Reply All - #161 Brian vs. Brian

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

Just for fun, a guy and his friends record a Christmas song in his Living room. More than three years later, he walks into a grocery store and hears that song playing. Alex investigates.  Listen to Brian Dean's version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody, this is PJ. Quick note before we start the show, the second episode of our new spinoff project, The Scarity Cat's Horror Show, is out now. It is Alex Goldman, an avowed horror fan, forcing me, PJ Vote, a horror scary scary horror movie to watch a series of increasingly scary horror movies

in the hopes of eventually getting to a place where I can watch Get Out. So far, it's been a lot of fun. We've had some great guests on. Episodes come out every other week. If you're interested, you can hear them early on Tuesdays on Spotify. or everywhere else on Fridays.

Here's the show. From Gimlet, this is Reply All. I'm Alex Goldman. And I'm PJ Vote. Hi, PJ. Hey, Alex. What are we doing here? This week we have a super tech sport.

And it's not your average super tech sport. I feel like normally with a super tech sport, someone comes to us with a problem. We triangulate a solution. Maybe we're not always perfect. But we usually figure out pretty well what's going on. this one is much more confounding because the more I worked on it, like the less certain I became of the answer.

And I've basically come out at the other side believing two contradictory things simultaneously, which is absolutely painful for my very linear brain, which is incapable of abstraction of any kind. Okay. So my hope is if I tell you the story, you might be able to help me come closer to understanding where the truth lies. Okay, I can't promise that I will, like, insightfully find the truth,

but I'm excited to, I'm excited to see if I have an opinion. Think of this less as a supertext for it more as a philosophical journey on the nature of truth. All right. Do you want to wear, like, Professor Jackie with Tweed elbow patches? I was actually thinking. Do you want a tiny pipe? I was actually thinking in the tradition of the classic philosophers I would wear Toga in one of those rings of like leaves that they wear around their ears. Okay, what's the story?

So we heard from a listener named Brian Dean who got in touch with us just after Christmas. He lives in Savannah, Georgia. He works for Gulfstream, the company that makes the airplanes. Hey, Brian. Can you hear me? How are you? Good. How are you?

And this story actually starts a few years ago when Brian got a new piano. Extremely excited about having this piano And to celebrate that I had a couple friends who You know play the saxophone and the drums and bass And have recording equipment And I said let's do a Christmas album Just through the joy of having a piano

So we recorded a Christmas album in my Living Room That's such a wholesome friend activity I know right So that was back in 2016 And he uploaded it to YouTube. He burned a couple copies for family and friends, and he basically forgot about it. And then this past Christmas, Brian is driving back from a family visit to Chicago when

his daughter has to pee. So they stop in Macon, Georgia, which is about three hours from their house, at a Kroger because, and I didn't realize this, but Brian is like, the grocery store is the best place to go to the bathroom because no one's ever in the bathrooms. I love a fucking grocery store bathroom. So they get out of the car, they hustle into the grocery store. And sort of like midway down the aisle, he stops and looks up. I was in the like frozen food department. And they were playing Christmas music. This is December 31st.

He stands there. He's staring at the speaker above him because it's playing a version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas with a piano part that feels very familiar. The first thought that went through my mind was, oh, I thought I made up that piano lick on We Wish You a Merry Christmas. but I must have stolen it or heard it from somewhere because here it is playing. And then as I listened a little more, oh my God, I didn't steal this like, this is me.

Brian is convinced that the version that he heard at Kroger is the exact one that he made in his living room. That's so weird. And what's going through your mind when you hear yourself on the speakers at the Kroger? I mean, just complete disbelief, just shock. Absolute shock. But by that point, I had made it to the bathroom.

So there was literally another guy in there, and I couldn't contain myself, you know, and broke bathroom etiquette law number one. It was like, dude, I got to say something. This is crazy, but I did this in my living room. That is so funny. I think he actually said something like, well, that's cool, man.

How could this possibly happen that, one, I'd be playing there, and two, I'd literally be there. to hear it, it was a bizarre experience. So he is hearing his own version of We Wish You Merry Christmas in a Kroger. Yeah. But he didn't publish it or sell it to Kroger Corp or anything like that. No. Okay.

