Hi everyone, this is Anne. We're making today's full episode totally free for everyone. You'll get the bonus segment to ask Anne anything and a very fun set of show notes that should send you down a real rabbit hole or memory lane depending on when you were born. If you want to join the ranks of paid subscribers, so you always get the full episode, head to culturestudypod.substac.com. Okay, on with the show.
I'm sending the chat and I've watched this many times, so I'm mostly just eager to watch your reaction. So whenever you are ready, I'm watching the film. Film is a great way to put it. And if you can describe it as you're watching, that would be amazing. Okay, it's like a crude animation of a bathroom, a men's bathroom because their urinals and inside the urinals are a man's face singing a song, popping out of the urinals, singing together. Now we're on the street. There's a giant toilet.
There's so many toilets. Looming over the city, flanked by smaller toilets, all with the man's head inside of it. Oh my god, it's getting progressively stranger. The faces are sort of melting. The toilet is getting bigger. Every time the big toilet comes in, there's the song, skibbity, skibbity. Can you tell us what song this is? It's in the background. I don't know, I don't know the song. Skibbity, Bob, yes, yes. Oh, that's right. Should I be familiar with that?
It's a Nelly Fertado song. Oh, yeah, wait, it is. Oh, that's wild. I haven't heard that in a long time. This is the Culture Study Podcast and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. And I'm a musicologist, Nate Sloan, cohost of the podcast, switched on pop. This is a YouTube collection of 67 skibbity toilet clips. This was sent to me by several parents who told me when I was trying to figure out what songs are you hearing from the early 2000s that are resurging.
And they're like, my kids listen to this all the time because of the skibbity toilet video. A sentence you never thought you would utter. I know. And so like if you have a, if you're a parent or if you have a fifth grade boy in your life, they have absolutely seen Skibbity toilet.
This is how this particular song, this particular Timberland song featuring Nelly Fertado has entered the cultural vernacular again is to something that you and I, I hadn't seen this video until like until a parent sent it to me. Had you ever seen Skibbity toilet? No, I've never seen Skibbity toilet. So what we're going to never be the same. This is our, our very weird way of trying to figure out all of the different ways because I think there's not just one explanation.
All of the different explanations for why there is music from the 2000s in particular that is resurging right now. So you were the person that came immediately to mind when I decided I wanted to do this show. And part of the reason I wanted to do this show was because I watched a whole lot of Rush Talk videos for my reporting on Rush Talk. And the Rush Talk like the, the dances that all of these 17 through 21 year olds were doing.
So many of them were songs from my college and post college years. And I am a huge fan of your show. And it was like the only person who can be like really smart about this and not just say like, oh music comes back again. It would be you. So can you describe for me what the sound of the 2000s is broadly. This is like such a big question. But if you, yeah, yeah, no, I mean, you're right because it is pop music is always so diverse.
But there are certain trends in the early 2000s. You can detect a lot of them have to do with changing technology. Music is becoming more digital. It's becoming more synthesized more processed more manipulated. And some of these ways can be very apparent. You know, it's it's it's right in 1999. So just on the cusp of the millennium that we get a song like shares belief, which is attributed to be the first use of conspicuous auto tune on on a track.
And as we move into the 2000s, we hear that effect more and more. We hear voices that are chopped and processed and sped up and slowed down. We have whole songs that have been created inside a computer inside the box is the is the parlance of the music producer. So everything from the drums up to the guitarists have been, you know, completely digitally synthesized.
And that that becomes I think a hallmark of that sound, especially because it contrasts to the more rock oriented organic sound of the 1990s. Yeah. When artists like Nirvana and Alanis Morris set were really highlighting these classic instrumental combos of drums bass and guitar and very powerful naked vocals. So so that's that's part of the sound is this more kind of digital texture.
And then I think there's also a move towards more kind of anodine. I'm not saying this in a negative way, but more universal sort of simplistic lyrics in pop songs. If if music in the 1990s, like some of those artists we were just talking about dealt with social on we and female empowerment and engaged to some degree with issues that were happening in the world, music in the 2000s kind of turned inward and was really about let's dance, let's love, let's have a good time.
It was it was a little a little less engaged with with the wider world, I would say. So so if I had to boil it down to two things musically, I would say more digital. So I would say more, I would say a little bit more hermetic and sort of hedonistic maybe one song that is resurgent right now comes to mind, which is 50 cents candy shop, which does not have a ton of message.
