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'Pocahontas' Turns 25 life-spirit-name-pocahontas-songwriters-reflect-disney-animated-classic-25-years-after

A Life, A Spirit, A Name: 'Pocahontas' Songwriters Reflect On The Disney Animated Classic 25 Years After Its Release

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"The messages of the film have become more urgent and more necessary," GRAMMY-winning composer Stephen Schwartz tells GRAMMY.com in an exclusive interview
Lior Phillips
GRAMMYs
Jul 18, 2020 - 6:50 am

"It was courageous and tried to push the envelope of what one can do in an animated feature for a general audience. To this day, it remains a brave and beautiful film," says Stephen Schwartz. Over the course of his career, Stephen Schwartz has composed groundbreaking musicals such as Pippin, Wicked, and the GRAMMY-winning Godspell. But in 1996, he won his second award from the Recording Academy, this time as a lyricist, collaborating with the equally renowned composer Alan Menken on the Disney animated feature Pocahontas. Today, 25 years after the film’s initial release, Pocahontas' strengths have only grown. "We really wanted to deal with racial discrimination and environmentalism, it feels more timely to me than ever," Menken adds. "It was so powerful to reach into the trove of influences that came from early America and Native Americans to give Pocahontas such a unique and powerful color palette."

Prior to Pocahontas, Schwartz and Menken had become friends, though hadn’t yet gotten the chance to work together. Menken had a long line of film hits under his belt, including multiple Disney features; alongside lyricist Howard Ashman, Menken composed the scores to Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin. But after Ashman’s death midway through writing Aladdin, Disney linked Menken with other collaborators.

After pairing with Tim Rice to finish Aladdin, Disney suggested Schwartz for their next film. "You can't really fill Howard Ashman’s shoes, but they needed someone who would work well with Alan," Schwartz says. Menken, meanwhile, had long watched Schwartz's work with admiration. "He was a legendary composer, the wunderkind of Broadway back in the '70s," Menken says. "He was very much a standard for bringing pop music into Broadway." Most recently, Schwartz had written the lyrics to the Broadway show "Rags," but had composed music, written lyrics, and even directed. Schwartz was confident that his flexibility would bode well for their work. After a successful interview with Disney leadership and chatting with Menken, Schwartz signed on to the project—even before learning what the film was all about.

Once he understood that he'd agreed to write lyrics for Pocahontas rather than a fairytale-based film like The Little Mermaid—and for an animated Disney film—Schwartz got nervous. "Talking honestly about Native Americans and their encounters with white settlers would be difficult. But the worst that could happen is they'd see what I came up with and I'll get fired," he says.

Menken, meanwhile, was already a veteran of the Disney process, and knew that back-and-forth would be positive and essential. "Arrangement and song structure and lyrics change constantly throughout the writing of any movie, and one of the keys of success is never being precious about that," he says. "If you change something and it's better, that's great. And if you change something and it's not better, you just go back to what you had. There's no downside of being flexible."

Luckily, the first song the two wrote not only didn’t necessitate firing, it proved to be the film’s beating heart: "Colors of the Wind." The reaction from Disney brass was overwhelmingly positive, and the duo knew they’d found a way to convey these sensitive topics in American history—and to do so in a beautiful, honest way.

To reach that place, Menken and Schwartz immersed themselves in research on Native American culture. "I have this slogan: ‘in lieu of inspiration, do research,'" Schwartz says. For Menken, that meant learning as much as he could about traditional Native American music. "The percussive nature of the voices and drums, the beautiful wind instruments all came together," Menken adds. "From there, it was about overlaying a romanticism and a classicism that really characterizes that score."

Schwartz, meanwhile, tracked down books of history of the Algonquin tribes as well as Native American poetry. In the latter, he was fascinated by nature imagery, the way that the poems used metaphors to tell stories. The most significant source of inspiration, though, was a (potentially apocryphal) letter written by Duwamish tribe Chief Seattle to then-President Franklin Pierce. "I remember so vividly the first time I read, ‘There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to listen to the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings,'" Schwartz says. "If you look at the lyrics for ‘Colors of the Wind,' you can see how inspired I was by his words. I tried to capture the spirit of this philosophy and the cadence of Native American poetry." In fact, when the song won an Academy Award, Schwartz made sure to credit the award to Chief Seattle in his acceptance speech.

Seeing the final product of "Colors of the Wind" within the film, Schwartz remembers, was a revelation. The duo had written the song around the concept of an impossible metaphor: the visuals of something invisible. But Disney worked its magic. "We were writing about a deep philosophy for the character of Pocahontas and her people, which was in stark contrast to the white men that came looking for gold and saw the land as a basis for exploitation," Schwartz says. "The animators very cleverly turned it into blowing autumn leaves."

Ultimately, "Colors of the Wind" proved significant in defining themes and the central conflict for Pocahontas. Over the three- to four-year process, the film’s directors worked closely with Menken and Schwartz to ensure the themes and character concepts carried through. In fact, towards the end of the creation of Pocahontas, Menken and Schwartz were tasked with composing the music for Hunchback of Notre Dame. "If I had to jump over and write a song for Hunchback and then come back, it could take a couple of days to just see through those eyes again," Schwartz says.

Not only was the song important in the film's production, it proved to have a potent life outside of Pocahontas as well. The song was recorded with pop star/actor Vanessa Williams for the film's soundtrack, and the version wound up becoming a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. After previously being passed over for a Disney role years earlier, Williams cherished the opportunity to become a part of that world. "For me, it’s much more than just a beautiful song that Steven Schwartz and Alan Menken wrote," Williams says. "It's more triumphant when married with the journey that I went through, the triumph after being rejected."

