Switched on Pop - Entering Beard Phase with Mike Posner

Episode Date: November 27, 2018

Mike Posner has written hits for himself like "I Took a Pill in Ibiza," and for stars from Justin Bieber ("Boyfriend") to Maroon 5 ("Sugar"), so he has insights for days on what makes a pop song work. We dig into Mike's excellent new track "Song About You," which leads to an exploration of songs that reuse the same melody for verse and chorus—from Prince to The Boss to Post Malone. Last, we consider "beard phase": a moment of artistic reinvention that every artist has in their career, whether you're Mike Posner, Ludwig van Beethoven, or Taylor Swift. Featuring: Mike Posner - Song About You Jean Ritchie - Barbary Allen Original Sacred Harp Singers - New Britain (Amazing Grace) Prince - I Wanna Be Your Lover Prince - Let's Go Crazy Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A. Post Malone - Rockstar Beethoven - String Quartet No 1 Op. 18/1 Beethoven - String Quartet No 10 Op. 74/III Beethoven - String Quartet "Grosse Fuge" Taylor Swift - Teardrops on My Guitar Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together Taylor Swift - ...Ready For It? Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever Dennis Wilson - River Song Peaches ft. Iggy Pop - Kick It  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And we are very happy to be joined today by a guest. Do you mind introducing yourself? My name is Mike Posner. Mike Posner.

You may know Mike from his work as a performer. Songs like Cooler than me. I took a pill in a visa. And you may not know him as a songwriter of tracks like Boyfriend by Justin Beaver and Sugar by Maroon 5. I think this is going to be fun. We're going to dig into some of Mike's new music and then, well, we'll see where things take us. But let's begin with a little listening. Let's listen to some of Mike's new track song about you.

Mike, will you tell us just a little about the development of this track? Yeah, sure. I did this one with Dan Wilson and Ricky Reed, who did my album. And we had a few days in the studio that I was actually a little frustrated about because I came to Ricky, who executive produced my album with about 50-some-odd songs that I'd been writing the last year or two. And I needed this help picking, finding the album in that Mountain of me. music and and he's really skilled at that sweet we did we listened all this music and uh he said we got

the songs and uh you know we picked like 10 of them or something and we saw i was thinking we're gonna like work on record them and produce them and then after that day he was like and now we're going to write more songs i was like and i was pissed i was like man i don't know that's the last thing i need is more songs but he was like i always do this just to see if there's anything left. But he hadn't told me that he always does it, just to see if anything is. I was just in there, and I was kind of like, what are we doing, man? We need more songs, man.

So anyways, we worked all day in the studio, Dan, Ricky, and I. We had some ideas, nothing that really revealed itself as special to any of the three of us. And, you know, it was about maybe 5.30, 6 p.m. Yeah. And Dan, the day was like pretty much over. Dan was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to leave soon. We're like, yeah, cool. And right when he was about to leave,

he picked up one of Ricky's guitars and started playing. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, blom, boom. And Ricky, I looked at each other like, what's that? And then Ricky just took his iPhone out and recorded Dan playing the, it was an electric guitar, but he just recorded him playing it live with his iPhone. And then I think he sent that to himself. And then Dan did indeed leave. And Ricky made his awesome track out of the voice note.

And then we just started writing to it. And Dan sort came back. We had like a song to his riff. So that riff... Dan came back to the next day. Gotcha. So that riff was sort of the origin point of the whole tune. Correct.

form, lyrics, melody that all came, that all like sort of accreted as you worked on it. Is there a specific order in which you start to add those elements? There's no formula, but I can tell you kind of how it happened with this song. I'd love to hear that, yeah. I'll just make it real clear. It's definitely not this way for every soul, not even close. I've written songs in every way. Yeah, for this one, yeah, he started, you know, those things that I just said happen.

