did. It's one of the more, yeah,
I would say, depressing episodes of season one, certainly, but
it's a good one and better be good to me.
Speaker 1: It's such a great song.
Speaker 2: And by the way, before I forget, why did Tina
Turner never appear on a Miami Vice episode. That seems
like a terrible oversight amongst all of these music heavy hitters,
she would have been perfect.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Two songs in season one, right used better be
a Good to Me? And they use What's Love Got
to Do with It?
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, yes.
Speaker 4: Okay, So let's talk about these three songs at the end.
They're all by Jon Hammer. Let's kind of group them up.
Speaker 3: So the name of these three songs are Flashback, Chase,
and Evan. And the important thing to remember is that
Jon Hammer was writing not only you know, individual songs
for this album, he was writing the weekly soundtrack to
the show. They would film the show, they would edit together,
they would send the copy to him up in New
York and he would watch the show without music and
figure out how to put the music to it every
week and he would turn it around in a week.
So it's weird because he's making twenty minutes of music
worthy of a TV series that we said, the music
in this series has changed the face of TV. He
was doing that every single week for five years. Yeah,
and these three songs are just key examples of the
type of music he was doing with that.
Speaker 4: With the soundtrack, Yeah, for sure, I was listening to
you know, Flashback is just kind of you know, okay
or whatever. Chase sounds like just a faster, more energetic
version of the Miami Vice theme to me, right, But
Evan is one I want to spend a minute on,
especially with you, Morgan tell Us, because as I'm researching
this episode, I'm like looking for this episode called Evan
on TV. It's not there, right.
Speaker 1: It is nowhere.
Speaker 2: It almost never is streaming, but it has shown up,
like I think NBC dot Com had it briefly.
Speaker 1: But it the lost episode.
Speaker 2: Evan is also my favorite episode of Miami Vice, and
it is actually a lot of people's absolute favorite episode
of Miami Vice. And there's no real consensus as to
why it's been dropped from streaming. I had the screenwriter
of Evan, actually Paul Diamond, actually contact me on Twitter
it do you know what you know why Evan doesn't
show up on screen?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And he doesn't even know, he thinks.
Speaker 2: And I think it is a music rights issue in
that it uses two Peter Gabriel songs. The series uses
a lot of Peter Gabriel music throughout. They use more
Peter Gabriel songs than Phil Collins songs oddly enough, and wow,
fite Phil Collins being so linked. So it's not that
Peter Gabriel had a problem with his music being used
in Miami Vice. But the two songs that are used,
Rhythm of the Heat and Ico, are both kind of
very personal, very important songs, and I think Peter Gabriel
just said, yeah, I don't really want to give permission.
I've also heard the argument that people are convinced it's
a content issue. I don't think it is, but I
don't have any inside knowledge, and it could be rare
for nineteen eighty four. It deals very openly with homosexuality
throughout the episode. There is the use of a prominent
anti gay slur and people but well, maybe that's what
did it. But like in context, it's a very thoughtful
episode and everything's very well done. There's also a scene
where you see a swastika, so maybe that has something
to do with it.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: There could be content reasons. In other words, I'm convinced
that in this case it really is the music rights.
But in any case, my favorite episode, it's Crockett gets
involved in a case with his former partner Evan, who
is just an absolute LuSE Canon who's working on the Alcohol,
Bacco and Firearms Task Force, and they have a case
with vice that intersects, and Evan and Crockett.
Speaker 1: Absolutely hate each other.
Speaker 2: And Evan, who is played by William Russ, who is
best known as the nice dad on Boy Meets World,
but he gives just this really scorching great performance here,
is just so unhinged and so dangerous, and they keep
colliding and there's something going on that Crocket won't tell tubs.
It turns out that Crockett and Evan were best friends
with another cop, Mike Orgel, who turned out to be gay,
and this is nineteen eighty four, and Evan didn't deal
with it well and just started making a lot of
anti gay remarks and kind.
Speaker 1: Of got him pushed out of the like put onto
a desk job in the forest.
Speaker 2: And this partner, Mike Rgel, eventually kind of ended up
getting in the middle of a violent robbery and getting shot,
but essentially as a suicide, and Evan has never forgiven
himself for that, And at the end of it, Evan
sacrifices his life for Crockett and dies in his arms
on one of those freeze frames, and it's just it
uses this not only these really good Peter Gabriel songs
again Rhythm of the Heat and Miko, which are both
wonderful songs, it has this Jon Hammer instrumental Evan, which
is a really lovely piece. And it's one of those
episodes that it doesn't really play into the larger Miami
Vice mythology at all, but it's so well done that
a lot of people, myself included, rank it as their favorite.
Speaker 4: Jon Hammer received an Emmy nomination specifically for this episode.
Speaker 1: Yes he did.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. I wish I could watch that episode now
you got met me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does show up legit sometimes and I and
whenever it does, people email me to let me know.
And among Miami Vice p well, it's kind of a
big deal when Evan shows up.
