Obscure music is good and nice!

WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Slappy dappy James Johnson as you've named yourself in this uh this virtual Virtual room together. Emery, slinky, slivery, dippy, Sievertsen. Wow. We've been working on that one for all of them. Three seconds. I've got a song in my heart, you know? Oh, you do? I do. I have 12 different songs in my heart. You do? Yeah. What brings us together today And Well. I'm excited to talk about something that I've been wanting to talk about for a while.

Um we're gonna talk about music together and I'm excited for that because I have twelve songs in my heart and you have one song in your heart, which probably means that you're focused on quality and I'm focused on quantity, which is also maybe uh you know right in line with how we usually operate. So quality is subjective in the musical in the musical arts. It's about the joy it brings you. I'd say. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So how do you find new music?

Man, I used to be so good at this. Um, I used to work at a music station when I was in college. Uh-huh. And I literally just sat on my butt and ran the DJ board. Yeah. And new music was injected directly into my ear holes. And now I still listen to the radio. Um, like an old woman. But I have never I seriously have never done the like For you playlist. What are those things called on the streaming platforms where it's like recommended if you like? I don't know. Yeah. Never.

You like you like pick a you pick an artist and then you check the radio you do the radio of of this artist thing or whatever. That's how I experience it on YouTube music. Oh, you're a YouTube music guy? I know. I'm one of the few, one of the proud. So I am really frustrated by like I'm an I'm officially an old man now. Like I'm you know, I am in my middle age and like

I am consistently conscious of the fact that like it's hard for me to get new music. It's hard for me to figure out what the cool kids are doing. I'm still listening listening to damn. by Kendrick Lamar as if that's new music. I'm still listening to like Run the Jewels three. I'm still listening to

you know, indie rock records that came out literally like ten years ago at this point. It like as if those are that's the new music. Same. Okay. Yeah. Fair. But I will say I've had this huge discovery in the past several months, which Shockingly has been on Reddit and

Um, and it is the obscure music that slaps subreddit. Do you know of this? I don't. This is great. You don't? No. Oh my God. This has like brought me so much joy in the past like six months. uh that w it just has like filled the void in my life of like discovering new music. Um the beauty of this subreddit is like the only Organizing principle is like the music has to freaking slap. Like it has to be good. Like other than that, it doesn't matter.

Well hit me. Give me an example. I I'm just gonna give you a couple of tastes. Okay. Is that cool? Mm-hmm. Okay. So take a look at this one. This is a person who I I think they may be a paleontologist because they are singing about being excited uh to support a dinosaur for president. Well, this is already up my alley. It's good, right? Yep. I mean i it and then like again, this could fall th this I would like I would put this in a in a category of like I'm not necessarily gonna like spend

Hours and hours following this person. Like, I'm not gonna go do a deep dive on them personally. I just appreciate The quality of what they do and that they have humor and beauty and they're just like making a song that I can like appreciate on the internet for two minutes. And that may be the extent of our relationship. So are most of is most of what you've discovered on this subreddit in this In a similar vein of like this is something that sort of stops you in your track.

It's different. Or is this like you have sought any of this out to download and listen to Okay. So so I will say that there have been artists that have inspired me to go down the rabbit hole beyond like they've converted me to listening to their music, if that makes sense. This is an Australian artist. Um, who I discovered and I discovered this particular song from them, uh, which I believe is called Molly. Eka Vandal?

And this this person from Australia, I was like, when I saw this song on the obscure music that slaps. Subreddit. I immediately went and like searched out her music and was like, Oh, I'm into some of this and I started to listen to it. I feel like if you sent this music video to Mike, to my husband Mike He would be like, This looks just like what you do at home It's a lot of um

She does kind of look like you I feel like in her dancing around. That's like an Amory movement. And on a rooftop and uh Yeah. I'll bring this to my next kitchen offering in my home. It's great. I'm gonna send you another example of like an artist who I started to follow after I saw their stuff. I think it's pronounced Boko Yout. This maybe speaks to the first one.

I don't know. I've never I don't talk about this publicly, but you and I have talked privately a little bit about the Taylor Swift obsession. Mm-hmm. What this gets at for me is There's so much music out there and when it feels like Society is just focused on one artist. Yes. I I get a little like, oh, but guys, come on, you know? Right. And I know I know that people who love Taylor Swift are not necessarily just listening to Taylor Swift, but it's also like Hey, not everybody needs to go to

a tropical resort on vacation, there's also this and there's this and there's this. You know, it's just like the world is so big and there's so much to consume that will open your brain in new ways and let's all dip into more music.

portals for our own the well being. I don't know. I love that. No, I love that. And I think like You know, we are living in this interesting era where like sometimes I miss monoculture. Like I miss the idea that like, oh, we're all gonna like actually consume this thing at the same time because it's great and we all agree that it's great. And the internet has like basically like completely fragmented that idea in this way.

