Tuner Brian Barone & John Lagomarsino

When Rihanna released her song “Work,” one publication described its style as “tropical house-flavored.” That didn’t sit well with today’s special guest, music writer Bianca Gracie, who argued that the song owes more of a debt to the genre called dancehall. In this episode, we listen to dancehall, tropical house, and Rihanna to ask about fairness, recognition, and labels when local sounds go international.

Hanson’s “MMMBop”—one version of it, anyway—turned twenty years old this March. While discussing the anniversary in a recent interview, the Hanson brothers revealed that we’ve all been singing it wrong this whole time. In this episode, we take a listen to the mid-90s smash hit to sort out what they mean—and find that this classic has a more complicated history than we remembered.

More often than not, April Fools’ jokes just aren’t that funny. Especially when they’re part of a company’s branding strategy. But this year General Mills bucked that trend with the release of a five-track, Hamburger Helper-themed mixtape—cuts that the internet has deemed ‘fire.’ In this episode, John and Brian talk to some of the MCs and producers behind the mixtape to learn the story of how it was made.

The opening of ABC’s “Full House” is full of memorable moments: the Golden Gate Bridge, the beautiful old house, the family out on a picnic. But most memorable of all is the show’s theme song, “Everywhere You Look.” When Netflix launched a sequel to the show, they tasked Carly Rae Jespen with covering the theme. So this week we take a listen to her version to find out about covers, feel, and listening itself.

Fans love to debate musical genres: which ones we like, which ones we don’t, which songs fit into which genres—you know the drill. But, it turns out, genre is really hard to define. This week, we use the idea that genre might be more like a contract than a quality to listen to Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose.” And we discover that Seal is a very crafty negotiator.

In the pantheon of pop classics, Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” has to rank near the top. A funny thing about classics, though, is that their fame and reputation can lull us into thinking that they’re all-too-normal. So, this week, we’ll listen for all the odd and surprising things about “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” and we’ll wonder if sometimes classics aren’t at least a bit accidental.