Switched on Pop - podcast cover

Switched on Pop

A podcast all about the making and meaning of popular music. Musicologist Nate Sloan & songwriter Charlie Harding pull back the curtain on how pop hits work magic on our ears & our culture. From Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Episodes

Charli XCX threw this party 4 us

Five years ago, Charli XCX released the track "party 4 u," a melancholic ode to throwing a function for that one specific person. Now, in 2025, the song has gotten a renewed life – motivated by a foolproof cocktail of TikTok trends, the Billboard Hot 100, and a post-Brat Summer clamor for Charli. It's rare for pop songs like this to get a second wind. So, on this episode of Switched On Pop, Reanna, Nate, and Charlie put on our detective hats on to dissect the five-minute song's vocals, textures,...

May 27, 202539 min

808: The drum machine that changed music forever (Twenty Thousand Hertz)

The 808 is arguably the most iconic drum machine ever made. Even if you’ve never heard of it, you’ve definitely heard it. It’s in dozens of hit songs -- from Usher to Marvin Gaye, Talking Heads to The Beastie Boys -- and its sounds have quietly cemented themselves in the cultural lexicon. In this episode, we try to understand how that happened and follow the unlikely path of the 808. Featuring DJ Jazzy Jeff and Paul McCabe from Roland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/a...

May 25, 202528 min

Chartbreakers: Lorde & Drake reboot, Worship Pop, and the shortest song ever

What happens when worship anthems climb the charts alongside soul revivals and nostalgia-driven comebacks? The May 2025 Billboard charts reveal a fascinating musical landscape where Drake performs a strategic reset after his epic battle with Kendrick, worship-adjacent pop dominates the mainstream, and The Marias reject conventional song structures with dreamy success. From the bizarre 34-second Minecraft soundtrack hit to the rise of "voice audition pop," we're exploring how these competing visi...

May 20, 202552 min

‘Sinners’ summons the demons of American music

We rarely cover movies here at Switched On Pop. But after seeing Ryan Coogler's new vampire musical Sinners, we knew we had to make an exception. The movie is an ode to Black music. Throughout its over two hour runtime, the film pays tribute to the blues: nodding to the musicians, instruments, and melodies that make it a foundational genre in the American musical canon. There's also Irish folk vampires, original music from Ludwig Göransson, and a whole lot of history – perfect for Charlie and Na...

May 13, 202539 min

Eurovision feast: Poison Cake, Milkshake Man, and Espresso Macchiato (featuring Tommy Cash)

It's that time of year again: Eurovision Song Contest is upon us. And with the competition comes a tradition at Switched On Pop, where Charlie and Nate look at the songs (and countries) that have the best odds to take home the title. This year, we have an ode to the sauna, soaring operatics, and a feast of food-themed tunes – including the Estonian entrant Tommy Cash's ode to the "Espresso Macchiato." This episode of Switched On Pop, we take a sonic trip to Basel, Switzerland – and in the back h...

May 06, 202543 min

Put your headphones on for TikTok's Addison Rae

Despite TikTok defining this decade's music landscape, the app hasn't spawned a bonafide pop superstar – yet. 24-year-old Addison Rae is trying to be the first. She's already had cosigns from Arca, Charli XCX, and Benny Blanco; critical acclaim from outlets like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Elle; and is cultivating a fervent fanbase with a slew of breathy, ethereal, and inspiration-laden singles. But how does one translate TikTok celebrity into pop success? On this episode of Switched On Pop, R...

May 01, 202555 min

Generation Taylor: Gracie, Maisie, Phoebe (with Jensen McRae)

Taylor Swift isn't just a world-conquering pop star at the top of her game, her approach to songwriting has also proven massively influential for an up-and-coming generation of singer-songwriters. Gracie Abrams, Maisie Peters, and Phoebe Bridgers—all of whom opened for Swift during her Eras Tour—each owe a debt to Swift's hyperspecific lyrics, minimal melodies, and bombastic bridges. We break down the key aspects of Swift's songcraft and how we can hear them manifest in the work of her young aco...

