Switched on Pop - Eternal Sunshine of Ariana Grande's Mind

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Sidestep the gossip and focus on the music in Ariana Grande’s latest album Eternal Sunshine. The music is an exercise in nostalgia: 70s Disco, 90s R&B, and 00s pop and dance music. As she moves through the musical past, her lyrics tear through past relationship. But it's the way her lyrics interweave with the deft melodies and harmonies that reveal the meaning of the record.  Sign up for the Switched On Pop Newsletter Songs Discussed Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine, Bye, Don’t Wanna Break Up Again, True Story, The Boy Is Mine, We Can’t Be Friends, Imperfect For You Isaac Hayes - Theme From Shaft Barry White - Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Babe Britney Spears - Oops I Did It Again, Gimme More Brandy, Monica - The Boy Is Mine Aaliyah - Are You That Somebody Ginuwine - Pony Robyn - Call Your Girlfriend, Show Me Love 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 Switchedown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Ariana Grande is currently the sixth most streamed artist in the world. And she has a new album out that I think is worth a close listen. Yes. It's called Eternal Sunshine. That's an impressive stat, Charlie. And with so many people listening to this album, I feel like there's all these theories flying around. about how each song might intersect with Ariana's personal life, who is represented by this lyric? Is this about her ex-husband? Is this about her current fling? SpongeBob SquarePants? And Charlie, I don't know about you, but I could not give less of a shit about that.

I really don't care. I want to know what is going on musically on this album. Same. Is it a continuation of the Ariana we've come to know and love, the one who can't enunciate a word to save her life who can execute incredibly virtuosic melodic runs, who channels multiple styles, who our friend Chris Malamphi once called a chart assassin, or is this going to be something brand new, a U-turn something different? Who is she working with?

I want to get to know the music on this album, and I want to understand how it relates to the central theme, Eternal Sunshine, because I understand this is a reference to a film. That you have never seen. No, I somehow missed this one. I've never seen this. I never saw Garden State. Never saw Avatar. I have some serious holes in my cinematic knowledge, and this is one of those.

Essential film by Charlie Kaufman, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is sort of a sci-fi relationship movie in which Jim Carrey is trying to exercise memories of his past. relationship to help him move on. And this album, I think, does a lot of revisiting to previous romantic relationships, but also revisiting to a certain kind of musical nostalgia. We've already talked about on the show, Ariana Grande's interpolation of Vogue in the song Yes, Anne, on a previous episode. Right, the big single from this record. There's lots of other 90s and 2000s musical nostalgia that we're going to revisit on this album. So I thought what we should do is highlight

not the sounds that we should forget, but the things that are worth remembering on Eternal Sunshine. I like what you did there. Thank you. Maybe you could kick it off with the title song, Eternal Sunshine. I'd love to. And now that I have your, you know, Wikipedia summary of the movie, I feel like I can dig into the song even further. So it's called Eternal Sunshine. It comes five songs in to the album. And now I'm going to be a little bit of the movie. And now I'm going to understanding that eternal sunshine refers to a memory that you want to keep. Is that right? So Eternal Sunshine refers to the idea that you can experience an endless state of happiness and optimism by removing memories that you don't want that no longer serve you. Okay. But it turns out,

by the way, of course, in the film, that those painful memories are important for our internal sense of self-being. Okay. So Eternal Sunshine, if we go to the chorus of this, song. She sings, I found a good boy and he's on my side. And she's speaking to her former lover here, you're just my eternal sunshine, sunshine. So I guess, Charlie, that this is saying, like, this is a memory that she wants to wipe away. I don't know exactly how this Kaufman universe works. Let's listen to it. All right. So she's trying to wipe her mind of an old relationship. so that she can experience the feeling of endless sunshine, eternal optimism.

Okay. And having moved on. I think even our thick brains are starting to wrap our heads around this concept. What stands out here for you? Well, one thing I love about this chorus is the sense that something is like a little wrong. Similar, I think, to this idea of trying to wipe away that there's something, sort of itching at the back of your mind. The harmonies here are very, very strange.

The vocal harmonies, I mean, the kind of things that Ariana Grande is doing to double herself. It's not exactly what you'd expect. Check this up. She's such a good vocal producer. She really is. One weird thing is that these harmonies are all below the melody, which is a little odd in general.

Usually you pop those harmonies on top, give them like a little more color and brightness. These are like subterranean harmonies. below the melody. She does famously have a four-optive voice, right? So she can do it. She's constantly flexing. But I feel like that's kind of a metaphor, right?