And I think we had the hook first. And I was really into like not rhyming. You know, a lot of, I've done, like, a lot of rhyming in my career. And sometimes it gets in the way. You know, I did a book of poetry. And I found in some ways poetry was a lot more real or, like, harder in like a Detroit sort of way. It's harder in that, I don't mean more difficult. I mean, it's, like, grittier because you just.

say it. So we're playing around and we're not rhyming a lot and I think that's really what makes a song dope to me still is when I listen like in the first verse and say,

since you've been gone ain't got nothing to do. I sleep until noon I wake up and feel bad. Yeah. That should rhyme but it doesn't and that's really awesome

to me. Yeah. And then I I think I just went in the booth and, you know, I was just sort of freestyling. Yeah. And that's when I got the, I just want to unwind, unwind, everything that makes me feel confined. Sometimes.

I hate sunshine. Sometimes. So, I think I just, like, came out. I was just, like, kind of rapping and singing. Yeah. Let's actually, we have that queued up. Let's listen to that. This is sort of, I guess, a pre-chorus, basically.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so that's sort of, that, this is all emerging sort of organically. Yeah, I think we had the hook. Then I went in the booth and I was just doing stuff. Yeah. We used to call it Psycho Michael. Yeah.

And it's just me like basically complaining. We had that there for months and months and months. And it was months later. We're finishing up the album. I'm like, that rent sucks. It was a cool idea, but we need a bridge. So we're like the final 11th hour, you know, and then I was like, you know what? It was actually like late at night.

Usually we work days. I'm a day guy. So I like to, you know, start. I actually like to start as early as possible. If I could find, like, if Ricky would have done, I would start at 7 a.m. Is that hard to find collaborators willing to work? Yeah, yeah.

In L.A. I heard in Nashville they start earlier. But in L.A., yeah. Typically, it's like 2 p.m. starts, you know, a lot of times. Must be nice. It is. Yeah, and then people work later. Yeah, for sure.

Of course. Yeah, it was late one night. We were finishing the album at this point. We needed a bridge, man. And so I was like, I was goofing around. And another one of our collaborators, Nate Mercero, who produced a lot of my own. He works at Ricky. He used to wear these shades and leave him on the table.

And I stole the shades. I put them on. I was just messing around. Like, man, Hollywood poses in the building. What up, y'all? You know how I do it. I want to give a shout to all my homies in Detroit. And everyone's like sort of laughing at me.

And I was like, man, cue up that bridge. Just hit record. I'll do the rest, man. So you're recording, I did the bridge. And so I did, I did a style that I learned from Wiz Khalifa, which you don't write anything down. I don't think we wrote anything down for this song. But this way, I explicitly got this from Wiz,

which was I would get into the booth. I record the first line, stop. I think of the second line. I go, okay, I'm ready. I record the second line. Stop. I think of the third line. Okay, I'm ready.

Third line. And just, I did the whole verse. that you never write anything down with that kind of intuitive writing style what do you think we're getting as listeners i don't know i mean it's it saves a step right it's a little less cerebral i presume and maybe a bit more instinctive right so i'd like to think you're getting something more raw and less thought out sure sure which um is a color you want to have on your palate yeah you know i don't do everything that way because sometimes i want to it sound like I thought about it, you know, but sometimes not.

So in that bridge and not, this whole whole song kind of is, it's not overly lyrical or pedantic or, you know, like cool words or imagery. It's like, this is just what it is. This is how I feel. So I have a lot of thoughts about that, the immediacy and the, I don't know, intimacy, I guess, of what you're describing.

And, you know, what you said earlier to about the rhyme scheme, I definitely want to come back to that. So we're going to circle back around. But yeah, I want to get it into more of, like, what gives this song that sense of in-your-face immediacy that it's unfiltered or something. It's a little raw. Like, I think we have those qualities in, like,

some of the production, the way Ricky reads drums are a little crunchy and even staticy. But there's also, I think it's also happening on, like, some more scalar levels in terms of the, realm of form. So I want to dig into the form of the song. Okay. A little bit because I think there's something cool happening here. And to me, that is really crystallized in the way you've structured this song in which the chorus and the verses have the exact same melody. Yeah. And so I want to like spend some time on this idea and think about how that generates a kind of

a certain kind of power in the song. So first let's just listen to this. We can hear it from the very top because the song starts with a chorus. And then it'll move into the first verse. So it's a great way to hear that the melody stays the same, even though the lyrics change. Correct. So let's just have a listen to that one more time. And now we get the verse with the same melody, new lyrics. So this song is far from alone in using this technique of reusing the same melody for verse and chorus.

