Education

'Switched On Pop': Fluff For The Masses Or Misunderstood Masterpieces?

WAMU 88.5

Published December 10, 2019 at 10:06 AM CST

NPR called pop songstress Billie Eilish the "weird achiever of the year." Her album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go" recorded the highest number of streams in 2019.

What makes a great pop song? Is it the way it makes you want to dance? Or maybe how it gets stuck in your head?

At the end of 2019, with genre-bending hits like Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” and Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy,” what do we even consider pop to be today?

There’s a lot more to pop music than initially meets the ear — and few are more equipped to know that than the hosts of “Switched on Pop.”

The Vox Media podcast deconstructs pop music, exploring the chord progressions, melodic themes and well-placed exclamation points that make these top ten hits really… pop.

Executive Producer Charlie Harding and Musicology Professor Nate Sloan join us to discuss.

Produced by Michelle Harven.

GUESTS

Nate Sloan, Professor of musicology, University of Southern California; co-host, Switched on Pop; @neatsloan

Charlie Harding, Executive producer/co-host, Switched on Pop; @charlieharding

For more, visit https://the1a.org.