But what you're talking about is also true, right? Which is like you can also say that discovery it becomes this like challenge for us in this in this world of limitless opportunity. And again, like this is the other thing about this subreddit, right? Is it definitely has to slap. And you're never gonna see Taylor Swift on this subreddit because it has to be obscure. It has to be someone that you probably haven't heard of. And so, like, again, that's to me, that's that's what so much of like

I have always loved about music is about is about finding something new that like is exciting and you'd never heard of it before and it's like opens up this new world for you and you're like, oh my God, like who is this person? Where do they come from? Like what do they care about? What do they believe in? All of this stuff.

And so for me, this is the kind of thing of like where the joy is. Um, especially when it comes to like what the in theory, what the internet is supposed to do, which is like help us discover new things from places like w that we don't even know. You know what I I mean, another thing that I love about all of this is that when I was figuring out where I wanted to go to school and what I wanted to study and pursue.

I had done this program at a particular institution that shall not be named because I was mostly music focused at the time. This I I was told like, yeah, your stuff is really interesting, but I can't really hear it on the radio. And, you know, I was I was like sixteen years old and hearing that to me at the time was a knife.

to the heart. That is whack. And Don't say that. They they m you know, that's that is fine. That may that may very well have been the case. And yet I just think about all of the people out there who make stuff that brings joy and is more interesting than a lot of what you do here on the radio sometimes. And I'm just so glad that people do it for an audience of

Who knows how many people, but that the the people that love it love it. And I that's I just I appreciate these people out there doing their thing. I need my subscribe. Alright, well that's that's my that's my recommendation for you and anyone else who wants to discover new music either it just as like a momentary joyful curiosity or an artist that you might grow to to know and love well is um check out obscure music that's slack. It's it's worth it.

Yeah. Yeah,'cause you know how they say to eat the rainbow to be healthy, you gotta eat all foods of all the colors. I think you gotta like consume the rainbow of musical variety and artistic and cultural variety in order to be A

A well person. I love that. I love that. So whatever helps you do that here. And thank you for bringing this subreddit to my attention. And there goes the rest of my day. All right. Just kidding, because we're gonna take a quick break and then I'm gonna tell you a story when we come back. Tänk till exempel att. En träffigeskiva över skyltfönstret hjälper lite. Ivs företagsförsäkring hjälper mycket.

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Okay, so my story comes by way of one of our sound designers, Emily Jankowski, who was not intending to pitch this for an episode. She just sent this to me, she DM'd me some links on Instagram. She knows that I love a good jingle. Okay. Um, are you much of a soda man? I feel like I haven't seen you drink that much soda. Oh only in my darkest moments do I slip down the soda stream.

Okay. Well when you slip down the soda stream, what's your soda of choice? I'm a Dr. Pepper. I mean, Doctor Pepper, it's tough to beat Doctor Pepper. So there you go. If I'm going soda. Yeah. Okay. Although In my later years, Fresca. But that's a whole other story. story is not about fresca, but it is about Dr. Pepper, which is absolutely my one soda of choice. It's Dr. Pepper. So this involves a TikTok creator who goes by Romeo. Okay.

Their name is Romeo Bingham, but they're you know they're known as Romeo. Um and in late December they posted this video. I have a theme song for Dr. Pepper and it goes like this. Doctor Pepper Babe is good and nice doolo Oh I've seen this I love this story Doctor Pepper Baby is good and fine doo It's nice. It's good and nice. Oh I'm sorry. It's good and nice to look.

Yes, good. So just this person, the camera kind of kind of under their chin singing this song. Looking at the ceiling. Sh they could be on the bed. They could be anywhere. Yeah. Mm-hmm. This is not a highly produced video, shall we say? Oh no. It's nice and casual and cozy and genuine. And the caption says, Dr. Pepper, please get back to me with a proposition. We can make thousands together.

And then the text on the video itself reads, had to act on this before someone got sent this in a dream and steal it from me, so I impulsively posted this. Okay. So this this little song blew up. It has tens of millions of views. Yes. And it got the attention of the people at, of course. Dr. Pepper. Doctor Pepper Baby Yes, Doctor Pepper told Romeo to check their DMs and then about a month later

Dr. Pepper aired a new commercial during the College Football Playoff National Championship on ESPN. And we're gonna watch, and more importantly, we're gonna listen to that together. It's good. They've got some choir vocals. Good and nice. Mm-hmm. And then hands of Dr. Pepper or dancing. There's a little bit of a whoo somewhere in there.

So Romeo told People magazine that Dr. Pepper licensed the jingle and treated it like a real creative collaboration. Romeo was credited and they were paid Although I have not heard Romeo confirm the amount that I've at least seen circulating on social media. Which was Romeo, you mean to tell me that you made two million dollars off of a jingle jangle? Two million dollars? Two million dollars. For her Doctor Pepper Jangle? So whether it was two million dollars or

However, it shook out. This inspired a lot of people to start coming up with their own jingles for. big food and beverage brands. Mm-hmm. Um, and the news site Atlanta Black Star posted a compilation of some of these on Instagram. And here's a bit of that. ピザハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッハッ Mountain dew is for you. This is great. I'm in. Same. So Romeo already had

a pretty big TikTok following before this. A lot of their posts would get tens of thousands of views. But now they get millions of views. Of course. And they've already dropped a couple more jingle ideas. Of course. Including one for the the coconut water brand. Vitacoco. Vitacoco, you'll go loco because it's so dang delicioso. Oh, broom boom. And you know, when you scroll through the comments of some of their recent videos, you see other huge brands in there basically saying like

Do us next. We want a jingle too. Of course. Goodyear comments and is like up for driving a Goodyear jingle. Um there's Wix, there's Pan Express. Twitch says please we need one too. Liptonice T I mean, go get it, Romeo. Crumble Cookies says we have never wanted anything more. Which this is when Ben, I'm like We gotta quit the podcast and just get to work on the I was about to say this is like we should just be doing this all the time all the time.