Which has you know connotations, but not necessarily like a deeper a deeper message. How much of the sound to is the sound of Timberland like as a producer. It's absolutely the sound of Timberland. It's the sound of the Neptune's the duo made up of Ferrell Williams and Chad Hugo. It's the sound of other R&B hip-hop producers like the dream who who worked with and tricky steward who worked with Destiny's Child in the early 2000s.
And of course what these all have in common is this is a resurgence of black musical style of hip-hop of R&B really starting to surge on to the charts, which is nothing new obviously in the history of pop their music. But it is kind of the beginning of a takeover that will unfurl over the next decade and a half in which hip-hop really becomes the most dominant commercial genre in the pop music landscape. So we do see the seeds of that being sewn in the early 2000s as well.
Yeah. When you think of like quintessential 2000s songs, you know we've talked about some of the style, but what are songs that come to mind for you? Okay, for me the first song I think of is Heyya by Outcast. This is a song that came out in 2003. It was the first song to go platinum I believe on the iTunes platform, which was brand new.
So to me it sort of represents this technological shift in terms of music consumption that's happening. It is a song that well it's funny because it does meet that criteria I was talking about earlier on the surface it seems very happy go lucky. I think it's a very common song to hear at like weddings and parties, but but actually underneath the surface there's a little darkness to the song. Yeah, absolutely. What else?
Oops, I did it again by Britney Spears, which came out right 2000, a white 2k classic. I love the song because I feel like not only is it so definitive of its time, but it's Britney Spears has had a re appraisal in the last five years. And so much of the sort of criticism and dismissal that she met when she arrived on the scene has now changed to a certain level of respect and understanding of just how musically gifted and innovative she was.
The other one that I think of this to and both of these are also resurgent to is Michelle branches. I don't even know the name of the song making like that one. Vanessa Carlton, I also got them confused at that time. So you're not you're not alone. And then the other one is M&M just generally M&M. Yeah, yeah, my name is the real slim shady. Yeah, another artist who was so controversial when he came out and now is almost like like a daughter statesman. Yeah, exactly what a transformation.
I can't believe that I didn't get that that was Vanessa Carlton. I have melodies in the chat of our of this podcast being like how dare you. I don't think you're the first to to make that mistake in your defense. So part of this like resurgents is something that I am personally feeling and like want to talk about right and so that's kind of why I have a podcast was like, oh, I noticed something that I want to talk about it.
And there is also some evidence that this is happening from people who are parents who see it happening with their kids and and people that like teachers have told me that this is what the kids are requesting in the music in their classroom. Yeah, but then there is a playlist melody found this yesterday. It's called the all out 2000s playlist that is on Spotify and it's the eighth most popular on the app. 10 million followers.
Really? Wow. Yeah, I know. But I mean, I don't need to listen to it to know exactly what's going to be on it. And it's also familiar to me that even when I hear this, like I hear it on the radio and I think of it as like, oh, that top 40 station is playing something kind of older without thinking like, oh, they're actually playing something that's like 20 years old, which is interesting in and of itself. Right?
Like playing early Rihanna, interesting for a top radio station to do. Yeah. And I also want to situate this in terms of like, I know that younger audiences always rediscover the music of their parents generation or their grandparents generation.
Like, this would be akin to me listening to melody suggested like Donna Summers and the Bee Gees. And I didn't listen to Donna Summers or the Bee Gees, but I did listen to a ton of Simon and Garfunkel, which my parents thought was pretty weird that I was doing specifically, specifically listen to the concert in Central Park, which is like not even the best, you know, Simon and Garfunkel.
I feel like everyone's voice cracks like 17 times, but it's a great way to like really be a moron since I'm in Garfunkel. And then I listen to like a lot of Joni Mitchell and that sort of thing. Did you listen to stuff that was older when you were a teen? I did. I did. I was always felt a little apart from my peers and that I gravitated less towards what was being played on Z100.
And more like you're describing to the records that I found in my parents collection. So I was really into jazz, sunny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie. And I was into classic rock, like cream and Jimmy Hendrix. And even some more embarrassing things like Frank Zappa, which, which, you know, made me feel very, very isolated. I feel like a lot of teens get really into Frank Zappa. I think it is a writer passage or Peter Frampton. That's like my partner got really into Peter Frampton.