And again, I think it's like this does a very specific thing. this makes music into something like kind of an intense, kind of like almost like reciting a mantra or something. You know, there's like this power to it. And I think that might be because it connects us to like older forms of music making, religious forms of music making and like folk forms. Going back to some of the earliest styles you'd hear in America, these would be folk songs imported from like the British Isles.

And they would use just the same. melody over and over again with different lyrics kind of like a ballad for him you know telling a story a very like a hugely popular one uh was this tune called barbary allen which has a million different versions but they'll all follow the same pattern same melody new lyrics let's listen to a little bit all in the when the green buds the on his dead bed lay for the love of barbary ellen same melody new words. He sent his town

to the place where she's a master's sick and he sends for you if your name be Barbriel What stands out to me

hearing this is that in a lot of contemporary music our verses tend to have simpler melodies so that you can build to a more potent melody in the hook not always, but as a general heuristic.

And here, you're getting basically the hook as the verse just as you're doing in your song. There's something very hypnotic about it, as he pointed out. Hypotic, I like that. Yeah. Yeah, I was swept away by our voice. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's Gene Ritchie singing that song.

Incredible. Sounds incredible. And it's, yeah, it connects us also to a lot of religious music, too. I'm thinking of maybe songs like Amazing Grace, which we know, but we can listen. to a cool version of this in a sort of sacred harp style yeah it's never too much amazing grace well said it sounds like an accordion totally yeah yeah yeah so then we get same music new lyrics it also reminds me of um the big Kanye vocal that uh yeah you can also hear on like i was just

listening to it's the bonnie ver yeah oh interesting it has it had it that because there's so many singers and it's so tight and almost mechanical it has that sort of auto tune with the sub bass sound in it except it's a chorus whoa I think they use like a rack where you can play on the keyboard the notes that you want the other voices to sing you can like you know there's a million parameters of how many you wanted to do right this is the analog version of that yeah yeah exactly this is a tradition called sacred harp or shaped note singing And yeah, it's very, I like what the word you use, Charlie, hypnotic sort of, yeah, it's very, you can see how it's connected to prayer and sort of getting into some sort of trance state, the same music over and over again tends to do that. And we can give this old style and kind of old-fashioned name, strophic form, like strophies.

You mentioned writing poetry earlier. Strophy is just kind of another word for a stanza. So it's the idea that you repeat the same stanza over and over again, I guess, in terms of music. So as we move into pop, I think this idea starts to get translated into the language of pop music. And where in these old folk and religious songs, you just have the same music over and over again, pop music might tend to vary it up a little bit. But we can still hear this, I think, in songs that use the same melody for the verse and the chorus. and a great example is

Prince's I want to be your lover Now he's going to break it up with a pre-chorus And now we're at the chorus But it's the same melody as the verse Gosh, that's satisfying Yeah, so very, I mean a very different world Than Amazing Grace And yet I think that technique still holds its power

You know, there's something like captivating About hearing the same melody over and over and over again It's not a flaw of these songs It's like it's a strength, right? Correct. Yeah, one of the things was the song about you that stood out for me is the first time I listened through. I went back and I was like, wait, hold, I got to go find the hook. I was like, looking for that like big build.

Where's like, where's that hook happening? And then I was like, oh, it's all a hook. The hook is all around you. It's happening all the time. You are in the hook. Let's listen. This might be overkill. Let's listen.

Prince does this also on the song. Let's go crazy. We can just check that out real quick. No, too much Prince. either. Never. No, never. And then we have a pre-chorus that mixes it up.

