Switched on Pop - Charli XCX and Troye Sivan Love the 90s

Episode Date: October 16, 2018

Charli XCX and Troye Sivan conjure late 90s nostalgia in their latest banger. "1999" drips with lyrical nostalgia for the last decade of the millennium — but does the music follow suit? We think the pair are missing prime opportunities to bring back some neglected musical tricks from the early oeuvre of Britney Spears. The 90s bug goes beyond Charli and Troye. Anne-Marie and Lauren Alaina also pine for the Clinton era in their millennial bops. Which makes one ask: is the present so bad that we miss the paranoia of Y2K? As usual, Prince has the answer. Featuring: Charli XCX ft Troye Sivan - 1999 DJ Bobo - Somebody Dance with Me Real McCoy - Another Night Paradisio - Bailando Britney Spears - ...Baby One More Time Britney Spears - Oops! I Did it Again Anne-Marie - 2002 Lauren Alaina - Ladies in the 90s Prince - 1999 Check out Megan Lavengood's examples of the complementary chorus. Marshall Jefferson's "Move Your Body" from 1986 might be the ur-source of the ubiquitous 90s house piano. Jefferson recorded the original in his Chicago prophet on a Prophet 2000, but never got the rights to the song and saw little proceeds from its success.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the eater app at eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist

Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Charlie, as ever, we are indebted to our listeners for keeping us on the pulse of pop music. Oh yeah. What have you heard? And right now we are indebted to listener Jenna DeWitt, who has informed us that there's something happening in pop music right now. What's that happening? Kind of millennial nostalgia. Unsurprising, yeah. But no, we can be very specific. There's nostalgia by millennials for the new millennium.

And I want to explore this. How do you create nostalgia for a moment 20 years ago in music and lyrics? And we're going to explore that through the lens of a song by Charlie XX and Troy Savon. Love them. And then in the second half, I want to think about how our understanding of the millennium has changed over time. Okay, cool. Through the lens of music.

Yeah. Okay, so let's dive into the song by Charlie XX and Troy Savon that just came out called 1999. What? Like friends? Yes. What? We've talked about both Charlie XX and Troy Savon separately on this show.

They're spectacular. I think we immediately started nodding our heads when it started. I'm skeptical of nostalgia. as an aesthetic, but I like this song. Okay, great. Well, let's get into that. Save your skepticism for a moment. I can't.

Let's talk for a second about how this song does create nostalgia. Yeah. Right? So certainly in the lyrics, we have some very clear references to this late 90s millennial moment. Sure. And one of the biggest ones is a reference to the Britney Spears song from the year 1999. Hit Me Baby one more time.

Right there. Nice little rhyme there, Nate. Oh, that wasn't even intentional. Now, the question I want to ask, though, so there's definitely some lyrical references here. And in general, there's the sense of wanting to go back to, you know, a simpler time, a time of your youth, the old neighborhood. Right. Just sort of like, is it a very escapist kind of fantasy here. Right.

Drop all the adult responsibilities. Exactly. But here's the question. Musically, do you think this song creates 90s nostalgia? Ooh, that's a great question. Thank you. I think it's a blend of modern pop music, otherwise it wouldn't work. Like, if you actually put Britney Spears in the middle of other Trois Avon and Charlie Axiak tracks, it would sound entirely different.

Like, actually, songs were mixed differently back then because they were mixed for FM radio and things are now mixed for streaming. Fascinating. Oh, yeah. So there's all sorts, you know, obviously compositional differences and sound choice differences and even harmonic differences. we've seen a radical shift of what mainstream popular music sounds like in that time frame. However, there are definitely some timbreal qualities and orchestrating choices that I'm hearing some 90s stuff, particularly that piano sound at the end. Charlie, very, very good, Charlie.

You passed with flying colors because I agree. I think in a lot of ways, there's not much here, really, to connect you to that late 90s, early 2000s musical moment. but there may be one key aspect, and it is that piano. A key aspect. That was really bad. I'm not trying. You want to find puns and wordplay.

