Swedish supergroup ABBA is releasing their first album in forty years, making this the perfect time for Nate and Charlie to investigate what makes their music so beloved and reviled in equal measure. For every ABBA stan, there’s a hater lurking, like legendary pop critic Robert Christgau, who once said of the group: “We have met the enemy, and they are them.” That suspicion was earned through ABBA’s musical catchiness and lyrical earnestness, but regardless of how you feel about their music, their compositional acumen cannot be denied. The longevity of their songs is testament to that musical brilliance. So after breaking down the vocal contrast, musical maximalism, and studio wizardry used to concoct world-beating hits like “Super Trouper,” “Mamma Mia,” and “Dancing Queen,” Nate and Charlie turn their ears to the band’s latest singles, “Don’t Shut Me Down” and “I Still Have Faith in You,” to determine whether the newest releases represent a return to classic form or a departure into new sonic realms. Songs Discussed ABBA - Super Trouper, Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Don’t Shut Me Down, I Still Have Faith in You Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Switched on Pop

Why ABBA songs just hit different

It. Has. Been. A. Year. We’ve felt it; you’ve felt it. Sometimes, it’s comforting to consider how universal that overwhelming sense of blah is. Other days, woof, it can be tough to see the light. That’s the subject of today’s episode, brought to you by our producer Megan Lubin. When Megan hit an especially low point earlier this year, she noticed something in the music she was listening to: Über-popular artists making explicit references to the state of their mental health and the things they do to cope with it. It made her want to know more about the impact of those lyrics, so she dug around and found an academic who studies that very thing: Alex Kresovich, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media who has authored a bunch of studies on mental health and popular music. In today’s episode, we walk through one of those studies with him and learn how influential lyrical content can be — even when you’re not paying super-close attention. Alex’s research, and research like it, opens up the possibility that pop artists are an underestimated asset when it comes to mental-health messaging. “People like to point at pop music as a source of problems, not a source of solutions,” he says. Alex sees his job as guiding the scientific community toward new data that could change how we understand the value of pop-music lyrics — “laying the railroad ties,” as he puts it. In the second half of today’s episode, we talk to an artist who has taken the concept of music as medicine to a whole new level. Over the course of her career, Esperanza Spalding has reimagined the music-making process — transforming it from one designed to meet her label’s commercial needs to one designed to meet the mental-health needs of her immediate community. With her new album Songwrights Apothecary Lab, Spalding offers up a collection of songs for “releasing the heaviness of a seemingly endless blue state,” for “steadying the vast-spinning ‘potential hurt’ analysis triggered by the bliss of new romance,” and for “slowing down and remembering to make space/time for your elders.” Spalding made clear that this way of “musicking” is nothing new: It’s like the oldest thing ever….we’re playing with the origin of music. The origin of music being: a response to others in your community, in your surroundings. And the response is intuitive! When you hum for a baby or when you’re sitting with somebody who is grieving and you, you feel compelled to hum, or when you’re excited and go, “Wow!” That’s music! Spalding’s view of music these days opened our eyes wide to the true healing power of individual songs and just how accessible music is when we need it. Songs Discussed girl in red - Serotonin Billie Eilish - Getting Older Julia Michaels ft. Selena Gomez - Anxiety J. Cole ft. kiLL edward - FRIENDS Lil Nas X - VOID Kehlani - 24/7 Kendrick Lamar - u Juice WRLD - Lucid Dreams Panic! At the Disco - King of the Clouds Shawn Mendes - In My Blood Ariana Grande - breathin Logic, Alessia Cara, Khalid - 1-800-273-8255 Billie Eilish ft. Khalid - lovely Lil Uzi Vert - XO Tour Llif3 Esperanza Spalding - Formwela 3 Esperanza Spalding - Formwela 6 Esperanza Spalding - Formwela 10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Healing Power of Pop with Esperanza Spalding

Sam Sanders is one of our favorite friends of the podcast. His NPR show, It's Been A Minute, has released an outstanding three part series exploring crossover in pop music. We want to share with you the 2nd episode form that series on the legacy of Janet Jackson. From It's Been A Minute On the 35th anniversary of Janet Jackson's first No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit, we look back at Control, her career-defining album that changed the trajectory of pop music in the late '80s and '90s. In the second episode of a three-part series exploring crossover in pop music, we look at Jackson's musical and cultural legacy over the years. We also reconsider how Jackson was vilified after her Super Bowl XXXVIII appearance, and why. Episode art by Blake Cale for NPR All episodes in the series There Was Nothing Like 'Soul Train' On TV. There's Never Been Anything Like It Since Janet Jackson Once Had 'Control' of the Charts. We Don't Give Her Enough Credit 1999's 'Latin Explosion' chased crossover hits. Today, Latino artists don't need them Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Janet Jackson's Legacy After 'Control' from It's Been A Minute with Sam Sanders

The latest installment of the James Bond franchise, No Time To Die, closes the book on the Daniel Craig era of the international superspy. The film’s theme song, “No Time to Die,” by Billie Eilish, Finneas, and Hans Zimmer, also marks the conclusion of one of the great musical sagas in recent cinema. Monty Norman’s and John Barry’s now-iconic “James Bond Theme,” written for 1962’s Dr. No, has remained a constant across six decades of espionage and one-liners. But every new Bond theme has also developed subtle variations on the original that reflect the character’s changes over time. On this episode of Switched On Pop, we uncover what inspired the theme, how it’s changed, and why it almost never happened. FURTHER JAMES BOND THEME READING The James Bond Songs: Pop Anthems of Late Capitalism by Adrian Daub and Charles Kronengold The Music of James Bond - Jon Burlingame Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

