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PODCAST

Switched on Pop

Switched on Pop

A podcast about the making and meaning of popular music hosted by musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding. Episodes every other Wednesday.

music

All Episodes

27:10

Modern Classics: PJ Morton on Stevie Wonder & Nas

Switched on Pop ·

2022/05/17

PJ Morton is one of the hardest-working musicians on the scene today. Maybe you’ve seen him playing keys with Maroon 5, or fronting a full string section in his NPR “Tiny Desk” concert. Maybe you’ve immersed yourself in his Grammy-award winning album We Are. On all of these projects, Morton evinces his mastery for taking classic soul and R&B and updating it with modern sounds. Other musical legends have taken notice. On his latest release, Watch The Sun, Morton is joined by some of his own

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26:49

Will Ukraine win Eurovision 2022?

Switched on Pop ·

2022/05/10

Greece, Spain, UK, Sweden, Italy and Ukraine are the frontrunners in the 2022 Eurovision competition. Switched On Pop analyzes the top six songs as well as some of the more oddball picks. Songs Discussed Amanda Tenfjord - Die Together Chanel - SloMo Britney Spears - Work Bitch Sam Ryder - SPACE MAN Elton John - Rocket Man Cornelia Jakobs - Hold Me Closer Zdob și Zdub - Trenulețul Citi Zēni - Give The Wolf A Banana Mahmood, BLANCO - Brividi Bad Bunny, Jhay Cortez - DÁKITI Kalush Orchestra -

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25:14

Belle and Sebastian on the value of staying "young...

Switched on Pop ·

2022/05/03

Belle and Sebastian released the first album Tigermilk in 1996, and they’ve released eight more since—a catalog that helped define the sound of rock and indie in the new millennium through buoyant melodies and verbose lyrics. Their new album, A Bit of Previous, continues to refine their unique sound but also embraces new musical directions. We spoke to Stuart Murdoch, leader of the 7-piece band hailing from Glasgow, Scotland, about their latest project. Songs Discussed Belle and Sebastian - Young

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29:19

The New Alternative

Switched on Pop ·

2022/04/26

In March 2022 an unusual entry made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 chart. 90s grunge band Nirvana entered the chart for only their fifth time in history with the 1991 track “Something In The Way.” The song’s success is owed to being heavily featured in the 2022 reboot of The Batman. According to director Matt Reeves, Kurt Cobain inspired the brooding performance of Robert Pattinson, who plays the caped crusader. Additionally, Cobain’s music influenced the film’s score. The dirge-like chords from

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17:32

Jumpstarting the creative process with Allison Ponthier

Switched on Pop ·

2022/04/19

Allison Ponthier knows that the hardest part of making anything is getting started. For the New York based Texan singer/songwriter, “starting the song is so difficult.” When she was young she “always wanted to write songs,” fanatically scribbled rhymes in a diary. But she gave it up as an adolescent. The prevailing narratives of natural talent, artistic genius and spontaneous inspiration nearly put the brakes on her songwriting aspirations — she didn’t pick up songwriting until nineteen: “it just

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25:54

263: A Higher Power Ballad

Switched on Pop ·

2022/04/12

There was something different about Justin Bieber’s performance of his hit song “Peaches” at the 2022 Grammy Awards. The recorded version, which spent thirty weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, opens with a full-blast chorus featuring driving percussion and ringing guitars. But performing live, the song’s instrumentation was stripped down, with Bieber alone at a grand piano, crooning into the mic. For a lighthearted song (“I get my peaches down in Georgia”), this intimate performance sounded

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40:20

How sound becomes hearing

Switched on Pop ·

2022/04/05

We love listening to music at a ridiculous level of detail. But the other day we heard a podcast that made us fundamentally question the accuracy and reliability of our own listening skills. In it they played a familiar melody, “Yankee Doodle,” in such a way that we couldn’t recognize it at all. Our brain plays so many auditory tricks on us — some truly spectacular and unexplainable. In fact that’s the name of the show: Unexplainable. It’s hosted by Noam Hassenfeld, who in addition to being a

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27:11

262: Listening 2 Britney: Gimme More

Switched on Pop ·

2022/03/29

There’s no more iconic Britney lyric than the opening of “Gimme More.” It's 2007, four years since her last album In The Zone was released, and Britney is affirmatively back with the uptempo track leading off her album Blackout: “It’s Britney, Bitch.” The song echoes the dance-pop Neptunes sound of “I’m A Slave 4 U.” It's built around a driving riff and off-kilter drums produced by Floyd Nathaniel Hills AKA Danja. Each time Britney sings “more” her voice is pitched down to a devilish growl. This

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27:18

261: Listening 2 Britney: Toxic

Switched on Pop ·

2022/03/22

In 2003 Britney Spears released “Toxic,” a song that would make converts out of pop skeptics, be named one of the greatest tracks of the 21st century by multiple publications, and become a personal favorite of Switched on Pop. Despite its success, when “Toxic” was released as the second single from Spears’s fourth album, In the Zone, even the song’s writers thought it was too “weird” to become a hit. But thanks to the new iTunes platform, which was just gaining traction in 2013, audiences kept

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28:17

Listening 2 Britney: ...Baby One More Time

Switched on Pop ·

2022/03/08

On a crisp Autumn morning in 1998, the world was introduced to the voice of Britney Spears, and pop would never be the same. Britney’s mix of vocal fry, percussive pronunciations, and timbral play on “...Baby One More Time” hadn't been heard before. As successful as they were, these techniques were derided by critics as parts of her manufactured “baby voice." Listening in 2022, we can hear Britney with more clarity: as a radical new artist. "...Baby One More Time" was not Britney's first turn in

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34:18

258: Chartbreakers (ft. Megan Thee Stallion and the...