My job is to find meaning in all things unnecessary. Everywhere. Okay, well, find meaning in this, Chuck. Let's go to the bridge of this song. And we're going to talk more about the bridge, but let's just listen to that piano, because it'll really come to the fore here. Yes I have to

Yeah Oh That's great And I'm right there Right there And he's right there Right there I want to go

Yeah I have to do a little Google right here Because Troy Savon Is born in 1995 Not watching JT on TRL

on MTV in 1999 No he's referencing JT T-Tee. Oh, Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Wow, yeah. Wait a, wait a for know that at all. He was the young heartthrob star of home improvement. Oh, that's right. And, you know, a very teen idol of the time. Okay, so we've got this great bridge, perhaps anachronistic based on Trois of On's own biography, but a bridge referencing, you know, 90s icons like JTT and MTV. Yeah. But it's really all about that piano. Let's just isolate that piano for a second.

And as you immediately recognize, there's something about the sound. It's like some kind of digital piano, I think. It's not a true acoustic piano. Oh, certainly not. It sounds like the piano on the corg triton, which is like the popular workstation keyboard at the time. Great. So we've got a very specific, this like fake piano sound and in this really driving syncopated rhythm. Yeah. And that is probably the strongest connection to the music of the late 90s because we can find that. digital piano rhythmic stab motive or trope in a number of dance tracks from the period. Certainly. It's derivative of house music. Yes. Okay. Right. This is like the house piano sound, which we hear first in mainstream popular music probably in like vogue. Great context there, Charlie. Let's dig into a couple tracks that use this house piano 90s dance track. The first one

we're going to check out is DJ Bobo. Oh, I don't remember this. Yes, classic house. Ooh. You know it's a 90s dance track if you want to just start bopping your head like Will Ferrell and Chris Catan and a night at the rocks for that SNL skit. That's what's happening. Okay, so that's DJ Bobo, someone to dance with me. Let's hear another example of these piano stabs. Let's take a listen to Baillindo by Paradiso.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really a moment, isn't it? Oh, yeah. It's amazing how so many of these elements still exist in mainstream pop music, but are sort of subverted to be more textural. Right? You have all these big noise sweeps that psh and the drum fill, the tittitt-tut-tich, those kind of things. They're still around, but they're so in your face here. Yeah.

Become almost a trope. And so someone like, I don't know, I think like Zed uses the exact same techniques, but buries them within the mix. Interesting. Interesting. Where else have, we've heard this too, maybe, in green light by Lord produced by Jack Antenna. Definitely. Those house piano stabs. Okay, one more, and my favorite of the bunch here. This is Real McCoy, Another Night.

Oh, yeah. Terrible synth line. Great bass. Same drum film. This is a great song. Your ears did not deceive you, Charlie. And the Charlie XX choice of on track, I think the biggest musical reference to the nine

is that piano stab, digital piano house 90s. It is very much of an era. Yeah. But maybe there's another element that's a little more structural. And it's still in the same place. That is the bridge. Okay. The bridge is a formal element that is not maybe as common today as it once was.

We talked about that with Emily Warren a few episodes. We talked about exactly, exactly. And I bring this up actually because the music writer Brennan Carly and GQ really noticed when we interviewed Emily Warren a few episodes ago that she remarked exactly on this phenomenon, the disappearing bridge. The section of a song that you only, usually only hear once, and it provides some contrast, usually after the second chorus, and it usually leads to a final chorus. It's kind of like a pallet cleanser, is how I think about it.

I love that. I love that. Yeah, great. The sort of calm before the final storm of the song, yeah. And even including a bridge, Charlie X, X, X, and Troy Savon are maybe making a reference to an earlier period. And I think we can compare it in this respect to the song they mentioned in the chorus. Hit Me Baby One More Time by Brittany Spears. So let's listen to the bridge of 1999 one more time.

