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The Hustle
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Date Aired
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September 19, 2019
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Running Time
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17:12
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Previous Review
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Next Review
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Website
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Todd plays the opening notes on his piano...
VAN MCCOY - THE HUSTLE
A one-hit retrospective
End of the piano part leads into...
Faith, Hope and Charity: Do the hustle!
Video for "The Hustle" plays
Faith, Hope and Charity: Do the hustle
Todd does the Hustle in his chair
Todd: Welcome back to One Hit Wonderland where we take a look at bands and artists known for only one song! Or one dance, in this case.
Faith, Hope and Charity: Do the hustle!
Todd (VO): The Hustle is not the first disco song. There's debate on what the first disco song is, maybe it's...
Clips of The Hues Corporation - "Rock the Boat"; MFSB - "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)"; and George McCrae - "Rock Your Baby"
Todd (VO): ...this song. Or this one. Or this one. One Hit Wonders all. But all those songs are from 1974, so they'd all predate "The Hustle", which hit #1 in July of '75. But "The Hustle" still feels like the first of something, some kind of milestone or tipping point.
Todd: I wasn't there, obviously, but that's the way it looks to me.
Todd (VO): It's the first #1 single that could not be conceivably defined as anything else.
Todd: A lot of those early disco hits, if you ask people, I think they'd probably still say it's just soul music or funk or something.
Todd (VO): But "The Hustle" is not. It's not soul, it's not funk, it's not R&B - it's just disco.
Todd: It was intended for one place: the dance floor.
Todd (VO): And for that reason, I suspect "The Hustle" is when disco became the phenomenon we know it as now. The unignorable force that would end up defining and dominating the rest of the '70s. And you can thank one guy for that: Van the Man. [Picture of album cover featuring...] Van McCoy, I should say, that's his name. A man who had spent his entire career working for other people. Waiting for his moment to shine.
Todd: And he did it with one of the greatest grooves in dance history.
Todd (VO): And look, I have no idea how to do the Hustle. I'm not sure I would even recognize the Hustle if I saw other people doing it. But I love "The Hustle" regardless. And so did most of America, because it was not just a popular song from a super popular genre, it was a craze just on its own.
Todd: In fact, Hustlemania predates the song itself.
Todd (VO): It was humongous. And the man behind it all almost doesn't matter.
Todd: Like, I realize this show is about one hit wonders, but "The Hustle" really, thoroughly dwarfs its own artist more than anything I've ever covered here.
Todd (VO): Which is saying a lot, 'cause this guy turned out to have a pretty fascinating career.
Todd: So let's check it out! Possibly while doing a quarter step backwards and putting our finger in the air.
Faith, Hope and Charity: Do the hustle!
Before the hit
Slideshow of various pictures of...
Todd (VO): Van McCoy, from Washington, D.C., was one of those music industry lifers who's always working behind the scenes and... usually never gets that big break of their own. Like, I think his success, both behind the scenes and eventually under his own name, happened just through sheer volume.
Todd: Like, if you write 1000 songs, one of them's gotta be a hit.
Highlighted biographical text indicating Van has over 700 copyrights to his credit
Todd (VO): And I'm only barely exaggerating. Like, the amount of credits this guy has to his name is insane.
Todd: So, I'm just going to try and pick out the highlights of his songwriting career.
Clip of Barbara Lewis - "Baby, I'm Yours"
Barbara Lewis: Baby, I'm yours.
Todd (VO): Aw man, absolute chestnut right there. R&B classic from the mid '60s, covered about a billion times.
Clip of Gladys Knight - "Giving Up"
Gladys Knight: Giving up
Todd (VO): One of Gladys Knight's first hits, also covered many times.
Clip of David Ruffin - "Walk Away from Love"
David Ruffin's backing band: Gonna walk away from love
Todd (VO): That is David Ruffin from The Temptations; all his biggest solo hits were from Van McCoy. Uh, this one hit the Top 10. All good stuff.
Audio clip of The Stylistics - "Love Is the Answer"
Todd (VO): He also did some orchestra work; he, you know, he did all the string arrangements for The Stylistics' biggest hits. Uh, I wanna point out this one he did specifically, "Love Is the Answer"...
Todd: ...'cause he did an instrumental version of that one on his own.
The above plays over the singles cover, which houses a familiar melody
Todd (VO): [imitating the melody] Do-do-do-dodo-do-do-do [sigh] Yeah, that's...
Todd: ...that's just "The Hustle" in a minor key.
Todd (VO): Yeah, you will hear bits of "The Hustle" here and there and everywhere in all his songs. So apparently, he found his true calling as a songwriter and arranger. Including his big hit of course, which is an instrumental.
Todd: But he did, originally, want to be a singer.
Album cover for The Starlighters
Todd (VO): His first released songs were from his teenage doo-wop group in the late '50s.