That's funny. I didn't have my own Frampton journey, but I definitely know others who have. What is a way to distinguish yourself to that isn't necessarily like delving deep into like indie or avant-garde stuff. You're like, I'm cool because I listen to like Sam Cook or something, right? Which isn't like, like this is popular, popular music, but seems unpopular or interesting when all of your peers are listening to Z100 as you said.
I think so. I think there was perhaps more of a sort of binary to between mainstream and not mainstream. That is less, that is more sort of opaque today. It's a little bit more inco-it like what is mainstream and what is not. What are you supposed to be listening to versus what is your own taste and yeah, but yeah, but all to say I was I was not listening to pop radio when I was growing up. Did you like any pop music?
I did. I mean, so I was more of a 90s kid. That was my decade. And I loved I liked the weird songs that would come on and make it to the top of the charts. Do you remember, do you remember song called How Bizarre by L.N.C? Yes, that was my that was my jam. I loved that track. I really I was really into seal kiss from a rose. That was a I know this because of the facet like this is something that you've talked about a lot, which is a beautiful song.
Yes, I got to interview seal earlier this year was such a such a full circle moment for me and he was so smart and gracious and surprisingly willing to talk at length about a song that he's probably really sick of talking about. But yeah, that's what that was one of my favorites from that for my childhood that was on the radio from the Batman soundtrack like amazing.
We could talk about forever like the way the music popped up on soundtracks and how we discovered it that way. In fact, one of the songs that I loved that my parents are like, what is wrong with you is there was a reggae band that covered baby I love your way for the reality bite soundtrack. I think I know I don't know the band, but I know exactly the version you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you can still hear it on like, you know, Bob FM or something.
But that's like there was that resurgence vis-a-vis like random covers in that way. Okay. Listen to questions for this episode. We're doing this a little bit different because basically listeners have written in with different theories their own theories about why we're hearing music from the 2000s right now. So we're going to listen to them talk about the theory and then we'll come up hopefully at the end with maybe like an overarching theory. Does that sound good?
Excellent. I think it's a great plan. All right. So our first question slash theory comes from Lauren. So I teach art classes after school at its summer camps to kids ranging from age six to 13 or so. And sometimes I let them choose the music that we listen to while we're working and I'm utterly perplexed. Why are these kids listening to the same white stripes, cold play, Lincoln Park or M&M songs that were in heavy rotation when I was in college.
At first I assumed it was their parents doing that they were just listening to the same music that their parents liked. But a lot of these kids tell me that their parents don't share their tastes in early arts music. So is it millennials at work programming Apple music and Spotify? What gives? So first of all, I just love the idea of like a parent who's really into Lincoln Park and like passing the love of Lincoln Park.
It's what I'm just positive that that is happening somewhere. But if the kids aren't getting their music from their parents, where do you think they're getting? Yeah, this is such a riddle. I'm so glad Lauren wrote it because I have kids, but my kids are like three and six months old so they don't have their own music tastes right now.
And I was pretty shook when I heard Lauren's reporting from the field because this is kind of mysterious to me. My first theorem is that I wonder if each of these specific songs has found a foothold in the consciousness of a preteen somehow. I'm not totally ready to ascribe this to a sort of generational and music and interesting music from a certain period in time.
I would be curious to trace some of those specific songs. For instance, you know, the white stripes, if we're talking about seven nation army, that is a song that you would hear. If you ever go to a sports game, it'll be chanted by the fans. It'll be something you hear when you're, I don't know, maybe out like at a at a skate rink or something or not, whatever kids do these days.
That is a song that is sort of cononic at this point. I think cold play might occupy a similar role that some of these cold play songs are like the equivalent of, I don't know what what the Beatles were in the 60s. They're just like part of the musical ether like clocks or something like that. Exactly. They're not listening to yellow. They're very emotionally deep, six year old, maybe. Now Lincoln Park, that's, that's, that's, that's vexing. What, what, what is the story there?
Well, this is where I think something like Skabidi toilet comes in handy because I think that the same way that I discovered songs through soundtracks to movies, their discovery apparatus is probably through reuse in video games. In YouTube memes like Skabidi toilet, right? Like that are created by people are age. So the use of those might reflect the tastes of the creators and then those get filtered down into the younger consumers.