There's things under the surface here, things I'm trying to forget. And then the harmonies are not always just like the consonant clarion intervals, like thirds and sixth, the ones that sound really nice and clean. They're like weirdly fifths and fourths and sometimes even seconds. And they're kind of crunchy and a little bit unsettling. and you're like, hmm, what's that about? Yeah, yeah. So there's this dissonance, right,

between her singing eternal sunshine, but then we understand that meaning is really about, like, covering things up, and we can hear some of those things she's trying to cover up in these subterranean crunchy harmonies in the chorus. Dr. Sloan. You like that?

Right. If you're going to make eternal sunshine harmonies, they should be bright and over the top and shining high. But these are dark and hidden underneath. Ooh. Well, if you like that, Chuck, what do you got? What about when we get to the bridge of this song? There's a lot of good bridges throughout this album, which is something I love.

That is cool. I love this moment. Everything kind of breaks down and becomes very sparse. We have this repeated mantra, won't break, can't shake, this fate, rewrite, deep breaths, tight chest, life, death, rewind. Beautiful lyric. Yeah, it's almost a mantra. Like it feels like a meditation teacher telling you to chant this thing to make it come true. Right, it's like something you say to yourself in times of crisis, perhaps.

Except maybe this mantra isn't working because the more she says it, the more these other thoughts start popping up. It feels like she's being distracted from the instructions that she set out. I mean, maybe it's just trying to reinforce it. For me, it sounds like there's a deeper anxiety. I like that interpretation. It's also another one of these technically really impressive moments, what she could do with her voice. Actually, you can make it sort of quiet and loud,

stack these harmonies, give us this hockett-like back and forth. Now, Charlie, that was a cool bridge, we agree. Sure. And typically, you know, you hit the bridge in the song, and then you go back to the chorus, and then you really don't return. That's not what happens in this song. And here is where I just need to,

to remind you and everyone listening that the co-writer, co-producer of this song is Max Martin. Max Martin, who has written more number one hit songs in music history than anyone except Paul McCartney. He's tied with John Lennon with 26 number one songs. Max Martin, who's been the dominant force in pop music for over two decades, worked with everyone, yada, yada, yada, yada. It's also worth pointing out that there are also, Ilya, is all over this record. And on this song, Davy Dior and Shantaro Yassuta also participate. but the majority of this album is written in collaboration with Max Martin and Ilya. So with that in mind, I want to play what happens in the final chorus of this song.

Oh, no way. They're layered on top of each other. Wake, Jake, Jake. It's a collision. Okay, so the bridge of the song and the chorus of the song, formerly two separate entities have now been stacked on top of each other. Yes, yes. And the reason I said it was important that Max Martin worked on this is because he's done this

before. Yeah. Oops, I did it again. Oops, I did it again. Okay, so here's the chorus of Oops I Did It Again. And now here is an alternate chorus that Britney Spears sings with a different rhythm and melody. Here, Charlie, is the final chorus where they stack. the original chorus and the alternate chorus on top of each other,

creating this fantastic melodic counterpoint. See if you can hear them both. And that, as defined by the music theorist, Megan Lavingood, is what we call the complementary chorus. And I love hearing this in Eternal Sunshine in Anodominy 2024. The Latin is appropriate because it is, draws from counterpoint. Let's listen to it one more time. I mean, we used to hear this a lot at the turn of the millennium in Brittany songs,

in Backstreet Boys songs, and other Max Martin productions. Yeah. And then he kind of dropped it. And now we're hearing it again with Ariana Grande. You know, you talked about, like, the sense of nostalgia maybe earlier in the episode. I feel like that's coming in to play here. For sure. Using this kind of old school, contrapuntal technique.

Yeah. Giving us these memories. Do we want to keep them or do we want to rid ourselves of them? Maybe that's up to us and the composers and performers, but they're certainly giving them for us to think about. I definitely want to hold on to that musical moment. I think it's great. Okay, one more quick thing,

because I know we have to move on. We already spend a long time on this title track, but since we're talking about nostalgia, does this pre-chorus remind you of anything, Chuck? She's so good with melodic rhythm. that's memorable but I don't know where I know it from Wow Crimee a River

Now we play our separate scenes Now that's not a Max Martin production No but it is It's an interesting It popped into my head Timberlin production with Justin Timberlake Who had worked extensively with Max Martin when he was a member of Insynx.