Todd: And he was releasing singles all through the '60s that just never caught on.
Album cover for Van McCoy - Night Time Is Lonely Time
Todd (VO): He even got to release a whole vocal album in 1966. Here it is, "Night Time Is Lonely Time," produced by the legendary Mitch Miller.
Todd: Wait... Mi-...i-...
Clip of Mitch Miller hosting Sing Along with Mitch plays
Todd (VO): Isn't that the "Sing Along Orchestra" guy from... from, like, old black and white TV?
Mitch Miller and Choir: When I grow too old to dream
Todd: [stares] ...This is the guy you want to make your pop album?
Van McCoy: Night time is lonely time. The sun goes down
Todd: Okay, to be clear, this is what soul music sounded like in 1966.
Clip of Sam & Dave - "Hold On, I'm Coming"
Sam & Dave: Hold on, I'm coming. Oh-oh! I'm coming.
Todd (VO): So yeah, I mean, I guess there's always room in music for throwbacks, but... you know, I don't think he can be surprised he didn't take off trying to be Nat King Cole in a James Brown world.
Todd: But the guy always said that his main influences were classical composers as much as modern music, so naturally, he started leaning towards making instrumental work.
Picture of an album cover from...
Todd (VO): He formed his new band, The Soul City Symphony...
Todd: ...and he started pumping his energy into that in the mid '70s. And, at the same time, there was this new energy springing up out of these dance scenes. And he saw one new dance. He decided to make a song for it and he shat something out in an hour.
Todd: And naturally, it was his biggest hit. [shrugs]
The big hit
Todd: Disco is...
Image of a gravestone for disco
Todd (VO): ...well before my time, it was already ancient history by the time I was born.
Todd: But in the course of my life, I've seen that history get drastically rewritten.
Image of a sign saying "DISCO SUCKS"
Todd (VO): I was first made aware of as the worst music ever made. [Image saying "Either you love disco, or you are wrong."] And then, like, overnight it became the greatest music ever made.
Todd: And I kinda think it's getting beaten into the ground.
Todd (VO): I-it's been weird to watch disco turn into yet another over-mythologized genre like punk rock and grunge and gangsta rap. Honestly, I'm a little tired of it.
Todd: But I do get why people talk it up so much.
Todd (VO): A big part of it is critics and historians reexamining the undercurrents of racism and homophobia in the backlash, and, you know, that's all pretty well-covered. But there's another reason for the turnaround on disco that needs to be mentioned.
Todd: These songs hold the fuck up!
Clip of Van McCoy - "The Hustle"
Faith, Hope and Charity: Do the hustle!
Todd (VO): Well, not all of them hold up [Singles cover for Wing and a Prayer Fife and Drum Corps - "Babyface"] There are, in fact, a ton of shitty disco songs out there. But a whole lot of them have aged really well, including "The Hustle," which is fucking killer! Like, I don't dance. At all. But even I know this is a great song.
Todd: The weird thing is that people were doing the Hustle before they had "The Hustle" to hustle to.
Todd (VO): According to what I could find, the dance had already existed for years. Puerto Rican kids were doing it in the Bronx, cause the chaperones didn't like them grinding on each other, so they invented this dance, and it just kinda spread out from there. Like, this is the dance that made disco.
Michael Musto: "The Hustle," I think, was the biggest disco dance of that whole era. It just had this infectious beat to it that made you wanna do the hustle.
Slideshow of various hustle-related single covers
Todd (VO): And there wound up being just an insane number of Hustle songs. I'm not even sure if Van McCoy was the first...
Todd: ...but he's definitely my favorite.
Todd (VO): Like, this is the one that deserves to be called just "The Hustle." It's, like, one of my favorite disco songs ever. Granted, I decided that a week ago while writing this episode. I can't believe I didn't realize how much I like this song.
Todd: Like, it starts off with that beautiful...
Video of sunlight peeking through clouds
Todd (VO): ...like, almost angelic intro and it promises you, like... [chuckle] spiritual enlightenment or something. God is a DJ, and he is ready to boogie.
Todd: And then you get one of the two actual lyrics in the song.
Faith, Hope and Charity: [whispers] Do it!
Todd: I'll be honest, that actually kinda strikes me as a little creepy.
Faith, Hope and Charity: Do it!
Todd (VO): [imitates the whispering] Get the gun!
Todd: But then once the Son of Sam voices go away, the funk guitar starts building up and the strings get higher, and then we get those magic words.
Faith, Hope and Charity: Do the hustle!
Todd: [dancing in his seat]
Todd (VO): When some songs tell you to dance, it's a command. But "The Hustle" is not really making any demands; they're just confident you're gonna do it. And they were correct.
Todd: But of course, the hook of the song is not those three words.