And then let's compare it to the bridge of Hit Me Baby one more time. Love the Airhorn. The boy can fantasize by Ch-T-T and MTV When I close my eyes And I'm right there, right there And he's right there, right there I want to go Yeah, so good

What would you say the kind of function of the bridge there? I think you had it right. It's the calm before the storm. It brings the energy down so that it can build right back up And we can have the biggest chorus to lead us out. Beautiful. Keep that in mind. Let's go back 20 years now to hit me baby one more time. And we're going to jump right to the bridge. Okay, so once again, we've kind of brought things down here.

Piano. Sweeps. And now things are going to gradually build. And we can feel it coming. The final chorus is right around the corner. This is a little bit of a down chorus right there. Well, you're right. Something has happened here.

And this is the final thing I want to talk about in terms of the musical reference here because I think Charlie XX and Troy Savon missed an opportunity to create another kind of 90s reference here. Right. Because this moment after the bridge in the Britney Spears song, Hit Me Baby One More Time, is very characteristic of what Max Martin and other producers were doing right around the turn of the millennium. and it's something that has been identified by the music theorist Megan Lavingood because this discrete phenomenon called the complimentary chorus.

Oh, what's that? Okay, so let's go back to that moment right at the end of the bridge. It sounds like we're going back to the original chorus. Hit me baby one more time, but in fact, we don't get the original chorus. We get a modified version of the chorus. Okay, great. Let's listen to that. Oh, the scales rising up.

What? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Right. Okay, cool. So Charlie's very excited. I've never noticed this. Yeah, it's subtle in a way because it's just a slight transformation of the original chorus.

But there's so much harmonic tension. We've changed the rhythm of the lyrics and the melody. We've ratcheted up the harmonic tension. It's an alternative complementary chorus. And then what happens immediately after, so just to recap, we've gone from, a bridge that's built up into what we thought would be a chorus, but in fact, it was this kind of modified chorus. Right.

And then afterwards, we go to the original chorus. Right. Of course. So let's hear that. Okay. Yeah. We've gone from bridge, modified chorus, regular chorus, and now is kind of the coup de grace, the climax of the whole piece.

Okay. Because that modified chorus and the original chorus have a secret, which is that they go together perfectly. You can play those at the same time and they will link up in all these beautiful contrapuntal ways. That's amazing. Let's hear it. Let's hear the final chorus of this song. Yeah. Oh. Oh, it's so good. Wow. So once just again, just to recap one more time. Bridge leads into this alternative chorus. Then we get to the regular chorus and then finally in the sort of climactic coming together of the whole piece we get the modified chorus and the original chorus stacked on top of each other.

Which we call a collision. A collision or a complimentary chorus. Got it. Yeah. Great. Great. Great. Great.

Okay. What's so cool, as Megan Lavendgood points out, this is not confined to hit me baby one more time. We can find this all over music of the late 90s, early 2000s. And to stay in our lane here, let's stick with Britney Spears. Let's go to her next big hit. Oops, I did it again. It's the same song, right?

Same thing. Get out of here. Get out of here. I don't like you. Let's go right to the bridge, okay? Same structure. Once again, we kind of bring it down. Little interlude.

And then this one is special. Oh. It's a skit. Titanic. Yep. Oh, it's beautiful. But wait a minute. Isn't this?

Yeah, yes, it is. But I thought the old lady dropped him into the ocean in the air. Well, baby. The same thing as British love story. Okay, here. Check it out. We're headed. Modified chorus.

Okay, let's review. Same playbook, right? We had a bridge and in this case a very, very late 90s, early 2000s bridge. It's like double nostalgia, right? We got the Titanic reference. It is. And it also does the same thing that Taylor Swift's love story does, which is it takes the original classic tale and then turns it around, right?

Instead of Romeo and Juliet, they all die. They all die. They get together in the end. And at the end of Titanic, they're like, oh, everything's going to be okay. Yeah, let's give that a happy ending. Okay, so we have this great Titanic bridge. Which then builds into not the original chorus, but this modified complimentary chorus.