I find that compelling and I, in the course of doing our podcast, sometimes we will pose a similar question like, why is this song having a resurgence right now? The way that pop culture circulates through time and space is endlessly surprising and fascinating. And we'll talk about a song sometimes and say, why is this popular? And people write in and let's say, oh, my kids know that song because it was featured in Kidsbop or were rewatching the office with our kids.
And at one point they make a reference to Lou Begaz, Mombo number five. And now they, that's all they want to listen to. And so I, I think you're, you're right that, you know, these, these songs for millennial creators, these songs occupy some kind of foundational knowledge. And then they use those songs in their own videos and content and then that gets filtered down to a younger generation of listeners. That, that seems pretty compelling to me.
I also think we can't discount how many of these songs are like used in the various jukebox style cartoons animated features. Right? So like, yeah. One of my friends kids knows like all of these queen songs, like just a lot of stuff. And it's all from, um, oh, it's like some cartoon that has like lots of animals in it that are performing. Someone's going to write in and be like, I've watched that movie 1700 times. I know exactly what you're talking about. But sing Melody says it's sing.
Sing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so I think like even if you really absorb that when you were five or six, it sticks with you, right? Like the songs I know from when I'm five or six, five or six was like all of the little mermaid soundtrack or all of the Aladdin soundtrack. And now instead of like these ballads written by Elton John, specifically for the Lion King, it's their version of all these redone and repackaged for them. And they can listen to them whenever they want to.
Sanctuary. Yes, trolls. Yeah, trolls. Minions, perhaps, just pick me. No, you're right. Movie soundtracks are such a powerful vector. And you know, historically that's nothing new. I mean, the first ever rock and roll hit Bill Haley's rock around the clock in 1955, which changed the face of music forever.
Really became popular because it was featured in a film. And that was what essentially I think it's fair to say we wouldn't have had the rock revolution without the movie soundtrack that sparked that. So this is like a tried and true way to sustain popular culture interest is to feature in a film. Yeah. Okay, our next question. This is like such a music, nursery question. It's perfect for us. So next question theory comes from Chris, who's citing a Chuck Closterman theory. Of course, right.
Isn't the early 2000s thing just like Chuck Closterman's theory on listening to old bands like the Eagles, like I don't like newfound glory, but newfound glory sounds like a time when everything was fresh and exciting and weird in my life. And they were adjacent to the bands that I did like. So basically this theory is that we are nostalgic for like, I mean, personally, I am not nostalgic for the early 2000s.
But kids who weren't alive in the early 2000s are nostalgic for that time. And this fits with the theory that I have heard from Jen Sears about why they like this particular type of music, which is that. You can't dance to contemporary music very well, right? They're not fun to like do a dance to. Yeah. Whereas a lot of that music from the 2000s is like really fun to dance to.
Well, I think I take some issue with that because I do I do look around and find a lot of highly danceable music, including do Alipaz. I mean, I think it's really exciting or don't start now or, you know, I don't know, looking back over the last decade for real Williams happy Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk. But perhaps in the aggregate, there are less dance forward songs and recent vintage.
Chris's theory compelling, yeah, that Chuck Closterman writing about the Eagles and discovering that the hatred that he felt for that band has has mellowed over time and and and is middle age, I guess, sort of stepping back in real and finding himself thinking, wow, I don't feel anything about this. Where did all that I or go? I don't I don't feel it anymore. And and I think I can relate to that to that sentiment in terms of the nostalgia of that period, it's interesting, right?
On one hand, I could seem having nostalgia like for the 80s or the 90s, those seem like very, you know, relatively sort of placid decades. The 2000s began with with 911 and then moved into an endless war and quickly followed by Hurricane Katrina and I mean, I don't remember it as a particularly rosy time period. But perhaps people who didn't live through it can look back and think, well, you know, compared to what we're dealing with now.
That was that was so lovely, you know, what do we we had to worry about why 2k and you know, like, like your internet speed, like your dial up. I do imagine it seems very innocent in in a way in comparison. Social media didn't really didn't exist at that point and that must have that must seem very idemic in a way or something. Even the idea of like CDs or Napster culture or like the idea that you couldn't have everything that you want at your fingertips.