So, and has worked with him since, plenty. Wow. I don't know. I just feel like there's some shard of a memory here that's also being brought up by this pre-chorus. But anyway. Wow, wow, wow. Okay. Okay, let's move on.

We don't want to, we, there's a lot more to explore on this, on this album. Let's say bye to that song and hello to the song. Bye. What? Look at that. Yep. Yep. Guitar.

Waka chika chika, waka chika, wakchika, wakchika. The introduction to buy does so much. It starts out sounding like baby-making music, but this is a breakup song. Waka-chika-chika, waka-chika-waka. Exactly. The wuka-chika. You know what the farmer said when he walked into his barn and saw his brown chicken and brown cow having sex? Brown chica bount cow

Brown chicka brown cow That's really bad Oh gosh Right away though That is the first thing I clued into And I was like this sounds like some sexy music It feels like a combination of the theme from shaft And it has all of the romantic strings

Of Barry White's Can't get enough of your love baby Which opens in a similarly very slow way and builds into a sort of disco-ish groove. Right? I feel like if you take the theme from Shaft and mix it with Barry White, you get Bye. And then it inverts Barry White's vocals to be the high soprano perhaps. But yeah, I like it.

Right, right, right. But rather than give us a straight-ahead disco throwback, Arana's Bai has these really great sort of stabs. Oh, bum, fun. I can't believe I'm finally moving through my... It reminds me of another Ariana Grande song made with Max Martin and Zed. Oh, break free?

Break free. So there's a way in which she's drawing from the past, but also pulling in, I think, a musical language that we might be familiar with if we've already spent some time with Ariana Grande. I think by, when I first heard it, I was like, no, I feel like we've moved past the disco thing. But I actually think it's a really good entry

in this album, which revisits so many different kinds of music from the past. I dig that, Charlie. I also feel like it's making a reference to music of the present as well when we get to the chorus. I could not help but hear echoes

of Siza in the chorus of this tune. This technique of taking a phrase and then repeating it, but rhythmically displacing it, that is something that we heard when we listened to Sizz's most recent album SOS on a song like Gone Girl. Check out the chorus here. Instead of Gone Girl, boy bye. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not saying that there's a direct

homage or reference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I feel like maybe she was listening to that schizah rhythmic displacement, sort of melodic meandering and bringing that a little bit into the chorus of this song. So it really is a very contemporary R&B track as much as it is a throwback. This is effectively like the first song on the album because what precedes it is more of an intro. So if this is setting the scene, I think we'll be curious what the next track sounds like. And that's don't want to break up again. And here I feel like we get a little bit more of the contemporary sound and a little bit more of the virtuosity that we might expect from RIA. I feel like our situation ship needs some, uh, need some therapy.

You're always trying to, you're always trying to label things, Charlie. Just let it, just let it breathe in. I'll text you when I'm, isn't that, isn't that the point of a situation? It's like, it's a thing, not a thing, kind of a thing. Yeah. So, so why are you, why are you questioning it? The more you talk about it, you know, the less magic it is. It becomes a situation. I'm trying to talk about virtuosity here and you're getting me derailed. Okay. Listen to the way. she stacks her vocals on this chorus. It's really lovely. Up again, up again, up again, up again. And it's like kind of word painting too,

because it's like up again, up again, up again. But it's just like she does something like this so often, in this effortless way that almost makes it sound really easy, but it's not. I feel like she's almost connected to the crooners of the mid-20th century and that her music is louder and more powerful in some ways than her voice.

She's so all about microphone technique. Oftentimes, she's speaking at a level even softer than we're speaking right now. I don't want to break up again, up again. It's like just getting air through. Yeah. It makes it feel very intimate. It draws you in.

And then she's able to deploy her belting, you know, all of the range of her voice when she wants to. But oftentimes it's really about this intimacy that she's establishing by being really close up on the microphone. with these big booming ATA weights behind her. Right, you can hear, like, I don't mean this to sound gross,

but you can, like, hear the saliva swishing around in her mouth when she sings, you know? Yeah. You can hear, like, that line of spit that stays connected between your lips when you open them up to sing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's important.

I think that this, I mean, listen to the lyrics of the song. It's all about intimacy in a way that I think has been sort of, maybe even lightly mocked in certain places online because she sings, you know, like you said, this situation ship has to end. Yes, yes. Spent so much on therapy, blame my own codependency.

