"Lady Marmalade": Everything You Didn't Know

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings you the secret history and little alone fascinating facts behind your favorite music, movies, TV shows, and more. We're two guys with too much free time on our hands. My name is Jordan Ron Talk and I'm Alex Hegel. And on this episode, we're vool vooling our way through the hit that taught countless dudes the one line of French they'd take with them their entire lives, the pseudo timeless hit Lady Marmalade. We're gonna delve into Patty Labelle's iconic original, the assembly and feuds thereof of the pop supergroup that recorded the Oddies version and possibly the Uncanny Valley version of Kisses I was made for Loving You that you and McGregor sings in Mulan Rouge. Now, Jordan's I know you have a history with Lady Marmalade. Why don't you go ahead and start? I mean, yeah, my earliest association with Lady Marmalade. It was really one of the few songs so that I could I identified during the rare occasions that I went to middle school dances because I basically exclusively listened to like so I'm in a garf, Uncle forty fives and stuff until you were a man out of time. Yeah, so in a way this was perfect for you. This was great. Yeah. No, this was the one song that I actually felt like I could like. I was definitely too much of a prude to actually like dance, but I definitely I identified with this during the middle school dances, so it was nice. And then years later, when I was a DJ myself and I was djaying like proms and weddings and bar mitzva's and stuff, I throw it on whenever I needed to set the dance floor on fire, like immediately, and it killed every time. So I always have a really really warm association with this song. But judging from early conversations we've had, I get the sense that Lady Marmalade, at least the remake was probably a crucial role in your upbringing. Do I am I reading this right? I mean we're visibly blushing right now for those who can't see Alex right now, I'm sad because it's it's quite a I don't know how much we can keep from this, But I was like, what thirteen when this came out, this video was huge for me. Um, I don't know, man, I'm like, what, we can get into this later. But I love Maya. She's for Philly too, right, You're a Pennsylvania boy. I just I had such a crush on her. I mean, like, if you're a teen and you're seeing all of these beautiful women in like elaborate corsettes and such and so forth, like constantly. The other thing two was the saturation point of it. I mean it was constantly on the air, constantly. Do you not remember seeing this every hour on the hour? I mean I do, But I mean this just goes to show you where my head was at. To me, it resembled more of like Carnival circus vibes. Well, I'm so sorry, and and therein lies the difference between the two of us. I would say, yeah, and I mean, at the same time, I was also like a very weird person who was like invested in being an old man. And so this and Slash contributed to me wanting to own a top hat, which I wore to school in eighth grade. Oh you actually you followed through on this? Yeah, of course I did. I'm nothing if not dedicated Jordan's that is true. Wow anyway, Yeah, I'm I'm in love with Maya and this video directly contributed to me owning a top hat for several years. Now that you've learned way more than you wanted to about a thirteen year old Central Pennsylvanians budding fixations, here's everything you didn't know about Lady Marmalade. Is it Lady Marmalade? Lady Marmalade. I think it's a Lady Marmalade. I mean that's how That's what I thought, That's how they pronounced it. Yeah, all right, so yeah, we can't talk about the Malone Ruth Supergroup version of Lady Marmalade without giving credit to Labelle's classic version from nineteen seventy four, with the legendary Patti LaBelle taking the lead. You gotta love it. It's truly one of the funkiest Top forty hits of all time, right, I mean, he slaps absolutely, which is interesting because it came from maybe the least funky circumstances I could possibly imagine. Falso, let's hear me out. Lady Marmalade was co written by Bob Crewe who's responsible. You might not know his name, but he's responsible for a ton of hits by Frankie Valley in the Four Seasons. So the mind who came up with Lady Marmalade also came up with can't take My Eyes off You, Big girls, don't cry, walk like a man, rag doll, Bye bye baby, Let's hang on the sun, ak gonna shine anymore, popularized by the Walker Brothers, that will do up song by the Raised Silhouettes, you know, Silhouettes on the Shade. He wrote that too. Here's the thing, you tell me, the thing those songs that they all ripped, but they're not funky though there's there's not not an alsa funk in any of I love can't take my Eyes off You as much as the next guy, But I don't know. If wonder Bread could talk, it would probably sing can't take my Eyes off You. I don't think it's a very funky. So the fact that that the so I mean to me, the act that the same mind who came up with can't take My Eyes off You came up with Lady Marmalade is just totally beyond me. But at least Lady Marmalade came from a somewhat authentic place because it was inspired by Bob cruise visit to New Orleans witnessing the sex workers on the street. Yeah, he claimed that the famous Volvo line was something that he heard them say. But there's also people who say that he cribbed it from the Tennessee Williams play a street car named desire I guess Blanche Dubois. The character says it at one point, so jury's out as to whether or not he actually heard that on the streets of New Orleans or just took it from a beloved ninth grade English class play. Um. The Bob Crew co wrote this song with a guy named Kenny Nolan, who was one of his frequent collaborators, and Kenny actually recorded the original pre Patty LaBelle version of Lady Marmalade with his proto disco group The Eleventh Hour, but the song flopped until Patty got her incredible vocal cords around it. That's a terrible way to phrase that music writer, and I just yeah, and as one does in New Orleans, like something like I mean something like what am I talking about? I don't have figures for this, but like seventy five to nine. Of the music that was recorded in New Orleans around this time went through Alan Toussant and The Meters. Toussant give a little background on The Meters because I feel like as popular as they are, I still feel like they have never gotten their due for the amount of music that they gave to the world. Really kind of behind the scenes in a lot of ways. Yeah, you have almost certainly heard the song Sissy strut in something, but yeah found in nine while they were in high school, and the Meters became the house band for Alan Toussant and his record label and uh c ST Studios, Legendary Studios. Yeah, and these guys just worked. They were like the Funk Brothers. They were on everything they recorded with. Obviously Dr John, they recorded with Paul McCartney. Mick Jagger was like obsessed with them. He invited them to open with them in the seventies. So yeah, like you can't talk about New Orleans music without either Island, Toussant or The Meters. And Toussant was producing LaBelle and he decided to record did he decide he decided to record Lady Marmalade. I think Bob Crew pitched him it. But yeah, I don't don't know how where it came from, but but I think it was it was Toussant's idea to give it to LaBelle. Yeah, so crew brings it to Toussaint, Toussant decides to record it for the LaBelle album night Birds and so other than LaBelle on vocals and toussas on keyboards and he arranged everything that he did the keyboards for genius arranger, genius piano player, and then three fourths of the meters are on this art. Nevill was playing Hammond bassist George Porter Jr. And lead guitarist Leo Nutch and Telly and a guy named Herman Roscoe Ernest the third who played with Dr John. Um, do you want to do your Doctor John impression? Right now? I mean my only Doctor An