Switched on Pop

For many people – including Charlie and Nate – studying classical piano as a child always felt like a chore. Now, as adults, there’s a newfound appreciation for classical music, but the art form isn’t always accessible. One of the people trying to change that is the world-renowned pianist Lang Lang, classical piano’s greatest interpreter. On this episode of Switched on Pop, C...

Bridges open up the world of a song: they're a breath of fresh air and a point of contrast, typically delivered right before the final chorus. But sometimes they accomplish even more, changing the whole meaning of a song by introducing a note of doubt, or even defiance. This is what the best artists do, from Beyoncé to the Beatles to Taylor Swift, but some critics are concern...

The chorus was once the part of the song that brought us together, the place we gathered to sing. Now it's the most engineered thirty seconds in music. Legendary producer Trevor Horn and hip-hop icon B-Real of Cypress Hill help Charlie and Nate answer the question on their minds: when everything's a hook, is anything a chorus?

CREDITS

Everybody sings the chorus, but superfans quote the verse. On this episode of Switched on Pop, Charlie and Nate trace the verse from Shakespeare through opera to TikTok, and songwriter Audrey Hobert shares her philosophy of specific verses and anthemic choruses: you can't have the payoff without the setup.

CREDITS

Reanna Cruz: Producer

Ir...

Research says you judge a song in under half a second. So why write an intro at all? On this episode of Switched on Pop, Charlie and Nate kick off their Netflix launch and probe what an intro means in today's musical landscape, alongside special guests like Aaron Dessner (Taylor Swift, The National, Gracie Adams), who helps build the case for intros and reveals the surprising...