This is a trauma dumping R&B. Hope you won't regret me. Hope you'll still think fondly of our little life. Like, like, it's very, it's very therapy speaking, right, in this way that I don't detract from because it feels very honest. And I think it's supported by that intimacy that you're talking about in terms of the vocal production. Because it's like, yeah, it's just like,

this is what I'm feeling, and this is what I would say to my counselor, I guess. It's also very lighthearted and fun, as much as it is a song, I don't want to break up again. Some of those background vocals, she's giving us straight up like, wabitabab, who, kind of things. Wobababababab.

Wabababab. She's almost the scat, man. She's almost more like a 60s girl group in that way. She's her own full backing chorus. She's one of the only artists, I would say, by the way, that you should really go and listen to their atmost mix. That's like a surround sound kind of. Yeah, exactly.

Her vocals are so rich that they surround you all around your head. You can pinpoint all of the subtle differences in even more detail. Will you indulge me in a little bit of mildly conspiratorial thinking together? A situation ship is all about indulgence. So I've talked about like the, bridges on this album being really fun. And this one is no exception, okay? I especially like it because of what it does harmonically.

Like, in this song, we're in the key of D minor for the most part. Check out where we go in the bridge. Right there. Whoa. Yes, I knew you. It's like that. And then we're building up back into the chorus. That is some 90s R&B kind of harmonies.

I can't even break that down. What is happening? We go from D minor, and then when the bridge hits a very surprising chord, A flat major 7, down to G minor, G flat major 7, F major 7, that repeats, A flat major 7, moving chromatically down,

and then we get this nice build over like a C-sus. that it's going to bring us back into the chorus. What do you call it? I mean, those are just descending chromatic chords. Why do those work? Is it because the melody note holds throughout and you can just kind of do whatever and make some crunchy, beautiful things below

and the chromatic movement holds it altogether? Without getting two in the weeds, I think it works because F major is the relative major of D minor, and A-flat major is, is borrowed from the parallel minor of F major, F minor. And then that has a sort of gravitational energy to bring you back to this related key of F,

which then can make you pivot back. Yeah, okay. But here's really why I bring it up. Because if we go back to the song we were just listening to, the second track on the album, Buy, she does almost the exact same thing. Huh. Let's tune in to Buy right before the bridge.

Another kind of chromatic harmonic change. Interesting. Okay, this song also in D minor. And when we get to the bridge, we again move to A-flat major. This time we then go to D-flat and then C minor and then F-7, I guess. But whoa, that was basically the same harmonic movement. that we heard in the next song, Don't Want to Break Up Again. So if you buy my analysis,

then we have to consider that these two songs are sort of related. They're like a dyad. They're part of the same tapestry. They're drawn from the same harmonic fiber, Charles. Okay. In which case, what is the sort of lyrical through line between these two songs? We've got Bye, which is about, you know, boy, bye, moving on.

Don't want to break up again, which is like about sort of finding yourself in an out of relationship. You need to get out of it. You break up. You get back together again. I think we could see these as almost like a mini suite together that represent the first part of the album. The sort of like realizing you need to extricate yourself from a situation. Right, right.

And then we move to Eternal Sunshine, which is like the wiping part and like trying to move on. And then maybe after we take a break and we pick up with this album, we'll sort of see the aftermath in the sense of like what's next. We have gone from also the far past disco into maybe a bit more of a 90s R&B inspired sound. So we're sort of moving forward in time, hitting Eternal Sunshine, and oh my gosh. And then there's all these other references

of like mid-90s and 2000s music coming right up, which I'm so excited to share with you. After a quick word from our sponsors. Attention, Spotify. the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolvent,

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let you involve for your sensia. The next song I want to highlight is called True Story. I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm at like a college party right now. It's like destiny.

these child vibes, right? Oh, interesting. So you're like, Aaliyah or something? What do you? I hear all of that. The first thing that I hear is this great

give me love, love, give me love moment reminds me so much of another song about giving me more. Give me more by Britney Spears. So you brought up earlier the idea of rhythmic

displacement, moving the words to emphasize a different part of the beat. Give me more. Give me, give me more. give me more. I hear the same kind of thing happening

and give me love, love, give me love. Maybe it's a distant nod for you, but when the bass hits, my goodness, does that send me back? Doesn't that bass line sound like it's almost talking? Wow. It's like a bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, kind of bass, right?

It's a beryl-bound kind of bass, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Is that technical term? Yeah, I like it. Most prominently featured in the 1999 song, Pony by Genuine? I mean, I guess. I mean, this, to me, is marked more by like this portamento.