And then we're back to the same melody, but with the chorus lyrics. Now, Prince is a master at this, but he's not alone. There's another really cool example of this from sort of pop of yore in Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. Yeah. So it'll start, it'll start right on the chorus and it's going to the verse. I love the music. Doesn't change.

I think this was the second take I read. Oh really? In his book I can't remember. Early tale, I think they did it. Yeah, I think it was a second take. On take. Yep. Same melody, right?

I think I misspoke earlier. It starts with a verse and then goes to a chorus and then goes to a verse. And while the lyrics change, the music stays the same. And it's so effective, right? Yeah. Part of what works on this one

for me is the verses have more syllables. And whereas the chorus, when he's finally singing, is born in the USA, it's the exact same melody, but he's drawing out each of the notes. So it kind of sounds anew. There is also another factor to this working. The lyrics have to be good. And furthermore, if you had lyrics you really loved

that you wanted to highlight, That might be a reason to do this technique. Because when you switch a melody, the listeners here goes to the melody. Whereas, you know, like the first example you play when it's just the same melody over and over. You can, as a listener, you can zero in on the lyrics and hear them. So if I had something where, I'm like, these lyrics are hot, I want people to hear them, which is usually the last thing people hear when they listen. Usually hear melody, the texture of the song.

And then, you know, if they like those things on a third, on a fourth list, and they might get into more lyrics. So, yeah, if I had some words that were important to me, I might employ that I might be more likely to employ this sort of strophic technique. Yeah, you can't get away with using the same melody and having an uninspired second verse, because you're actually going to have bored somebody as opposed to, hey, tune in.

Correct. So conversely, if you have some lyrics, you're like not really that proud of. Maybe you sort of cover it up with a lot of melodic changes. Let's really take the song at a different term. No, well, we have some album rules. Yeah. And they're like, maybe there were six of them. We'd post them on the wall.

One is there's no filler lyrics anywhere on the album. This takes time. Yeah. You know, and you being honest with yourself. Like, you said that. it rhymes. Yeah. And you know that in your heart.

There's none of those moments left them out. It took months to get rid of all of them. Yeah. You know. So I was like rule number one. There's a bunch of other rules like no roundhouse kicks in the control room. But, uh... I didn't realize that was a common issue in the music industry.

It's not common. Just, just my sessions can get a little... A little street fighter. Yeah. I love that. Let's listen to one. more example of this technique of using the same

melody for both verse and chorus. This is in one of the most popular songs of recent vintage. I won't introduce it. We'll just listen. You're going to hear the chorus first and then the verse with the same exact music. I love this song

so much. I heard this. It was like a first listen. I heard I was like, I love it. Cool. I'm going to Spotify. So now we're in the verse, same melody. Who in a cop car. Dope lyrics. And I think this is, you know, this song is incredibly successful. And I think that's a big part of it.

It's just like, that word you use Charlie Hypnotic keeps on coming back to me. This song puts you in a trance. It's like waving the pendulum, you know, in front of your eyes. The melody itself is amazing. Oh, yeah. And the words are great. And they made a smart decision, which is never, don't go away from that until there's the one part, which is a pre. Right, right.

And that's timed perfectly. It happens right when you would have got bored with the melody. And then it brings the melody back right after that sort of pre-chorus section. Yeah. So, yeah, I just want to highlight, you know, the strophic technique does not work without having a melody. worth repeating, right? No doubt. And as you mentioned, you know,

those moments of variation that give the listener like a little break. Yeah, and they timed in the right way. Like with Bruce, who was verse hook, verse hook, and with this,

is much of a verse, or sorry, hook, and verse, long, on, and pre-chorus, and then back to have melody. Let's get one little breather.

Yeah, you got to figure that out with each song in the studio. There's a balance to it. I like that. Okay, I want to transition now from musical form to that conversation we were having earlier about rhyme scheme. Think about how these two things are related in terms of a song telling you a story. Yeah, so let's go exactly to that place you were talking about, Mike.