Todd (VO): There are a lot of instruments on "The Hustle," and they all get their moment.
Todd: But "The Hustle" is driven by one specifically. [The section he mentions is played] That flute solo.
Todd (VO): The song's success rides on it. It is such a perfect hook.
Todd: So memorable... let's face it, so annoying.
Todd (VO): It is just unignorable. It feels fitting that "The Hustle," arguably the first disco hit, has an instrumental line so incessantly catchy...
Todd: ...it can only be matched by the last disco hit, "Funkytown"!
Clip of Lipps Inc. - "Funkytown"
Todd (VO): If someone wants to mash up the flute from "The Hustle" with the beeping synth line from "Funkytown", I'm certain you could melt brains with it. [Meme of a woman pulling her hair and screaming "CAN'T GET THAT SONG OUTTA MY HEAD!!!"] It would destroy people. And then we get that beautiful trumpet solo, which...
Todd: ...okay, it does sound a bit like The Price Is Right theme, yes.
Footage of The Price Is Right
Todd (VO): Van McCoy, come on down!
Todd: And you can tell this came pretty early in the disco era, cause...
Clip of Chic - "Good Times"
Todd (VO): ...the later disco songs have a lot more bass, you know, and the drums hit a lot harder.
Todd: Yeah, there's not a lot of the disco "thump thump" in "The Hustle"; it's all treble.
Todd (VO): Violins, flute, trumpet - it's all still very lush and orchestrated. [Clip of The O'Jays - "Love Train"] Like, Philly Soul was still kinda big at the time, so that feels like a much bigger influence on "The Hustle" than anything else, it's more similar to, like, The O'Jays or to Barry White, who had his own orchestra that sounded something similar to this. In fact, they sound nearly identical, cause...
Todd: ..."The Hustle" is basically...
Clip of Barry White - "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe"
Todd (VO): ...Barry White's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe", with flute instead of Barry. [sings over the melody of "The Hustle"] My darling, I... can't get enough of your love, babe.
Todd: Now let's all do the Hustle!
Faith, Hope and Charity: Do the hustle!
Todd: I don't actually know how to do the Hustle, in fact, I'm not entirely clear what the Hustle is! Apparently there were a whole lot of different dances with that name.
Todd (VO): There's the ballroom couple dance. And that one seems like it takes a lot of work and you'd need lessons for it. [Clip of Saturday Night Fever plays] But then there's also the Line Dance Hustle, which looks a lot easier. And there's [Clip of Dancing with the Stars] like, the Latin Hustle, the Spanish Hustle, the New York Hustle, the California Hustle - I don't even know if these are different dances or they're just different names. I looked up a lot of tutorials and they all told me something different.
Different tutorial plays
Dancer: Forward! Back! Forward, back, quack, quack! Hustle! Hustle! Hustle! Hustle! Tap, tap, tap!
Todd: Yeah, honestly, I think I maybe know less about how to hustle than when I started.
Todd (VO): But even so, there's something magical about this song, just the big sweeping strings and the beautiful trumpet. Like, this song to me is just like, a beautiful sunny day or a great view. It just puts a big smile on my face.
Todd: Now obviously, Van McCoy went away after this.
Todd (VO): Dance crazes are not a good way to build up a career.
Clips of Silento - "Watch Me (Whip / Nae Nae)"; Mr. C the Slide Man - "Cha-Cha Slide"; Los Del Rio - "Macarena"; and Little Eva - "The Loco-Motion"
Todd (VO): Ask Silento. Or Mr. C The Slide Man. Or Los Del Rio, or Little Eva or so on. I guess people care more about the dance than the music, so if anyone should launch to stardom, it's the choreographer.
Todd: But this guy was obviously extremely talented, so he did more than you'd guess. So let's check that out.
The failed follow-up
Clip of Van McCoy - "Change With the Times"
Faith, Hope and Charity: Change with the times
Todd (VO): The follow-up to "The Hustle" has actual words to it. It's called "Change With the Times." [Album cover for...] From the album, The Disco Kid. Awesome vest, man.
Todd: You know, "Change With the Times", that's a good title for a guy who led the world into the bold new defining sound of the '70s.
Todd (VO): Maybe it's something he learned from his weird out-of-date debut. If he'd known to change with the times in 1966...
Todd: ...he could have broken through a lot earlier.
Faith, Hope and Charity: Forget what used to be, change with the times
Todd (VO): So the title fits, but... honestly, this song didn't do much for me. Not much of a hook to it, and I'd skip it entirely if not for this hilarious video that goes with it. I like that he has to conduct, seeing as he's not a singer...
Todd: ...but we don't see who he's conducting, so he's just staring at you awkwardly. And you can see him, like, singing too, but I don't know if that's actually him singing.
