“Things That Make You Go Hmmm…,” on the other hand, was inspired by a slightly bawdy Arsenio Hall routine, and was a playful showcase for the slightly bawdy Freedom Williams, who met Clivillés and Cole while he was working as a janitor at a studio they were using. A monster Side A, as cassettes go, starting with “Gonna Make You Sweat,” and then two more minor hits: “Here We Go, Let’s Rock & Roll” kicked off with some Prince-style guitar shredding and had one of those rad MTV videos set in, like, a sexy factory. Pictured on the cover: Cliviles, Cole, a Liberian singer/model/actress named Zelma Davis, and a Brooklyn rapper named Freedom Williams. Gonna Make You Sweat, the album, came out the week before Christmas in 1990. In 2016, Clivillés told Vice that he and Cole first offered “Gonna Make You Sweat,” the song, to Trilogy, who turned it down next thing you know he and Cole are playing an early version for Sony/Columbia superstar music executives Tommy Motolla and Donnie Iiener, and, boom: five-album deal for the newly christened C&C Music Factory. They shepherded young pop-house and Latin freestyle groups, including one called Seduction and another called Trilogy. They worked on Whitney Houston’s remake of “I’m Every Woman.” They remixed Taylor Dayne, and Natalie Cole, and Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, and Aretha Franklin, and New Kids on the Block. They worked with Mariah Carey on her 1991 album Emotions. But just as a duo, Clivillés and Cole would soon flourish as writers, as producers, as remixers, as talent scouts, as Svengalis, as ethically dubious hitmakers and pop stars in their own right. Early on they worked together as part of a group called 2 Puerto Ricans, a Blackman and a Dominican, and then another group called the 28th Street Crew. Robert primarily was a DJ, David primarily played keyboards. So first let’s meet the owners: the two C’s in the C+C Music Factory, Robert Clivillés and David Cole, who met in the late ’80s at the famed New York City dance club Better Days. It turns out that one’s opinion of the factory depends on whether you own the factory or just clock in there. One way to summarize the early ’90s is that upbeat dance music-including honest-to-god house music-could simultaneously be both super-mainstream and super-super weird. Lotta dance music that was never quite as vapid or pedestrian as it appeared. Do you know what Jazzercise is? Got huge in the mid-’80s. The future, for quite awhile, can sound uncomfortably like the past. A decade does not begin right away, culturally. “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now).” One of the biggest hits of one of the wildest eras in pop-music history, in dance-music history. Below is an excerpt from Episode 14, which explores the history of the C&C Music Factory, their biggest hit, and a strange time for pop music with the help of writer Craig Seymour. Follow and listen for free exclusively on Spotify. But what does it say about the era-and why does it still matter? On our new show, 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s, Ringer music writer and ’90s survivor Rob Harvilla embarks on a quest to answer those questions, one track at a time. “Wonderwall.” The music of the ’90s was as exciting as it was diverse.
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