impression is Robbie Robertson, Uh, introducing him. Do you all know the doctor Dr John mac reback say thankfulness did a band and all the fellas? Uh? You know that Bonnaroo comes from a Dr John song? Right? No, deceptively Bonnaroo. I did not know that. Yeah, I think it's on the same album that Right Place, Wrong Time, comes from anyway. Last sidebar about the Meters is that there's apparently maybe Apocryphale, an album that the Meters worked on with Stevie Wonder that has never seen the light of day. When was this? Was this during his seventies intervisions and songs in the Kio life that whole. Yeah, it's later seventies than that. I don't know. I don't think Stevie has talked about it. It's like one of those music journalists cat nip things. It might be out there. It's probably, you know, Stevie Wonder was recording god knows how much stuff at this time, so it's probably just in his basement somewhere. All back to Lady Marmalade, the LaBelle version of Lady Marmalade succeeded where the earlier version by the Eleventh Hour had failed, not only because of Allen whose Saint's absolutely incredible arrangement and Patty Labelle's just you know, incendiary lead vocals, but they tweaked the focus of the song to where the titular lady of the night was the focus of the song and not being objectified by the singer. So with Patty Labell's vocals. It became an empowering anthem, but it's apparently doubtful that Patty LaBelle ever intended it to be this. She later admitted that the group had no idea about the sexual overtones of the song, speaking to the Guardian, and she said, I was very naive. I didn't know we were singing about a lady of the evening. Young girls today are so well versed because of the Internet, so they'd never not realize. But it was different then. Thank god we did the song anyway, amen to that. Uh. And she took a very very pro sex workstance about the song. I guess some religious organizations were upset when the song was first released, and Patty's response was this, according to one Billboard interview, well, a hooker has to make a living too. She don't take the mic out of my mouth, and I'm not going to take the mattress from under her. So you go, Patty, she has a way with a SoundBite. Oh yeah, big time. Oh she's she's the best. Apparently she wasn't the only one connected with the song who was a little fuzzy on the lyrical content, um foreshadowing the Mulan Rouge version of Lady Marmalade. Maya used to sing Lady Marmalade around the house as a kid, not knowing what the French verse meant, but her mother, who spoke fluent French, I guess, declined to tell her and let her daughter just belt the song around the house as a child. UM Network TV sensors in the seventies were also really skittish about the song, which I didn't realize because on TV they had to change the line in French to vole dance of emissi, which means do you want to dance with me? So even in French you couldn't say on on American TV, do you want to sleep with me tonight, which is hilarious. Uh. This scandalous lyrics did not stop this song from being a hit. Uh. It chopped, chopped the tarts. Jesus Christ, I had too much coffee today, That's why I was talking about the meters for twenty minutes. Lady Marmalade became a huge hit, topping the charts for one week in the spring of nine and staying on for eighteen weeks. The success of the song made LaBelle the first black vocal group to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone. That's insane to me. I mean, launched in sixty seven, this was seventy five. That's yeah, that's not kept about that. Jackson's didn't like that's it's a bad track record. It's really bad. It's like Bowie calling out MTV for not playing black artists. Patty talked about this in in that Guardian interview mentioned earlier. She says, we were groundbreaking and it was an honor. This is talking about appearing on the cover Rolling Stone. Yes, we were groundbreaking and it was an honor. It was showing other black women that they could do it. But we weren't trying to break a record. We were just being LaBelle. I don't think at the time we thought it was special. We thought we were worthy of the cover and it was something we should have had and we deserved it. But only when you look back do you realize how groundbreaking it was. Young Black female groups gave us props. Destiny's Child did TLC complimented us. They said LaBelle was one of the reasons they formed their groups, which rules, Uh, the wass how groundbreaking there? I feel like they kind of get glossed over in the history of you know, in music in a lot of ways, it's kind of a one hit disco wonder, which is absolutely not the case. Yeah, and they were also one of the i mean, the first contemporary pop group and the first black pop group to perform at the met the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Talk about like well deserved belated success for this group because they've been kicking around since the early sixties. They've been doing it for like fifteen years. Did you know In the sixties when the group was still then known as Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells, Sydney Bird's song was one of the singers and she left to join the Supremes when Florence Ballot left in sixty seven, and they just have this amazing trey back record. They toured England in the mid sixties and they were backed by a teenage Elton John in his group blues Oology. It's so good, and they all they kind of returned the favor years later. They sang on his album Rock of the Westies, one of his big seventies albums. And it was actually while they were in England that they got their second winds. Going from Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells to LaBelle the kind of like funk supergroup that we know them as, because by the late sixties and early seventies their sound was kind of passe. You know, they've been dumped by their management, and they've been dumped by their label, Atlantic Records, apparently in favor of Aretha Franklin, which probably the seeds that'll come back later. Yeah, Patty and Aretha Franklin kind of famously had a feud, basically duking it out for the title of Queen of Soul. Really and uh, Aretha like really knew how to hold the grudge because I guess she snubbed Patti LaBelle at the Women of Soul concert at the White House by refusing to shake Patty's hand when she offered it. Have you in the video? Oh yeah, Oh, it's it's icy. I mean they tried to downplay this for years, so you know, we won't dwell on this, but it's uh you, I know you've got like a favorite part of this. Don't let you My personal favorite bite is reportedly this is Huffington Post. I found this at But Aretha Franklin launched a line of food in answer to Patti Labelle's line of sweet Potato pies, which were Patty Pies. Yeah, yeah, huge hit at Walmart and um, Aretha Franklin's pool quote when announcing it was miss Patty's going to have to move that pie to the size. Like were they actual rivals with like a burning I won't say hatred, but like was there animosity? There was it just kind of like was there a big grudging acceptance of each other. I don't, I don't want to speak ill of the debt, but Aretha could hold a grudge. She had a lot of feuds. She feuded with her biography her. I mean that David I think so, one of the one of her biographers. She had a whole big thing with him. I know that biopic was held up in years over like battling with her estate. Yeah. I mean, there's only one queen iss Oul and apparently not apparently there's only one queens owl and Aretha refused to see that crown for decades. She sang to me once I met her, really yeah, it was like it was when she I think it was one of her last albums, and it was like a cover's album and she had done Adele's Rolling in the Deep and I asked her about it, and I mean, it was so funny because it was like meeting the queen, like beforehand, you were kind of briefed on you know, this is how you approach her and you don't turn your back on her and it's miss Franklin