Switched on Pop

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MUSIC COMMENTARY
UPDATED WEEKLY

Listen closer to pop music — hear how it moves us. Hosted by musicologist Nate Sloan & songwriter Charlie Harding. From Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

1 DAY AGO

Olivia Rodrigo and the second verse massacre

Olivia Rodrigo's chart-topping new single "drop dead," the lead single from her forthcoming third album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, breaks one of pop's oldest rules by abandoning the traditional second verse and replacing it with something entirely new. From Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" to Sabrina Carpenter's "Manchild" and Chappell Roan's "Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl," a growing wave of today's biggest pop stars are ditching the verse-chorus formula listeners have been trained to expect for decades. Rodrigo didn't invent the second-verse switch-up, but on "drop dead" she may have just killed off the predictable second verse for good. Songs Discussed Frank Zappa "Charlene" Olivia Rodrigo "drop dead" The Cure "Just Like Heaven" Jean-Baptiste Lully "The Tragey of Armide" Ryan Brown conducting Opera Lafayette Olivia Rodrigo "drivers license" Olivia Rodrigo "good 4 u" Olivia Rodrigo "vampire" Olivia Rodrigo "ballad of a homeschooled girl" Arnold Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire — Patricia Kopatchinskaja Mariah Carey "Fantasy" (ft. Ol' Dirty Bastard) Blackstreet "No Diggity" (ft. Dr. Dre, Queen Pen) Peter Gabriel "Don't Give Up" (ft. Kate Bush) Kendrick Lamar, SZA "luther" Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars "Die With a Smile" Post Malone, Swae Lee "Sunflower" HUNTR/X "Golden" Joshua Bassett, Olivia Rodrigo "Start of Something New" Matt Cornett, Olivia Rodrigo "What I've Been Looking For" Olivia Rodrigo "All I Want" The Avett Brothers "I and Love and You" Sheryl Crow "Strong Enough" Sabrina Carpenter "Please Please Please" Sabrina Carpenter "Manchild" Chappell Roan "Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl" Chappell Roan "HOT TO GO!" Chappell Roan "Red Wine Supernova" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

44 min
28 APR

Hrishikesh Hirway made an album about running out of time — in no time

Hrishikesh Hirway, host of Song Exploder, returns with his first album in fifteen years, In the Last Hour of Light, made under a premise that's almost contradictory for a podcaster built around isolated stems: session players who had never heard the songs, vocals tracked live in the room, no click track, and no overdubs. The layered style that defines current pop production is itself a relatively recent development. Hirway's record reaches back to the older live-tracking tradition that shaped the 1950s and 60s Bollywood recordings he grew up listening to in his parents' house. The album is about memory and so it’s appropriate that the music is recorded whole in all its beautiful imperfections. Songs Discussed Hrishikesh Hirway "Things Change Even Now" Hrishikesh Hirway "Stray Dogs" Hrishikesh Hirway "The Ocean" Hrishikesh Hirway "Home Movies" Adrienne Lenker “Anything” Chuck Berry "Maybellene" The Beatles "Twist and Shout" James Brown "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" Sidney Bechet "The Sheik of Araby" Les Paul & Mary Ford "How High the Moon" The Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" The Beatles “A Day In The Life” Queen "Bohemian Rhapsody" Jacob Collier "With the Love in My Heart" Brandi Carlile "You and Me on the Rock" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

43 min
21 APR

BTS is back. But K Pop is not the same.

BTS is back. The best selling K Pop group of all time has been on hiatus for four years. They haven’t released an album in six. They were once the biggest band in the world. Can they regain their throne? Or has the world moved on. Leaning on traditional Korean sounds and a bevy of international producers, from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker to JPEGMafia, is their album Arirang the future or the past of K Pop? Hye Jin Lee, communications professor at USC and K Pop scholar, joins to break down the album's references and ponder how longtime fans will respond. Songs Discussed BTS - Body to Body Koreana - Hand In Hand Lee Chun-Hee - Arirang BTS - Hooligan Michel Magne - Yang Tse Kiang - Bande originale du film "Un singe en hiver" ROSALÍA - MALAMENTE - Cap.1: Augurio Prefuse 73 - The End of Biters - International BTS - Aliens Kim Young-gil and Yoon Ho-Se - Ajaeng sanjo - Jungmori BTS - FYA Junior Sanchez - Lookin 4 Love - Extended Mix BTS - No. 29 BTS - SWIM BTS - Merry Go Round Tame Impala - New Person, Same Old Mistakes BTS - NORMAL BTS - they don’t know ’bout us The Four Freshmen It's A Blue World BTS - Paldogangsan BTS - No More Dream BTS and Zara Larsson - A Brand New Day Agust D - Haegeum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