Rather than merely recording the song as it was in the film, Williams worked with producer Keith Thomas on a new take. Thomas had produced Williams’ previous hits such as "Save the Best for Last" and "Sweetest Days." Schwartz and Menken joined the duo in the studio, and suggested that Williams try out a pop and R&B-inflected take on the song, rather than leaning into musical theater. “It's such a beautiful song and I just love that she's a triumphant Native American, which is fantastic,” she explains. “You have to connect to the material and you have to create the moment. It's one of those songs that audiences always connect to.” Williams also had the opportunity to perform “Colors of the Wind” the night it won Best Song Written for a Motion Picture at the Oscars.”I had dancers and aerialists and a revolving staircase to climb up in my Versace gown,” she recalls.

More than a powerful step in her career, Williams was excited by the film's extended representation within the Disney universe. As a centerpiece of Pocahontas, the vocalist always focused down on a single verse: "For whether we are white or copper skinned/ We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains/ We need to paint with all the colors of the wind." To this day, those lines give Williams an extra charge every time she sings them. "I always indicate my arm, my copper-colored skin when I get there," she explains. "I have Native American heritage in my background. I have Native American blood in my veins."

While writing a song honoring the Native American perspective may have been a challenge, Schwartz was unsure as to how Disney would react to songs that more directly addressed white settlers’ deleterious effect on the land and the indigenous people. "I felt we had to directly address the themes of ethnic conflict in 'Savages,' which I had never seen done in animation before," Schwartz says. "And then Ratcliffe, who is I suppose is the villain, sings, ‘Mine, Mine, Mine’ which is a song about rapaciousness." Again, Disney surprised him in its unwavering support of the bold direction. "I found them enormously courageous," Schwartz says. "I kept expecting them to say we were pushing it too far, that it was too controversial, but they really never did that."

The major point of struggle in the film’s composition came in writing a pure love song for Pocahontas and John Smith. Menken and Schwartz’s composition, "If I Never Knew You," was loved by Disney, but when it slowed the pace too drastically in early screenings, the duo suggested it be removed. "It’s a beautiful song, but I anticipated that people were going to come to the table and question whether we needed it," Menken says. "But I surprised people. We sat down at our postmortem and I questioned whether it was necessary and everybody at the table sighed a deep sigh of relief because they were concerned about having to confront me about it." The music was used for the end credits in the initial release, but was actually added back into the film itself when it was re-released for its 10th anniversary.

While neither Schwartz nor Menken may be Native American, they worked to ensure they could bring to light the oppression Native Americans face as well as the beauty of the culture. "I feel strongly that we would all be a lot better off if we were more conscious of how we are treating our earth and that we have a responsibility to the humans that follow us to leave them a habitable planet,” Schwartz says. "Climate change was not something that was as in the forefront in 1992, when we first wrote 'Colors of the Wind,' and 1995 when the film was released. But today, as we see the dire consequence of our failing to take care of our planet, the messages of the film have become more urgent and more necessary."

Menken similarly remains proud of the film’s place in providing more representation for Native Americans. "Pocahontas was so pivotal given contemporary sensitivities about how we depict Native Americans," he says. "This is a musical and a Disney project, so there are elements that are really romanticized in the storytelling, but we had very pivotal Native advisors such as Russell Means. We and Disney wanted to be accurate and balanced in our depiction of the story."

"Songs Are Like Love": 'Aladdin' Songwriters Look Back On "A Whole New World"

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Daft Punk at the world premiere of 'TRON: Legacy' in 2010

Daft Punk at the world premiere of 'TRON: Legacy' in 2010

Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/WireImage

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Daft Punk's 'Tron: Legacy' At 10 daft-punk-tron-legacy-10-year-anniversary

'Tron: Legacy' At 10: How Daft Punk Built An Enduring Soundtrack

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Released December 3, 2010, the soundtrack album pushed Daft Punk's music to new, exciting places and underscored the duo's prowess with live instrumentation
Gabriel Aikins
GRAMMYs
Dec 6, 2020 - 12:57 pm

In December 2010, The Walt Disney Company took a chance—the kind only a business can take when they're the most powerful entertainment conglomerate in the world. They took Tron—a 1982 film about the world and programs living inside computers that enjoyed a dedicated, if small, cult following—and gave it a sequel. Tron: Legacy brought back original star Jeff Bridges, alongside fresh faces Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde, to revisit the film's computer world of "The Grid" with the help of some much-updated digital effects. 

As a film, Tron: Legacy was a mixed bag at the time, earning a modest, by Disney's standards, $400 million over its theatrical run. The movie garnered praise for its impressive visuals, while drawing criticism toward some questionable acting—and even more questionable de-aging effects on Bridges. Ten years on, many aspects of Tron: Legacy hold up quite well, especially its soundtrack, composed by none other than French electronic music duo, Daft Punk. 

By 2010, Daft Punk were already legends in the electronic music community. The duo, composed of producers Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, had three studio albums under the belt across a career that was nearing its second decade by then, but each release showcased the meticulous genius of their craft. So, too, was their artist persona well-set, with their signature robotic helmets and gloves and their aversion to interviews combining to craft an enigmatic aura around them that only heightened their mythical status. 

One only needs to look at the singles the group charted throughout the decades to understand the vast breadth of Daft Punk's skill and musical knowledge. "Da Funk," off their 1997 debut album, Homework, naturally draws from the groovy basslines and percussions of funk. The shimmering "Face To Face," off Discovery (2001), incorporates disco into the mix, and the undeniable "One More Time," from the same album, mashes sampled horns, jubilant dance music rhythms and French house music into a track that remains a foundational piece of electronic music in the 21st century. 

Even with that amount of range and expertise, it was no sure thing from either side to have Daft Punk compose the film's soundtrack. In one of the few interviews the duo gave about Tron: Legacy, Bangalter told The Hollywood Reporter that director Joe Kosinski had reached out to them all the way back in 2007, with no script in hand to reference. "We were on tour at that time, and it took almost a year to decide whether we had the desire and the energy to dive into something like that," Bangalter recalled. 

As well, there was initial hesitation from Disney to give the duo free rein. Another interview with the Los Angeles Times revealed that the original plan was to pair Daft Punk with a much more traditional and established film composer like Hans Zimmer. Instead, the final product saw Daft Punk forging ahead largely on their own, and the results speak for themselves.