The rhyme scheme does not do the things you expect it to do. Let's listen to the chorus first, because this does have a very clear rhyme scheme. So A, A, A, A, A. Or I should say ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, right? Very clear. But then we get to verse one, and there's this moment where things start to go off the rails a little bit. Oh, that's uncommon. Yeah. You've carried the rhyme scheme over from the chorus into the verse and then you destroyed it. Yeah.

that moment of bad is like to me it's the best moment oh yeah no it's the moment where the whole song just kind of like turns and you're like oh whoa this is this is going in a different direction than I anticipated and that word bad you know it has a lot of meaning it's not clever at all but it's why it's good it's because it's the right word yeah it's the right word but it's not clever but it's how I felt so you say it truth is more important than rhyme yeah it's I always believe this. I don't know why, but I've always believed this. I remember this song I wrote in college.

This was 10 years ago now. It was about my first crush. Somewhere I had the line like 2000, and I'm somewhere the year 2000, but I could have said 2004 and it would have rhymed. But I just said 2000 because it was true. And so I've always, I'm just sort of stuck with that. that ever since, that the truth matters more, I think. I have, sorry, I just have to, this is becoming a very sort of poetic session here,

but I just, when you were saying that, Mike, I thought of this line from Keats, um, from the poem in Drea. Who's Keats? Never heard of him. Oh, John Keats? I'm just joking. Oh, yeah. Come on. We got a poem in our midst. I don't know this poem, though. This is the end of the poem. The feel of not to feel it, When there is none to heal it, nor numbed sense to steal it was never said in rhyme. Ooh. Yeah.

So, oh, sorry. Chance the rapper said, um, sometimes the truth don't rhyme. Sometimes the truth don't rhyme. Whoa. From Keats to chant. I just, I think that you were saying that feeling bad is there's nothing clever about the line, except when paired with the expectation of where we're going, it becomes extremely clever. Well, talk about expectation.

Okay, so let's get back into the overall, the global arc of these chorus and verses. So chorus is U-U-U-U-U-U, right? Verse one is U-A-A-D-A-A-B-B-A. Now let's listen to the second verse. And now in this second and final verse we have a verse where nothing rhymes. It's A, B, C, D. So looking at the arc over the chorus of the thing, it's like chorus all rhymes. half of the verse, first verse rhymes,

and then nothing rhymes in the second verse, which is cool because then it creates this sense of like deterioration almost. And at this point I think we can acknowledge that it's not like, this is a, you know, maybe a somewhat bitter song, right? Or it's capturing a certain mood of like... Angry.

Yeah. Confused and angsty. Yeah, totally. And the rhyme scheme is like giving you that. Even if you don't realize it. The rhyme scheme is, the rhyme scheme is breaking down over the course of the song. It's decomposing. It works in the second verse where you're having trouble paying attention at work and the rhymes are breaking down.

It's like you're almost like the mind is sort of scattered and it connects to the rhyme scheme or lack thereof. You guys are smart. We just, thank you. But it's cool. You know, when you listen to a song over and over and over again, things emerge. that you miss the first time. That's one of the things I love about doing the show. It's like the rewards of repeated close listening.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break, read some ads, come right back, and I want to talk about how this song fits into the life cycle of a musician. 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.

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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. All right, we're back with Mike Posner. We just broke down some of the musical and lyrical tricks at play in his new track song about you. Now I want to step back from this particular song and think about maybe what this song represents in your career. I want to interject one thing. Interject away. They're not tricks in that none of the stuff that you said was thought about.

