ONE HIT WONDERLAND: “Piano in the Dark” by Brenda Russell

Love the concept and the melody, but I inherently have an INTENSE distaste for the sound of "gloop" production. The synths/organ/whatever and the reverb just causes a really intensely bad reaction within me lol

Also WOW that Fast Car segment was great. Not only because we've had episodes on both Fast Car and the other song, but we saw part of that clip in the DWBH episode too. Now we have more context. Just a cool moment in the Todd Cinematic Universe

Fking hell shes got an amazing voice!! Wish i could sing like her 😍😍

1:59 … yes but no? If you're morbidly curious, it's a very circuitous path. So there's a vaporwave mixtape, ＫＭＡＲＴベビー by 1983FILM. Its gimmick, as the name might suggest, is that its audio samples are taken from a tape played on KMart's PA System, specifically from March 1992. As much as I personally like it, I can't deny that it's kind of lazy, as far as vaporwave goes; a lot of the tracks are largely unedited, just slowed down. And one of the tracks is unmistakably a slowed-down version of a musak version of Piano in the Dark.

I actually had to listen to the intro twice and it reminded me "oh yeah I kinda forgot Todd actually plays piano and he's kinda really good at it"

Great video. I was 19 when this came out. This kind of music was not really my "jam", but I did quite enjoy this. Another song from that same era that I liked a lot was, "I don't have the heart", by James Ingram. This must have been just a rumor back in the day however, I thought I had heard that she wrote this about Stevie Wonder, playing in the dark because he was blind.

Keeping a sour relationship together through the power of music… like when the husband pulls out his concertina at the end of The Big Snit

the concept of us not having cynthia erivo if not for piano in the dark

You played her being introed by Robert Townsend. This was for his show on HBO back in 1989. Well they used to play of a commercial for her episode (and Bobby Brown) after EVERY thing. I heard a snippit of this a 1000 times in between Willow and the movie where the girl dressed like a guy to play football.

I didn't expect Yellowjackets to get hit by a stray. It's true though, it fell off

“Let’s hear it for the power of this set!”

awesome 😀

I'm still listening to this song. Damn it, Todd.

1:04 "maybe itll be the Christian stations next" basically already happened with those vapid Christian songs that forced their way onto the mainstream Pop radio

7:15 – "Token, you're black. You can play bass."

I knew that at 8:45 when "Rise" was being played that Todd was going to reference "Hypnotize"; I always wondered if he would ever do something like that ever since learning the sample's source.

Honestly, I think a part of me likes the first music video for this song better than the second version. I like that it's shot in a way that's a little moody, a little somber with the black and white– it's good that there's not an emphasis on who the guy is, what he looks like, because… yeah, it's not about that. Him being shot like a glam rock cryptid underlines the message of the song, that he can't quite let himself be known, can't really be seen, except through his music. I think it really comes through that the singer's feelings are conflicted because he's so distant and emotionally unavailable, except for in those moments when he knows she's about to slip through his fingers and is trying to hold on desperately, baring himself in a very intimate way: by playing a heartrendingly beautiful, delicate song from the heart. She doesn't know him, doesn't love him, but only right until he plays her piano in the dark, and shows her what she means to him. I think that's beautiful.
Sure, it's not as visually striking as a jazzy bar, and it maybe was not as marketable in its time as placing the singer as a crooning songstress singing backup to the romantic drama of… what seems like a series of white couples lol, but artistically, I like it more.

…. also that "mass appeal" line on Gravity, Todd…. I'm sure I'm not the first to say it, but my dude, that could not be more clearly pun, lol. "Mass", as in, physics. Gravity. Attraction. You get it. "Mass appeal" maybe not as in "ooh baby, you're conventionally attractive and I like that" (although that's also a compliment people use in its own right, in the "you're so great, you could have anyone but chose me anyway, I'm so lucky to get to be with you" sense), but more as a joke that his literal mass appeals to hers. That he's so hot, so attractive, that it's like gravitational force.

2020 CRV? 0:49

"Don't worry be happy" by a black man, it's fkn political of course he's gonna win, the Epstein class wants the us all docile and no one fighting for any fkn rights. Incredible video, thank you

4:37 Farewell, Neil.

Thanks for bringing this beautiful song to my attention. Somehow I had missed it growing up in the 80s. Keep up the good work, Todd, as you continue to play piano in the dark.