A conversation about the artistry within the Tron: Legacy soundtrack has to mention the original 1982 Tron soundtrack. Composed by Wendy Carlos, a pioneering electronic musician and composer, it planted the seeds for Daft Punk. While the original soundtrack is largely a traditional symphonic score, Carlos did incorporate synths where she could, like on mid-movie track, "Tron Scherzo." Even where she didn't, the physical instruments mirrored the chimes and notifications of a computer system, as in the intro to "Water, Music, and Tronaction." Daft Punk took these concepts and ran with them.

It's evident from the intro of Tron: Legacy's "Overture" how the duo innately understands the sounds they're working with and how they operate within the world of Tron. Instead of drawing from French house or club music, they pull from the sounds of an actual computer. The low thrum in the opening seconds sounds like a system booting up, and the lone horn delivering the main melodic line instantly connects this soundtrack with the original. The duo told the Los Angeles Times that the original film captivated them, and these direct links back to it prove they did their homework. 

Read: 20 Years Ago, 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Crashed The Country Music Party

Each track Daft Punk created stands on its own without the film. The cascading synth building with a sense of urgency on "Son Of Flynn" is prime Daft Punk in its understanding of tempo and musical momentum. "Derezzed," played in the film's neon club scene—in which the duo make a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo as the DJs—is an electronic dance track through and through. "Adagio For Tron" is a moving, sorrowful ode to a fallen hero, with a minor key and just a hint of a synth beat under the orchestral rise.

Altogether, the production across the soundtrack is topnotch. Moments like the live percussion blending into the synths in "The Game Has Changed" show a great understanding of both film scoring as well as the concept of bridging technology and humanity, a central theme in the film.

Much of Daft Punk's approach to Tron: Legacy is rooted in a darker, more ominous sound, which is a major reason why the soundtrack and the movie both still resonate today: They're decidedly more cynical and pessimistic than the original. Tron arrived at the dawn of widespread home computing, and both the film and its soundtrack embody the optimism of what technology could do for the average person. In 2010, things were vastly different. Mass data collection, security hacks and stolen information, social media toxicity, and disinformation spread were the name of the game; it's only gotten worse over time. 

Consequently, Tron: Legacy is cynical in its view and appropriately more sinister in its aesthetic, an approach Daft Punk heightened with their soundtrack. "Rinzler," the theme for one of the film's main villains, drips with menace from its abrasive percussion and moody synths. Even "Flynn Lives" and "Finale," two of the tracks at the end of the movie where the heroes emerge triumphantly, are more subdued than a typical climactic piece, with horns that fade quickly and quiet string sections taking their place.

2010 was a high-water mark for popular artists stepping into film music, with Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy soundtrack and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' The Social Network score dropping in the same year. Still, the influence has been felt periodically on film scores since. Sucker Punch (2011) leaned heavily into dance and electronica in its cover album soundtrack, and Arcade Fire provided a futuristic tilt to Her (2013). For its part, Disney clearly learned the right lesson when it came to pairing a visionary film with an equally visionary artist: On the Black Panther soundtrack album (2018), Kendrick Lamar married his music with the film's fictional world of Wakanda, an approach extremely similar to what Daft Punk created on Tron: Legacy.

Read: Daft Punk, 'Random Access Memories': For The Record

Daft Punk, too, learned some things they took to heart. The integration of more live instrumentation within their production, an understanding and homage of music that came before, and the challenge to explore new genres resulted in something truly special: the duo's 2013 album, Random Access Memories. It's a disco album that switched gears heavily to include more live instruments than Bangalter and de Homem-Christo had ever used in their own material before, and included direct tributes to electronic music legends like Giorgio Moroder. (The duo's magnum opus, Random Access Memories won the coveted Album Of The Year honor at the 56th GRAMMY Awards in 2014.) And each of these new elements can be traced to the work they started on Tron: Legacy.

It's fitting that Tron: Legacy and its soundtrack released in December. The cold winter matches the darkness of The Grid and the tired cynicism of what technology can achieve. But December is also so close to the start of a new year, to the hope of something different and to the promise to do more and to do better. On Tron: Legacy, Daft Punk reached deep into their knowledge to push their music to new, exciting places. It still endures as a testament to their craft 10 years later.

How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

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(L-R) John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson and George Clooney in 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'

(L-R) John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson and George Clooney in 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'

Photo: Universal/Getty Images

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'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' At 20 o-brother-where-art-thou-20-year-anniversary

20 Years Ago, 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Crashed The Country Music Party

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In honor of the 20-year anniversary of the GRAMMY-winning album, GRAMMY.com spoke to the creative minds behind the groundbreaking soundtrack, including T Bone Burnett, Dan Tyminski, Luke Lewis and others
Jim Beaugez
GRAMMYs
Dec 5, 2020 - 1:29 pm

The Coen Brothers' 2000 tragicomedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, set in Mississippi during the Great Depression, pulls deeply from the early-20th century American songbook to drive the film's Homeric storyline, which entangles the lives of escaped convicts Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson), Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro) and Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney).

But while nearly all 19 tracks on the original soundtrack, released December 5, 2000, are once-popular songs enshrined in the Library of Congress, the music wasn't designed to be a hit outside the world of the Soggy Bottom Boys, the film's fictional band composed of the main characters. "Old-Time Music is Very Much Alive!" trumpets the faux Nashville Banner headline in the liner notes to the film's original soundtrack, "But you won't hear it on 'country' radio." 

The prophecy proved true. The popularity of O Brother, Where Art Thou? didn't help traditional music break into radio programmers' playlists—the single for "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" peaked at No. 35 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart—but it didn't matter. The soundtrack sold more than 8 million copies in the U.S., certified eight times platinum, and won Album Of The Year at the 44th GRAMMY Awards.

