Switched on Pop - “Flowers” and the art of the response song

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

“Flowers” by Miley Cyrus is spending another week on top of the Billboard 100 – quite fitting for Valentine’s Day. The disco-country track has gotten people talking for a few reasons, but most notably, Cyrus invokes Bruno Mars’ classic “When I Was Your Man” in both lyrical and melodic allusions. The connection between the two songs is not one of interpolation, but rather, Miley is responding to Bruno’s hit through her own words: making “Flowers” an answer song.  This episode of Switched On Pop, we take a deeper look at “Flowers” and how it fits in the canon of response songs throughout history, from classics like “This Land is Your Land” to Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda.”  Songs Discussed:  Miley Cyrus – Flowers Kacey Musgraves – High Horse Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive Dua Lipa – New Rules Bruno Mars – When I Was Your Man Ed Sheeran – Shape of You TLC – No Scrubs Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg – California Girls JAY-Z, Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind Big Mama Thornton – Hound Dog Rufus Thomas – Bear Cat Hank Thompson – The Wild Side of Life Kitty Wells – It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels Ray Charles – Hit the Road, Jack Nina Simone – Come on Back Jack The Chantels – Well, I Told You UTFO – Roxanne, Roxanne Roxanne Shanté – Roxanne’s Revenge UTFO – The Real Roxanne New Edition – Candy Girl The Jackson 5 – ABC Sir Mix-A-Lot – Baby Got Back Nicki Minaj – Anaconda 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 producer

Rianna Cruz. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. Oh, thank you. You too, Rihanna. I didn't get anybody a Valentine's Day card. I got to remedy that real quick. I ate some chocolate and two in the morning. Does that count? Well, whether or not you actively celebrate, I'm sure that at some point over the past few weeks, you've heard Miley Cyrus's number one hit, Flowers. I generally agree with the message of the song, which says that I do not need to buy anybody gifts, that we can all buy ourselves gifts. We can all get ourselves our flowers from all times day. I'm in so much trouble. What about holding your own hand? What does that look like? Very awkward. You don't know, do you go left into right?

right into left. I don't like watching that, Charlie. Please stop. That makes me uncomfortable. Well, today we're going to talk about what makes flowers so interesting sonically, where it fits in in Miley Cyrus's career, and how there's something about flowers that connects it to an eclectic group of songs going all the way back to even God bless America. But first, Charlie and Nate, how do you guys feel about it? There's a lot I love about flowers. And one of the main things is Miley Cyrus's voice. It's like she has a very distinct voice. You know it when you hear it. It's not anodyne and anonymous like many pop singers. It's like it's got a character. It's got a grain. It's got a bit of an accent. It's really fun to hear it on the radio, I think. I love myself a good disco country mashup.

Exactly. I think Flowers is a very pleasant tune. It's reminiscent of disco revival to me. And the first thing I noticed, Nate, is what you said, Miley's vocals. It's kind of unpolished. And I think that's the appeal. Some great growl. We love a growl here at Switch Jump Up. I love the growl when she's like, talk to myself. Like, so fun. It's like over the years, her voice has gained this beautiful rasp to it.

And it gives it sort of like a worldly quality. And it sort of inflex this rocker tone that Miley's career has had in the, you know, late 2010's, early 2020s. It brings that to a song like flowers. And she does like cool stuff all throughout the song. She switches until, you know, a higher register and a different timbre to sing her harmonies in the post chorus. I hear a sort of country twang here, which is appropriate given her background, not only

the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, but also the goddaughter of Dolly Parton. And I am catching dolly vibes on these background vocals. That's why it's like it's a disco thing. But there's some country sensibility here. Yeah, I mean, when I was listening, I had a reference point and I couldn't place it until I was listening to like other disco country hybrids. And I found what this song reminded me of, High Horse by Casey Musgraves. Oh, yeah. If we're talking country disco hybrids, we have to talk Casey Musgraves.

Yeah, I think both songs have the same sort of wandering groove to it, where you kind of get swept away. But there's also influences outside of the disco country realm that go back to straight disco. Listen to the strings on flowers. It's kind of giving I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. Oh, yeah. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da yeah. Nice. It's those big string sections that made disco so expensive.

to produce and to pull out strings today is a bit of a flex. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, I can book the studio and all the players. And, yeah, we're going to make a big, very expensive sound. Right. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if Miley strings were synthesizers. Well, no, it looks like here the credits say strings by Rob Moose. Oh. Great name.

Rob Moose has got credits with Paul Simon, St. Vincent, Boniver, Taylor Swift. Wow. Chris Steeley, my favorite Mendelin player. Shout out Rob Moose. Moose High, rise up. Well, thank you to Rob Moose because the strings draw that connection from flowers to I Will Survive. And the songs kind of carry the same message. You know, I will live after a breakup. I am fine without the other person in my life.