That kind of sound and less by the sort of vocal quality. But sure, we'll give it you. I mean, I am glad you brought up the producer of that song, Timbaland, because not only did he produce Cry Me a River, which we listened to a little bit ago. Yeah. I feel like he also produced a lot of drum patterns that mimic what's going on in true story, this kind of stuttering feel where it's like, duh, duh, da, duc da da da da da, da.

Like maybe, you know, an Aaliyah song like, Are You That Somebody? Are you that somebody? Yeah. Okay, so he gives us both that vocal bass line from Pony, but also the sort of skittering beats from Aaliyah, and I'm hearing both of those in Ariana. That's cool.

Okay, so maybe there are some distant illusions here, but if we want to go to a direct, reference, we have to go to the song, The Boy is Mine. So this is obviously a nod to the 1998 hit by Brandy, The Boy Is Mine. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Brandy and Monica. Oh, sorry, of course. Whoa, that was, that was bad news, what just happened there. The boy is mine, the boy is mine. The boy is mine. The boys mine. The boys mine. The boy is mine. My love was on you in tune. Just like with the song Yes, and. which is an obvious nod to Vogue. Here, Arna Grande is firmly planting us

in the world of late 90s R&B. I think similarly to Yes And, it's not like there's any one moment where you're like, oh, this is straight out of the other song. It's just the whole vibe. It also has that sort of talking bass kind of thing. The harp sound we don't get, but that is used actually on Eternal Sunshine.

Uh-huh. I mean, it's similar, yeah. There's all kinds of little references I'm sure we could pick a part, but I got to say that my favorite moment on Arna Grande's version is right when she says the title lyrics. I love that moment. Yeah, goosebumps. The whole song slows down. What's the technical term for that?

It would be de cellarando, I think. Or menomoso is another way of saying. It's so uncommon today when you, write music and software that is to a grid into a click track, you have to plan in advance those moments where you want the tempo to change. The song slows down with this moment of whispered confidence. It's just like, you are mine. That's cool. That's cool. I did not catch that. That's like what they do on Despacito. Yes, yes. In the title phrase of Despacito, which in that case actually means slowly they slow the tempo down despaicito so yeah very that's very hip i like that

spacito oh it's so rewarding when it finally hits so i love what she's doing there if ariano grande is revisiting her past relationships she's clearly also revisiting the musical past and there's one more song i want to highlight in that regard which is we can't be friends We can't be friends. Wow, it's powerful. One of the most amazing things about the song, We Can't Be Friends, is not only as they revisiting her relationships,

it's revisiting memories that I have of a different song, Robbins, dancing on my own. Mm. Right? Not only does it have that same repetitive, just pushing forward groove. But it shares the same melodic and harmonic language. When Robin sings stilettos on broken bottles, there's this move to the relative minor.

It's a harmonic move that happens multiple times throughout this song that takes us from the nice major key to all of a sudden the sad, dark moment. And Arna Grande does the same move. One key, South, Robin is an F sharp, Arion is an F. And we can't be friends. She sings, I don't want to tiptoe, but I don't want to hide, and gives us that exact same kind of move to the minor in this very solemn way. I don't want to tip the toe, but I don't want to feed this monstrous fire. Same four-to-floor kick drum, same bass groove, and same harmonic movement. And it's worth noting, of course, that Ariana's collaborator Max Martin was an early collaborator of Robin, many might remember the 95 hit Show Me Love.

Whoa, I haven't heard that in a long time. So from the productions of Robin to the sounds of Brandy and Monica and the skittering wild sounds and bases of Timbalin's production, it's very clear to me that Ariana is giving a nod to the late 90s. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's banon how, Long Max Martin is a coinage I'm trying to catch on it's like bananas, but it's like banana

Bonon. Bonon, okay. Yeah. Oh, I'll allow it. It's it's it's it's just banon that Max Martin has been doing this for so long like 30 years. Yeah, making really good songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so and isn't he the right collaborator to do this with to be able to say, hey, we're going to revisit all these different memories and all this past music and we're going to make it into a cohesive project max martin is the person to do it with i i gotta say when i first heard this album i was like you know it kind of goes into too many different vibes like why is their 90s rnb and post-disco happening on the same album and i was like oh eternal sunshine like we're visiting the past we're going through all these different experiences she really invites the idea of jumping around from sound to

sound. And there's not only 90s R&B and disco and contemporary sort of hip-hop inspired sounds, there's also whatever you call this. My favorite song on this

album. I'm perfect for you. My boy, come take my hand, throw your guitar in your clothes in the backseat. What do you think? I'll alternative rock?