Then the original chorus. And now finally, let's listen to what happens at the very end. We're going to hear the complimentary chorus and the original chorus stacked on top of each other. It is so effective. And I think a subtle part of the way we hear music from that period around the turn of the millennium. It's so familiar to us

whether we recognize it or not this collision, this complimentary chorus. And so I have to say that I feel like Charlie XX and Troy Savan missed a golden opportunity here. Let's listen to it one more time. Listen to the bridge going into the chorus.

And then I'll suggest what I think should be the modified chorus. All right. Let's hear it. Air horn. And it's not to take away from this song, which I really enjoy. But just picture this. What if it builds up right there?

I'm right there. I'm right there. And then it goes, I want to go back to 99. And then you stack it on top of each other. I mean, that's obviously how to make it a true, like, millennial masterpiece. I want, want to go back to the 90s. Anyway, call me, reach out, tweet me, Charlie XX, Troy Savon. I'll help doctor this into the millennial masterpiece.

The musicologist Nate Sloan remix. Okay, so that was a lovely trip down the lyrical, musical, structural nostalgia of the new millennium. But I think it's worth zooming out for a minute because the fact at all that these artists have nostalgia for that time represents a very different vision of the millennium. Oh my gosh, for sure. Okay, so let's hit pause and come back and talk about how our musical understanding of the new millennium has changed. 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? 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 power 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. Charlie XX and Troy Savon are not alone in their nostalgia for the late 90s. I think all millennials are.

Isn't it like 90s hip-hop radio is the fastest growing radio format? Oh, interesting. Oh, yeah. Okay, so this is a very macro trend. Oh, yeah. We can find some very micro examples of this because there are a few other recent songs that really get right to the heart of this. millennial nostalgia. And one that has been pointed out to us is by Lauren Elena.

And it's called Ladies in the 90s. So we've got a number of 90s references here, including now the perennial one. Hit me baby one more time. But also, let's see, no scrubs, strawberry wine. Any others I miss there? It's all buried in there. I'm kind of baffled. I can't even think right now.

Why? What's going on? I think I'm baffled because. frankly, in this moment, nostalgia feels politicized, right? Like, nostalgia for the past is actually an entire political movement happening in the United States. And the connection within country music and the kinds of things that are played in certain political rallies, but also just like nostalgia whatsoever, I think I'm really invigorated by people making future-looking things. So for some reason, this track is a little triggering because it feels apoliticized, but it's not separate from our politics. Interesting, interesting, the trap of nostalgia, perhaps.

Okay, let's keep that in mind as we move to another song that a lot of people have contacted us about, especially because when we did an episode with Marion Hill, we asked for songs that made lyrical allusions to other songs. And a lot of people pointed out that 2002 by Anne-Marie, which, despite its name came out this year, is packed with lyrical allusions to 90s songs. Let's jump right to the chorus of Anne-Marie's 2002. Postmodern nostalgia. There's not even an original line in the chorus, which I don't mean as a criticism, but rather everything is a construction of popular chorus names from the 90s or from 2002.

It's a collage. It's a pastiche. And once again, the centerpiece is, hit me baby one more time by Britney Spears, which we could just spin off into its own episode, how is that a reclamation of? of the way that Brittany was sort of dismissed and hypersexualized by reporters and audiences at that moment. Right. Is it just kind of maybe forgetting the complex politics of her appearance and sound?

Sure. I don't know. But again, that's some cultural critic should investigate that. What else do we have? We've got in sync, bye, bye, bye, bye. We've got, oh my God, they went by so fast. We've got 99 problems. Yeah.

We've got Nelly, ride with me. Oh, my God. Again, there are probably more that I can't even... I think like almost every word. Yeah. When nostalgia is working, it's all about tickling our memory. And so there's like these flashpoint moments of each line takes you to a different place when you heard that song. And so your own personal experience becomes embedded within the track.

