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Kate Bush, Stranger Things, and a hit song four decades in the making
Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” enters the latest season of Stranger Things during a brooding high-school hallway scene right out of the John Hugh…
3 years, 9 months ago
So your song went viral on TikTok. What’s next?
Episode 271
On TikTok, pop stars — Halsey, FKA Twigs, and Florence Welch among them — have been complaining a lot lately about their labels forcing them to make …
3 years, 9 months ago
The 1980s jam that gave Latto and Mariah Carey Big D*** Energy
Episode 270
If you've heard Latto's swaggering track "Big Energy"—and after 30 weeks on the Hot 100, you probably have—you may have heard a resemblance to Mariah…
3 years, 9 months ago
Kendrick Lamar and the big samples
It’s been five years since Kendrick Lamar released his Pulitzer winning album DAMN. Having established himself as a modern rap virtuoso whose songs h…
3 years, 9 months ago
Modern Classics: PJ Morton made Nas’s Stevie Wonder dream come true
On all of his projects — Grammy-winning albums, playing keys with Maroon 5, fronting a full string section in his NPR Tiny Desk Concert — PJ Morton e…
3 years, 10 months ago
Will Ukraine win Eurovision 2022?
Greece, Spain, UK, Sweden, Italy and Ukraine are the frontrunners in the 2022 Eurovision competition. Switched On Pop analyzes the top six songs as w…
3 years, 10 months ago
Belle and Sebastian on the value of staying "young and stupid"
Belle and Sebastian released the first album Tigermilk in 1996, and they’ve released eight more since—a catalog that helped define the sound of rock …
3 years, 10 months ago
The New Alternative
Last month, Nirvana entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time in nearly two decades — only their fifth time in history — thanks to a com…
3 years, 10 months ago
Jump-starting the creative process with Allison Ponthier
Allison Ponthier knows the hardest part of making anything is getting started. When she was young, she “always wanted to write songs,” fanatically sc…
3 years, 10 months ago
A Higher Power Ballad
The recorded version of Justin Bieber’s “Peaches” opens with a full-blast chorus alongside driving percussion and ringing guitars. But when he perfor…
3 years, 11 months ago