48 min
17 APR

Maggie Rogers: going viral is a trap

Ten years ago, Maggie Rogers was a senior at NYU, scrambling to finish a song for a music production class she was close to failing. The guest critic that week happened to be Pharrell Williams. She played him "Alaska," a track she'd written in about fifteen minutes. It is a bit of folk songwriting crossed with the electronic music she'd fallen for studying abroad. Pharrell told her he'd never heard anything that sounded like it. Someone was filming. The clip went viral, and it launched Maggie into pop stardom. Ten years later, she's released three studio albums, earned a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, and gone back to school to pick up a master's from Harvard Divinity School, where she studied the spirituality of public gatherings. And in the last few months she's been as visible offstage as on — advocating for free speech in DC, performing for 200,000 people at a protest in Minneapolis alongside Joan Baez, and delivering a haunting performance during the final run of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which CBS is ending in May. This week host Charlie Harding got to sit down with Maggie live at Chelsea Studios, in front of a room of current NYU students. It’s the same school, ten years later, now with Charlie in the professor's chair and Maggie as the visiting artist. SONGS DISCUSSED Maggie Rogers "Alaska" Maggie Rogers "Better" Maggie Rogers "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" Maggie Rogers "Different Kind of World" Marvin Gaye "What's Going On" Bob Dylan "The Times They Are a-Changin'" USA for Africa "We Are the World" More Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

38 min
31 MAR

RAYE’s maximalist masterpiece is the hope we need

RAYE names Amy Winehouse and Edith Piaf as her artistic predecessors on the opening tracks of new album This Music May Contain Hope. Both died young, undone by the same darkness they sang about, and placing them there reads as a dare to herself. The album that follows is her attempt to find a different ending: a 17-track, 75-minute work featuring Al Green, Hans Zimmer, the London Symphony Orchestra, and over 80 collaborators, structured around the four seasons as a journey from autumn despair toward summer light. Every genre shift on the record, from Vivaldi's Winter to post-bop jazz combo to gospel choir, serves that arc: small emotional truths get cinematic treatment, most strikingly when the click of heels on pavement becomes the central rhythm of an anthem about getting dressed to go out with friends. The episode serves as a field guide to the album's vast musical language, and to the argument that hope is something you have to build, genre by genre, track by track. Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠, ⁠YouTube RAYE – "WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!" Nat King Cole – "Let There Be Love" Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – "Summertime" RAYE (ft. 070 Shake ) – "Escapism." RAYE – "Intro: Girl Under the Grey Cloud." RAYE – "I Will Overcome." Edith Piaf – "La Vie en Rose" RAYE – "Nightingale Lane." RAYE – "Fin." RAYE – "The WhatsApp Shakespeare." Mark Ronson & RAYE – "Suzanne" RAYE – "I Hate The Way I Look Today." RAYE – "Winter Woman." Vivaldi – "The Four Seasons: Winter" RAYE (ft. Hans Zimmer) – "Click Clack Symphony." RAYE (ft. Al Green) – "Goodbye Henry." Al Green – "Love and Happiness" Aretha Franklin – "Rock Steady" RAYE – "Skin & Bones." Fred Wesley and The J.B.'s (ft. James Brown) – "Damn Right I Am Somebody" RAYE – "Beware.. The South London Lover Boy." The Supremes – "You Can't Hurry Love" Iggy Pop – "Lust for Life" Jet – "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" Mark Ronson (ft. Amy Winehouse) – "Valerie" Charles Albert Tindley – "I'll Overcome Someday" Prince - “Purple Rain" Beyoncé – "Love on Top" RAYE (ft. Amma & Absolutely) – "Joy." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

43 min
24 MAR

Where have all the white rappers gone?