On that February evening in 2002, bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley stunned the audience at the Staples Center in Los Angeles with an a cappella performance of "O Death," a traditional folk song featured on the soundtrack, delivered by the then-73-year-old under a single spotlight in the middle of the darkened arena. (Stanley went on to win the Best Male Country Vocal Performance GRAMMY for the track that night.)

"Having Ralph Stanley stand on a stool in the middle of the room and sing 'O Death' was the pinnacle of my entire career," Luke Lewis, whose Lost Highway label released the soundtrack and who also led the Nashville operations of Mercury, MCA and UMG at various points, tells GRAMMY.com. "I was sitting with a bunch of f*cking gangster rappers who were completely blown away."

But the odyssey began long before a host of country, gospel and bluegrass ringers upturned the industry on music's biggest night—before the Coen Brothers even began filming, in fact.

In the spring of 1999, producer T Bone Burnett convened at Sound Emporium in Nashville with a who's who of roots musicians from the city's vibrant bluegrass scene, including Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss & Union Station, to put the song cycle to tape. Lewis, who was just beginning to assemble Lost Highway Records as a creative haven for roots artists like Lucinda Williams, caught wind of the sessions and went to investigate.

"I walked into that creative process when all that was going on, and the Coen Brothers are hanging, T Bone's in there," Lewis recalls. "All these amazing artists come in there and do the record old school, with a mic in the middle of the room."

Classics such as "I'll Fly Away," "You Are My Sunshine" and "In The Jailhouse Now"—the latter sung by actor Tim Blake Nelson—are rendered slower and lower than typical bluegrass interpretations. That was an intentional move, Burnett says, to capitalize on the bass response of the subwoofer-loaded sound systems in movie theaters.

"The first thing we did was stretch the sonic spectrum that bluegrass was ordinarily recorded in, which was very high—the banjo was high, the singing was high, the violins were high, the mandolins were high—and we lowered it a couple of octaves and approached it more as a rock 'n' roll album rather than a traditional bluegrass record."

While Krauss took lead vocals on "Down To The River To Pray," elsewhere collaborating with Welch and Emmylou Harris on "Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby," her Union Station guitarist Dan Tyminski was asked to audition for the cut of a lifetime: singing lead on "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow," the hit Soggy Bottom Boys song "sung" by George Clooney in the film. 

"I was happy to do it, but I honestly didn't feel like it made a lot of sense," Tyminski remembers. "I didn't necessarily see myself sounding like Clooney's voice at the time, but it's hard to see from your own perspective what other people see or hear. So, I went back and auditioned the next day, and somehow [I] got it, and just couldn't have been more shocked at what would follow."

Read: 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Soundtrack | For The Record

The brains behind the soundtrack were just as surprised when the film opened in France, prior to its stateside debut, and sold 70,000 copies of the album within a month. It was a hint of what was to come in the U.S. 

As the film's signature song, "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" helped drive the soundtrack to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200, where it spent 15 weeks during a 683-week run on the chart.

The song became Tyminski's calling card, but he almost didn't get to play it. After his version was done and filming had begun, Clooney himself asked to take a pass at the vocal. Tyminski went back to the studio on a day off from shooting and backed him on guitar.

For The Record: 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'

"George is actually a really great singer and had learned the song well, and he sang a killer version of it," Burnett says. "But it didn't have the thrill in it that Dan's version had. And so I just said, 'This is great, but we're supposed to be making a movie about a hit record, and now we've got something that sounds like a hit record, so I think we should stick with that. What do you think?' And I think he was relieved, really."

Tyminski says the recording process also played a role in the decision to use his version. "It's not that he couldn't do the job," he says, "but for the sake of the movie, it had to be one take, live, no fixes. It was all really pure, all very organic. 

"After he had taken a couple of swings at it and got the words jumbled a couple of times, he says, 'Dan, I'll make you a deal: I'll act, you sing.' And quite honestly, I was so disappointed because I thought it was so cool to have recorded the song with Clooney. At the time, it felt like that was a bigger deal than singing the song myself. It wasn't until a little bit later that I realized what a loss that would have been. It ended up being the biggest song of my career, easily."

Read: Exclusive: Gillian Welch On Vinyl, Songwriting, 'O Brother...' & More

Tracking down the writers of songs composed nearly a century earlier proved to be an enormous job for Burnett and Denise Stiff, who managed Welch and Union Station. The songs were recorded and re-recorded over the decades, and many versions were unique enough to support their own copyrights. That meant when Burnett used or rewrote an arrangement, they had to determine which previous version of the song was closest and credit the right people. 

"'Man Of Constant Sorrow' has, I think, 50 copyrights in the Library Of Congress," Burnett says. "The one we worked with most closely was The Stanley Brothers' version. Even though we had done our own arrangement, we could've gotten sued by 50 people for infringement."

The version of "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" recorded for the film earned Tyminski a GRAMMY for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals at the 2002 GRAMMYs. In addition to the Album Of The Year win, the soundtrack also won for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media, while T Bone Burnett won for Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical.

Two decades later, it's hard to say what lasting impact the success of O Brother, Where Art Thou? made on contemporary country music, or popular music in general. The widespread acclaim for the film and soundtrack is undeniable, and they both made gobs of money. But it could be argued—and Burnett does—that a revival of roots music was already underway when it all hit. 

"The reason I think it was so successful [was] because, one, there was already a very strong traditional music trend," Burnett says. "Kids were learning how to do it."

So-called "alt-country" bands like Wilco and Old 97's were impacting the lower rungs of industry charts, along with Jayhawks, Whiskeytown and others. Bluegrass trio Nickel Creek had hooked up with Krauss and released their 2000 self-titled, platinum-selling album, while bluegrass-adjacent bands Old Crow Medicine Show and The Avett Brothers were beginning to make names for themselves on the touring circuit. 

"Certainly, country radio didn't change, and you wish for things like that to happen," Lost Highway founder Lewis says. "But it makes you aware that there's a wider world than what you hear on mainstream radio, and for a lot of people who really love music, you need something to lead you down the path because it's hard to find guideposts to things you might like. I think O Brother had that sort of impact."