Do you want to hear it? Yeah. All right, here we go. The other thing you should know is that this is view number 37 of this song on YouTube. And at least five of those views are us looking at it in preparation for this. It's kind of a jazzy version. Yep. He's a jazzy rascal.

I was wondering how he would be able to recognize it was his, but I feel like it is actually distinctive enough that I recognize it. Right. Okay. So it's like the grocery store is either pirating his music off of YouTube or one of his friends stole the music and sold it to the grocery store.

I mean, I have no idea, but right after he used the bathroom, he rushed over to the customer service desk and was like, what's going on here? And they were friends. but just kind of came up with a, you know, lean over and yell to someone else. How do we play music? And they said, oh, something like, it's Musak. And I kind of got the feeling, these people, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to push this with them.

What I want it to be is that 99% of the time they just use like some paid for, you know, legitimate music licensing thing. But that this one time just like somebody at Kroger just heard this and they loved it so much that they needed to hear it in the story. single bad. I used to, do you know the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums? No. Manheim Steamroller is like a Prague rock

Christmas stuff and it's that sounds bad and it is so much worse than you could possibly imagine. And I used to, I used to work at a convenience store where they played the Manheim Steamroller Christmas album from like November to January and it was the worst. Yeah, I worked at a Halloween adventure where

they played like this one cassette tape that I swear to God only had monster mash and attack at the killer tomatoes. And that was it. Both good songs. The first 2,000 times, sure. So he asked me to answer two questions for him. The first one obviously is like, how did the song get there?

And the second was like, if this song is being piped into Kroger's all over the country. He should get some money. Are they do any money and how much? They're definitely do some money. You can't just take people's music and play it. Right. So that was my mission. Okay.

So the first and most obvious thing that I wanted to look into was that Brian said the only place on the internet he put the song was on YouTube. But he's just one of four members of the band that recorded it. So one of those people could have, you know, published it somewhere or given it to someone who worked at the Macon Kroger. So I wanted to like get in touch with all his bandmates. And I got in touch with this guy John who played guitar. He played bass on it. Can you think of any reason why it would be there? I can only attribute it to someone's impeccable taste.

But you weren't like sending it to, you weren't like secretly uploading this to Spotify or sending it to industry executives or anything. I have a CD tower that I can dub, and I think I made about 50 copies. Gave them out to six or eight people, and that's it. And I don't know that I gave it to anybody who lives in Macon. And then there was John's son Zach.

Hello? Hey, Zach? Yes. This is Alex Goldman. How you doing? And he was like, no, it wasn't me. I did not pass it on to anyone. In fact, it was a couple years old.

A lot's gone on. I'd almost forgotten that we'd done the project, to be honest. So there was one last possibility, which is this guy named Miguel, who played drums on the track. But he didn't even remember ever recording it in the first place. So I'm pretty sure it wasn't him who leaked it to Kroger. Right. Okay. So if Brian and his bandmates didn't know how the song ended up at the Kroger,

like maybe the people that work at that Kroger might have some idea. So I decided to give them a call. Floral Department may help you? Yeah. We called the floral department because our belief was that it wouldn't be so busy and they would have a moment to talk. Oh, I like that logic. Yeah.

Do you know where the music that is played over the speakers at Kroger comes from? Oh, no, I do not. I mean, I'm assuming they have their own radio station they use. I mean, I really don't know. She transferred me to the customer service desk at her store, and they were like, I have no idea where the music comes from. It's piped in from somewhere. So I was like, well, it's probably piped in from like Kroger corporate. So I decided to call the National Kroger customer service line, and they were also like, we have no idea.

Honestly, I'm not sure that they get it out of Pandora. I'm not sure if they shuffle their music. I'm not really sure about it. He didn't know the answer. I started sending emails to people at Kroger corporate. And in the meantime, I was just calling Kroger employees all across the country, just try to get a sense of how music and the store even works. Well, this is Jesse? Like, would it be possible for some rogue employee to, like, grab the Oxcord and plug in their iPhone?

There's really no way to do that. So unless you're using the, like, the intercom, like, can you just pick up a phone and, like, play something over the phone? It's like, it's kind of like hold music that plays all the time in the store. Yes. So there's no way for me to adjust Like the station I can adjust the volume And that's it

Got it Also PJ If you really want to piss off a Kroger employee Just ask him about the Christmas music Like you think of the worst Christmas music You've ever heard That's all you would play Like

Can you give me some examples Mommy kissing Santa Claus Oh yeah Okay Every song It wasn't like the song You know and listen to It's a bad cover version

by someone you've never heard of. One woman said that one time she was in the store and she heard five different versions of jingle bells back to back. Oh. Can you imagine? It's so painful. Yes.