and you know, yeah, don't speak unless spoken to type stuff. I mean, she was great and wonderful, but I asked her question about her version of roll in the Deep and then she just full throated launched into it with my face two feet from hers, and it was just like it was like a tsunami at close. It was just it was unbelievable to be that this is ridiculous, But we both have a story about a legendary soul icon singing directly to our face. When I was working at People, I went to see Sharon Jones and the Dad Kings and I was like front row, like a foot from the stage and just obviously like riveted by her by the whole time. And if anyone's seen her live, like a big part of her acts pulling people up on the stage and like dancing with them. And at one point she looked, this is at like a book launch party. This was not at a big show. At one point she looked directly at me and said, you've been staring at me all night. I want you to get up here. Also, this is the first time I've spoken about it really publicly because it's it's um such a secret joy for me. But yeah, she pulled me up on stage and like sang an entire song to me. She was like five ft tall. She was such a tiny woman and such a powerhouse. Um, what was the song? It was a cheating song, and so it was very powerful to have her yelling this song at me. I just remember I had I had ear plugs in and I could hear her like unamplified voice, like on stage. She was so much force came out of that tiny little woman. God love Man, I love Sharon Jones, God rest her soul. I would a woman in a powerhouse. So many gray I mean, we're I'm glad, we're we're paying tribute to so many soul icons on this episode. I'm glad. I mean getting back to to LaBelle. This was detouring back to late sixties, early seventies. I mean they were kind of a throwback. They were still sort of almost look like the supremes in gowns and the big bouffont wigs and stuff, and they were a cult favorite over in England because the Brits love their R and B. I mean, this is northern soul country where they would have all night raves of pure R and B. In the late sixties and early seventies, a lot of R and B acts in the US that kind of had run their race or weren't really huge, like people like Gina Washington would go over there and have these huge you know, be worshiped as I mean, kind of like what Jimmie Hendricks did. He kind of struck out over in the States and went over to England and was hailed as a genius. So a lot of soul acts from the US went over to England and kind of had a rebirth. Dusty Springfield was a huge fan of LaBelle and convinced her own manager, a woman by the insanely English name of Vicky Wickham, to to take Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells on quite the sticky wicket. Yeah yeah, Vicky, Vicky Wickham, sticky wicked. Try saying that I'm gonna started doing that for my vocal warm up before we record. So it's when they're over in England that they kind of start going through their funk makeover and they go from being Patti LaBelle and the Bluebell so just LaBelle and they you know, start wearing like denim and kind of go through their you know, take off their their fancy gowns and stuff and become the sort of funk powerhouse group that we know about. And they ripped. They toured with The Who and they do this incredible version of Won't Get Fooled Again, which is just insane. Um. Yeah, So another thing about LaBelle is um known as Hendricks. Yeah, while we're on the Hendricks train. Yeah, exactly, good segue. We're kind of not doing the segways. Well, this show, we're just too excitable about about soul icons um. So yeah, the other members of Labell tend to get short tripped, which is a shame because Sarah Dash went on to tour with the Rolling Stones. She's also sang with Keith Richards and The Expensive Wine nos now Rogers, the o J's David Johanson of the New York Dolls. But Nona hendrix Um is a fascinating figure. She claimed to be a distant cousin of of Jimmy Hendricks, which is that ever proven. I choose to believe. I didn't even look into it because I just I wanted to believe it's so badly because she's I mean, La Belle was a trio and she was definitely like she inherited Jimmie Hendrix's space Funk gene. I mean, she was the chief songwriter of LaBelle and her song titles with things like Space Children and Gypsy Moths and Who's Watching the Watcher and a Man in a trench Coat parentheses voodoo. She's just got these like I mean, it's so good, just incredible song incredible songs. But her titles are so good. So she was I mean, Patty Labell was more of a soul traditionalist and Nonah Hendrix was more into sort of these avant garde things, and they really didn't see eye to eye, which is a big part of the reason that LaBelle split in nineteen seventy six just after the success of Lady Marmalade. Well, you know, Vicky wickham And and Nona Hendricks are longtime partners. I did, I did know that. Yeah, yeah, but go on hit me, Yes, they they split in a fairly spectacular fashion, according to Patty A. Bell's memoir at least and so I'm gonna read this directly from Wikipedia, basically for legal reasons, because this is the only place that I've seen this story cited. During a show in Baltimore on December three, nineteen seventy six, Nonah Hendricks wandered off the stage and into the audience at the beginning of Can I Speak to You Before You Go Hollywood It's the name of the song. LaBelle stage manager was able to steer Hendrick's backstage, but Hendricks locked herself in her dressing room and beat her head against the wall. She was removed from the theater and the restraints. The band agreed to disband soon after the incident, ending fourteen years together, which is a a a sad end, but they would reunite many times later on Thank God. But following the band split, Nona Hendricks was in a Captain Beefheart tribute act, which I love makes so much sense. I mean, her career is so interesting. Talk more about her career because she's got a really interesting uh post Bell. Yeah, she collaborated with Laura Anderson, who did that Superman song, and that was her big hit. But she was, you know, a well respected New York downtown sort of avant garde composer vocalist, collaborated quite a bit. Yeah, Gina's Shock of the go Gos. Valerie Simpson of Ashrid and Simpson and an iconic songwriter in her own Tina Weymouth of Tom Tom Club in the Talking Heads, which rips. Tina Weymouth is one of the most underrated bass players of all time. Of all time, Nancy Wilson of Heart and Then She Went. She reunited with Patti Labell and she has an album called Female Trouble that has Peter Gabriel on it. Um Surprisingly, Prince, perhaps less surprisingly, George Clinton and Mavis Staples. Yeah, man, God, I love Mavis. Another man, I love Mavis Staples so much. All respect to the Staples singers and also all respect to all members of the Bell Just Patty an incredible group. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more. Too much information in just a moment. So the seventies, the years go by, do the waynes world do do do do? We're working. Time is passing, Time is passing. Lady Marmalade gets covered a few more times. The Latin band leader Mango sent to Maria did a brassy instrumental version. Sheila E Famous Percussionists Too work a lot with Prince did a really elaborately rearranged R and B version. In Labelle's version of Lady Marmolaude didn't hit number one in the UK, but a version by the quartet All Saints did in nine seven. So this song has had a history after LaBelle, but nothing compared to Mulan Rouge. And this brings us to the turn of the millennium. Basil Hrman was making Mulan Rouge, the third and final installment of his Red Curtain trilogy, which includes his directorial debut nine two, Strictly Ballroom and then Romeo and Juliet. Of course, Mula Rouge is set in the nineteenth century Paris, and the old conceit is that Ewan McGregor's character, Christian the Poet, sings the hits of the twentieth century instead of poetry, which is a way of comically illustrating that he's ahead of his time and he's this genius. And I haven't seen this movie since it came out. I remember hating it. I'm not gonna lie. I remember, um, I remember it has the classic time warn trope of Nicole Kidman coughing blood into a handkerchief to graph that she's sick. Is that a time when I Nicole Kidman coughed into well, not Nicole kim in, but like, you know, someone is always like and then they like pull away the handkerchief and it's talk about consumption. Yeah, exactly. That's how you know that they're dying. Or they like cough into a sink and there's like blood in there and there's you know, that's definitely a trope. Look it up. Read a book. Uh. And I distinctly remember him singing I was made for loving you, which I hate so much. Don't talk no, nope, nope, nope, We're done, moving right along. Um. The whole idea of mulan Ruge was built on the success of the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack, which perry contemporary songs by people like Garbage and Radio It Shakespeare, and this was initially a very hard sell by bas Lerman to the film studio twentieth Century Fox. When bos Lerman was pitching his ROOMI and Juliet adaptation. He, I guess, very memorably said to the head of the studio, Oh did I mention they'll be contemporary music hit records, more hit records than you can possibly imagine, which I'm sure the licensing people loved because that ain't cheap. I can only imagine what the budget was for Romeo and Juliet for the soundtrack. But yeah, I'm trying to do on Australian accident. I'm failing, but I mean, I'm sorry. No, no, you can just keep interrupting you with my attempts. I hate bas lerman, uh not personally. I'm sure he's a lovely man. I think his movies are full of sound and fury signifying nothing. I didn't grow up with that Romeo and Juliet movie. I didn't grow up with having a crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. I didn't grow up with this movie. I didn't grow up with Australia. What did he make after this? Yeah, I don't like him. I don't know he's there. I don't know. You may not like is Romeo and Juliet adaptation, but a lot of people did. The soundtrack went to number two on the charts in the States, and it made the studios, both the film studio Twenty Century Fox and Interscope on the record side, trust bas Luhmann implicitly and gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. First next project, which was Mulan Rouge, and the film was set in a cabaret slash brothel, and naturally Baz chose Lady Marmalade to anchor the soundtrack. It's arguably the most famous song about a court is in this side of Roxanne. New Orleans has that creole vibe, but the connections to France, it has the volvou line. It's perfect. It's got to be a Mulan Rouge. And the songs that he uses in Mulan Rouge, they're so diverse. I mean, I don't remember what the total was of songs that he use, but it's some phenomenal mouth that he weaved into the soundtrack there within the movie. And so he wanted to play on this for his version of Lady Marmalade. He wanted it to be sung by, in his words, an assortment of the greatest pop singers from each continent. And he says this in Billboards absolutely stellar oral history piece that was published last year by Hillary hughes Um. He said, I wanted the greatest K pop girl, the greatest European singer, the greatest American singer, and he wanted people from all over the world. And then somebody, you know, very justifiably said, well, wait a minute, that sounds like that'll take forever to put that together. Why don't we just go with every different genre in the United States? And that kind of became the idea moving forward. It was going to be like a musical version of the Avengers of the Fantastic Four. That that's what they said all these interviewed, retrospective interviews. That was kind of the the idea was that it was just like all these forces coming together. Each performer of this kind of supergroup would represent their own area. You got Little Kim being hip hop, and Maya was R and B, and Christina Aguilera was pop, and Pink was we'll call it rock. Well, well, I guess more pop side too, but we'll we'll call her the rock one. Hey. You know, Pink collaborated with one of my favorite songwriters of all time, Tim Armstrong of Rancid, so she's rock ish. I did not know that. Yeah, yeah, anyway, cue uh lightning paste, quick montage of a bunch of people on phones to assemble this dream team. Imagine Soderberg direct, pickatue done, and Missy Elliott go and see you, son of a bitch. I'm in Uh. It took two years to get this. For the production, Basilerman hired Missy Elliott, who was two weeks away from releasing the epical Get Your Freak On, and um, you know, just another lovely figure in pop music with seemingly no one has an unkind word to say about Missy. She was the sweetest. It was very Yeah, she seems so cool, she said. Uh. Later on she was rolling stone. Yeah. She When I hung up, I was like, oh snap, what did I just Okay? The record was so iconic, and so the pressure kicked in. She recruited assistance from a guy named Rock Wilder, who's production I credits I'm not super familiar with, but he worked with Redman, jay Z, Janet Jackson, and this is a great bit of like synergy. He was in the studio next door to Missy working on Janet Jackson's All for You record. When she got the call to produce Lady Marmalade, and um, it's basically the same track. We said a lot of nice things about Missy Elliott and everybody, but it's basically the same track. They kind of just bump up the base and there are there are there record scratches in this. This came out in two thousand. There has to be some wiki wikies. I'm sure, yeah, this is two thousand one. There was a lot of a lot of the wiki wikis in there. I'm sure, yes, yeah. So Maya, my beloved Maya, was the first member. Maya picks up the phone, You son of a bitch, I'm in uh because this was on Interscope. Jimmy Iovin he was was put up. It was the money man behind this. He was the he was the Elliott gold figure. So she was on Interscope and she had Case of the X that had just come out, and she had worked with Missy Elliott and she and Pink are both Pennsylvania girls. They'd worked with the same producers in Philly, and Maya later said, I knew Pink when she was Alicia, and you know you noted this. I felt this in my heart before you noted this, But for all of the other egos in this, Maya is the one that everyone loves. She stayed friends with everyone. She's the m Yeah. Little Kim, herself, no stranger to feuds, would later say, may is my girl, not a compliment. She gives lightly, And here we go. Here's the land in the whale, land in the big shark is Chris No whale, I mean like a big donor, like a like a like a god cut that I don't need people coming after me for that. Whale is like a big donor, like like someone who gives a lot of shut up. So irving as Off is Christina Aguilera's manager at this point, and as people were in doing before the bottom fell out of the music industry, they were playing hardball, I mean irving as Off. It was a terrifying man. I mean, he's the one that he was the Eagles manager. And they don't no less a figure than Don Henley one set of irving A's off. He may be satan, but he's our satan. Love it and Don, Yeah, it's very true. But Christina loved Missy Elliott and also loved Little Kim, and so they got Little Kim in it. And ultimately they pulled Christina on board. And despite what comes later, these women were all really excited to work with each other. This is the era when a lot of them were just being pulled on to sing the hooks in rap songs or being paired in duets with boy band singers. So this was a chance for all of these four women to sing together. The song was being produced by Missy, there was a female choreographer, female costumer, and Maya said in an interview with Rolling Stone just last year, she said, with men, you're kind of like the little sister and everyone's on the lookout, so you don't have the