music moots with Molly Lambert ("Good Love" by Anita Baker)

We are extremely back with Music Moots™, the blogseries where I ask someone to recommend me a song they like, and then I listen to the song and then write a little about it.

Today we have Molly Lambert! Molly is a journalist, podcast producer, and San Fernando Valley-raised bon vivant. If you have any taste at all, you have probably experienced something delightful she has had a hand in creating: perhaps a Grantland podcast, a letter of recommendation for glass bricks (one of the most beautiful objects humanity has produced), or a book about pop music duos that doubles as a work of typographical art.

Her latest ventures are in the zone of narrative podcasts. In 2022 she produced and hosted HeidiWorld: The Heidi Fleiss Story, a podcast about Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, and now she's back with JennaWorld, which is about the history of the pornographic film industry, delivered through the perspective of legendary adult film actress Jenna Jameson.

It's an amazing podcast, delivering a refreshing attitude about porn ("There's a lot of fear-mongering that easy access to porn sexually deadens its viewers, but nobody gives viewers credit for being able to differentiate media from real life"), music cues that remind me of lurid VH1 specials, and the occasional profound off-topic tangent ("It doesn't actually make any sense that some forms of speed are legal, but not others. Legalize meth or ban caffeine.") Hell yeah. It's publishing new episodes through the end of January, and maybe you'll hear a certain music blogger do some voice acting on one of them...

Anyway, I knew Molly would be a great ask for a Music Moot™ recommendation. She recommended "Good Love" by Anita Baker.

First of all, a moment for Anita Baker's outfit on the cover of Giving You The Best That I Got. And the hair. And the earrings. And the teal calligraphy. And the gently classical setting for the photo shoot. I love the Classical = Sophisticated sub-aesthetic of the 1980s, an obvious other example being Madonna's "Vogue" video. No one looks bad posed with an ancient marble fountain or an Ionic column.

I love the gentle frustration of the lyrics of "Good Love" in comparison to the luxuriant smoothness of the music. Anita yearns calmly, elegantly. But she's also kind of on her last nerve. "I hear you say you've got got a lot to give up / And there is so much more this heart of mine can take," she sings. "If what you have to bring to me is positive / You send it right away." ("Send to Anita Immediately.") By the bridge, she's mask off: "If you're the man I hear you say you are / I don't quite understand why loving me is so hard." Whoever Anita's potential lover is....get after it, man!! What is your problem??

The other part of the song that spoke to my soul is the melody of the signature line of the chorus ("I wanna know what good love feels like"). The short rise and extended descent of the notes, capped off by that miniature vocal run on that "like" is so delicious. LUSH.

I figured with its 1980s provenance and quiet storm genre, "Good Love" would be a popular sample to use in production. It was interpolated in A Tribe Called Quest's "Stressed Out," but got the full vaporwave treatment with Macintosh Plus. Hey, aha, a classical bust...reverse image search tells me we are looking at Helios here...

Thank you Molly! Listen to JennaWorld wherever podcasts are found - such as here.

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