There's another reason, too, Burnett suggests. On the night of the 2002 GRAMMYs, Americans were still reeling from the September 11 terrorist attacks that took place just five months earlier. Tony Bennett and Billy Joel sang a duet on "New York State Of Mind," a nod to the resilience of the city amid tragedy. Alan Jackson performed "Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)" in front of children's art created in reaction to the attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. And in the middle of it all, Ralph Stanley stood on the GRAMMY stage, alone and vulnerable, pleading with his maker, "Won't you spare me over for another year?"

"Art responds to events without the artists meaning to at all," Burnett says. "The Beatles weren't responding to Kennedy's assassination, and yet everything about The Beatles felt like the thing that we needed the most after the Kennedy assassination. People were looking for our identity as Americans. Why did we get hit like this? Who were we?"

While the music of O Brother, Where Art Thou? offered millions of Americans the comfort of nostalgia, it impacted others in more material ways.

"It did amazing things for the artists that were involved," Lewis says. "All of a sudden, they were going on the road and making 10 times what they made before the record came out. They got royalty payments that they probably didn't ever dream of."

Mississippi-born singer James Carter had forgotten about the day in September 1959 when Alan Lomax recorded him singing "Po Lazarus" at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman until producers tracked him down in Chicago to present him with a platinum record plaque and a $20,000 royalty check for his performance. The 76-year-old former convict even attended the GRAMMY Awards that night, though he could barely remember recording the song.

In the years that followed, Tyminski recalls that the demographics of Union Station shows began to swing younger than before: more rock T-shirts, more spiked haircuts. He also remembers the rousing applause for the song that George Clooney, as Ulysses Everett McGill, sang into a can in the film's pivotal recording scene.

"From that point forward, that song was in every single show that we did," Tyminski says. "But when you have a song that's been that good to you and that people identify with and they want to hear, shame on you if you're not willing to play that song for the rest of your life."

How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

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Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in 'Clueless' (1995)

Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in 'Clueless' (1995)

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How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Soundtracks 1995-soundtracks-film-batman-forever-clueless-waiting-exhale-whitney-houston

How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

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From 'Clueless' to 'Dangerous Minds,' soundtracks were big business in 1995, but the year's hits offered no clear formula for success
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Aug 9, 2020 - 4:00 am

Mariah Carey, Alanis Morissette, 2Pac and The Smashing Pumpkins all had No. 1 albums in 1995. Despite such hallowed competition, four movie soundtracks also topped the Billboard 200 chart that year. Two were family-friendly Disney behemoths: Pocahontas and The Lion King, the latter still powering from the previous year. The other chart-topping soundtracks, for the Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle Dangerous Minds and the stoner comedy Friday, were no one's idea of kids' entertainment. 

Beyond those No. 1 spots, 1995 marked a fascinating midpoint in a soundtrack-heavy decade. According to a New York Times report, a new release CD that year typically cost anywhere between $13-$19. At that price, a soundtrack needed major star power or an undeniable concept. 

For movie studios and musicians alike, the format was rich with opportunity. However, there was no certain formula for success. Some soundtracks were guided by a single producer, while others drew on a grab bag of then-current songs. Several featured one clear hit that eclipsed the soundtrack, or occasionally the movie itself. For all their differing approaches, the soundtracks of 1995 epitomized the energy and audacity of the decade, while also establishing tropes for the next 25 years. 

The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album (1992) set the bar high for the decade. With a 20-week reign at No. 1, it remains the biggest-selling soundtrack of all time. Whitney Houston performed six songs on the album, including the titanic power ballad, "I Will Always Love You." (At the 1994 GRAMMYs, the track won the GRAMMY for Record Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, while the soundtrack itself earned the Album Of The Year award.)

While The Bodyguard magnified their commercial potential, movie soundtracks like Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) framed the medium as an artistic showpiece. Throughout the '90s, Tarantino and fellow indie auteurs Paul Thomas Anderson, Richard Linklater and Spike Lee made music a key character in their films. (The latter continues the trend on his latest movie, Da 5 Bloods, alongside six-time GRAMMY-winning composer and trumpeter Terence Blanchard.) Both instincts, for commercial returns and artistic validation, were well-represented in 1995. 

Read: 'The Bodyguard' Soundtrack: 25 Years After Whitney Houston's Masterpiece

Batman Forever (1995) epitomized the big-budget, mass-appeal mid-'90s soundtrack. Spanning PJ Harvey to Method Man, the 14-track set employed some tried-and-true tactics. First, only five songs on the track list appear in the movie itself, ushering in a rash of "Music From And Inspired By" soundtracks. Second, its featured artists largely contributed songs you couldn't find on other albums: According to Entertainment Weekly in 1995, U2 landed a reported $500,000 advance for "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," an offcut from the band's Zooropa album sessions. 

Most significantly, Batman Forever backed a surprise smash in Seal's "Kiss From A Rose." Originally released as a single in 1994, the ballad blew up as the movie's "love theme." In its music video, Seal croons in the light of the Bat-Signal, intercut with not-very-romantic scenes from the film. Outshining U2, "Kiss From A Rose" reached No. 1 in 1995; one year later, the song won for Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 38th GRAMMY Awards.

Both Bad Boys and Dangerous Minds had their "Kiss From A Rose" equivalent in 1995. Diana King's reggae-fusion jam "Shy Guy" proved the breakout star of Bad Boys, transcending an R&B- and hip-hop-heavy soundtrack. Meanwhile, Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," featuring singer L.V., the key track on Dangerous Minds, became the top-selling single of 1995; it won the rapper his first, and only, GRAMMY for Best Rap Solo Performance the next year. 

Other soundtracks from 1995 endure as perfect documents of their time and place. Clueless compiled a cast from '90s rock radio to accompany the adventures of Alicia Silverstone's Cher Horowitz and her high school clique: Counting Crows, Smoking Popes, Cracker and The Muffs. Coolio, the everywhere man of 1995, contributed "Rollin' With My Homies." 