On a recent podcast interview, Kentucky rapper Jack Harlow said that, to craft his new album Monica, he “got blacker.” The problem is… Jack Harlow is white. The statement, while extremely tone-deaf, speaks to his intentions with this musical pivot: musically, Monica turns to the historically Black genres of R&B and neo-soul to craft a new image designed to shed the stigma of being a “white rapper.” The pivot is more costume than culture, but in doing so, Harlow seems to be following in the footsteps of several white rappers over the past decade. Artists like Post Malone, MGK, and Jelly Roll have all had radical shifts in sound and image over their career, separating themselves from their roots in hip-hop. So, in response to Monica, Reanna and Charlie ask: where have all the white rappers gone? Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠, ⁠YouTube Songs discussed: Jack Harlow – First Class Jack Harlow – Lovin On Me Jack Harlow – Trade Places Post Malone, Hank Williams Jr. – Finer Things Jack Harlow – Tyler Herro Jack Harlow, Doja Cat – Just Us Jack Harlow – Lonesome J Dilla, Common, D’Angelo – So Far to Go D’Angelo – Spanish Joint D’Angelo – Feel Like Makin’ Love Jack Harlow – All Of My Friends Led Zeppelin - Babe I’m Gonna Leave You Paul Wall, Big Pokey – Sittin’ Sidewayz Beastie Boys – Fight For Your Right Post Malone – White Iverson Post Malone – Leave Post Malone, Morgan Wallen – I Had Some Help James Taylor – Machine Gun Kelly MGK – LOCO MGK, blackbear – my ex’s best friend 5 Seconds of Summer – She Looks So Perfect MGK – cliche Jelly Roll – F*ck What They Talkin Bout (ft. O.N.E.) Jelly Roll – Need A Favor Bubba Sparxxx – Deliverance Eminem – Cleanin’ Out My Closet Eminem – Without Me Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

51 min
17 MAR

Jacob Collier can make anyone sing

Jacob Collier is a rare musician: an expert in so many musical languages (western harmony, negative harmony, microtonalism) and a phenomenal communicator about music. He's something like an Ambassador for Music, traveling the world and getting thousands of people, musicians and non-musicians alike, to sing in his audience choirs. Live at On Air Fest, this conversation, catches Jacob between projects. Last year he released The Light for Days, a comparatively minimalist collection of songs written on his special five-string guitar, a quiet turn after the massive Djesse quadrilogy, which featured over 50 collaborators from Herbie Hancock to Anoushka Shankar and wove hundreds of thousands of audience choir voices into the recordings. Given that Jacob is always improvising with the best collaborators, Charlie wanted one of his own own. Five minutes before the show, Charlie spotted Sam Sanders, co-host of Vibe Check and host of the Sam Sanders Show on KCRW, and asked him onstage. Sam's a musician and one of the great interviewers, and he showed how improvising in conversation is just as essential as it is in music. Links: ⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

55 min
10 MAR

Harry Styles loses himself to dance

The dance floor is where Harry Styles does his therapy, and this album is the session notes. Four years after Harry's House, Styles returns with Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally, a record built from minimal ingredients: live drums, Moog bass, nylon guitar, and synth sequences that stretch across entire songs without a drop in sight. This is Styles' anti-drop album. Where classic disco era dance celebrated collective joy, Styles uses the dance floor as a stage for self-examination. Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠, ⁠YouTubeSongs discussed: Harry Styles – "Aperture" Ice Spice – "In Ha Mood" PinkPantheress – "Boy's a Liar" Zara Larsson – "Midnight Sun" LCD Soundsystem – "Dance Yrself Clean" LCD Soundsystem – "Someone Great" LCD Soundsystem – "Oh Baby" Harry Styles – "Pop" Harry Styles – "Sign of the Times" David Bowie – "Space Oddity" Elton John – "Rocket Man" Harry Styles – "Dance No More" Chic – "Good Times" Stevie Nicks – "Edge of Seventeen" Simon & Garfunkel – "Keep the Customer Satisfied" Paul Simon – "You Can Call Me Al" Harry Styles – "Carla's Song" Paul Simon – "Kathy's Song" Simon & Garfunkel – "Bridge Over Troubled Water" Harry Styles – "Are You Listening Yet?" DJO – "Basic Being Basic" Harry Styles – "Season Two, Weight Loss" Sons of Kemet – "Play Mas" Harry Styles – "Coming Up Roses" Harry Styles – "American Girls" LCD Soundsystem – "American Scum" LCD Soundsystem – "Drunk Girls" Harry Styles – "As It Was" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

44 min

See All (528)

Charlie Harding

Host
Nate Sloan

Host
Hrishikesh Hirway

Guest
Hye-jin Lee

Guest
Maggie Rogers

Guest
Patrick Monahan

Guest
Slayyyter

Guest
Charlie Puth

Guest
Jacob Collier

Guest
Sam Sanders

Guest

Listen closer to pop music — hear how it moves us. Hosted by musicologist Nate Sloan & songwriter Charlie Harding. From Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network.