Yes, right. It was right. Physical media was still the dominant way that we experienced things and still went to the video store. So, so yeah, so maybe there is a lot to be nostalgic for and I can see that. I mean, it's interesting. There's definitely a lot or not a lot, but a few songs that explicitly reference that time period, Trace-A-Von and Charlie XCX had a song called 1999 that came out a few years ago.
Right. And artist named Anne Marie had a song called 2002 that all came out a few years ago. So I do think like Gen Z artist pying for that moment and and and perhaps it is because compared to the contemporary landscape, it does seem sort of bucolic or something. Right. And who covers what's that cover of blue that's on top 40 radio right now? Like I feel like that. David Guetta, I believe.
Is that Dave is he the one who does that. I was just thinking like that some of these covers are also from younger people who are like, I want to recover that musical feeling. Yeah. And into into a contemporary feeling. And I think that there is actually a hunger for an acoustics style almost that is somewhat 90s to and you see this I've seen this on TikTok with younger people and women in particular talking about like discovering that little affair exists.
Did you know there was a festival in the late 90s right like and all of these artists toward like and there's part of me that's like, oh my god I'm so old like how do they not know about little fair but then there's part of me too that thinks what a joy to discover that this existed. I agree because I don't think there has been a lot of space for those kind of artists for a ceramic lock and or an Atlanta's more so I don't think she was part of low fair but but if it's okay.
Yeah, we can we can lose like those artists were critically and commercially successful. But for a long time, for first of all that that acoustic sound that you were referring to and that that that sort of more in your face political empowered vulnerable kind of political message didn't have a space on the billboard hot 100 I do sense that that might be changing with artists like Billy I wish Billy I wish exactly Olivia Rodrigo yeah yeah Olivia Rodrigo to me like I love her new
album so much it makes me feel like listening to you know apple for the first time or something yeah yeah it's a complete and emotionally complex. And there's such a strong sense of authorship running through it yes that's kind of an exciting development to me and does auger something hopeful for the future in terms of the culture having space for those voices.
I guess to return to Chris's initial question I I'm as we talk about it more I am feeling more impressed by the power of of nostalgia and realizing that it doesn't have to be accurate you know that is that is nostalgia is exactly.
And I'm sort of glossing over fine detail to just selectively remember the things that you want to and and again probably the things that specifically stand out in contrast to this modern moment so so those kind of artists those kind of sounds those kind of dance oriented grooves that maybe
artists common today feel very like a form of of escapism I think yeah you know I think to of how a lot of people approximately our age was very into like 60s culture in the 90s yeah yeah and I can just imagine our parents being like you think that it was like all woodstock in like summer of love and my mom's like what it actually was was my brother and my dad fighting about the world.
Constantly at the dinner table right like like that's there I mean that was an in time of incredible unrest that I think like is rivaled by by our current moment but that's not what in when I was a teen what I was trying to like a voc or what I was feeling when I listen to like I don't know Joan bias.
Right and also I don't feel very qualified to say this but I am vaguely aware that there's also a 2000s fashion Renaissance happening oh there is right now yeah again I don't feel confident telling the audience exactly what that consists of
I can talk to you. I mean it's basically everything that we were in high school and this is for women and for men to some extent but I think it's more vivid for women because women's fashion is just more like I don't know visible the monster or whatever yeah all of those things are back and that's down to like the fabric of the t-shirt it's like velvet t-shirts yeah to the cut of pants and the type of boots all of those things
and I think that what's difficult for people who are older to understand is like part of our reaction to those clothes is so incredibly invested in like how we felt at that age right so like I when I think of being a junior in high school
and wearing these clothes that I see all over you know whether it's in urban outfitters or they're just like on kids that I see it doesn't make me feel like wow what a time of possibility in 1998 right like it makes me feel like I felt bad about my body I didn't know who liked me I wish I could get us to prom like all of these like incredibly you know banal and essential ways of feeling when you're that age
and so I think it's hard to disarticulate those emotions from that music yeah and good ways and bad ways right so when I hear two-pock like when I hear all of these on me I'm like this I loved the feeling that I had when I was listening to two-pock right in the car right yeah not saying the swears because like that was back when I didn't say swears
like I would just pause and not say the swears yeah but then there's some music that makes me feel like this is when you no one would ask you to dance at like dance after the football game or whatever yeah songs you'd rather forget I definitely have a few of those as well yeah what's a song you'd rather forget I maybe a cotton I Joe comes to mind that that that that is a song that I just remember dreading coming on and having to
like fake like yeah having to do a like yeah a horrible approximation of aligned it's with it with a bunch of 10-year-olds it was yeah what a mind used to be for complicated reasons return of the Mac but since listening to 60 songs that explain the 90 the episode from from that podcast on that that song I have an incredible appreciation for the song like I love that sort of like kiss from a rose actually yeah I think it got so overplayed in the 90s that I was like I don't even hear the