There's not even a lot of room for like jazzy improvisation in that song either. No. You can't really make it your own. Also, it was a total long shot. But while I had them on the phone, I played them Brian's song to see if they recognized it. Is this familiar to you at all? It very well could have played over the holidays,

but it does not stand out in my mind. But then there was this one woman who worked at a Kroger in Colorado. Does this ring a bell to you at all? Yep, I have definitely heard that song. Get out of here! You've heard it! I played it this last year, at Kroger. Oh, that's amazing. How do you know that it was this one?

How do you know it was this one specifically? I've recorded this going to hear this, because I'm about to be mean. I mean, um... Okay, those bells are just, like, uniquely annoying and laughing. out over the speakers. Like, they kind of make them go staticy, and they always would hurt my head in the morning when I came in and heard it. But you're sure you've heard that before?

I'm very sure. Oh, my God, this is huge. It was the first few notes. I could sing it along in my head. Yep, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da da. Yep, yep. Oh, we get it. Yep.

Very way, thank you. So remember, she's in Colorado, but Brian's Kroger is in Georgia. That blows my assumptions out of the water because my assumption was this was a local Kroger going rogue. You know what I mean? There's no way that a YouTube song would make it on to the official sort of corporate branded

Here's your CD of Christmas music playlist. I know. But then I got an email back from Kroger and I was like, finally I'm going to get an answer for this. And they were like, sorry, we actually don't make the playlists in our stores. We outsource that to another company. And it's this company called in-store audio network. They really went for a descriptive name.

I mean, you know, I feel like their slogan could be like, does what it says on the tin. Yes. They are a company that makes playlists or pipes music in, not just a Kroger, but they've worked with CVS, Wegmans, Walgreens. It seems like a lot of pharmacies and grocery stores. And also, you know, like when you're in the store

and you hear the thing over the speaker that's like, this week at Kroger special on turkey. Boreshead Turkey, only $3.99. You know those things? I feel like you were just auditioning for that job. But yes, I do know this thing. Do you think I'd get it? Yeah.

Thank you. They also record those and put them in at random intervals. Oh, okay. So, understandably, I became very curious about this company, because why would they go to the 50th page of YouTube search results looking for a version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas? Why not just use one of the millions of Christmas songs that I already hear every year.

That's true. Like, whether it's a mistake or a conspiracy, it is just weird. The thing that remains so weird is the obscurity of it. So I actually developed kind of a theory around this, which is I emailed the CEO of Instor Audio Network, and he got back to me,

but then when I explained what I was writing to him about, like a song that mysteriously ended up on the Kroger playlist, he basically ghosted me. I tried following up with him a couple times, no response. And so I started thinking to myself, like, maybe, the obscurity of the song is the point. Like, if I were like a big music company and I was like trying to save money on royalties and I wanted to get a song that I didn't have to pay out for, I would go for some super obscure song I found with 30 views on YouTube.

Right, because you're not going to get caught. Like if you steal like a Frank Sinatra Christmas song, they'll find you in three seconds. Yes. So I continued to dig and I actually got in touch with someone who worked at the in-store audio network years ago. Okay. Interesting. And they didn't want to have a recorded conversation with me, but they were willing to talk. And based on what they told me, the idea that in-store audio network might have taken stuff off of YouTube actually started to make a little bit of sense. What they said was building Christmas music playlists is like its own special nightmare and is incredibly hard, one of the hardest parts of the job.

Why? Because it's just a much smaller pool of music to work with. and the employees are constantly complaining about these songs. I'm sorry, sir. Like, I'm sure it's hard and I wouldn't want to have to do it. Of all the things that there are too many songs about, Christmas. Christmas is pretty covered. I don't know, man.

If that's the case, then why do I hear, why do I hear simply having a wonderful Christmas time 600 times every Christmas season? Yeah, actually, that's true. That's true. It's the same 150 songs, maybe. And if you're working at a store. There's too many and there's not enough. So I asked the former in-store audio network employee like, okay, would you guys just download stuff off of YouTube?