Yes. I think it is a little pandery, but I think that it is effective. You know, it works. The reason why these songs work. Totally. And once again, I find it interesting that both of these... tracks, ladies in the 90s and 2002, while they make all these lyrical references to a late 90s, early 2000s moments, you know, again, do we hear any musical sort of connections

to that time? This couldn't sound any, this is, no. It's very contemporary. Yeah, it's very contemporary. I mean, perhaps in, here's one thing, I wonder, it's like the harmonic progression of the verse in Anne-Marie's 2002, while not directly referencing the 90s, is a harmonic progression

that we've talked about before. Let's listen to the verse. Let's listen to the verse. I will always remember the day you kiss my lips, light as a feather. Oh, I know where this is going. And it went just like this,

no, it's never been better than the summer of 2002. This is the core progression that we analyze on the DJ Khalid track, right? Exactly. Right. When we listen to DJ Khalids, I'm the one. Featuring everybody. Featuring everyone.

That song connected us to this really ancient lineage in terms of popular music. Right. Back to the 20s. Of a chord progression that we would call one, six, four, five. Right. And this is exactly what Amory is using in 2002 as well. Let's listen to that verse one more time. And let's layer under it those four chords.

The one chord, the sixth chord, the four chord, and the five chord. There's the one chord. The minor six chord. Her. Major four chord. Major five chord. And back to the one chord. So we call this the 50s chord progression.

Exactly. Every track in the 50s, right? Every doo-wopi sort of thing was this chord progression. Totally. We listened to Blue Moon, Stand by Me, Heart and Soul. Yeah, absolutely, ubiquitous. So maybe in that way, it is creating a kind of nostalgia, but not really for the 90s.

Well, I think that the 90s did have more traditional harmonic progression. On last week's episode, when we were talking about the changes in country music, I was pointing out about how the chord progressions they're using sound like they're more derivative of EDM. And what we hear a lot of in contemporary music are chord progressions that don't have a strong

harmonic push and pull from sort of home in a way and back home, but things that are a little bit more romantic and ambiguous and in the 90s, we would see a lot more we'd call sort of

traditional harmonic progression where you do have that strong push and pull. So I think we would hear a lot more of these kinds of songs in the 90s. No? No, I'm not buying it.

No, I mean, on our episode about Caled, we showed how this progression has, that 50s progression that we're hearing in 2002 has never left the sphere of popular music. So I see it as this pillar of pop music harmony that you can reference at any point. It almost is, it's not, maybe it doesn't even have a temporal referent anymore. So I agree in terms of this particular core progression. Yeah. But I think if you do go back to 90s music and we listen to the Brittany and you listen to what Max Martin is doing then, There's a lot more harmonic tension

You're It's Am I making too broad Of a generalization professor Per I I think Your point about 90s harmony Is not incorrect But it's not the right argument

For this piece Because this is again a double nostalgia This is 90s to the 50s Yeah Back back back Okay And sorry I'm sorry to

To theoretically backhand you there But you know It is a collegial discourse Okay, so we've seen how there is definitely a trend right now of reaching back to this late 90s, 2000s moment and creating the sense of nostalgia. And now finally, for the last part of this episode, I want to zoom out one step further because that in itself is kind of surprising because it represents a very different understanding of the new millennium. The fact that the new millennium could be a source of escapism and nostalgia is surprising because traditionally the new millennium. was a source of anxiety, a source of this apocalyptic end of the world pessimism. Y2K.

Right. Exactly. Remember Y2K? Who would feel any nostalgia for that? So I was thinking it could be interesting to compare a song like Charlie XX and Trois Avon's 1999 to another song about 1999. Its reference. By Prince.