Speaker 4: Okay, so that brings us to the end of the album.
But Dee and I have talked we're gonna do a
bonus song.
Speaker 3: A bonus song. The Beverly Hills soundtrack has eleven solid
songs on it. This one has a few more of
the instrumentals. We kind of combined these last three and
so we are going to throw in a bonus song
called She's a Beauty by the Tubes. The story behind
this song is so freaking good it is. It's so
freaking good.
Speaker 4: Okay, lay it on me.
Speaker 3: Okay. So the writers of this song are b Waybill Yep,
David Foster, who we've talked about in the past, Saint
Elmo's fire Right, and Steve Lucather who is the guitarist
for Toto, the guitarist on Thriller. Yeah, I mean just
a huge studio is musician in addition to being, you know,
a member of one of the biggest groups of the eighties.
But it is inspired by fee Way Bills walk down
the street in a special district in San Francisco called
the Tenderloin.
Speaker 4: Yeah who he says, he, you know, accidentally ended up
there on the way to Macy's. I was like, wait
a minute.
Speaker 3: So as he's walking down the street towards Macy's.
Speaker 4: You know, right, because that's what you do.
Speaker 3: He's he's in this red light district and there is
a sign that says pay a dollar talk to a
naked girl. And he says, I passed this sign I
don't know how many times before and just kept on walking,
but this time, for some reason, I'm like, well, let's
give this a try. And I think the idea was
it's like next to a massage parlor, and so you
talk to the naked girl and then that entices you
to go into the massage parlor and finished things up.
He says, what ensues is one of the most awkward
conversations I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So she's trying to talk him into coming back,
and he's like, you know, you're really pretty.
Speaker 3: What are you doing here?
Speaker 4: You're gorgeous. We're looking for dancers.
Speaker 3: Would you like it?
Speaker 4: And he says she's ignoring him, yes, flat, ignoring everything
he says to her.
Speaker 3: Just going through her script.
Speaker 4: I'm in a rock band and we need dancers. Yeah,
that's great, Come on back.
Speaker 3: We're called the tubes. Okay, right.
Speaker 4: You know when he wrote this song, he actually wrote
the lyrics you can Talk to a Naked girl, but
his producer is like, no way, you can't use that,
and he's like, yes, I'm using it. No we're not,
and they have this big fight over it. So his
producer ended up winning, and he actually that's why you
get the line you can talk to a pretty girl and.
Speaker 3: Now this experience I'm thinking about it. I'm like, oh,
I remember this video, and then all all of a sudden,
I went, wait a minute, No, this was a Madonna video.
That was the one. It was the little kid who
would put the dollar in and watch her do it
in your herpease.
Speaker 4: That's it, and you.
Speaker 3: Know, follow the door down as it's closing. So do
you remember the.
Speaker 1: Video on this it's very similar. Yeah, that's that's the
video top of my head. So I could be wrong.
Speaker 2: I believe the young boys played by the late Alexis Arquette,
that's right, acting family. Now that you mentioned it, it's
kind of crossing in my mind with that Madonna video
because it very much kind of is the open your
heart thing with the young boy at a peep show and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I've got something for you. So you mentioned
Alexis Arquette, who was credited as Robert Arquette when this happened, right,
of course, a member of the Arquette family. His slash
her involvement in this video is due to the fact
that Steve mccara was dating Rosanna during the Toto years
to create the SONGA and Her Little brother is standing
right there. We need somebody in our video. Well, here's
my little brother, Robert.
Speaker 3: That's perfect.
Speaker 4: That is perfect, Osannah throw back to our total episode.
Speaker 3: Go check out Toto Versus Got.
Speaker 4: It, Randuran our best of eighty two yep. Rio. So
the you know who the director on the video was
Kenny Ortega.
Speaker 3: Kenny Ortega who we talked about in our Dirty Dancing episode.
He was the choreographer for Dirty Dancing. He was the
guy who went tape after tape after tape after tape
until he finally, very last tape found the song for
Dirty Dancing.
Speaker 4: And the Time of My Life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. And he also a choreographed to the
dance scene at the parade for Ferris Bueller's Day Off yep,
and get Ready for a button here, get ready for
a throwback. He directed high school musical Wow, It.
Speaker 1: All comes full circle.
Speaker 4: So She's a Beauty reaches number ten July of nineteen
eighty three. I'm not going to go through the top ten,
but this song appears in what I think is one
of the weirdest episodes of Miami Vice. It stars Susie
Amos from Titanic, who looks like a twelve year old
porn star in this episode, and she's wearing like ballerina
outfits and this is not at all.
Speaker 2: What I She's got like a full leotard and tights
on and she's shooting a porn film. And my mind goes,
how do you shoot a porn film when you have
a leotard under type?
Speaker 1: Because that's a hard outfit to get out of and
you kind of think that.
Speaker 2: The focus is going to be on getting out of
your clothes without having to just do a lot of contorting.
But yeah, yeah, it's the season one episode Hard of Darkness.