seal song again but now that I understand musically everything that's going on with it it makes me appreciate it so much more from a distance so do I time I have to go listen to cotton I Joe until I that's actually a bad song until I understand it's it and sit in wonders I don't think there's any
recuperation of okay I've gotten I Joe grateful so our last theory is the same theory but a little bit different and I think we're ourselves in a slightly different head space here so this comes from Michaela and it's coming from the Gen Z perspective I associate early 2000s music with the drive to elementary school and with middle school dances do you think it's becoming popular again because of Gen Z nostalgia as we come into adulthood so this isn't like this is not
us right like we are in we are in late adulthood or mid adulthood not late mid adulthood this is like we have to put ourselves back at like age 29 what did we like to listen to then like did we have that feeling of nostalgia for the music that that defined our teens and our tweens that sort of thing so this is something that I think would probably be you know more anecdotal but I can relate to this I I can't
speak for Michaela but I feel like a certain level of nostalgia for for my own past was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown and during that period I sort of retreated a little bit from the modern world I guess and went into places of like maximum comfort which involved going and getting out my CD collection you know I like to giant
little bits double-sided plastic CD cases I can feel it in my hand right now so heavy it's so heavy and going through and going I remember this album that I got and and going into my car because I think only CD player I have at this point and putting it in and listening to it and and and that was true of other media too I was like rewatching
those like sign felt and and the office and things that I didn't want to watch anything new I just wanted to watch the things that I was already familiar with so I think it's a natural reaction to want to recapture that feeling of lost childhood and additionally there's there's even a neurological explanation that there's a fusing that happens when your brain is developing and you're listening to music those songs become really locked into your synaptic pathways
really that that lasts a long time yeah that's not just like a story I tell myself about like why I listen to Sarah McLaughlin's fun Blantern's Exocency all the time still that's that's a very yeah you can you can blame that on neuroscience that that song is is in your in your neurotransmitters and perhaps at some day when you're 112 you'll still be able to recall you know every every lyric of that song
so because of this neurological connection and perhaps for other people as well this desire for like things that are familiar and comforting I do see more and more reaching back into your personal musical past to recreate some of those feelings of joy and familiarity
I think that sometimes this is something that makes people feel bad because they're not seeking out the new but I also as someone who has so this past year I saw it narrowly merchant and it was like life changing like it was in the city I left that so good my best friend and I were front row and everyone else is 10 years older than us because it's like all of these fans who were really 10,000 maniacs fans gotcha
she and I we will like we played all of the like Natalie merchants of failure motherland these kind of mid career albums of hers all the time in college we are roommates and we had like you know a 50 disc changer which a lot of people as like graduation gifts you know in high school
all those like a classic graduation gift was ridiculously numbered CD player and you'd be like okay put this on put this like this is the next one right and so those were like woven into our subconscious and you know I still listen to new music but then there was something incredibly powerful about experiencing it in concert or just like giving yourself space to listen to it again
I think the other thing and this I maybe is true for Gen Z but I think it's particularly true for people around our age is that listening to an entire album can take you back to that time when like you put on music and you stared at the ceiling right yeah
so like a different experience of music than how we often experience music now and maybe that's where the nostalgia is from to interesting where where music now is often happening in the background of some other activity yeah it's it's being played on a crappy iPhone speaker or like out of a pair of of air pods that you can hear someone saying next to you on the subway
that that's interesting I actually think of my wife Whitney always talks just to know the names of songs she's like oh yeah that's track five one of the percent so that gets back to some of the technological shifts that we've been discussing and how they have changed our relationship with music and music has become less tactile and possessing less aura maybe as as Walter Benjamino would say
wow even did the Benamine like did it like didn't pronounce the J like wow I am an academic so I had to drop him in there so I think that like where we're arriving is this interesting complex not like we have no forceful argument here like this is a top down thing as in
millennials are playing this music and it's somehow filtering down but then it's also I think arriving someone organically from younger kids who are discovering this music and like as someone said to me talking about how he is all over the place again yeah they said like a pop is a pop like that that song is back because that song is good yes a pop is a pop I think that was a Stravinsky first first said that yeah