And they were like, I could totally imagine them getting music from YouTube. Really? Yeah. Huh. Would not think that. Yeah. And they were like, listen, again, I worked there almost 10 years ago. Their process is different now, but at the time I was there, we could totally, I could totally imagine it.

Huh. So I'm like, oh, okay. well, that's hell is suspicious. And I'm starting to think, like, maybe Instore Audio Network is, like, kind of sketchy. But then we have this breakthrough, which is that we find out, for the last five years, in-store Audio Network has been partnering

with a different company called Eversong. And Eversong are the people who are actually responsible for picking the music for Kroger. Wait, the one thing Instor Audio is supposed to be doing, they're not doing? No, what they're doing is the ads. Like, like, fresh romaine lettuce,

$1.29, now in the... grocery aisle. It requires two separate companies to make... They have completely different jobs. Yeah, how could a company ever produce audio and that's the going on the audio? It seems to not. I'm laying out facts. You know, you draw your own conclusions. It's like, it's already surprising to me. And like everything in the world is more complicated than an idiot like me thinks it is. And I'm sure this stuff is hard. But it's like, it's like, oh, probably the grocery store has somebody whose job is to pick the songs. Oh, no. That's. It's actually a whole other industry and a whole other company.

And actually, they don't fully handle it. There's another company that has to do like the ads part of it. It's just like everything is just like a weird little. Yeah. Everything's a weird little. I agree with you. And I'm sure it's like complicated and hard in ways that I can't picture. But I have no idea what those are besides Christmas songs.

Just the thing that you need to know is that Instor Audio Network used to do this stuff, but now they outsource it to every song. So I reached out to every song And they were like, yeah, we're happy to talk It's just that we're really busy right now Because we're doing a bunch of change orders And I was like, what the fuck is a change order? Oh, I have a theory of what a change order is. Go ahead.

Is it like there's all these songs on these playlist That are suddenly inappropriate because of coronavirus? That is exactly right. And they were apparently trying to deal with those songs for like a couple weeks. And then finally the co-founder reaches out And he's like, okay, I can talk. Where are you right now?

in South Carolina Oh okay Yeah I actually Oh my goodness Is your family member okay Yeah Yeah everything's okay But so we just decided to get

It's such a weird scary time This is Brian Cullenan from Eversong I'm sorry but there are two Bryans in this story now And part of the reason that they've been so busy lately And maybe you wouldn't have guessed this From the conversations that I had with Kroger employees But like the amount of thought and time that Eversong puts into the playlist

that you hear at the grocery store is bonkers. Generally, the music that we've... Right. You know, scientifically, you know, if you want to geek out for a moment... I do, always. That's what I'm here for. We measured the beats per minute of what we thought of shopping...

You're not getting a song that... So the beat of the songs that you're playing is the tempo at which people's footfalls go, so they're kind of in step with the music? That's right. Because you know, there's some stuff lyrically or the way we look at it is, hey. Wait, what are the songs that are like, it's cool to get diseases?

Yeah, it's cool to get diseases. How want everybody to cough on your friends? Like, what are the... He wasn't specific about it, but like, I don't know, doctor, doctor, give me the news. Yeah, okay, I wouldn't want to hear that. Hot blooded, hot blooded, check it and see. Got a fever of 103. Rock and pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu.

Is that a real song? You don't know that song? No. Hold on. I don't need to hear. No, you do. Okay, yeah, this would hit differently right now. So you remember that we spoke to a former employee of the Instor Audio Network on Background

who told me that like the company was so desperate for Christmas music that the idea that they would go to YouTube and grab Brian's song was like not insane to them. Brian from Eversong did actually confirm the first part of that theory, which is they are slammed every holiday season. But also, he told me that the scene. just keeps getting longer. But people will say, one, but deep down in... So if people like to hear the songs around October, like, how early do you have to start thinking about Christmas season programming? Like, when...

Are you doing it in July? That's a whole process. Yeah. Wow. So I was starting to feel like I was on the right track. And I asked Eversong Brian, hey, can I play you musician Brian's? We Wish You a Merry Christmas? And when I did, Ever Song Brian was like, oh, yeah, I recognize that.