It was all instinctual. There's just things that felt right in the studio at the time. So yeah, I just wanted to clarify. I appreciate that. let's say the mix of intuition calculation improvisation

and it's really cool hearing how it plays out for you for me but I wasn't sitting there thinking I want to make this rhyme scheme deteriorate over the song

I didn't think that but it does do that and I was just doing what my gut told me to do oftentimes our intuition it knows where to go both because

you're a trained songwriter So you have an intuition of where a song needs to feel that does come from having written a lot of songs. And oftentimes the first gut feel of where it needs to go is exactly what the listeners are also wanting and needing, what the song is needing. The overthinking it can often cause a different kind of deterioration. Yeah, I was going to say the training maybe can get in the way sometimes. Sure. You know, you really want to abandon that with each tune and just address it. individually and are my only guiding light in this stuff is my gut i mean for every decision as far as

like how much reverb there is on a vocal or you know every musical production decision and you know the the order of the tracks and the transitions and how long the album should be if this song should be on the album it's all gut this is all i have to go on and um yeah that's all i do go on yeah yeah the mind Mind is the enemy sort of in this in this stuff. It could be another rule on the wall. I mean, it's just like, if you catch yourself in your mind rationalizing why something is good, it's not actually good. Otherwise, you wouldn't be doing that.

You wouldn't have to work. Correct. Right, right. Correct. And that is just, I mean, like, I tell people all the time that is the number one. I'm sorry if I'm, like, going off on a tangent. It's just, I mean, it's simple. It's like, you're.

key to success is just not convincing yourself something is done when it's not or something is good when it's not and you just to be like a watchdog on your own mind do you feel is that a place that you've gotten to or is that a place that you've always resided do you know what i mean i've gotten more comfortable there yeah i've always been there when i'm alone sometimes when i was younger and i worked with other people i'd be afraid of disappointing them or upsetting them or something you know something like this, which is probably why I like working alone. But yeah, so I've gotten older and just matured, I'm much more comfortable staying there with other people.

Like, hey, this isn't, sorry. I know we thought this was done, but it is not, you know. Maybe that word mature is something we can explore for a minute because, you know, I can't, I don't put much stock in physical appearance, but I do have to note, Mike, that you have entered the beard phase of your, of your career. You'd be happy I wasn't here two weeks ago. Really? It was two weeks ago.

Yeah, I had, no, I just, I've trimmed my beard. Oh, yeah, I've seen, it was like, you had, like, birds living in there. Yeah, it was, it was all in. Yeah. But you still got some nice, some nice structure. Have some volume. Yeah, some volume, totally. Beard face.

I love that. This, to me, is, like, maybe a nice metaphor for this sort of maturation that people experience as artists you know like sort of entering a new phase or something a new level a new new moment of creativity I thought it'd be interesting to step back and think about the beard face a little bit in this sort of macro sense because I think it is interesting I was thinking about the song and like it's it's you know role in the arc of your career mic and and how we do tend to think of musicians as like having these phases you know, sort of like some early, like, juvenile period where you're figuring stuff out,

some middle period where you, like, have your real success. And then some late period where you start to explore new ideas and kind of go into something maybe more avant-garde. And the composer who, I think, really set the template for this way of thinking about cycles of creativity was Beethoven Charlie knows the answer When in doubt the answer is

Biggs You're going to take us on our ride through some classical masters But a quick ride Yeah Short trip I don't know This is cool

Keep it coming Beethoven is like You know We begin And he sounds very much like A Vienese He's in Germany He's in Austria

Yeah And what year is it? He's born in Germany What year is it? This is, we're going to start right at the turn of the 19th century, 18, 1801, actually. So this is like, uh, Mozart. It's not that long ago. No, no, not that long ago.

Pop music changes in not very long time. Yeah. No, Mozart just died like, yeah, at the end of the 17, in the middle of 1790. I thought Mozart came after. No, no, Beethoven actually moved to Vienna to study with Mozart. Who, who came for Mozart? Who was his hero? His, Mozart's hero was, uh, actually, uh, Johann Christian Bach.

That's what I'm thinking about. Not, not, not, Johann Sebastian, but Johann Sebastian's son, Johann Christian. Okay. Hasn't made it through time as well. Yeah. Now the, now the, now the, the Bach we know in his day was kind of didn't, he was kind of like rediscovered much later. Gotcha. In the mid-1800s by Felix Mendelssohn, actually. And then everyone was like, oh, now we're We love the OG Bach, you know, and then they kind of forgot about his son. Dang.