Apr 22, 20251 hr 5 min

Music's New Success Model

Specialized platforms and social media have empowered musicians to tap into niche audiences, igniting a quiet revolution in the music industry. Despite the dominance of viral hits, a new wave of artists, labels and businesses are redefining success by building dedicated fanbases with focused, niche strategies. This conversation, live from SXSW, features Charlie leading a conversation with: LP Giobbi, a producer, jazz-trained pianist, and activist who spends 300 days a year touring between festiv...

Apr 15, 202547 min

Miley Cyrus goes avant-garde

Miley Cyrus just released three singles from her ninth studio album, Something Beautiful. Inspired by Pink Floyd's The Wall—specifically the 1982 feature film based on the album—Cyrus is not just sharing new music but a whole visual album, each song accompanied by a music video shot by director Panos Cosmatos. We last heard from Cyrus in 2023 with her massive smash "Flowers," which found the industry veteran finding some kind of inner peace. With her new songs, Cyrus is turning from healing hers...

Apr 08, 202538 min

Chappell Roan is giving country... and hair metal?

Why was Chappell Roan's band dressed like an 80s hair metal act during her Grammy performance? The answer unlocks the surprising secret behind her #1 country hit "The Giver." This musical detective story connects glam rock aesthetics to modern country through an unexpected lineage involving AC/DC's producer, Shania Twain's revolution, and men who inadvertently dressed in drag. Between fiddle licks and gated reverb drums lies a brilliant subversion of country traditions that proves the genre has ...

Apr 01, 202532 min

Writing The Who’s ‘My Generation' With Pete Townshend

The Who's "My Generation" wasn't born from inspiration—it was commissioned. In a rare interview, Pete Townshend reveals how six fans at London's Goldhawk Club in 1965 directly asked him to write an anthem for their post-war generation. This conversation uncovers how a simple request transformed into rock's definitive youth statement, complete with its rebellious stutter and blues foundations. As Townshend releases his solo anthology during our own era of generational flux, the story behind rock'...

Mar 25, 202554 min

Lady Gaga's Monster Return

In 2022, Lady Gaga embarked on The Chromatica Ball – a stadium tour featuring a stage that Gaga herself referred to as her "museum of brutality." Three years later, this idea of a brutalist enshrining of all things Monster can come to represent her new studio album MAYHEM. Over the course of fourteen tracks, Gaga is "unafraid to reference or not reference," invoking not just the pop weirdos of a past era like Prince and Bowie, but also her contemporaries, in this gothic and chaotic web of a reco...

Mar 18, 202553 min

How Missy Elliott and Timbaland Freaked the World

When the song “Get Ur Freak On” hit radio in 2001, it set the world of popular music on fire. Missy Elliott and Timbaland’s first crossover hit sounded nothing like the chart-topping bluesy rock of Aerosmith or Lenny Kravitz, or the smooth R&B of Joe or Jagged Edge. It was a song that compelled you to dance - literally, with Missy issuing repeat commands to “get ur freak on” and encouraging crowds to gather ‘round in what we’ve only ever experienced as a hot slick mess of bodies, cheering and vi...

Mar 11, 202536 min

Playing "Hide and Seek" with Imogen Heap

It may be hard to believe it in this technology-driven day and age, but one of the most pervasive sounds in popular music came about when a computer STOPPED working. In 2005, artist and innovator Imogen Heap released "Hide and Seek," a mysterious and emotional song featuring just her voice and a digital harmonizer. In this episode, Nate and Reanna dissect a song that launched a thousand memes and gave the world one of the defining sonic textures of our time. Songs Discussed Imogen Heap - Headloc...