He recognizes it? Yes. I believe that was part of our Christmas mix that we put together. I want to say that that song was probably used within the last two years or so. He said that he was pretty confident that he'd heard this before because they listened to their holiday playlist in the office over the holidays. They eat their own dog food. Yeah, basically. That's like how Matt Lieber was like wanted and won this argument, but was like we should have in the back.

bathrooms at Gimlet, we should have not premium, but free Spotify, because we should have the experience of listening to ads because listeners listen to ads, which was like the most, I don't think I've ever disagreed philosophically with Matt harder than that decision. And every time I go to the bathroom, it makes me mad. But it's, I think it's the same mentality. Don't want to go too into it. Got to do a big fight with Matt Lieber about that. You did? Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. I was like. I thought I was the crazy person. Oh, no, I got to do a big fight with him. where I was basically like, I don't understand why you're doing this. You're making this a less pleasant place to work. Why are you doing this? That's how I felt. And he was like, and his response was like, you yelling at me, he's making this a less pleasant place to work. And I was like, well.

He's probably right. And I was like, first of all, this is on Slack. So I'm not yelling at you. I'm just talking to you very strongly. You have a very, you have like, when you're yelling over text, it's very obvious. I have a yelling slack voice. Yeah. But I thought that I could move him in any direction, but he is so, so.

that this is a great thing that he's doing. The worst is Spotify now runs ads for Reply All sometimes. Oh, yeah, so I get to be pooping and hear my own voice. It rules. It's like a nightmare from him. It sucks so bad. Anyway, they play Christmas music at their office. Yeah, including Brian Dean's song.

So I asked Brian from Eversong how they got their hands on it. How would Eversong end up with? programming a song like that. I think if I had to take a guess, I would say maybe the CD baby. I don't think that he did. He told me that the only place he really put it up is YouTube. Is that a thing where

every song or Instor Audio Network will look for songs on YouTube? If that was the, you know, did they have any CDs made of this? I think they burned their own CDs. Like they actually just had a tap, like one of those CD burning towers on their computers and just burned it that way.

Yeah. that's interesting. I mean, I have to go look, but I can tell you. Brian was basically like, these aggregators that we work with have just massive, massive music libraries. And so it would be stupidly labor-intensive for them to go hunting for new Christmas songs on YouTube that weren't even in the format that they need them to be in to play in the store. You know, we know in a little bit of a mystery then. Yeah. He was out of town when I had this first conversation with him, but he said, look, I'm going to go back to our office. I'm going to check in our date. database, and then I'll be able to tell you exactly how we got this song. So, this first interview was on a Friday, and he told me to call him back on Monday.

And at this point, I am super stoked because I'm like, we're going to figure out how this song ended up in Kroger. After the break, Brian is tested. Welcome back to the show. Okay, so Monday morning, I get back on the phone with Brian Cullen in from Eversong, and he says, hey, so I went into our database, I looked at our Christmas playlist, we have 11 versions of We Wish You a Merry Christmas in our database, and Brian Deans is not among them. Yeah, it was really weird. On the Friday, he was like, I recognize a song. And on Monday,

he was like, I don't know, I guess I made a mistake because it's not there. And I'm trying to think of possible reasons why that would happen. And he said that, like, one of the possibilities is maybe it is in our database, is just not coming up in my searches. You know, is there the possibility that something happened within our system, something rogue happened, and somebody uploaded a song, and they got the artist, the song title, and some of the other things wrong in the metadata entry. Sure, it's just that there's a whole cascading series of errors that would have to happen to kind of put a phantom song in there

and get all the data wrong. And then just to have ripped it off of YouTube in the first place, which is something that we don't do, the chances of that happening, it's kind of like a comet hitting a comet over your house, right? So it's not impossible, but it's, you know, or getting, you know, getting attacked by a shark and a grizzly bear the same day. Like, it's, you know, it's not impossible.

And, you know, I can't sit here and say that it's impossible. But, I mean, it really, I'd rack my brain to think how it would be possible. Huh. So what's the other possibility? Well, he also said, like, maybe it was never in our database at all. Maybe someone at a Kroger hacked into their system and was playing it off a CD. No. But that's a...

