Switched on Pop - Boom Bang Pow

Episode Date: November 14, 2014

We look at the Rhythms that make us dance, those primal beats, the “Boom Bang Pow” that make us want to move. We’ll ask what makes them work and why is that we’re hearing that untz untz everywhere we go from the dance floor, to the coffee shop, to the insides of our minds? FEATURING Charli XCX – Boom Clap Vengaboys – Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! Jessie J – Bang Bang The Blacked Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow Little Richard – Tutti Frutti John Lee Hooker – Boom Boom Cher – Bang Bang Richard Savino & El Mundo: Il primo libro di canzone: Ciaconna The King’s Singers – La Guerre  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. Now, not all of you out there in Radio Land may know that I had the great fortune to get married about a month and a half ago to an incredibly beautiful, intelligent, kind person in the woods of Oregon and Charlie was there, among others, playing his mandolin. Very sweetly. sweetly and tunefully bringing a tear to everyone's eye. And then rather than pay a DJ to do it, I opted to make my own dance mix party playlist for the late night dance session that I hoped would occur. And it did.

And this was one of the top 10 most stressful things I've ever had to do in my life. I haven't really, I haven't told many people about this, but I spent many sleepless nights. trying to debate whether the Michael Jackson track should go before or after the R. Kelly track. And this caused me no shortages of suris over in the months leading up to my wedding. And it made me think about what a strange thing it is, what makes us dance. Because looking now over this playlist, it's such a bizarre agglomeration of songs. But they all have one thing in common. They make people dance.

They make people get their booties on the dance floor. and this is such a mysterious thing, these like combination of rhythm, lyrics, tambored structure that that causes us to want to move. Charlie, we should do an episode about it. Ah, yes, the segue. So today on Switchdown Pop, we're going to look at the rhythms that make us dance.

Yes. Those primal beats that make us want to move. And we'll ask what makes them work and why is it that we're hearing that oon's, unz, everywhere we go from the dance floor to the coffee shop, to the inside of our minds. This is songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.

And you're listening to Switchdown Pop, the show where we explore the harmony behind the hooks. So, Nate, the other day I was driving in my car and I was listening to Top 40, heard a couple of songs from your wedding playlist. And I was thinking about the next episode for Switched on Pop. And all I could hear was boom, bang, pow. Maybe you've heard a couple of these songs.

there was Jesse J's bang bang, but I turned the dial and this was not the only one. Oh, yeah. Charlie X, CX, B, clap. And then, of course, there's the Black Guy P's famous boom, boom, pow. Classic. Nikki Minaj, Super Bass, you know, with a... Or something like that.

It's like we're in a comic book. Boom, bam, pow. What is going on? What is this boom, bam, pow all about? Well, first of all, it's an onomana peat. Can I have the definition, please? You know, it's where a thing sounds like the sound that the thing makes. The word is the thing.

Nate, I know what it is. I just wanted to make you explain it. Okay, well, that's pretty cruel. But it's true, right? It's all about onomatopias are all about sound, all about rhythm, and so are these tracks, right? So you're saying that these meaningless words are just there to make reference to the rhythm. All about the rhythm. So we've got all these pop songs recycling the same words over and over,

again. What's going on here? Why are they copying each other? What's so popular? One reasonable response would be, well, come on, guys. These songs are obviously just gross innuendos for, you know, sexual encounters. No, it couldn't be. Which is weird because if you imagine going up to someone ahead of party and saying, hey, beautiful, you want to boom boom? Yeah, how's that worked out for you? I don't, yeah, or you might not want to go home with the person who would be into that. Critics aside, underlying these lyrics, there are essential rhythms that make us want to nod our head, get out of our seats and shake our bodies. All this obsession with sexualization, I think might be overstated. Maybe these pop songs are merely provoking us to get up and dance.

Yeah, because I can see that in some ways the more sexualized the song is, the more of that song is really just about dancing. It's like pushing social boundaries with calls to sexuality as a way to encourage movement. And that can be very transgressive as we've seen throughout history like Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, gyrating his hips so forcefully that they could only show them from the waist up. And going all the way back even to the chaconne dance of the Baroque era, which was considered immoral and the devil's music, this dance that had been imported from Spain into Central Europe. So dance, sex, danger, these are all way wrapped up in musical history.