Mar 04, 202535 min

The Umbrella Effect: How Rihanna’s Breakout Hit Changed Pop Music Forever

In 2007, a 19-year-old Barbadian pop singer released the lead single off her third album. By doing so, she didn't just give us a timeless, undeniable banger -- she changed the way pop music is made, and became the global superstar that we know Rihanna to be today. In this episode we go back in time to unearth the origins of "Umbrella," and how the song blossomed as a result of many shifting currents in the music industry, the democratization recording technology, and the persistence of Rihanna a...

Feb 25, 202537 min

Learning to love: Tate McRae

Tate McRae's billions of streams and perfectly crafted hits can feel almost algorithmic, like an AI trained on 20 years of pop music. In anticipation of McRae’s third album So Close to What, out this Friday, we dissect McRae’s "SimplePop" formula, from her strategic, indescript vocal delivery to expert "vibe snatching" of Y2K sounds. Through singles like "exes” and “sports car,” Charlie and Reanna trace her sonic lineage and discover why pop music needs artists who refine sounds as much as those...

Feb 18, 202546 min

Does It Trance? The Weeknd & FKA Twigs

In last month's episode predicting the coming year in pop, one of the team's predictions was that trance music – the ethereal, dreamy subgenre of electronic music popular around the turn of the century – would make a comeback on the charts in 2025. And even though we're less than two months into the year, we're already seeing the tides of nostalgia bring this club-oriented music come back into fashion. This episode of Switched On Pop, Nate, Charlie, and Reanna take a look at trance music: where ...

Feb 11, 202547 min

How Spotify hacked our ears (and our data)

Behind Spotify's promise of infinite music lies a carefully engineered system that shapes not just what we hear, but how music itself gets made. Journalist Liz Pelly's explosive new book "Mood Machine" rips away the curtain on streaming's biggest player, revealing how its algorithms and backroom deals dictate the soundtrack to our lives. With major labels controlling 70% of streams and Spotify commanding over 600 million users, the stakes couldn't be higher. As artists like Björk decry streaming...

Feb 04, 202554 min

25 Predictions for 2025: Grammys, J-pop, kazoos and more

2024 was an unpredictable year, and 2025 seems to be cut from the same cloth. So for this episode of Switched On Pop, Nate, Charlie, and Reanna look into the crystal ball of pop music to create a (playable) bingo card of predictions for the coming year – including AI songs on the Hot 100, a return of boy bands, and... kazoos? The Album of the Year race for this upcoming Grammys is similarly unpredictable, with a stacked nomination list including Grammy darlings Beyoncé and Billie as well as Gen-...

Jan 28, 202558 min

Bad Bunny's love letter to Puerto Rico

The first great release of 2025 is already here: Bad Bunny's newest album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS. Over the course of its 17 tracks, the Puerto Rican reggaetonero crafts an intertextual, anti-colonial tome of a record, incorporating sounds from across his island and the boricua diaspora. From his use of salsa classics on "NUEVAYoL," to his pointed interpolations on "VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR," and his detour into folk melodies and songwriting on tracks like the somber "LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii," the rec...

Jan 21, 202547 min

The biggest theme song fail

What happens when your podcast’s theme song—cobbled together from GarageBand loops—gets called “game show music” and likened to a cereal commercial? You rewrite it. In this episode, we take you behind the scenes of Switched on Pop’s sonic makeover, from scathing critiques by music industry heavyweights to the creation of a lush, layered soundscape inspired by Wendy Carlos and PBS science shows. With expert advice from sonic branding maestro Dallas Taylor (Twenty Thousand Hertz) and the composers...

Jan 14, 202542 min

Have Disney musicals lost their edge?

Critics are not feeling the love tonight when it comes to Disney's latest sequels, Mufasa and Moana 2. They've called the animated films "lifeless and bland." But save some sympathy for the composers behind these blatant IP grabs. Lin Manuel Miranda and the duo Barlow and Bear had to match the original, iconic numbers from the Lion King and Moana, songs written by Elton John and Miranda himself. Are critics of the sequels' soundtracks being too harsh? We compare the new songs to their iconic pre...