He just said that was about as likely as a bear attack. Yeah. If you're going to hack into your corporate, I like this ability to rate probabilities according to horrific things that would happen. If you're going to hack into, like, when you have, every time I've had a retail job where it was like canned music and somebody like figured out how to get their own music on, it wasn't to play like more seasonal hits. Like it was to play music that humans liked. Listen, I am so tired of this Dean Martin standard. What I really want is to hack into it. I wish you on a Christmas from the YouTube players. I wish you Merry Christmas.

So every song Brian had like one last theory about what might have happened, which at the time I found very convincing, which is that he just said like, imagine yourself in Brian Dean's shoes right at the moment he walked into Kroger. You're in a grocery store, a busy time of year. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of noise. You know, you're hearing bits and pieces maybe,

especially over the store speakers, which sometimes aren't the best. And, you know, especially in a challenging environment. If you ask me to put money on it, I would say, you know, it was probably a case of the song being misheard in the store. It's difficult for me to say that, though. You know, I make music myself, and it's difficult to say because, you know, if you would ask me that question, I would be one part embarrassed

and one part maybe a little bit annoyed that you would ask the question in the first place. So he's saying it's like your client's mistake. Yeah, what he's saying is like if you're in a circumstance where it's loud, where your kid's distracting you, like it's possible to, mishear your song. And like, sure, it's possible that EverSong Brian is lying to me and, like, I can't see their database and I have no idea whether he's telling the truth. But like, what's more likely? Is it more likely that Eversong went on YouTube, found a version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas with like 25 views, ripped it in violation of copyright law, put it on their playlist

to play in Kroger all over the country? And then Brian Dean just happened to walk into one as it was playing? Or is it more likely that he just misheard the song? Like, people mishear songs all the time. Also, every song Brian told us that there is a version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas in their system that does sound a lot like Brian Deans. And he thinks that that is the likely culprit. I don't know, dude. I still just have a hard time imagining that a musician would not recognize a song they recorded. I mean, if it was an instrumental cover, it would make some sense to me. but there was one thing that was nagging at me, which is like,

do you remember how I talked to all of Brian's bandmates? Yeah. One of them, this guy, Zach, I asked him directly, like, do you think that Brian just could have misheard his own song? And Zach was like, honestly, Brian has one of the best ears of anybody that I've ever met. His ear is uncanny.

I can't imagine that he would be wrong. Brian, like, is the person who sends me, clips of Ray's theme from Star Wars next to the Emperor's theme to show how they're similar and predicted the end of the latest Star Wars movie, at least a little bit, based only on the musical themes from the first Star Wars. Yes. He listened to the soundtrack and based on the recurring musical motifs came up with spoilers for the movie?

Yeah. What a lunatic! That's insane! So I just wanted to test Brian's, ear. Like, was he actually as good as Zach claimed he was? Now, what you need to know about Brian is that beyond just Star Wars, he's like into film scores in general. Okay. So first, I called up musician Brian and told him whatever song Brian had told me that they couldn't find a song in the database. And at first he was like really questioning himself. Do you think I'm crazy? I'm starting to think

I'm crazy. And maybe all, I mean, a piano version with some drums and a base of, uh, we wish you a Merry Christmas maybe sounds similar. I mean, we aren't sure if you're crazy. And we want to find out. Okay. So, we have come up with a game that tests how good you are at recognizing music. Oh, geez. Okay.

And it will help us understand why you think that it was your song that you heard in the store. Okay, okay. Since I know that you are a John Williams fan, and since Zach, specifically, specifically mentioned your ability to pick out Star Wars music. I am going to play some Star Wars or not Star Wars music for you. You tell me if it is from Star Wars or not. Here we go.

This is track number one. Star Wars or not Star Wars. I didn't think that was Star Wars. It sounded more classical than... You are right. That was from... That was Gustav Holst. That was the planets.

That's the Mars. All right, here we go. Number two, Star Wars or not Star Wars? Wars. I'm nervous. That's hook. I'm sorry? That's hook, right? Yes. Oh, my God.

Wow. All right. This is number three. That's definitely Williams. But I was getting a little Harry Potter there. That is Platform 9 and 3 quarters from the Harry Potter soundtrack. Excellent work. All right, track number four. Yeah, that's definitely Star Wars. All that Williams starts to sound like.

So that's original trilogy, I'd say. So I would call that the breakdown after the beginning of the Imperial March. Yeah, that's what that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here we go. Number five. I mean, I'm getting more of an Indiana Jones there, but I don't recognize it. Is that indie?