Todd (VO): The vocal group in his orchestra is Faith, Hope and Charity, which was another of the bands he produced. Uh, I don't know which one the guy is, maybe he's Charity. Eh, I don't know, maybe Van's singing also, I couldn't tell you. And I guess that big pile of riches in the foreground is the money he made by changing with the times and getting into disco. Oh, also, Van McCoy is a giant. Cool.
Cuts to a part of the video where the camera is zoomed in on Van's eyes
Todd (VO): Dude... w-what are you looking at?
Todd: [looks down then back up] What...?
Todd (VO): Anyway, this did make a little dent in the R&B charts but didn't break the pop Top 40. Probably because there's no dance that goes with it.
Singles cover for...
Todd (VO): He had another song, "Party", and that one's a little funkier.
Todd: It landed at #20 on the R&B charts and, well, honestly, that's about as good as it gets as far as success in America goes.
Todd (VO): Like, the fact that he mostly made instrumentals might have been a difficult sell. Dance music has always been better for instrumentals than most genres, but not that much better; people like to sing along.
Todd: However, he did land one last big Top 10 hit.
Todd (VO): Albeit, in the U.K.. And really, that has to be considered his real follow-up, so here it is - the spiritual successor to "The Hustle":
Todd: "The Shuffle!"
Footage of "The Shuffle" being performed on the BBC
Todd: It-it's basically just "The Hustle" in 6/8 time.
Todd (VO): And I don't like it nearly as much. But I am impressed that the Brits of '77 could dance to music that wasn't in 4/4. I mean, disco music is not supposed to be that complicated.
Todd: [imitating drum beat while the count of the beat plays underneath] DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch-DON-ch. Simple and easy so you don't lose your place.
Todd (VO): 6/8 is not exactly super complicated, I mean, it's simple enough, but this is music for the masses. Anything harder than the basics is gonna throw them off.
Todd: [counting and snapping along off beat to the numbers on the screen] 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2...3...4...fiAAAGGHH!!!
Todd (VO): So, congrats to the Brits and their superior music education that they were able to groove to "The Shuffle."
Todd: [gives thumbs up]
Did he ever do anything else?
Todd: Van McCoy pumped out a lot of albums in the last half of the '70s.
Todd (VO): Uh, only a couple of them are available on Spotify, but I checked out what was there. Uh, I wanted to mention this one I liked, "African Symphony." This is not Van's version, obviously, this is a newer version 'cause... uh, this one's apparently still very popular with orchestras today.
Todd: I think maybe based on that, he was inspired to make...
Album cover for...
Todd (VO): ...Rhythms of the World, a disco instrumental album including eclectic music styles from all over the globe!
Todd: Here is "The Soul Cha Cha".
Disco video plays with the above song
Todd (VO): Nice. And here is...
Todd: ..."Oriental Boogie..."
Same video plays with the above song
Todd (VO): 'Kay, that one feels a little outdated.
Todd: And, uh, here is..."Indian Warpath."
Same video plays with the above song
Todd (VO): Okay, I think we're kinda losing the plot here.
Image of newspaper article reporting...
Todd (VO): Anyway, towards the end of the '70s, he was getting tired of disco and he was talking about transitioning into other genres...
Todd: ...but sadly, he would not get that chance, because he would not live to see the '80s.
Image of newspaper article reporting...
Todd (VO): He died of a heart attack in 1979 at the way too young age of 39.
Todd: Since it was the disco era...
Clip of cocaine usage
Todd: (VO): ,,,kind of easy to assume what caused the heart attack. It would... also explain how insanely productive he was.
Todd: But I've seen some places say he was just in bad health in general. We can only speculate.
Todd (VO): It's a shame, 'cause a guy like that - as talented an orchestrator and composer as he was - he would have been working in music for the next few decades, I'm sure.
Did he deserve better?
Todd: The man was extremely talented, so does he deserve more credit for all the things he did? Yeah! Yeah, absolutely. Do I think he deserves to be household name or have any of his other songs be big hits? No, not really.
Todd (VO): No, I think "The Hustle" was the best thing he ever put his name on, and if that's his legacy, it's a pretty nice one to go out on. Really, he was, like, the first of the modern dance producers, right?! He's the one who realized he didn't have to give credit to any of his songs to anyone else. He could just put his name on his own work, so Calvin Harris, David Guetta - they owe him a debt of gratitude.
Todd: Yeah, this song still rules. Here, here, I'm gonna see if I can dance in this chair. [starts dancing] Travolta! Travolta! Quack, quack, snap, snap! Hustle! Hustle! Hustle! [gives up, shrugs and leaves]
End of "The Hustle" video plays
Closing Tag Song: "Hustle Rap" - Talko
THE END
"The Hustle" is owned by Avco Records
This video is owned by me
THANK YOU TO THE LOYAL PATRONS!