Switched on Pop ·

2022/03/01

Presenting Chartbreakers, in which Nate and Charlie listen to the Billboard Hot 100 chart from top to bottom and discover a TikTok controversy, a Nashville music mystery, a rogue duck-billed platypus, and Megan Thee Stallion's debut piano concerto. Songs Discussed Gayle - abcdefu Muni Long - hrs and hrs Ckay - Love Nwantiti (Ah Ah Ah) Dustin Lynch featuring Lauren Alaina or Mackenzie Porter - Thinking 'Bout You Red Hot Chili Peppers - Black Summer Megan Thee Stallion - Megan's Piano Learn more

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35:15

257: Leon Bridges and Khruangbin Sing a Song of Texas

Switched on Pop ·

2022/02/15

Leon Bridges is the soul singer hailing from Fort Worth, Texas, who burst onto the music scene in 2015 with the album Coming Home. Since then he’s established himself as an adventurous musician whose latest album Gold Diggers Sound combines retro sounds with contemporary production. Khruangbin is the Houston-based power trio——Mark Speer on guitar, Laura Lee on bass, and DJ Johnson on drums—who also debuted in 2015 with the album The Universe Smiles Upon You, which introduced their unique brand of

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31:46

256: Shaking Out the Numb with Sylvan Esso

Switched on Pop ·

2022/02/08

The last proper, blowout concert Charlie attended was devastatingly long ago, back in the winter of 2019. Bringing some funk to buttoned-up Walt Disney Concert Hall, the duo Sylvan Esso rocked Charlie’s world with epic performances of songs like “Die Young.” When live music, and the world, shut down shortly after—well, it was a great note to go out on. Now, that moment comes full circle, as Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn join Charlie to discuss their album, Free Love, one of the

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25:40

255: We *do* talk about Bruno

Switched on Pop ·

2022/02/01

The number one song on the charts is a bit of a mystery. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is the unlikely hit from Disney’s sleeper animated musical Encanto. Set in a mountainous village in Colombia, the film was a middling commercial success when it was released in Nov 2021. But in recent months it has become a pop culture phenomenon for a confluence of reasons: an expansive discourse on Colombian representation in media, fan videos on TikTok, and of course it's ear-wormy hits. The musical is yet

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33:07

254: 32 Albums in, Elvis Costello is Just Getting...

Switched on Pop ·

2022/01/25

Elvis Costello burst onto the music scene in 1977 with the album My Aim Is True. Songs like “Alison” established him as a powerful new voice in rock. His next album, This Year’s Model, introduced hits like “Pump it Up,” which has resounded through stadiums and arenas across the country ever since. From then on he released album after album, decade after decade, becoming a force to be reckoned with in pop music. Now, Costello has released his 32nd studio album, The Boy Named If, and it's a

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36:25

253: Accidental Kpop star Eric Nam quits the system

Switched on Pop ·

2022/01/19

Eric Nam is an accidental K-pop star. Growing up in Atlanta, and graduating from college in Boston, he did not expect that in his twenties he’s sign to a K-pop label, be named 2016 Man of the year by GQ Korea, and become a go-to television personality in South Korea. His music, imbued with his charisma and charm has charted globally. As fun as it is, the K-pop machine can be a real grind — it churns through young people not unlike the NFL draft. Nam is unusually candid about this experience, likely

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36:03

252: The Weeknd drives through purgatory (with a...

Switched on Pop ·

2022/01/11

Dawn FM is The Weeknd’s most narratively compelling album yet. More than just a collection of eighties-nostalgia single bait, Dawn FM is a concept album that picks up on a multi-year meta narrative. Abel Tesfaye, seemingly killed off his character at the end of his last album, After Hours. Getting caught up in the “Blinding Lights” of fame and excess, the narrator ends up overdosing in the back of an ambulance. On the final song “Until I Bleed Out” he sings “I can’t move, I’m so paralyzed.” Dawn FM

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26:32

251: Why do new Christmas songs fail?

Switched on Pop ·

2021/12/21

Why are there no new Christmas songs? One one hand, there's more holiday songs than we’ll ever need. Every year pop stars drop countless holiday-themed album. But despite the annual glut of Christmas releases, few of these new songs join the rotation of holiday classics. On Billboard's Holiday Hot 100 chart right now, there's only four songs from the past ten years that have made it to the top fifty. We listen to each of these holiday hits—from Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and the

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31:26

250: Tai Verdes TikTok-ed his way to a breakout hit

Switched on Pop ·

2021/12/14

Whether you’re a TikTok fanatic, or the app’s K-hole-inducing stream of content has forced you to delete it from your phone, its influence on music is undeniable. In 2020 the platform bragged that over 70 artists on the platform signed with major labels. TikTok’s success was linked to pandemic-related stay-at-home orders -- people were stuck at home and musicians couldn’t tour. And while trending dances and songs on TikTok may turn over weekly, with a billion monthly users, the social media platform

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31:35

249: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Raise The Roof

Switched on Pop ·

2021/12/07

Robert Plant is in his own words “cold” and “prickly” while speaking about his new album with Alison Krauss, Raise The Roof. First thing upon joining the Zoom call from London, Plant jovially launches into the much misattributed quote “talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” But he is neither callous, nor coy. For Plant the music is ineffable, a joyous celebration of friendship, and a kindred love of song that he shares with Krauss and producer T-Bone Burnett. Their album follows up

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306 results

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