So, if you will, the boom-band Powell give it to you any way you want it and that it's more than the sum of its parts. Yeah, these songs transcend speech. They enter a higher plane of pure musicality. It's a universality that comes through rhythm. Yeah, so these rhythmically forward songs, they each have their own way of using meter and tempo to encourage us to want to dance. So let's use this category of boom, bam, pow songs and figure out how is it that they get us to dance? I'm going to start us off with my namesake Charlie XCX and her hit single Boom Clap, which peaked at number eight on the billboard.

I think it does a great job of making us want to clap and dance along to the stadium anthem. No silver or no gold. It could dress me up so... The first thing to notice here is the bass, which is pumping with adrenaline, like a heartbeat. Totally, yeah. That pumping bass is telling us something big is about to happen. Boom, clap the sound in my heart. The beat goes on.

Listening to this song, thinking about different kinds of dance, this isn't something that you're going to freak on the dance floor or two. You're probably going to be pumping your fists and singing along with your friends. No, this is a total stadium anthem. It makes you want to clap your hands, stomp your feet. It's very reminiscent of one of the most famous stadium anthems. We Will Rock You by Queen. And it also has an allusion to the Beatles, Hey Jude in the whole nah, nah, nah, nah, section.

And then Charlie XXX. Building off what you're saying, but we will rock you, because we will rock you goes, and this just drops one of those. booms. Boom. So it's like a nice variation on that. But it definitely, yeah, that anthemic quality is totally there. Yeah, and you could see the anthem is totally driven by the rhythm because the lyrics, they don't really make any sense.

There's not a lot of content there. And I think we'll see this across our other songs where the lyrics don't matter that much because the modus operandi of these songs is to get you to dance. Right. The more boom, the less sense there's going to be maybe. Yeah, in terms of nonsensical songs, the Vanga boys, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, I think really owns the entire category. Now, this is a great example of a dance floor hit with a four-to-the-floor beat makes you want to get out there in dance.

Let's take a listen. Do we have to? Oh, I really forgot just how obnoxious this song is, but check it out. It has robots. I know you're thinking I'm never going to get this out of my head, but before you turn this off, take one second and notice the drum beat. It is this four-to-the-floor. What that means is that all four beats,

the kick drum is hitting them four to the floor. It's a cheap, easy trick that so many dance songs use over and over again. Gosh, I don't know if I can take this anymore. Should we turn it off? Yeah. Well, we have to get to the chorus before that happens, Charlie, because in the chorus is a beautiful moment where the boom of the floor and the floor bass drum actually is mirrored in the lyrics by boom on every quarter of.

Okay, there it is. The four to the floor hits along with the vocals. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Also, she wants to double boom? Wow. I think that's the overt sexual reference that we were talking about. Okay, okay, we've fed quite enough of this.

I'm so sorry for exposing us to the song. If it's stuck in your ear forever, our fault, we take the blame. Is it weird that I kind of like it? Not at all. There was one review of it I read online that said it was spine chilling. Oh, spine chilling. I don't know. I actually think that might just be your nervous system going into.

overdrive in telling you you have been on the dance floor for way too long. You need to get out of the club. Go home. Get into bed. Or it's my nervous saying you have got to bust a funky move. I think I've seen you bust a funky move enough on the dance floor at your wedding. I really think we just must move on. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay.

Ready? Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the past. in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app.

Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated.

My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. So moving from one of the least groovy songs ever to one of the gruvious songs on the radio right now, we have Bang Bang by Jesse Jay featuring Ariana Grande and Nikki Minaj. So we're changing up the boom, boom, four on the floor rhythm to something a bit more syncopated with bang,

bang and let's check it out this is into because we start with a very straight four in the four hand clap pulse and then blast us into this syncopated, funky

dancing bass line and like super thick rhythmic texture and when we get to the chorus next time buried way deep in the mix are these is like a chorus of men chanting like hey hey hey hey hey

Hey, I don't know how else to describe it. I didn't even notice it the first couple times I listened, but it's right there and it like supports this whole, this moment of like raw dance expression. Yeah, they're holding that down beat and the drums are syncopated all between. Yeah, exactly. Totally syncopated.