From the same city, but a world outside Cher's Beverly Hills bubble, came the Ice Cube- and Chris Tucker-starring Friday. Its soundtrack took a whistle-stop tour of West Coast hip-hop and G-funk via Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Tha Alkaholiks and Mack 10. True to the era, the music video for Dr. Dre's "Keep Their Heads Ringin'" is half stoner comedy, half cheesy action movie. 

Waiting To Exhale, the 1995 drama directed by Forest Whitaker, boasted a soundtrack with a clear author. Babyface, the R&B superproducer with 11 GRAMMY wins for his work with the likes of Boyz II Men and Toni Braxton, produced the set in full. Following Babyface's co-producer role on The Bodyguard soundtrack three years prior, Waiting To Exhale featured two new songs from the movie's star, Whitney Houston. 

Read: 'Score': Soundtracks take us on an emotional ride

Houston's "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" and "Why Does It Hurt So Bad" led a track list that also featured Aretha Franklin, TLC, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige and then-newcomer Brandy. A powerful showcase of Black women across generations, the soundtrack has prevailed as a standalone work, going on to receive multiple nominations, including Album Of The Year, at the 1997 GRAMMYs. In a crowded year for soundtracks, which also included Dinosaur Jr. founder Lou Barlow's work on Larry Clark's contentious Kids, Waiting To Exhale demonstrated the power of a singular vision. 

For the most part, the soundtracks of 1995 tried a bit of everything. The previous year, The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack went all-in on covers, including Nine Inch Nails overhauling Joy Division's "Dead Souls." That trend continued into 1995, from Tori Amos covering R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" for Higher Learning to Evan Dando's update of Big Star's "The Ballad Of El Goodo" in Empire Records to Tom Jones gamely taking on Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way"' for The Jerky Boys movie. (Is there a more '90s sentence than that?) 

Elsewhere, the Mortal Kombat soundtrack blended metal and industrial rock (Fear Factory, Gravity) with dance music (Utah Saints, Orbital). For every Dead Presidents, which zeroed in on '70s funk and soul, there was a Tank Girl, which threw together Bush, Björk, Veruca Salt and Ice-T to match the movie's manic tone. 

Continuing from their '90s winning streak, grown-up soundtracks have proven surprisingly resilient. In an echo of Babyface's role on Waiting To Exhale, Kendrick Lamar oversaw production on 2018's chart-topping, multi-GRAMMY-nominated Black Panther: The Album, uniting an A-list cast under his creative direction. On the same front, Beyonce executive-produced and curated The Lion King: The Gift, the soundtrack album for the 2019 remake of the Disney classic, which spotlighted African and Afrobeats artists. In 2016, Taylor Swift and One Direction's Zayn recorded "I Don't Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)," pitching for the movie tie-in bump enjoyed in 1995 by Seal and Coolio. (The millennial stars stopped short of including scenes from the movie in their music video.) 

Like Batman Forever back in the day, the DC Universe continues to put stock in soundtracks. Both Suicide Squad (2016) and its follow-up, Birds Of Prey (2020), are packed tight with to-the-minute pop, R&B and hip-hop. Each soundtrack reads like a who's who of the musical zeitgeist. In 1995, Mazzy Star, Brandy and U2 grouped up behind Batman. In 2016, Twenty One Pilots, Skrillex and Rick Ross powered the Suicide Squad. In 2020, everyone from Doja Cat to Halsey to YouTube star Maisie Peters form Team Harley Quinn. 

As 1995 taught us time and time again, nothing traps a year in amber quite like a movie soundtrack. 

How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

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Josh Gad

Josh Gad

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Josh Gad Talks New Animated TV Show "Central Park" josh-gad-talks-new-animated-tv-show-central-park-and-his-mission-become-better-ally

Josh Gad Talks New Animated TV Show "Central Park" And His Mission To Become A Better Ally

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The GRAMMY-winning actor and singer breaks down the creative and musical vision that make "Central Park" a "true musical" and discusses how he's using his platform to address racial injustice head-on
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Jun 20, 2020 - 4:59 pm

Central Park represents a lot of things for a lot of people. For locals, it's a haven, a much-needed escape from the concrete jungle of New York City. For tourists, it's a must-see destination atop an endless list of can't-miss city stops. Josh Gad's version of Central Park is something all its own.

On "Central Park," his new animated musical TV comedy, now streaming on Apple TV+, the GRAMMY-winning actor and singer paints the beloved NYC landmark as a quirky place offering diverse sounds and colors through the prism of the city. Or as his character on the show, the happy-go-lucky busking narrator Birdie, calls it, "It's like New York, but undressed." 

Like the sprawling sight itself, "Central Park" is a unique composite of equally unique parts. There's the all-star cast, which includes GRAMMY winners and "Hamilton" stars Leslie Odom Jr. and Daveed Diggs, as well as Hollywood giants Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci, Tituss Burgess and Kathryn Hahn. There's the stellar soundtrack, which features songs written by Fiona Apple, Meghan Trainor, Cyndi Lauper and Sara Bareilles, among many others. Then there's the creative team behind it all, which includes co-creators/co-executive producers Loren Bouchard, the creator of fellow animated hit TV series "Bob's Burgers," Emmy Award winner Nora Smith and Gad himself. 

But first and foremost, "Central Park" is a musical, a deliberate move Gad made from the jump.

"When I pitched this idea to Loren Bouchard ... and his partner, Nora Smith, I said to them, 'I want to do a true musical,'" Gad tells the Recording Academy. "'I don't want this to be a pastiche musical, I don't want it to be a spoof of musicals. I don't even want it to be a show with music. I want it to be a musical. I want the songs to be a part of the very fabric of the story, and I want the characters to have no emotional choice but to break out into song.'"