platform to be totally free. When I got with the girls, it was like a playground. Now I'm gonna break some hearts with this revelation because I really like to imagine all four of them in the studio, gathered around one mic, just like letting it rip, all having these incredible ad libs, singing this all together at once. That was sadly not the case due to scheduling conflicts. All the parts of recorded separately, and they worked out who was going to sing each verse in advance, but they wanted to record them all singing the entire song individually so they could isolate their vocal ad libs. And this guy, Ron Fair was tapped to act as a vocal producer for the track. He was then the vice president of UM of the label Interscope, and uh he was tight with Christina Aguilera. So he's a boardroom a high profile boardroom figure at this stage, and he's brought out of retirement to produce the book. He's the he's the Carl Reiner figure in this Oceans eleven. He's brought out of retirement to do what he does best, which just tweaked the vocals for this Lady Marmalad remake. And he did this insane, beautiful mind style thing where he extracted twenty five vocal ad libs, which are like all the you know, strays and ohs and vocal runs that aren't part of the main song. He extracted twenty five of these ad libs from each singer and then took two keyboards which have eight eight keys a piece, and put had every key be a different vocal ad lib and then he would add these little vocal flourishes to the track with the push of a button, repeat that in a way that makes more sense to people because that's that. I don't think he sequenced it. I think he just treated every single one of them like an individual sample. And because he was maybe a keyboard player or just made sense to him, he just laid out every single and get you. I don't know, I'm gonna stop doing that everything and go one of them. So what's the eight eight times two hundred seventy two something like that? Hundred seventy two vocal ad libs at his fingertips and just you know, he played the main track and we just maybe punch the crawl, I know. I like imagining like the Looney Tunes thing with Daffy Duck and like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? When Daffy Duck and Donald Duck are doing the Rockmann and offing. Ye, that's how it took place. He also participated in this incredible Billboard Oral History, which if you haven't read, totally check out. He said that there were thirteen days when he did not sleep, and this is a quote. It was an absolutely holy experience making that record. Yeah, I mean doing that many vocal comps after thirteen days will make you see God so good on round Fair for sacrificing his sanity to get those amazing vocal parts. Although the weaving and the interplay like it really sounds like they're all I mean, not only in the same studio, on the same mic. It really sounds like they're all together. But unfortunately Ron Fair helped so the seeds of the feud between Pink and Christina Aguilera. They were, I guess, having a pre production meeting and this guy, Ron Fair, I guess, apparently, according to Pink, took a very standoffish approach. He was very much Christina Aguilera's guy, and I guess it was felt that he favored her, at least according to Pink, and she talked about this in her Behind the Music episode in two thousand nine. Ron Fair, I guess walked into the meeting without saying hello, and his first words out of his mouth where what's the high part? What's the most singing part? Christina is going to take that part? And it kind of came across as Christina just bullying her way on the climax of the song by bringing this big shot label executive to the meeting who was clearly in her corner and Pink, she says at least telling the story, stood up and sarcastically said, oh hi, how are you so nice of you to introduce yourself? He hadn't. I'm pink, she will not be taking that part. I think that's what this meeting is about, and she later admitted from that point on she became an her words, the asshole of the meeting and um. Of course, Christina Aguilera did wind up getting that part, though, which you know was well deserved, but it ruffled some feathers. But also, I mean, who else was going to get I'm sorry, I don't you know, I don't respond well to like ego or power plays. But Christina Aguilera is the best singer in that lineup by not a mile, not many miles, by like a light year. I mean, have you seen the she does a James Brown tribute at she does It's a man's man's world, Man's world, I think, and she does his like like inward uh, like high pitched scream. I mean the woman. Yeah, I don't know why I'm still talking about this whatever, She's the best singer in that group by light years. I don't I I like pink. I bear, I bear, I bear pink. No quarrel, but no the idea that you would walk into any meeting where Christina Aguilar is the other singer and be like, oh, come on, I think I think it was probably less quarreling with our ability and more of the way that it was a yeah, that's fair, that's fair. But when the track was I guess almost complete, Missy Elliott wanted to take a reference mix home to listen to. And this was the days when the first CD burners were on laptops and they couldn't get the burner to work, so instead, Missy Elliott called her own answering machine at home and just recorded it the version of Lady Marmola that she just finished, onto her answering machine at home so she could play it at home, which is a very two thousand one solution to a very two thousand one problem. It's like when they went to record um this one bad Brain song, the lead singer was in jail for marijuana possession, so he used his phone call to record the vocals. Oh my god, they just like patch the They patched the phone from the studio in and he and it's on the record. It's on a song. What is it? Sacred Love? It's it's a bad brain song that yeah, hr recorded from jail, which rules, Uh, there's probably we could probably do a whole thing about songs recorded over the phone. I bet there's I bet there's a lot of those speaking of that Basil urban upset that they didn't use footage from this movie in the video. I don't know if you remember this era of soundtrack videos. My The most indelible one for me is Kiss from a Rose by Seal where you had him on like the Batman stage with his shirt rippling in the wind. So this is the era when you if you did a soundtrack movie soundtrack song, you cut the movie into the song that was written in stone. And they hired a director named Paul Hunter, who has a CV that is just should be an MTV Greatest Hits Video compilation. Honey by Mariah Carey, Hippo Ties by Notorious b I g One in a Million, One in a Million for Leah, You guys say another I Get Lonely by Janet Jacks, Another one Father of Mine by every One, fly Away by Lenny Kravit, Puff Daddy Maze j Loo, If You Have My Love, TLC's Unpretty d Angelo untitled which man, that video made me feel some things. Will Smith's why did you end this list? With Will Smiths Wild Wild West one of my most hated songs of all time. Anyway, this guy was a team You go ahead, you you talked about this. Yeah, there's a really interesting podcast I listened to called The Commissioner by a guy called Randy Soason, and he was the music video Commissioner, which I didn't realize was a real term for Interscope and A and M, which was a label that was doing the soundtrack from Ulan Rouge. And he talks about going to see a rough cut of the film with Paul Hunter, the guy that they were going to get to direct the music video, and they were talking about what they were gonna do for the video, and Paul Hunter, I guess, said, this movie is incredible. It's a real work of art, but I don't think I can use any of this for the music video. And as you said, this time, music videos were basically an excuse to have another trailer for the movie, and so eliminating the film footage did not sit well with Fox, the studio who not only made the movie, they were putting up half