Okay, let's pause for a sec, because we're dropping the S-bomb a lot here, the syncopation. What is that exactly? What are we talking about? When we talk about syncopation, we're really referencing the notes between the downbeats. So your downbeats are the one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.

And then in between that, you have your one, two, and three, and four, and one, and two, and three, and four. And so when the rhythm is emphasizing those ands in between the downbeats, we call that syncopation. This track has a highly syncopated baseline. And it does something else, too, in that it sort of obscures the most important downbeat, which is one, the first quarter note of a measure, which really, establishes you, you know, like lets you know where you are pulse-wise, metrically. One, two, three, four, two, two, three, four. They play the first downbeat, but then they ignore the next downbeat. The next time one comes around, they're not going to play it.

They're going to play four and two. So in other words, if we go one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, three, four. So that second one, like in the second measure, one is not played. And that gives us this feeling of dislocation and, and, and it's just something that makes you like want to contort your body and get down. And then the melody, it balances the whole thing out. Right.

Yeah, totally. The melody is really straightforward. It's all in the downbeats. We know where it lands. It contrasts with that syncopated rhythm in the background. And the two of them against each other, that's what makes it so groovy. Totally. Yeah. And the lyrics which are pretty, pretty filthy in what I think they're trying to imply are like not entirely that important. And sometimes they don't even make any sense. Like bang, bang into the room, bang bang, bang all over you. What does that mean? I mean, it sounds filthy, but I don't really, it doesn't really make any sense. Not enough to matter anyway. I mean, I don't know what the kids are doing these days.

I think we know what the kids are doing these days. They're dancing. And if you're thinking, come on, these are just. overly sexualized songs, just trying to get her attention. Well, you're probably right. The history of dance music is the history of using rhythm and the boom bam pal to provoke us to dance. Yeah. So the boom goes way back. Way back. Way back.

Yeah. Back too. I mean, I challenged those out there in Radio Land to come up with something earlier. But for my money, it's got to be 1528. the French madrigalist Clement Jancan wrote La Guerre, which means the war. And he wrote a lot of songs where he had the four voices imitate different scenes. Like he had them imitate a hunt in one piece, and he has them imitate the cries of the vendors in the streets of Paris in another,

and he has them do birds songs in another. But this one is maybe the craziest, because he actually creates a depiction of, like, of a battle just by using four human voices. Back then, they didn't or in France at least, they weren't into the boom as much as the voam. Who knows?

But they were, less boom and more voom and also some plows. They were really into these plow. Geez. Pah! Pong! So, I mean, it's not quite, it's not

dancey yet, but man, this is like... It's exciting. It puts us on edge and makes us want to get out of our seats for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, it's like no words needed, just cannons and firing and arrows and pox. So moving into the modern era,

in 1955, little Richard blows ear drums with his hit single Tudy-Fruity leader covered by Elvis and many others. It has that famous Wapab-Baloo-Bab-Bab-Bam-B-B-Bum. Oh, no, no, I think I got it wrong. He ends it Bamb-Bum. I thought it was Bamb-Bum. And Elvis does boom, yeah. So Elvis might be the first to boom in the modern era.

And these words might seem innocuous, but at the time it was a really handy code for saying stuff on the radio that you couldn't say at the time, what Jesse J. can get away. with on the radio today is not what you could say back then. And so the whole boom, bam, pow, back in the 50s had a lot more weight to it than it does today. Because it was referencing what the teenagers were all doing and we know what that was.

They were dancing just like they are today. And I think we heard Little Richard at your wedding and because we perceive it to be a harmless wedding classic. Right, right. Fast forward a few more years, you find a song like John Lee Hooker, Boom Boom, Boom, from 1962. And this is a track that indexes two of the most major fascinations

of the American public, sex and guns. In Hooker's song, you get both right in the first lines. John Lee Hooker sings, boom, boom. Gonna shoot you right down. So you think, oh, wow, this is a really dark, violent song. But then he goes on, right off your feet, take you home with me.