So Beethoven, let's check in on him. He sounds, in the beginning of his career, 1801, he still sounds a lot like Mozart, really. We can have a listen. It's very elegant. He studied with Mozart? He was going to, but then Mozart died. He ended up working with Hayden, Franz Joseph Haydn instead. So, you know, don't feel too bad for him.

Okay, so this is early Beethoven. Yeah. How old was he? Ballpark. in 17, I think he's born in, I don't want to misquote this, but I think he was born in the 1770s, so he's probably like in his mid-20s now. Yeah, lovely, right? There's a lot that's Beethoven in there, the sequencing of melodies rather than letting

melodies sort of play out, but that ending little cadence felt very, it's our teen. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, and that it all starts on this unison chord without any harmonies, yeah. Let's jump ahead now to 1809. So we're just going to listen to string quartets. that was the first string quartet. Let's jump head to the 10th string quartet now. Now, easy. So now he's like approaching 30. Hard.

It's like almost falling apart. Now we're in the middle period and the what's sometimes called the heroic period. This is like Beethoven becoming capital B. Beethoven. And this is when he writes the fifth symphony. Is this beard phase? No, we're not. It's right before beard phase. Very good, Mike.

pre beard and and we can start to hear it's like it sounds like his his style these contrasts of like really loud and then really soft textures really slow and then really fast textures right yeah okay so now we enter beard face this is the the this doesn't have a name this is called the grosephuga this is known as one of his kind of craziest most out there pieces from right right before the end of his life this is beard face this is beard face yeah This is getting intense. This is like, it's not as accessible. Does this mean I'm about to die?

No, and I had a professor who always, who hated that we called it Beethoven's late period. Exactly for that reason. He was like, Beethoven didn't know he was going to die. It's not like he was like, oh, now I'm going to enter my late period. But he might have felt older. Certainly, well, towards the end of his life, he was, you know, getting sick. But, I mean, who knows, he could have had more phases, right? He could have had a post-beard phase.

Correct. twirly mustache phase which happens I don't I don't mean to deny any of our mortality but I think you've got yeah I think you're good some productive years ahead

actually this is a great point because beard phase is a metaphor anyone can enter beard phase and beard phase is not the end of your career. Some people start in beard phase who starts in beard phase let's ponder that

iron and wine yeah is anyone that They seemingly don't need the maturation process. They just come out sort of like going. Like they just don't care. Or what about artists who like start in like a more difficult, weird place and become more accessible over their career?

Someone like St. Vincent, for example, would be perfect. Where like her early music, it's challenging and interesting and great, but it's not hooky, catchy, catchy, and pop radio friendly. Oh, reverse beard phase. Yeah. Interesting. I was thinking that Beethoven might have a parallel in contemporary pop music. I can't even.

Who's the answer to any other question on this show? Taylor Swift. Yep. All right, let's start in the early phase. This is 16-year-old Taylor Swift doing teardrops of my guitar. I mean, it's a great smile so he won't see that I want. I mean, it's a great song, but also it's like, you can tell it's, or she's still figuring it out, you know? Or to me at least, I feel like this is not, you know, the crystallization.

Taylor Swift really emerges, I think, on an album like Red. Let's jump ahead to that. Middle face. Hero? Heroic face, exactly. Hero face. Hero face. You're going to pass Nate's class?

Seriously. Pass? Yeah. Hey. extra credit for guys for gosh then you come around again

and say baby I miss you and I swear I'm gonna change trust me remember how that lasted for a day I say I hate you we break up you call me I love you

Oh yeah When you played the first song Oh yeah It makes me realize We just did an episode A while ago On where country is going And I feel like country music

Is catching up to red Where it's like this blend where it's like kind of country. It's like maybe got one hint of like acoustic guitar, but it's really moving into like there's sweeping EDM stuff. Yeah, the Max Martin. So you listen to this and it's like, yeah, this is her sound. She's mastered who she is.

And you can hear it in the little asides and the conversationality of the lyrics. Absolutely. It's like, yeah, that's Taylor Swift. These are the smash years, the heroic age. And then beard phase. This sounds a lot like Jesus. Right? Oh, interesting.