the budget for the music video. I guess the record label Interscope was putting up the other half. So this was at one point six million dollar video and Fox were pissed that they were showing out eight hundred thousand dollars and not having their movie directly plugged in the most obvious way. So they were really justifiably so yeah, but you know who was really piste on bas Basilerman. According to Randy Soason, basil Erman was furious and he took it very, very very personally that they were not using his film footage in this music video. And to try to make amends, the producers had the actual red curtains that they used in the Mulon Rouge film shipped over from Boz's Australian home base at great expense to try to make it up to him. And having said all that, we'll be right back with more too much information right after this. You know who doesn't suck is Little Kim, another person I had kind of a crush on, truly a rap pioneer, iconic video artist in her own right. She did not know she had to dance. She was not a trained dancer. She was a rapper. She had bars, she didn't dance. UM. The shoot for this video two days March seventeen and eighteen at the l A Theater in Downtown l A, which was Downtown l A at this point was probably not a fun place to be, so it was made up obviously. Is anyone who've seen it ten thousand times? As we did to resemble a French nightclub, and this is the first time that all of these women met face to face and a film crew from making the video. Is there saw on YouTube? Check it out? It's so good. So each one of the singers had their own hair and makeup people, both two as the offspring, so indeubibly saying keep them separated and to ensure that they each had their own distinctive look for the video, but they did use a consistent wardrobe. Costumer Tris Merville, who went to go on to create the Assless Chaps look for Christina for Dirty, which isn't assless chaps redundant? Aren't all chaps assless? Because there she worked at a Bunch in Hollywood. Since then, she's done stuff with Fincher. She did Mank recently and UM the Mod Squad and also leprichn three. Because you gotta pay ramp. I'm not familiar with lepric on one, two or three. You don't really have to see past one. I think it's Jennifer Aniston's one of her first movies. Um. They used the same choreographer to keep all of the moves from woman to woman consistent, and that choreographer was a woman named Tina Landon. She started out as a Lakers cheerleader when Paula Abduel was the team choreographer, went on to go tour with Janet Jackson as a dancer on the Rhythm Nation tour. She would keep working with Janet. She choreographed the Janet and Velvet Wrote world tours, and she previously worked with Ricky Martin on the Livin Levita Loca video, which I don't remember having particularly good choreography, although I guess everyone in that video who's not him is kind of doing pretty impressive choreography, and that there's like Latin dancing in there. It's also dancing. So she had previously worked with Christina Aguilera on What a Girl Wants and the aforementioned case of the X by Maya and Tina gave each singer a prop pink got a chair, which I would have called the top hat her prop, but sure fine, um. And this apparently has caused her a little bit of consternation because Britney Speace had just done the video for Stronger, in which she has a chair, uh to great effect, and Um Landon had to go out of her way to say, pink, this is going to be a different kind of chair situation. Maya got a whip, which she felt nervous about because her mom was on the set, which yeah, I get that. Um. Christina gets the long satin gloves that she pulls off. Apparently she was she was. No one was happy with their props in this. Christina was like, you have to kind of convince me to do that. Bit's work. I mean if somebody else gets a whip and somebody because the chain, you got gloves, that's that's not a prop, that's an article of clothing. Okay, fair point, fair point, fair point. Uh. Little Kim was given cash and Chez Lande. I don't know how to pronounce that. It's just Chase lounge. Okay. Either way, she got this piece of furniture and uh was delivered wine and diamonds, which, as you so indelibly put. It is the two food groups. Anyway, As we alluded to at the top of this bit, Kim shows up and she doesn't realize she's supposed to dance. That makes me somebody who hates dancing and is a non that that makes me really sad that she was like, I have to do this. Yeah, it sounds terrifying, and choreographer Tina Landon recalls this moment when she first met the wrath of Kim. It's eight o'clock at night, she's got dark sunglasses. It's my first time meeting her. She really wasn't happy about it. She struggled with the choreograph just because that wasn't her thing. But I think the product says it all. You can't tell because she really worked hard and this is interesting. Little Kim, this will here, This will interest you. Little Kim had sung the refrain of this song years earlier on a track she did with Little Cease called Crash On You and you Can Get You Get You yah Ya with the marmalade was the hook she sang on that song. So that's I had no idea about that. That's wild. Go ahead, moving on. Despite the collaborative spirit between these strong and creative women. The video was the scene of another incident between Pink and Christina, which kicked off a cold war between them that lasted for more than a decade. Many many years. I mean, you know, so many of these onset flare up things are played up in the press, but this one was apparently legit. Choreographer Tina Landon later said there was probably more tension between Christina and Pink than the rest of the group in Little Kim also recalled quote a little tension on the set of the video, said it was mostly because the four had never really met before, didn't really know one another. Randy Soson tells this story on his Commissioner podcast too, So this little incident, this little kerfuffle, is well documented. What basically happened was that each of the women filmed their solo dance spots individually, and while this was going on, Christina Aguilera stated in her trailer all day working on her her look, with her glam squad and just generally getting in the zone. And this went on for something like ten hours, like it was a long time, and when she emerged, just jaws hit the floor. Because you gotta remember this is like Christina fresh off of Virginie and a bottle Era, and now she was dressed like twisted sister with the teased hair and the heavy makeup. Uh so she looked amazing, she looked crazy look cool. By this point, Pink, who had done her part earlier in the day, she'd had a few drinks and she was still a little sore from that whole pre recording session meeting where she thought Christina had gotten preferential treatment, and now she kept everyone waiting all day. And I think everybody else was kind of on the set, like watch everybody else, and she was kind of off on her own. So Pink was pissed. She had a few drinks. She got a little little strappy to use use the term okay, So Christina was filming her part, Pink was sitting next to the director, Paul Hunter, and made loud comments. And precisely what these loud comments were depending on who tells the story. Tina Landon and the choreographers claimed that Christina couldn't hear Paul Hunter's directorial comments, and Pink was just repeating them louder, and then Christina would snap, I was talking to Paul you know one of those things, And you know, I I could see that being legit. Like if you're on stage and you're stressed out and everybody's watching and you're missing something and the director's calling comments to you and you're asking him to repeat it, and somebody else, you know, one of your fellow artists, who's what you're supposedly your pier is like yelling it back to you. That's got to throw you. So I understand that. According to Christina uh And this is when she was on Watch What Happens Live in she claimed that