Like, what do we call this? Oh, yeah, there is a little bit of... A little country almost, little soul with like that kind of six-A groove. She performed this on Saturday Night Live recently, and the staging of it was very similar to the music video of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun, where there's this sort of garden

with a bright dusk sky behind her, and it was very reminiscent of that video as well as Heart-shaped Box by Nirvana. I think the choreo and staging of that and the sound of these sort of warbly guitars, yeah, it's definitely announcing some allegiance to 90s rock and grunge. But it's way more than that because I know when I heard this song, I was like, oh, Nate's going to choose this song.

Because it does, this is like a music theorist, musicologist's dream. Yeah, we got to go to the chorus, right? I feel like this has now become the gold standard for text painting in popular music. What Charlie and I are giggling about is this harmonic move from the root chord E to a chromatic chord that should not belong F major, one half step above. And not only that when they deploy this chord is over the title phrase, Imperfect for you. And it's like that chord is imperfect.

It doesn't really belong. It's not part of the key. It sounds very kind of tense and even maybe awkward. But at the same time, the way it supports the message of the song, being imperfect in this way that only someone who really loves you will accept, it's like, is so fitting. It's also set up in such an amazing way because in the verse,

the way the chords are played is that there is this bass pedal point underneath the whole time there is this E just holding down the whole song as if everything is stable and solid, everyone is happy. We're never going away from this home feeling. Everything's copacetic.

And then all the sudden, we're sent into this harmonic unit. that is so far, it's both so close, but also so far from our key and imperfection is the beauty that we find in relationships. In fact, we need all the dark parts of our past in order to move on and grow and be a full imperfect, perfect human. And this is a great song. I mean, it's not the last, it's the penultimate song in the album, but it feels like a great place to wrap it up because as we've been discussing it, I feel like we've seen this, this arc emerge over the course of the album where there's like the sense of like being stuck in in some in a bad situation bad

relationship yeah like kind of realizing at in the beginning of the album with with boy and don't want to break up again like realizing you need to make a change in in eternal sunshine like and then and then and then from there sort of moving into a place of acceptance and closure and here we're like singing like yeah i'm imperfect i'm imperfect for you it's going to be okay that's like a very it's a nice sentiment to kind of wrap up the this album with. Nate, I feel like I'm ready to move beyond

the situation ship with you. Get a little banana. Bonan, but I like it. I like what you were doing there. I really appreciate this. It's got to catch on. I really appreciate it.

I feel like we're imperfect for each other. Charlie, to consecrate this moment, will you read the credits with me? Yes, anytime. This episode of Switched on Pop was made by Nate Sloan and me, Charlie Harding. Our producer

is Rihanna Cruz, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, edited by Art Chong, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, community management by Abby Barr, Ashok Karwa is the executive producer, and we are a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is a part of New York Magazine.

It's all some form of inception. And you can subscribe to New York magazine at nymag.com slash pod. Find us on social media at SwitchDumpop and tell us what you're here. hearing in the new Ariana record, your favorite songs, your least favorite songs. We didn't talk about Nona.

Oh, yeah. It's a really beautiful moment. I'm sorry. No, no. Yeah. Her grandmother is on the record. It's not the first record that her grandmother has been on, actually, but it's the final song. It's very nice.

People should go revisit it. Didn't it, like, set a record for the oldest person to be on a charting single or something? Yeah, I believe that's right. I don't know how I feel about this whole thing. Everyone's like, oh, here's my daughter, here's my grandma. It's like, here's my doorman. Here's my landlord. board, here's my barber.

You're taking it way too far. It's like, no, no, no. I don't think we could just say, oh, that's set a road. Oh, no, does a charting artist? I don't think it works like that. I think you'd be like, oh, here's my cat. Here's my, here's my roommate. Here's my great uncle.

It's like, no, we have to stop. We have to put an end to this. I'm saying it now. You can't just bring random people in the studio and give them chart hits. Doesn't work like that. You got to write the song. Okay. Sorry.

I feel like the credits have been reserved for like our hot takes that were too, you know. Yeah. Listen to the music. Anywhere else in the episode. You can find our podcast. Where? Do we already talk about that?

Switch on Pop. No, no. We haven't talked about that yet. Yeah. All the places. We've got a newsletter. We'll be talking more about some Ariana and some music and the newsletter. You can subscribe on our website and in our show notes.

And we'll be back again next week. And until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.