The show follows the Central Park-dwelling Tillerman family, which includes Owen (Odom Jr.), the patriarch of the family who works as the park's manager; Paige (Hahn), the journalist mom of the crew; and their two children, Molly (Bell) and Cole (Burgess). Their home is threatened when hotel tycoon Bitsy Brandenham (Tucci) and her assistant Helen (Diggs) try to turn Central Park into luxury condos. 

Despite the show's playfully ominous premise, "Central Park" has become a beacon of light for Gad since it debuted last month (May 29) during the coronavirus-fueled quarantine era. 

"It's surreal to see the kind of light it's bringing people in this moment of infinite darkness that we find ourselves in," he says of the show, "and it's a joy to be able to give something that is so joyful to the world." 

The Recording Academy chatted with Josh Gad about the creative and musical vision behind "Central Park," the dystopian soundtrack to 2020 and the lessons he's learned while working to become a better ally.

"Central Park" features what I would consider the definition of an all-star cast. The Los Angeles Times described it best: "The Avengers of musical theater." As one of the show's creators and executive producers, how involved were you in the casting? How did you navigate that process?

I was responsible for doing it. It was a conversation that I had with Loren [Bouchard] at the beginning, before we even had a script. He said, "On Bob's Burgers, what we did was we cast the people that we wanted to work with, and then we built characters around them." By casting the people we want to work with, he meant your friends, people that you see yourself doing this with. I reached out to all of the people that I knew I would want to not only work with, but that could legitimately carry a musical and not have it feel like we were bullsh*tting the audience, that we were autotuning anybody, that we were not giving anyone a voice that could legitimately match the incredible level on display in terms of the music that was written for the show.

I began by reaching out to people, like my college classmate Leslie Odom Jr. who had just won a Tony for a glowing performance in "Hamilton." And somebody I admired greatly also from ["Hamilton"], Daveed Diggs; both said yes. Kristen Bell, my co-star from Frozen, it was an immediate yes. And one by one—Tituss Burgess, Kathryn Hahn and Stanley Tucci—all signed on, and Loren and I were just in awe; we just couldn't believe it ... It's been very much about making sure that everyone who comes on really rises to the level of not only being the perfect vocal match for dialogue and the speaking voice, but also for the singing voice.

How do you go about balancing the plot with the songs? Do you write the songs and the show's plot congruently? Are the songs inspired by the plot itself, or vice versa?

It's a bit of both. When I pitched this idea to Loren Bouchard ... and his partner, Nora Smith, I said to them, "I want to do a true musical. I don't want this to be a pastiche musical, I don't want it to be a spoof of musicals. I don't even want it to be a show with music. I want it to be a musical. I want the songs to be a part of the very fabric of the story, and I want the characters to have no emotional choice but to break out into song."

We really tried to make it as cohesive a process as possible. Meaning, every episode we asked the question, "What moments want and need to sing? And what moments of the story feel like they need to be told through music rather than dialogue?" Once we have isolated what those moments are, then we break it down even further and we ask ourselves, "Do we want this song to be a function of the story? To tell us plot? Do we want this song to function as a comedic song? Do we want the song to function as an 'I want' song?" 

Once we identify those, then we go to the composers, either our in-house brilliant team of Kate Anderson and Elyssa Samsel and Brent Knopf, or our guest composers, people like Anthony Hamilton, people like Cyndi Lauper, people like Aimee Mann and Alan Menken, and we then have them bring their magic.

The show has been in production for a few years, prior to the quarantine. Did you have plans to take this show from TV to the stage? Or is that something that's potentially still in progress?

Oh, that hasn't even been broached. People have already started asking that question like yourself, which gives me such joy that people would even consider it to be worthy enough for the stage. I think right now, we're just trying to do our day job and we're in the midst of season two, and we're in the midst of literally creating an entire animated series from our respective homes. That's been the real challenge right now: How do we, in this ever-changing world, keep the wheels turning?

Read: Glen Ballard On How His Netflix Show "The Eddy" Puts Music, Jazz And Performance First

Your character in the show is a huge fan of Central Park. What about you?

I'm a huge fan of "Central Park." I've been a fan of "Central Park" for the past year. It's been a really frustrating thing to not be able to share it with the world until now. It is surreal to see kids already singing these songs in a way that truly reminds me of the experience I've had with Frozen. It's surreal to see the kind of light it's bringing people in this moment of infinite darkness that we find ourselves in, and it's a joy to be able to give something that is so joyful to the world. 

So much of the content that is on TV, it has a cynicism about it. What I love about Loren and what I love about Nora is they approach "Bob's [Burgers]" and subsequently "Central Park," along with myself, with a desire to just infuse as much joy into the world as possible.

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As far as the songwriting team, were you wanting to keep a regular cast of songwriters and composers? Or were you trying to institute an open-door approach?

Philosophically, my idea from the beginning was, if we're going to write four songs an episode, over 45 songs in a season, I do not want to put the burden on any one or even two individuals. I knew that we needed to have an anchor back at base, if you will, and that anchor became Kate and Elyssa, who I'd worked with on [2017 animated featurette] Olaf's Frozen Adventure years ago. I knew they were geniuses, and similarly Brent Knopf who came out of the "Bob's [Burgers]" world.

In addition to that, I knew that we needed somebody to come in every week and change the dynamic and keep the audience guessing. Then I thought that's what will keep the show fresh. We cast a wide net. The first person we went to, because we felt like she was the perfect match for the song, was, of course, Sara Bareilles. She wrote this incredible song called "Weirdos Make Great Superheroes." It was sort of a test run, but it was such a brilliant slam dunk that it put us all at ease and allowed us to recognize, "OK, this could actually work."

You work a lot in animation. Your credits include the Frozen, Ice Age and Angry Birds Movie franchises, among other titles. What is your attraction to that genre?