So we slide from this menacing violent to this kind of exciting proposal just in a single, in a single boom. It's an amazing musical moment for sure. And then just a few years later, we have Cher's Bang Bang, which, like John Lee Hooker, evocatively twists violence and love to catch our ears. So we're hearing this melancholy military. beat, but underneath there's actually a hidden Latin rhythm, which we're going to hear in the bridge when we double time.

See, this is a very provocative dance song. At first, we think we have this militaristic and melancholy violent moment. Bang, bang, you shot me down. But then in the bridge, the whole band speeds up twice as fast. We call that double time. And here we're firmly in a dance song, and everybody's dancing along to these dual cinematic themes, your battle drumbeat and your Latin dance rhythms. That's what's so exciting.

Yeah. Whoa. Heavy. So for a while there, boom bang pow was all the rage. And now, of course, because everything is cyclical, it's coming back again. And I can't think of a song that better epitomizes or the modern boom of boom than the black-eyed peas boom, boom, pow. As we've seen in a lot of these songs, these lyrics don't need to make any sense. Everyone is born fluent in boom.

And this has some of, in my mind, the least inspired lines in the history of songwriting. When Fergie rhymes, I got that boom, boom, boom, with that future boom, boom, boom. It's a very close rhyme. But I think altogether, this is, the song is a really stunning example of 21st century mass media of multiculturalism. Right. The black eyed peas represent many different identities. Between them, you have Mexican, Filipino, Caribbean, Anglo, Indigenous American. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of different heritage there. And that melting pot that they, that their band seems to symbolize is represented in sound here. Because everyone's voice is manipulated. Autotune.

Glitched. Chopped up. Transform from words into pure melody. Yeah, you have this homogenized sound of digital voices. And I think there's even a reference here to the Vanga Boys, which we heard earlier with those robotic voices. It's not so crazy to think that Will I Am was making a intact. reference to the thing of boys. Into the future

Sabotron. Though in this case, I'd say the reference is better than the original. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, in this version, it's like, it doesn't matter who you are in this 21st century

digital, globalized, post-modern world. Your ethnic identity is unimportant. We're all equal under the boom, boom, pow. Yeah, the digital boom-boom-pow. These guys are becoming cyborgs almost in this song.

Yeah, they're definitely going for universal appeal. This wasn't written for an American audience. Right. This was written for a global audience. They toured this album, The End, across Asia, South America, North America, and of course, Europe. Yeah. So in which case, the question is, you know, given the multivalence of Boom Boom, Pow, which version of America are we broadcasting around the planet?

Is it the boom-loving sex-crazy party nation or the bang-bang-shoot-you-down imperial warmonger? Or both. Or is it the pow-pow shake your booty? Or the pow-paw. But either way, whatever we're sending out, we should probably be careful because the boom can always backfire and swing back like a boomerang. Of course, musical genres, they come and go, but the Anamonopoea boom-poa boom-pau seems to transcend genre in history.

There was a great article in the Atlantic a few years back by Jonathan Bogart. He writes that the emergence of EDM, electronic dance music, the youth music movement of the moment resembles the arrival of jazz, rock, and hip hop in a few key ways from its backlash to its lineage to its mass appeal. And I would say that while EDM may be on its way out with the resurgence of live instruments and pop music, boom bang pow is here to stay. Yeah, Fergie might have said it best when she so beautifully put it. I'm so 3,08, you're so 2,000 and late. Maybe the boom will go on and on forever. Yeah, I mean, when you think about it, you know, earlier I mentioned the Chaconne,

this really sexy and scandalous 16th century Baroque dance. If we listen to that song, we can hear all the elements of the boom-bang power that we've encountered so far. got this repeating ground bass that's highly syncopated and different melodies dance on top of that. And you can totally see how people would have done things to this song that their parents would not have approved of. To illustrate that, why don't we take it and just throw a 21st century beat on top of it and see just how boomie it gets? So the boom bang pow really travels with us across history, across genres, it's everywhere. And when boom bang power is everywhere,

I guess there's really just one question that remains. Who is the boom king? We'll leave you with the most crystalline expression of boom, boom, by flight of the concords. This has been Switched on Pop. I'm Charlie Harding. I'm Nate Sloan. Thanks for listening. Oh, my God.

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