yeah do you have any other you know for us he thoughts about this no I mean I do I hope no one listening is disappointed that I we haven't arrived at a grand theory yes but but I think that speaks to the the fascinating and unruly ways that music and other media and popular culture move through society that you can't really predict where song will start and where it will end up and hopefully there there there is some
matrix of all these explanations that we've come up with that will be satisfying but I find your your the Bob is a Bob theory to be particularly strong and that and that's why I would be interested when whenever you have a question about something larger happening go go to a single song and trace it you know songs songs are like hold they're like whole
universes and they're like portals into different times and places and the way a song can be created and and in his creation reference the past I mean let's talk about he offer a second if that I feel like that could be a great way to conclude this he ah written by Andre Benjamin not Benjamin was a deliberate tribute to Aritha Franklin say a little prayer uses the same metric structure the same rhythmic structure as that song so that song is reaching
back into the past but then it's also looking forward to the future it's a rapper singing and that just that idea would would change the face of music as we know it every Drake and every other singer rapper has Andre 3000 to thank for that and then what happens to the song after that it's covered it has a obadiaparker acoustic cover in the 2000s which transforms it into this sort of plaintive
folks on today it's according to spotify it's like one of the top 10 wedding songs for people which again is kind of hilarious because it's a song about how no relationship is built to last and think it is you're deluding yourself and I imagine
this song will continue to be sampled and reinterpreted over time and some core part of its meaning will stay the same but but it also changed to adapt and reflect the taste of the people who gravitate towards that song in that moment so songs are entire worlds and when you start to listen and and study a song and and hear all of its sort of manifold meanings it just it can take you to so many different
places and and connect even the silly a song even caught Nigel probably could connect to some powerful common core of humanity so that that feels like maybe hopefully satisfying and you know episode of swish jump off you recuperating con a Joe noted we did we actually I remember we did do something about it many many years ago so maybe it's time to revisit that
so our last question is for our advice time segment and normally this bonus content is only for paid subscribers but we love this conversation so much that we wanted all of you to benefit from it this question is nostalgia adjacent and it comes from Natalie and I think it's absolutely in line with everything we've been talking about how do I get out of a pop culture rut I often find myself rewatching the same shows and movies listening to the same songs on repeat
I'll even listen to the same podcast episodes multiple times on one hand the repetition is comforting and I already know that I like that thing so why not listen to it again but on the other hand there's so much out there that I want to have experienced but sometimes it feels like a chore to start something now what's the deal with that okay so the first thing I'm going to say Natalie is they think you're burned out I think that this is a symptom of like having no energy
to grapple with new things and like you and you by seeking out these things that are comforting like you are performing a kindness to yourself she is being kind to her brain by finding these things that like just feel like home they feel comfy and I don't think that there's anything wrong or shameful about that the same way that you were discussing like the things that you went to in the pandemic right like that's just a way that we cope with the world around us
so yeah I don't think that that's anything to be shamed about but I think that like trying to think about the fact that like maybe this has to do with other things in my life and not necessarily like me having no taste or anything like that what do you hear when you hear this?
I definitely relate to this as yeah as I was saying earlier this is something I felt especially acutely during the pandemic and I I'll give like three pieces of advice or answers for Natalie and the first I guess is you can start to branch out from the things you love by actually going deeper into them
and you mentioned earlier a podcast called 60 songs that explain the 90s by I think Rob Hervilla is the host of that and you could listen to forgive me my our own podcast switched on pop and find and find episodes about songs you love
I think what's what's really cool is to take something that you love and understand it even deeper and you can do that by reading about it by by listening to it and there's like what's what I love about this moment is there's like more resources than ever like I was speaking to Stahlgeb I was rediscovering one of my favorite songs from the late 2000s combination pizza Hut and Taco Bell by Das Rassist
I don't know if you're familiar with that one and I'm at the pizza Hut I'm at the Taco Bell I'm at the combination pizza Hut and Taco Bell I mean it's so good and I was like what is this what is the song and I went online I was like what it you know I don't know what I googled what how did combination pizza Hut and Taco Bell get made and there's a whole article on slate that's an oral history of the song and they enjoy the members of the band and they talk all about and they and they talk to the people who listen to it and I'm like what a moment we live in
where I can literally just go online and find this deep dive into a novelty song that you that you thought no one had ever thought of and so that's not getting you out of that rut necessarily I guess but it is like allowing you to understand and and appreciate these things as as not just something you love for no reason like these are these are artistic objects and they have their own histories and stories and it's fun to unpack those with with other people who love them.