Pink was just heckling her from the audience. She said, that's what she did back then, she was heckling me from the audience. I mean, Pink did talk a lot of She has that line in one of her songs that she calls out l A read. Remember l A told me you'll be a pop star. Yeah, all you have to do is change everything you are. So yeah, I have no but I mean maybe Eli just sounds like Eli deserved it. Well yeah, I'm not saying none of these things are true, but I have no trouble believing that Pink was like caught stirring the pot. It probably started with her semi sort of trying to be helpful, and when she couldn't hear what the director was saying, repeating it back to Christina. Christina, ever reacted, and then Pink probably took it to another level and started being antagonistic that we'll get to the bottom of this yet. In any event, Christina left the stage, she left the set, she left the theater. Word was handed back from her people. She's not coming back today, she might not come back tomorrow. She's really not happy with how the production is going. She doesn't like to be told what to do by another artist, which is all fair and irving A's off. Her terrifying manager was across town, apparently at an Eagles reunion show at the Staples Center, and he texted, uh, somebody on the set, the interscope guy, Randy Soson, good luck with you shoot tomorrow. We won't be coming back, which, for those of you not well versed in music industry reps speak, this is a giant middle finger. This is this is not good. So everybody decides to kind of let the dust settle and see if Christina would chill out, you know, the next day, after sleeping on it, Pink did her part by sending flowers to a bunch of people involved in the production and apologizing for getting a little rowdy the day before. Ultimately, Christina appeared on the set the next day. They let bygones be bygones. They filmed all the group dancing shots, which was fairly drama free, and it looked great. Tina Landon later said in one of the many oral histories from the twentieth anniversary of the film last year that came out, this one was in Cosmo. When we finally got to the dance section, the tension dissolved. They all wanted to do their best. They wanted to shine. No one wanted to be the weak link. The competitive, collaborative spirit took over. So for years after this there were rumors of a feud between Pink and Christina, and they both got into it on separate occasions when they were on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. Pink went first in seventeen and she claimed that Christina tried to punch her had a nightclub, which she said was quote hilarious and it is. Yeah, there's that quote from there from around the time of the election, which is it's impossible to fight anyone from Philly because they take fights as a compliment and the invitation to fight also as a compliment. Yes, Pink is a Philly lady. Christina Aguilera was Staten Island, no contest. Yeah no, I mean, and I think Pink was kind of like a little more rough and tumble during her early days. Oh yeah, she was legit. She she was a fighter. I mean she. I know Christina had that song, but Pink actually was Anyway, Christina claimed that this never happened. She appeared on Watch What Happens Live two years later in nineteen and she said I wouldn't swing on Pink she and beat my ass, which is a thousand percent true. And yeah, there were years of barbed comments between the two and the press and side eyes on red carpets and all that stuff, but they apparently made up when Pink appeared on the Voice in Christina was one of the judges. Uh and Pink shared a War's Over tweet about it in seventeen, saying that the pair had quote made amends, and she elaborated on this during her Watch What Happens appearance quote. We were super young and super new with the whole thing. I'm an alpha and she's an alpha, and I'm used to taking my altercations physical and she's used to having them verbal. And we're very different. Women have to learn how support each other. It's not taught on the playground. Uh. Christina was effusive about Pink's talent and called her such a powerhouse and definitely paved the way, setting the precedent of pushing back if something didn't feel right. Apparently, the two recorded a song together for one of Christina's albums, but according to Christina, it didn't quite make the final cut, which I take to be rude. That's a feud report for another day. The videos wrapped, they're getting ready to release this song on apos one, just a few weeks before the movie Goes gets its wide release in mid May. In two thousand one, Mulan Rouge was at a crossroads. But despite the fact this is asinine, despite the fact that this song has for the biggest artists of the time, one of the biggest radio stations in the country refused to play it. Jimmy Iovine's team brought it the song to Z one D New York and they turned it down because they didn't want to play a cover song, so Apex Petty. They just truck across town to Hot ninety seven hip hop station, who obviously recognize what's in front of them and added to the rotation. Phones explode, you know, Marvin Barry is on the phone talking to his cousin Chuck about the new sound. Yeah. Yeah, and they're hanging out of windows windows. What's that song? I gotta hear it. We cut to the cigar chomping executive going get me Lady Marmalade. Uh Ze obviously recognizes their mistake and they start playing it and it becomes a world beating success. It hits number one in June, stays on the chart for five weeks, twenty six years after Labelle's version had reached number one. And it's so that makes Lady Marmalade the ninth song in history to top the US chart performed by different artists. This is a very granular stat the third airplay only song in Billboard chart history to hit number one without being released in a major league, major commercially available single format. So this is back when singles were a thing and you would release a single. Lady Marmalade not released as a single, A single that doesn't make any sense. I would guess rights issues. Probably they didn't want to release a non not part of the soundtrack album after Try Again by Leah and Shaggy. Remember Shaggy his two thousand unsung angels. Uh didn't collaborate with Sting recently. That's the whole album, moving the whole album. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, God, that's must suck um. It reached the top spot in fifteen plus countries including the UK, became the third collaboration, only the third collaboration by individual female artists in history to hit number one, and the first ever song to top the chart with more than two credited female artists and say. Unsurprisingly, contemporary critics were not kind to this remake. Entertainment Weekly called it cluttered. The Washington Post called it gaudy, which maybe both are true, but that's what I like about it. Yeah. Rolling Stone simply called it god awful, and they would later retract that review as they are wont to do, which we have covered in Harvest led Zeppelin, et cetera. They did one retrospective piece about the Stone and Rolling Stone writer Matt few Jacob's called it the most exciting multicultural partnership since Aerosmith and run DMC joined forces for Walk This Way, which is a bit of breathless hyperbole. I don't necessarily co sign either way. Enter from stage left, Patti Labell. Critics be damned. This song took home to MTV Video Music Awards both Video of the Year and Best Video from a Film, as well as the Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. The quartet performed the song on stage at each of these awards shows, marking the only time they've ever performed at altogether, which is a tragedy. I feel like they should have done twenty anniversary. Yeah. Um. At the Grammys, they were joined on stage by Patti LaBelle herself and I love this so much. She arrived at rehearsals carrying a clutch containing only hot sauce and a makeup compact. Yes so good. She actually had a