I'm attracted to anything that allows for as broad of an audience as possible to enjoy it. The movies that I love the most are movies that I grew up with. Movies that I experienced at 7 or 5 and now watch at 39 and still get such joy and satisfaction out of it. I love a good R-rated film, too, and I love to do them. There is something compelling to me about the broader appeal of those things that really allow for people of all ages to enjoy them, and I think animation, for whatever reason, is part of that tradition. It's got a timelessness, in many cases to it, and an opportunity to transcend any demographic.

You do come from a theater and Broadway background. Lately, you've been really busy with film and TV projects, as well as your YouTube series, "Reunited Apart." Do you ever miss the stage?

Every day, every day. I'd been flirting with doing something with my buddy, Andrew Rannells. We were, sort of like, legitimately looking at, and my prayer is that there is a stage to go back to in 2021, because I know we very much would like to have that opportunity.

Everyone's having a hard time right now with the pandemic, particularly the Broadway world. Have you had difficulty either enjoying your own show or just having a good time in general during this time of quarantine, nationwide protests and civil unrest? Are you able to enjoy the things you're creating?

No, but I'm a glutton for punishment. I genuinely have had a very difficult time enjoying much right now because it's so damn hard. There's so much sadness. There's this virus keeping everyone at home. There's this unbelievable recognition of inequality on the streets. There's so little about 2020 that's been worthy of smiles or worthy of joy. So the joy that I get is from being able to hear others take joy from what I can give. That's where I find my joy.

There is not a moment where I watch "Central Park" and I'm not absolutely floating. But I'm also watching it in critical of myself or critical of things that we could have done better. With that, and with my own neuroses put aside, the real blessing, the real joy, the real sense of fulfillment that I'm getting now is by hearing that it's bringing exactly what it was intended to those who have seen it.

If 2020 were a musical, what would it sound like?

Oh man, probably like the intro to Jaws [Laughs]. Or like the entire soundtrack to Mad Max: Fury Road or Blade Runner [Laughs]. I don't know. Find the most dystopian movie possible and fill in the blank.

The one silver lining that I've heard over and over about this difficult time in our lives is that it will produce great art. Out of the struggles we're all going through as a global community, we will eventually get some amazing art. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think it's a probability. If history has shown us anything in the art community, it's that some of the greatest pieces of art, some of the greatest moments that we have all celebrated in a movie theater or otherwise have been during very difficult times. You look at some of the iconic films, like Casablanca, like The Wizard Of Oz, that come out of these moments like the Second World War, the Great Depression. You look at movies like The Godfather that come out of moments like Vietnam. You look at these tremendous movies that come out of a time when the world seems backed into a corner.

It's a cliche at this point, but Shakespeare wrote some of his greatest plays during the plague. That's telling. That speaks to the potential of all of us, and I see that in movies, I see it in TV, but I especially see it in music. Some of the most powerful songs that I have always found to be some of the most influential in my life are songs that came out of the civil unrest of the 1960s. I see this as a similar opportunity all around.

You've been very vocal on social media about the heavy issues happening in our country right now, with regard to the nationwide protests, racial injustice, civil unrest. Do you consider yourself an ally? What does being a good ally mean to you?

Do I consider myself a good ally? I think you would have to ask others if they consider me a good ally because I feel so weird answering that question. I can tell you that my intention has always [been] to be an ally to everyone who needs it. I say this as someone who grew up hearing about the consequences of not having allies, of not having those who can defend you during times of great need.

My grandparents both lost their entire families during the Holocaust, and the message that they gave me was, "Never forget." But it wasn't a message that ever felt to me like a message specific about Jews. It wasn't a message that ever felt like a message specific to one faith. It was a message about those who need us at times of great need. Those who are looked at as "the other," those who are looking down upon, those who are treated differently. My entire life has been, "Why should anybody be entitled to less than I am?" Because that's what I grew up with. That was the guiding philosophy of the life or death message that my grandparents gave me.

So do I see myself as an ally? I sure damn hope so. Could I do more? Absolutely. I think we could all do more. I think we're learning that right now. I think this is a great reminder and an opportunity, and one of the silver linings of 2020, that great can come out of dark. That we can evolve, we can fight back. We can come together and do more. We can listen more, we can learn more, and I hope to never stop learning. I hope to never stop making mistakes, so that I can be better for that.

Yes, I look at myself as an ally, but I look at myself as an ally who still has a long way to go.

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Speaking of learning how to be a better ally, what have you learned so far in the last few months? What have you taken away from everything that you've been doing and everyone you've been talking to lately?

Man, I don't think the messages that I've learned can be put into one interview over a phone call, but I can give you a couple of highlights. I've learned there's so much I don't know. There's so much I don't know about the Black experience. There's so much I don't know about walking down the street and being judged in a way that could be life or death based on the color of your skin. There are so many things that I didn't know about the breadth of pain that so many people in my orbit and beyond have not only been feeling over the last few weeks, but have felt over the last however many years. And we're not talking about 10, 20 [years]—we're talking about over 100 [years].

I think that is the problem. Sometimes it's hard to experience things like the first Black president being elected and not think, "Man, we've really made changes, we've really done so much great. The world has changed." Then to see that not only has the world regressed, but there's so much accounting that still hasn't happened. There's so much accountability that still hasn't taken place, and there's so much wrong that is still being experienced by those who have felt wronged their entire lives.

There's been a lot that I've learned over the past three weeks, and specifically what I learned in a good way is that there are a lot of like-minded people who have had enough. My prayer for 2020 is that this isn't a moment—it's a movement. I hope that we can grow. I hope, as a parent, that I can teach, that I can give my kids a future that they not only deserve and that anyone deserves a future where equality is just a given. [Where] it's not something to even remotely consider the necessity of a march for, which, again, seems batsh*t crazy in the year 2020 that we have to be marching for that still, at this moment, with all we know and with what we've been through.

But man, racism is f*cking real. It's as real as the flower pot in front of me, it's as real as the phone that I'm on. And if we can't start recognizing the reality of it, then we can't change. That, to me, has given me the kernel of hope that I have. I think the band-aid's been ripped off. I think if all of us could stare at the wound long enough, we can start to heal.

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