This is what we should just be doing all the time. I think this is why Emily sent it to me, our sound designer Emily Dankowski, because she knows the joy that I get from this. This is how I live. She didn't send it to me, so clearly she thinks one of us is better than the other. She she just doesn't know enough of your repertoire, but like this is the stuff I do all day. I am doing this all day anyway. Same.

But but I'm I'm I'm just so delighted to see this uh I mean i I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about Romeo too, but I'm I'm so delighted because I also thought that jingles were kind of dying out.

I was born in the late eighties, grew up in the nineties, grew up s felt like surrounded by jingles. Well, they have less of a venue. They have less of a venue because television and radio were the places for the jingles. Like that is that is the the the natural habitat of the jingle are these like broadcast

uh media technologies. And that's harder on the internet, I think. It's that's part of it. I mean, I don't watch T V anymore either. Is that I don't watch like broadcast television. So maybe they're maybe they're easier than I Yeah. Maybe they're doing okay, but

This gives me some hope. And as you were sort of hinting at, Romeo now has a manager's name and contact on their TikTok account now. Of course. They have what appears to be a brand spank and new website, Romeo's Show dot com where companies can reach out about working with Romeo on a jingle of their own.

But also some of their other content also really touched me in a different way. They talk about having bipolar disorder. Mm-hmm. They talk about their anxiety. They make, you know, kind of like positivity pep talk videos that are clearly um

seem to be coming from a very personal place that they're trying to radiate out into the world. And I was really moved by a particular video that they posted before the Dr. Pepper video that's more in the performance Poetry realm, and the message is really it's this kind of like an it too shall pass message about. Small things like having a stomachache, but also much bigger things like debt and being in a period of serious depression. That feeling will end too. So

Why not stick around to find out what begins after all the little things end? Why not put your efforts into something that will end and create something beautiful? Thank you. So yeah, this it this started out as an appreciation of a goofy song gone viral turned huge commercial, but going down this particular rabbit hole, it's now for me turned into an appreciation of this particular creator, Romeo. And

how true they seem to have stayed to themselves over the course of their social media rise. And I know in some ways they're at a beginning of a new stage of you know, massive attention, but I hope that they will also continue to keep bringing the goodness that they already are, um, to the world on the internet. So Viva La Romeo, I guess. Viva La Romeo. And I you know, I think like on the one hand, like what's more American than a you know, a regular person

doing something that somehow like serves a larger corporate brand and getting rich off of that. And also and also like brands gloming on to stuff. that they recognize as like potentially like a good story, quote unquote, for the brand to tell. Um, I guess my takeaway from this kind of thing is like Anyone can have a stroke of genius. Anyone can can come up with something that is that is truly irresistible.

And hopefully the people who do that in a way that like gets them a bunch of attention and potentially compensation and and it does seem like like Dr. Pepper went about this the right way in the way that they like engaged with Romeo. But hopefully this kind of thing like results in, you know non material based happiness, uh, if that makes any sense. Yeah. And who knows if if Romeo becomes the

Taylor Swift of Commercial Jingles. We're gonna be back here in, you know, months or years from now being like, come on guys, we met you know you have to eat the rainbow. We gotta eat the rainbow of Of silly jingles. Yeah, yeah. So that's right. That's right. I love a silly jingle. All right, let's get back to the. Silly jingles, you might say, are good and nice. A good and nice dude.

Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was produced by Kalyani Sixnayna and us, your co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sieverson. It was edited by Meg Kramer, mix and sound design by our production manager Paul Vikis. The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Grace Tatter, Emily Jańkowski, Chiosna Bernadot, and our managing producer, Summitoshi.

Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between sudden, unexpected virality and oh my god, this music is so good. Why aren't more people paying attention to it? And on that note, please, please, please check out Ту Кристі хумей до сон Динасор фрезит, це номер твою. K-R-I-S-P-I-I, also Eka Vandal and Boko Yout, all of whom you heard in this episode. But also Ben and I talked about a lot of obscure artists who didn't end up making it into the episode.

but you should absolutely check them out too. And those are Mari Miranda, Christy Koisch, and Michael Fordanal, also known online as Everyday Naturalist. Do you have an untold history, an unsolved mystery, an artist you want to tell us about, or some other wild story from the internet that you want us to let other people know about? Hit us up, endlessthread at WBUR.org.