I will say that the way I got into switched on pop was during the pandemic and the series on Britney Spears it's like a five part series right a four part series yeah yeah yeah and like I had seen it somewhere in a culture study thread about podcasts and recommendations for podcasts and it just like it absolutely
beguiled me because like a lot of people was re-appreciating Britney Spears at that time but yeah I think that that's such a great idea it's it's not getting out of the rut but it's expanding the rut right it's like making it more roomy like there's more room to to figure out like you're your place in it. The other thing I would do is like I don't know it seems cheesy but we used to do this all the time like ask your friends what they're listening to.
That is probably the most tried and true method of music and and other media discovery and I will do exactly this I'll just text a few trusted confidants and be like what what's your favorite record right now and invariably that whatever answer they give becomes the thing that I become obsessed with for the next series of months.
The I love that you said that and and if I'm might be so emboldened I could I could give some of the things that I'm listening to right now because there's something extraordinary about this moment where where there is so much to listen to it can be overwhelming but you can also find things that connect with the past in incredible ways there's an artist right now named lave it's spelled L a U F E Y.
She's a 24 year old Icelandic Chinese jazz inspired singer songwriter and you listen to her and you you hear it sounds like it's something like a loss recording from 1952 that was just rediscovered with these lush orchestral strings and jazz harmonies and she's got this voice that feels very sort of old and weathered for her for her age.
This is an artist that you listen to and you're like oh the future of music is great you know we're in good hands yeah it's not all doom and gloom and sped up hyper pop and and digital distortion it's like there's there's the youths are also into the same classic music that that we were into growing up and an artist like lave is a great example that there's also a band I'm really liking right now called the lemon twigs set of brothers who reference
classic 70s and 60s vocal pop and rock with really intricate double harmonies and 12 string Rick and Bacher guitars feels like the birds and the Beatles if they were resurrected for the 21st century audience there are a lot of fun.
And I'll just give one more artist I really love right now Anderson Anderson pack drummer and vocalist whose collaborated with Bruno Mars in silk sonic and he I love him because he has so much veneration for music history on his last album he did a collaboration with smokey Robinson which was one of my favorite tracks of recent years. So if you feel I guess all to say if you feel like oh there's nothing for me out there I do think there is it's it's just a matter of finding it.
Yeah and being like unembarassed about asking for Rex you know not just texting but you could put it on Instagram could be like what are you listening to right like why do we have social media if we can't use it in these ways or like I like these three bands what what else would I like. Yeah my my two wrecks which are not nearly as cool as you are.
I remember like if you are someone because I know there are a lot of people who listen to this podcast who like me were like very into little fair like if you have not discovered boi genius yet like they are there they will soo all that ails you and then the other like I got a really into kind of.
I don't like the designation alt country like but that style during the pandemic and one of the artists that is really stuck with me and that I think like feels like like you were saying like it feels very old feels very timeless but also feels very now is culture wall who sounds like yeah he was born in 1920. Totally yeah. I love that I hardly co-sign both of those those are yeah those are great picks and also just revisiting scabidi toilet like that.
I almost successfully banished that from my. Thank you so much for joining me can you remind all of our listeners where they can find you if they want to hear more from you. Absolutely you can listen to my the podcast that I host with songwriter Charlie Harding switched on pop anywhere you get podcasts or on our website switch on pop dot com and if you're in living in the. L.A. area and interested in going back to school you can enroll at the University of Southern California.
Thornton school of music and take some of my music history classes there. Thank you so much this has been such a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the culture study podcast be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts because we have so many great episodes in the works like so many and I promise you don't want to miss any of them.
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