Yeah, I guess it kind of does. So now we're in the late phase, the beard phase. It's more challenging. It's, like, difficult. It's not quite as accessible. This is a pattern that I imagine artists will continue to live out again and again and again. Now, in honor of your beard, Mike, I want to just like quickly celebrate some other great beard phase moments in musical history. Okay.

And I think the like the classic one is the Beatles, right? You know, they go from the clean cut, you know, boys in matching suits to the psychedelic bearded moustachioed freaks. Let's listen to Strawberry Fields forever. Let me take you down because I'm going to. Strawberry field is real I've got another great beard in Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys

You know Think of the Beach Boys Again clean cut matching Stripe shirts And then he goes Into his sort of Offbeat Charles Manson

Associated Spacey Druggy Phase He associated with Charles Manson He hung with Charles a little bit Yeah But he also cut a great album in 1977, which go Google it, full-on beard, Pacific Ocean Blue. Let's listen to River Song.

Wow. Yeah, man. Dope. Yeah, the beard. That's dope. The beard is symbolic, right? The beard represents, like... Acid.

Do you have something you'd like to share with us? What does the beard represent for you, Mike? Or is that reading too much into it? No, I mean, are we talking about the beard that we've, established in this conversation or mine. Let's talk about yours. Because there's some overlap, but not. Right, totally, totally.

And I think for me, it's like a proclamation that I don't care about looking or being cool anymore. Which I do care about, but it's like a reminder. It's an aspirational proclamation, I guess. Cool. Maybe an affirmation. I don't know. You probably think of a better word. No, no, I like that.

See what I'm trying to say, though. Yeah, yeah. And is there a musical corollary? Of course. I mean, look, people have the beard phase or post-heroic phase, or you will call it. Because in the heroic phase, they experience success, notoriety, prestige, attention from the opposite sex, attention from the same sex. and these are the things that are supposed to make their life full and complete, and so often they don't.

At least in my case, it didn't. I was the same guy with different circumstances around me. Like that phrase, you know, wherever you go, there you are, right? That was it. I felt the same way my experience of life. It didn't really get worse, but it didn't get better, but I was disillusioned by these things. that I thought were the end of the road, not being the end of the road. So the question is, where Dave Foster Wallace got in truly, the question is, if not that,

then what? Then what is life? If I'm not supposed to keep chasing success, prestige, notary, tension from same sex, tension from the opposite sex, then what do I do? And that's what the beard phase is about, is asking that question and, like, bushwhacking your way through existence and figuring out what really matters, if anything really matters. Cool. So that makes me excited to hear more of your music, Mike.

I can't think of a better note to end on than that. Except maybe I have one more beard. I don't want to subscribe to the notion this is like, again, like a masculine thing. The beard is a metaphor, right? Correct. But for some artists, maybe it is a literal beard. I'm thinking of, do you know Peaches album, Father? F.

Do you know Peaches? Yeah. Okay, let's just listen to the song Kick It from Father Effer featuring Iggy Pop. You have to explain yourself. Okay, so I just, everyone, right, I forgot we're doing a podcast.

Because the cover of this album is Peaches with a full on like Abraham Lincoln style beard. Dope. So, and it's this beautiful reminder, I think, that everyone can have their beard face. Right on. Thanks for listening to Switched on Pop.

This episode was produced by me, Nate Sloan. And me, Charlie Harding. Huge thanks to Mike Posner for joining us. That was so much fun. Anything you want to plug, Mike, any shows, records, et cetera? Nah. Great. Our engineering and editing is done by Bill Lanz.

Our community manager is Sarah Terry and designed by Luke Harris. Check out more episodes. Switched onpop.com. You can find us on radio public, Apple, podcast app, Spotify, anywhere else you get that stuff. And send us notes on Instagram and on Twitter at Switched-on Pop. We love to hear your thoughts about music. We'll see you in two weeks.

Until then, thanks for listening.