James Bond's Spycraft Sound

For a decade James Blake has crafted an idiosyncratic sound. His early work as a minimalist electronic producer fused lush R&B chords with lyrical collage and unfiltered synthesizers. He describes his hit 2013 song “Retrograde” as apocalyptic yet also romantic. This single was in stark contrast to the bubblegum pop of the early 2010s. But other artists recruited him to spread his subversive sonics. He produced on three of the most seminal albums in recent history: Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN and Frank Ocean’s Blonde. Before Blake, it sounded like pop was caught in the same four chord loop. But gradually Blake’s vision of harmonic melancholy has infused popular music. On his new album “Friends That Break Your Heart,” Blake has written his most compelling songs yet, but underneath are those his familiar wandering chords and emotional suspense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

James Blake & The Return of Harmony

On this week’s episode we're sharing a story fromThe Cut where senior writer Angelina Chapin and co-host Jazmín Aguilera talk about and talk with Sparkle (born Stephanie Edwards), who first reported R. Kelly to the police for allegedly sexually abusing her 14-year-old niece. Back then, no one believed her, but following the explosive documentary Surviving R. Kelly and the R&B artist’s trial, at the end of which he was found guilty of nine federal sex crimes, she’s been vindicated. Angelina spoke with Sparkle a few times during and after R. Kelly’s most recent trial to hear about the monumental costs she has paid for coming forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sparkle spoke out against R Kelly. It cost her her career.

Lil Nas X has a talent for creating productive controversy. First with “Old Town Road,” he challenged expectations about blackness in country music. Now with “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” he takes aim at anti LGBTQ+ messages propagated by the religious dogma from his youth (he came out as gay during Pride 2019). The song describes a romantic encounter without innuendo. Sure it’s raunchy, but the song doesn’t especially stand out on Billboard where explicit sexual fantasy is commonplace. But his use of religious iconography in his video and merchandise created an immediate backlash. In the video to “Montero,” Lil Nas X rides a stripped pole into hades where he gives a lap dance to Satan (also played by Lil Nas X). Despite the obvious commentary on repressive orthodoxy, religious conservatives failed to see the subtext. The song became a lightning rod. But as pundits fought on social media about the song's meaning, most critics failed to look into the song’s musical references. Produced by Take A Daytrip, the duo behind Shek Wes’ “Mo Bamba” and Lil Nas X’s “Panini,” “Montero'' mashes up genres that take the listener on a global journey, sharing his message of acceptance across cultures. Music Lil Nas X — Montero, Old Town Road, Panini 24kGoldn, iann dior - Mood Dick Dale and his Del-Tones - Misirlou Tetos Demetriades - Misirlou Aris San Boom Pam Silsulim - Static & Ben El Shek Was — Mo Bamba Lehakat Tzliley Haud Bouzouki recording from xserra from FreeSound under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License More Listen to Gal Kadan’s project: Awesome Orientalists From Europa on Bandcamp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ICYMI: The Mystery of Montero AKA Lil Nas X (feat. Take A Daytrip)

In the last few years music copyright claims have skyrocketed. More and more artists are giving songwriting credits away. Frequently, credits are given retroactively to avoid the cost of long jury trials like when Sam Smith credited Tom Petty. Smith’s melody for “Stay With Me” clearly drew from Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” On rare occasions these cases go to court, where music litigation is at an all time high. In the last ten years there have been 190 public cases, up over 350% from the prior decade, according to The George Washington University & Columbia Law School Music Copyright Infringement Resource. This story has come in and out of the news cycle in closely watched jury trials including artists like Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin, and Katie Perry. Historically, courts have extended copyright to only unique combinations of words and music, not rhythms, chords, instruments. But recent cases increasingly litigate the core building blocks of music. Many artists fear that a bad court outcome could let an artist copyright a “vibe” using commonly used musical language.   The question of whether someone can borrow a vibe resurfaced when Olivia Rodrigo shared songwriting credits on her hit 2021 album Sour with Taylor Swift, and comparisons have been made to the art of Courtney Love and music of Elvis Costello. Many listeners have commented on Rodrigo’s more obvious influences on social media. Viral TikTok videos compared Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U” to Paramore’s “Misery Business,” which share a common chord progression and vibe. This online campaign likely contributed to Rodrigo handing songwriting credits, also known as publishing, to Hayley Williams and Josh Farro of the band Paramore.  This week we are airing the conversation Switched On Pop’s Charlie Harding had on the podcast Decoder with host Nilay Patel who is also editor and chief of The Verge. Together we try to understand how the byzantine music copyright system works, and how its rules affect the sound of pop music today and in the future.  SONGS DISCUSSED - Spotify Playlist Sam Smith - Stay With Me Tom Petty - I Won’t Back Down  M.I.A. - Paper Planes The Clash - Straight To Hell Olivia Rodrigo - deja vu Taylor Swift - Cruel Summer Olivia Rodrigo - good 4 u Paramore - Misery Business Robin Thick, T.I., Pharrell Williams - Blurred Lines Marvin Gaye - Got To Give It Up Katy Perry, Juicy J - Dark Horse FLAME , Lecrae, John Reilly - Joyful Noise Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven Spirit - Taurus Michael Bolton - Love Is a Wonderful Thing The Isley Brothers - Love Is A Wonderful Thing Taylor Swift - Look What You Made Me Do Right Said Fred - I’m Too Sexy Doja Cat, SZA - Kiss Me More Olivia Newton-John - Physical Anne-Marie - 2002 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Deja Vu: Why Olivia Rodrigo keeps giving up songwriting credits

Best Arts & Culture podcast Webby 2020 winner 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.

hubhopper

Switched on Pop

hubhopper