Scot O'Neil from Married with Children and others. This early
scene with Susie Amos shooting a porn film, and again
she does look extremely young, and then she gets murdered
like immediately after that and is never seen again and
the rest of the episode, but she's the beauty plays
while they're filming this weird porn film.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that brings us to the end, even with
her bonus song I Know, And that means it's time
for final judgment. Morgan, please be our guest final judgment
your pick between the Miami Vice soundtrack and Beverly's Cop soundtrack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am going to come down on the side
of Miami Vice, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and that's Weiny Vice. It's my baby.
Speaker 2: But the Byreally Hills Cops soundtrack is so so strong,
It's new attitude.
Speaker 1: Neutron Dance. Neutron Dance is one of those songs that
I could listen to all day. It's fabulous.
Speaker 2: My deciding factor with it's going to be head to head,
gun and fry and it's the one two punch of
smugglers blues and especially you Belong to the City that
wins out over the Heat is on, which is a
fabulous song, but it's no you Belong to the City.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna give it to Miami Vice.
Speaker 3: Sweet d Well. This is interesting for me. Yes, there
are some smash hits off of the Beverly Hills soundtrack.
Axel F World dominating in that time in history, Absolutely
amazing instrumental song And as far as the instrumental songs
go on those two albums, I would I would lean
towards axel F over the Miami Vice theme for sure,
But album to album, song to song, Miami Vice has
some amazing songs that cannot be overcome by the genuinely
good songs on Beverly Hill's soundtrack, but not monumental Collins songs,
monumental Glenn Fry songs. This album is packed with amazing
pop songs, and I gotta pick. I gotta pick Miami
Vice as well.
Speaker 4: All right, well that I guess that leads me then
huh yeah. So I love the Miami Vice soundtrack. I
love the Belly Hills Cop soundtrack. I own both of these,
but there's only so much jon Hammer one person can take.
So I am not overly a Patty LaBelle guy. But
New Attitude and Stir It Up are great pop songs.
They're not total bangers, but they're good. They're solid. Neutron
Dance is an eighties banger.
Speaker 3: Heat is on as an eighties banger.
Speaker 4: Acxualf is an eighties banger. So I'm taking the stronger,
poppier Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack over the instrumental heavy Miami
Vice soundtrack. That is fair, Okay. Next week we have
the Karate Kid Versus The Last Dragon, the Karate movies
from nineteen eighty four. We're gonna match those up head
to head, and it's going to we're gonna sweep the
leg and crane kick our way to God.
Speaker 3: You guys, I want to confess at this time. I
actually did tell Jason last night. I was like, Okay,
I have to get this off of my chest. I've
never seen an episode of Miami Vice, so he knew
going in that this was the case. But he the
first words out of his mouth was, well, you know
you can watch this on two b right. I was like, Jason,
I'm struggling to find time to watch Karate Kid and
The Laugh Dragon. I can't do an entire five year series. Okay, buddy,
I can't. I can't do that. But that matchup is
they're going to be fun. I've gotten last Draggon in,
I've seen Karate Kid a million times, so it will
be great. And those two again, you've got some great
you get a great soundtrack.
Speaker 4: On both of them. You're already I can see the
glow happening around Morgan. Thank you so much for I mean, really,
we reached out to you. You don't know us. We
just we just hit you up and said, hey, jump
on with us, and we appreciate you doing that. That
was great.
Speaker 3: You are a new friend now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Thank you.
Speaker 2: This has been so much fun and I I am
so happy a that you reached out to me and
B that I discovered your podcast, because this is exactly
my kind of thing. These sorts of discussions make me
very very happy. So I'm looking forward to going back
and listening to all of your episodes because you two
are delightful and this was so much fun.
Speaker 4: On Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys. By the way, if you guys would
like to reach out and support the podcast, you can
do that very easily by just going to the rating
on your podcast app and hitting the five stars for us.
Following us helps us on our ratings as well and
gets us up there for other people to hear about.
And if you want to, you want to donate a
little money towards our investment here we have a Patreon
page as well. It's patreon dot com Backslash Shirley Podcast,
and for as little as five bucks a month, you
get access to all of our secret episodes, our one
hit wonder episodes where we deep dive into the one
hit wonders of the eighties and nineties, and some other
crappy songs that Jason makes me listen to. Youss.
Speaker 4: Hey listen before before you get off that subject, we
will be patreoning on some more Miami Vice nineteen eighty
four songs. So we are going to do Somebody's Watching
Me with Def Dave. Yep, We're going to be doing
Turn Up the Radio with Amanda Janik, and who knows
what else we'll hit up over there. So you like
what we're doing Miami Vice, you're definitely gonna want to
check us out on Patreon.
Speaker 3: Guys, we can't tell you how much we appreciate you
listening to us. It's crazy to us that you guys
keep coming back. Thanks again, we couldn't do it without you.
We will see you all next week by guys lax
On Wax.
Speaker 2: So hello everybody, this is Morgan Richter and now I
can't remember what I be on YouTube