brief snaff food during the performance, and her red chiffon gown got caught as she went down the banister of the staircase that they used as a set during the telecast, and Pink had to free it for her and also play it off like it was all part of the act, which if you watch that performance you kind of don't really notice that they did a good job of trying to downplay the fact that they're professionals. Yeah, that's true. All in all, it was a tough performance because, as Maya would later say, they're all in corsets, which constricts your diaphragm and makes it really tough to sing, especially to belt. But they all pull it off like champs. And these days, whenever Patty Labell performs Lady Marmalade, she performs it with the lyrics that were amended for the movie. You know that she met Marmalade down in Old Neulan rouge Um and that is just part of the legacy of this revamped Lady Marmalade. But you know what else was part of the legacy of this revamped Lady Marmalade. The Pussycat Dolls, Ladies and gentlemen, the Pussycat Dolls. Uh. You know, there was a bunch of oral histories that came out for the anniversary of this song, and bad As claimed that Jimmy Iovini wanted to collaborate with him again and put a group together, and Baz Baz told him they had to move on. He had to move on to produce Australia with his mus Nicole Kidman and everyone else's mus Hugh Jackman. So he turned him down. But Jimmy turned his attention as he is wont to do, to a burlesque dance troupe called the Pussycat Dolls, which date back to in l A when they had a weekly residency at the Viper Room, famously the Club on Sunset where River Phoenix Uh died. Um. They danced to fifties and sixties pop standards and easy listening tracks by like like Henry Mancini songs, and you know they got a lot of grassroots momentum. They were featured in a Playboy and Playboy, They had bit parts in Charlie's Angels Full Throttle and Pinks music video for Trouble in two thousand three and old Ron Fair comes back into the fold because he and Iovene get their hands on the Pussycat Dolls and turn them from a dance franchise into a recording act. They bring in people like Nicole Scherzinger, Melody Thornton and uh, we get that song, don't you out of It? The buttons to be. I don't know, none of this matters. Sorry, I'm not throwing that one to you. You just have to cold open into it. Yes, I'll tell you what doesn't matter the fact that Ed Sheran wanted to do an all male version of Lady Marmalade no one, no one asked for this. Yeah, no, I mean okay, taking it back a little bit, the Lady Marmalade remake helped craft the template for the sort of all female supergroup streaming service bait stuff like Bang Bang with Ariana Grande, Jesse J and Nicki Minaj, which was a great song, and also the slightly less great and significantly less successful Don't Call Me Angel from the twenty nineteen Charlie's Angels remake, which had Ariana Grande again, Miley Cyrus, and Lana del Rey. A lot of these songs, I I kind of feel exists to game the streaming services by having all these big names on it. But some of them are pretty good, like this Bang Bang one I was. I love that song a lot. That's interesting in Rita Aura said she wanted to make They've been trying to make Rita Aura happen for so long. In this country. Yeah, I know, industry playing, yeah, But in She said she wanted to make a version of Lady Marmalade with the then new class of pop divas, including Miley, Cyrus, Charlie xc X would have been awesome, and Iggy Azalea. This didn't happen, but she got sort of close with the All Star Collaboration Girls, which had Charlie xc X, Cardi B and b B Rexa. I have no memory of this song, but that's a pretty amazing lineup. A year later, in nineteen Ed Sheeran said that his Number six Collaborations project was inspired by wanting to make an all male version of Lady Marmalade with Ed himself, Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars. I would Budd Dwyer myself. In an interview with Ed she and and sharing if that happened, Actually, it's funnier if they're in drag. But you know they'd never acquiesced to that. Maybe Bruno Mars would. Bruno Mars is a computer program. He's a hologram. You can get him to do anything. I don't know if Justin Bieber would do drag. I could see its gray enough, but I don't think he would, ed might He's like a whip funny. He's funny. I'm putting that in quote marks and sharing is funny. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. My god. But for a lot of these these retrospective pieces, I love how I'm just just trying to steer everybody away from your anchor right now with okay kids, it's okay kids, let's go good ice cream. In all, a lot of these twenty anniversary retrospective pieces, the people who participated in the Lady Marmaloud remake, we're asked who they would want to make a new version of Lady Marmalade. Maya, You're You're One and True Love was was asked to she would want to see do a Lady marmal would remake, and she flowed a drag Queen edition featuring people like Rue Paul, which I'm sort of surprised hasn't happened yet and maybe it has on Drag Race. Patty LaBelle was also asked and she suggested Jasmine Sullivan, Halsey, Fantasia and Jennifer Hudson, and her quote is it would be new Diva's killing it, and that would be incredible. Jasmine Sullivan's hotels. That's a great record. He's got pipes. Fantasia's got pipe Jennifer, Yeah, that would be that's a great line. Trust Patty Labell to put together something like a record. Executive's went dream there. Yeah, that I mean, that's what I mean. That should absolutely happen. I mean, seg new Diva's killing it. Yes, that is truly what Lady Marmalade the remake rather is about Diva's killing it. More than a way to sell a huge movie, more than a precursor to Christina aguilera stripped look, more than a prototype for the pop cultural phenomenon known as the Pussycat Dolls. The song Lady Marmalade and especially the video are a celebration of strong, independent women coming together from all different backgrounds and all different genres, confident in themselves, their artistry, and their sexuality. It was a moment to be big, big voices, big hair, big costumes, big personalities. As Cristina Aguilera said in The Billboard Oral History, it wasn't for anyone else. It was truly about celebrating ourselves as women, and she gave a similar quote to Cosmo. The message was awesome because every woman wants to feel good in their own skin. Every woman wants to own the sexuality, whether you want to put on a corset or not. And uh, inclusivity in the collaborative spirit were brought to the four in a time when the tabloids were really pitting women against one another, and Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears were just the most obvious example. The chance for women to work with other women, and not just the stars, but the choreographer, the costumer and other creatives. This was huge, and Maya talked about this in the Billboard Oral History. It was all about representation too, because we didn't see that type of collaboration happening often much us with women. I had worked with so many male rappers or singers and it was pretty cutting edge. So to be invited to work with women, and the ones that I was a fan of and familiar with, I thought they were really amazing at what they did. I was fangirling the whole time. So please think of all these points next time the DJ bumps Lady Marmalade at your friend's wedding, or you start thinking about buying a top hat. Thank you for taking this widely digressive tour with us of Lady Marmalade, and uh, we'll see you next time. On Too Much Information, I'm Alex Hegel, I'm Jordan runt Talk. Thanks for listening. Too Much Information was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk. The supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtalk and Alex Heigel, with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review from our podcast on iHeart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,