Okay. Yeah, it's from Raiders. It's from Raiders. I mean, at a certain point, it just sort of felt like, should we even bother finishing this test? He is just way too good at this. Okay, now that's a fooler, but I'm going to go no on Star Wars on that one. That is correct. Yeah, that's the one that he likes.

He got number seven. Should be very proud of yourself. He got number eight. Correct. Number nine. I'm going no. You are correct. And number 10, here we go.

That's Star Wars, definitely. All right. Well, okay, so you're 10 for 10. Jesus. Yeah, he is incredibly good at identifying music from Star Wars. So we were like, okay, that's great. But we wanted to be able to create a test that would be like a simulation of that moment where he was in the Kroger, he looks up, and he hears the song.

What I'd like to do is I'd just like to sort of put your mind back at the grocery store. Okay. Got the background noise of a grocery store going. There's tinny speakers. You walk in, your daughter has to run to the bathroom, and suddenly you hear this song. Is that your song? No. Okay.

What about this one? No. Okay. So, PJ, the next song is the version that Brian from Eversong thought that he might have mistaken as his own. Is this your song? No. Is this your song? Yeah.

Are you sure this isn't it? Yeah, no. Brian Dean aced this test. Yeah. And by the end of it, he was like, you know what? I'm convinced I did hear my song in the grocery store. And honestly, I'm pretty convinced that he heard it too. I see why this is hard.

Basically, what we're left with is two things that I believe are true, but both can't be true. It's impossible for both things to be true. Which is that you both believe that, you believe that musician Brian walked into a Kroger supermarket and heard a song he almost privately recorded for himself playing over the speakers. and you also believe that corporate Brian, who is the person who's responsible for literally every song that plays over the supermarket speakers at Kroger's, that he did not steal musician Brian's song, that he did not use musician Brian's song.

Yeah. I mean, it's still just possible that corporate Brian is lying to you. Like even if, not to say like, oh, he's like a secret music thief, but he could have just made a mistake and you could just not want to admit that on a podcast. I guess, but like, if he ever got caught, it would look so much worse than just saying, like, oh, it was an oversight.

It ended up on our playlist, here's some money. Like, it just doesn't make any sense to me. Right. How do you feel about, you're not someone who is, like, famous for your love of ambiguity or uncertainty? Oh, I'm totally fine with it. Really?

No, I'm not. I'm furious. I'm so, I can't stand this. Do you, have you heard of negative capability? No, but it sounds like a dunk. Are you trying to dunk on me? I'm not trying, I'm trying to help you. I'm just here to help you.

Are you trying to tell me that I have negative capability in solving this problem? Have you ever heard of negative capability? Well, you embody it. Is that what's happening right now? Negative capability, if I were remembering this right, it was like a thing, you know John Keats, the poet? Yes.

He called it negative capability. And he had this theory that the inferior poets and the inferior writers, they were like too, they wanted like, they were too in love with like certainty and like their own perspective and like seeing things one way. And that to be like a really great artist, you needed the ability to simultaneously believe things that were contradictory without. feeling the need to reconcile them. That was like what made Shakespeare so good and that's what made all the greats as great as they were. Like he thought that was like basically the responsibility of a poet was to possess negative capability.

Okay, so now you're dunking on me by saying that I'll never be a great poet. For what it's worth, even though I'm frustrated with this outcome, both of the Bryans have found a way to fix it. Every song Brian actually offered to add Brian Dean's song to their Christmas playlist for next year. And Brian Dean said that he's flattered and he's going to think about it. And he said,

if Kroger needs someone to record 10 more Christmas songs for their playlist, he's available. Reply All is hosted by PJ Vote and me, Alex Goldman. The show is produced this week by Shruti Pinaminani, Fia Benin, Damiano Marquetti,

Anna Foli, Jessica Young, Emmanuel Jochi, and Lisa Wang. Our executive producer is Tim Howard. We were mixed by Rick Kwan. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Additional music production by Mari Romano. Special thanks this week

to Peter Briner, Tiara Guy, Michael Huppie, Danny McKelvey, Christelia Garcia, Jason Woodbury, Aaron Dalton, and Tyler Wilcox. Our theme song is by The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Matt Lieber is still very nice, even though he won't turn the ads off in the bathroom. You can listen to our show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.