Yeah. And what we have here is a very different approach to that year. Now, the Prince song was composed in 1982, so it's very, it's projecting forward to this end-of-the-world moment, the eschatological moment, which is a reference to our Harry Stiles episode, Sign of the Times. You know, it's interesting. This recording session we're having is becoming very nostalgic. Of our own recording. For our previous episodes. So the Prince song is treating 1999 as this end-of-the-world rapture.

moment. And it's all about facing down the end of the world and dancing. What else do you do at the end of the world but dance, right? It's almost anti-Orwellian. It's the future-looking dystopia. Yeah, I love it. So let's spin a verse and chorus of Prince's 1999. Oh, we must. Yes. Yeah, it's always on the edge, right?

So again, right, if if I'm going to die, I'm going to listen to to my body tonight. It's about imagining the end of the world and just saying, you know what, screw it. I'm just going to dance. It's at once, I think, very bleak and very optimistic at the same time, you know? One of my favorite albums is by Medeschi Martin and Wood called End of the World Dance Party just in case. Nice. Just in case. Great. But right, so something has changed. No longer does the millennium represent this end of the world apocalyptic fantasy now, in comparison to, I guess,

2018, it represents the simpler time. And it's true, like Y2K seems so harmless now, right? At the time, we were all very concerned that there was going to be a worldwide technological blackout.

And now it's just, it's like kind of adorable, you know, Y2K. Compared to the stuff we're living through now, the very real climate change, world conflict and disorder that does,

frankly, portends some very serious consequences for us. Absolutely. It's like, oh, no, no, no, 2000? That was a great year. Things were so much simpler then. I think this is kind of absurd because if we look back to 2002, this is just post-9-11. The allied countries preparing to go to war, the looking for weapons of mass destruction. What was happening in the news was absolutely,

truly utterly terrifying. And being a teenager in that time was, at least for me, deeply anxiety-producing. I don't think I listened to pop music at that moment with a sense of joy and ease. Yeah. I think at that moment I was listening to some really angsty music to pair with my real stress that I was feeling. No, it's a great point. And I think it even further confirms perhaps the anxiety of our current moment. Sure. That, that by contrast, 20 years ago, seems idyllic.

This is what I was talking about with the politics of nostalgia, right? Nostalgia is all about a sort of brainwashed memory. Things were better, right? I don't know. That was a rough period. Yeah. So I don't see it as so. Yeah.

So perhaps, you know, while we can celebrate these songs, 1999, ladies of the 90s, 2002, they're fun, they're catchy. It's like we also probably need people like Prince who are looking forward and giving us pop music that's going to prepare us and emotionally fortify us for the world ahead. I love that. Rather than just escaping back into the past, the imagined past, right? I've got to do another switch on pop reference. One of my favorite pieces you ever did was looking at Made in America, which was looking at the Toby Keith Made in America and the Jay-Z Kanye West made-in-America.

And what we determined was one was forward-looking and was backward-looking. I was really excited to bring in the prints. I hadn't listened to 1990 in a long time. Such an amazing sign. Oh, my gosh, is it radically different than anything contemporary? But it's so future-driven. And that, in some ways, is more contemporary than our contemporary music. Totally. You need both.

You need to look backwards and you need to look forward. So if anyone out there, has tracks looking forward, pop music that is anticipating whatever's around the corner, send it our way. We'll make a Future Pop playlist. A Future Pop, beautiful. This episode of Switched on Pop was produced by me, Nate Sloan. And me, Charlie Harding, our editing, mixing, mastering, and all the great sounds that you hear

are done by Bill Lance, and our design is by Luke Harris. Our community manager is Sarah Terry. You can find more episodes of Switched-onPop at our website SwitchedonPop.com or any podcast player you prefer. I definitely recommend going to listen on Radio Public, which is just really one of the best places to listen to podcasts. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. As this episode testifies, we are so reliant on our listeners to suggest awesome topics for us to cover. You can reach out to us at Contact at Switchedonpop.com or on Twitter at Switched on Pop. We'll be back again in two weeks with a new episode.

And until then, thanks for listening.