Jan 07, 202542 min

Going Off Book

On this very special episode, we join forces with the hilarious podcast OFF BOOK. When our powers combine, Zach and Jess of Off Book, plus their killer backing band of Scott, Dana and Brett create an improvised musical, while Nate and Charlie break down the sound and structure of a Broadway show. Stay tuned for deep thoughts about what separates pop music from musicals, wild speculation about the origin of the word “vamp,” and an ENTIRE FREAKING MUSICAL COMPOSED FROM SCRATCH that will make you l...

Dec 31, 20241 hr 31 min

Auto-Tune always and forever

Popular music changes all the time, but there’s been one consistent element in practically everything released in the last two decades: Auto-Tune is everywhere. What started as a simple audio processing tool in the 1990s has become the dominant force in music. Artists are training to sing with Auto-Tune; songs sound like Auto-Tune. Like it or hate it, Auto-Tune is everywhere. And to be clear, most people like it. On this episode of The Vergecast music journalist and Switched on Pop co-host Charl...

Dec 24, 20241 hr 3 min

Santa Claus is coming to town and stalking America

The first time you hear "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," it probably registers as just another cheery holiday standard. But hiding within this seemingly simple song is a remarkable story of American transformation - musical, technological, and social. Each time artists reimagine the song over its 90-year history, they leave an imprint not just of their own style, but of their entire cultural moment. Correction: Last week, we mistakenly credited Jermaine Jackson with playing bass on The Jackson 5...

Dec 20, 202433 min

Breaking Through: Doechii, Mk.gee, Rosé

Three artists quietly reshaped pop music in 2024, though you might not know it from your Spotify Wrapped. As listeners question the accuracy of their year-end streaming stats, we explore the innovative sounds bubbling up just below the algorithmic radar. Tampa's "Swamp Princess" Doechii brings narrative depth back to hip-hop through her chameleonic vocal approach. Bedroom producer Mk.gee discovers entirely new possibilities for the electric guitar by deliberately recording "wrong." And BLACKPINK...

Dec 17, 202443 min

The best (and worst) of holiday music in 2024

It's an annual tradition: Every December, artists release their bids to join the hallowed halls of holiday music history. The gold standard remains Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which reportedly earns the pop star $2.5 million annually in royalties. This year's crop of seasonal offerings spans from ambitious originals to reimagined classics, with artists trying everything from AI-generated lyrics to funk renditions of Hanukah hymns. To evaluate this year's entries, we're intr...

Dec 13, 202437 min

Kendrick Lamar: from Pulitzer to pop

In 2024, Kendrick Lamar pulled off what seemed impossible: winning hip-hop's biggest rap battle in recent history, securing the Super Bowl halftime show, and dropping GNX, a surprise album that might be the year's defining pop record. But this triumphant return wasn't guaranteed. Two decades into his career — well past the average life expectancy of a rap career — Kendrick faced a critical challenge: how to balance his legendary artistic complexity with mainstream accessibility. Songs discussed:...

Dec 10, 202441 min

We're off to see the "Wicked"

The year's hottest movie is, against all odds, a musical. Wicked, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, just hit theaters, and tells the tale of how a green-skinned girl named Elphaba became the Wicked Witch of the West. And with any musical, the songs are just as important as the narrative. On this episode of Switched On Pop, Charlie, Nate, and Reanna hop on their broomsticks to break down the music powering this cultural phenomenon. Songs Discussed The Wizard And I - Cynthia Erivo, Michell...

Dec 03, 202441 min

Listening 2 Madonna: Ray of Light

TIME Magazine once said, “there are few figures more closely associated with religion in pop culture than Madonna.” And looking at her catalog, it’s hard to disagree. From cheeky double entendres on “Like A Prayer,” to explorations of alternative philosophies on Ray of Light, spiritual practice has always been a core aspect of Madonna’s work. And as she dips her toes in different ideologies, she eventually comes to mold her own special religion in the process. On our final episode of our week-lo...

Nov 29, 202444 min
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