Very fitting for, I guess, Valentine's Day. Sure. Everyone's got a different Valentine's Day experience. Some people are fine in love. Some people are figuring out what to do on their own. All is good, wherever you're at. There's a couple of other cool stuff happening in flowers. There's this dropout before the chorus comes in.

Love, a little extra space in a song. It really catches you off guard. The first time I heard that, I'm like, wait a minute, how are they counting this? Do we change type signatures? They're just literally dropping the one, which can totally screw up your dance step. You literally have lost the downbeat. but it's a cool way of going into a chorus

I think maybe more recently popularized by Duo Lepa and new rules. One, two, three, four, two, three, four. Both songs skip the first beat and you're like, whoa, what happened? Maybe it metaphorizes the feeling of being broken up with. We're left dangling in space, but then we catch ourselves, we're fine,

when we buy ourselves flowers. I'm buying it, Charlie. It gives you a little sense of confidence when you're still able to hit that chorus on the two. It gives the words more impact. Definitely. Speaking of words, there's something specific about flowers

that has gotten people talking. Listen to the lyrics of the chorus. It's all the things that you can do on our own. Yeah, but specifically when it comes to what Miley's saying, did it remind you of anything? Maybe another song, perhaps. I can buy myself flowers. That's the line. That's the line in question. It sounds like, I should have bought you flowers. I believe that's Bruno Mars when I was your man. Exactly.

There is a lyrical similarity between flowers and the Bruno Mars number one hit when I was your man. That went to number one. Wow. Should I give you all my... When I had the chance. Take you to everybody, because all you wanted to do... Fascinating. So not only the Flowers line, but the hold-your-hand line is referenced in Miley's song. And dancing, pretty much the whole chorus.

Good, good, good, good, Charlie. Good ears. So let's take a closer look. Bruno says, I should have bought you flowers. I should have bought you flowers. Miley Bruno Should I give you all my hours

Miley The dancing thing is also in both songs Miley And of course Bruno has a line about the hand as well So So Miley's

essentially flipping it, right? Where Bruno is talking about his girl like, oh, I took you to parties because you wanted to dance. And Miley's saying, no, no, I can dance on my own. I can hold my own hand. All the power to Miley. The last lines in the chorus even have

a similar melody to them. So we've got lyrical references. We've got melodic references. The closer you listen, the more you realize like, oh, this is kind of building a response to the Bruno Mars track. Right. The lines come at different places in Bruno's chorus, but the connection between two songs was enough to get when I was your man

a nearly 20% bump in streams the weak flowers came out. However, not one of the four writers on Bruno's hit are credited on Miley's song. Intriguing. That seems fair. Maybe it's curious because music at this point is, so litigious. And if you even have like the whiff of the idea of copying, someone's like, boom, I wrote that song. Right. Thinking of like how Ed Shearren had to pay the writers of No Scrubs by TLC because of the melody of shape of you.

Not the same melody, not the same lyric. But it has a similar. flow and thus, boom, pay out. But I guess the difference between, you know, crediting writers and not crediting writers is the idea of interpolation or the vibe snatching that we've referred to many times over the past few months. Sure. But look at the melody of these two lines in Miley and Bruno. So despite having similar lyrics, the notes are different.

When Miley goes up, Bruno goes down. It reflects the difference in tone between the songs, where Miley's is sort of uplifting and is like, I'm feeling good after a breakup. I could buy myself flowers going up, right? I could buy myself flowers. Yeah. But Bruno goes down.

He's like, I should have bought you flowers. It's sad and depressing. Beyond just the melody, the reason that flowers feels like a callback to when I was your man, is because Miley's ex-husband actor Liam Hemsworth supposedly dedicated the Bruno Mars song to her one time. And it doesn't seem like a coincidence that Flowers was released on Hemsworth's birthday. But I got to say, when I was your man, what a bad song to dedicate to somebody.

Like, the Bruno song is like, I kind of screwed up. Doom from the start. And the musical styling of the two songs, reflected in the melodic movement in the extremely sentimental piano ballad versus the upbeat 4 to the floor disco vibe. They couldn't feel more different

in what they're trying to accomplish even though they're in conversation with each other. Right, and by that standard, we can play Smiley's hit in the canon of response songs. Songs that are made in answer to a pre-existing track, these songs can invoke a previous track in both lyrics and melody.

similar to what Miley is doing here with Bruno. But more often than not, the tracks aren't exactly the same. It's like more of a vibe thing. Like California Girls by Katie Perry is a response to Empire State of Mind by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z. Wait, what? What? I never thought of this. Stop.

That's not. That's not possible. No, I don't believe it. If this is true, I now understand. why Snoop Dog is on the track. Because if Alicia Keys needed an East Coast rapper, then Katie Perry needed a West Coast rapper. It makes a lot of sense in the grand scheme of things.

And Teenage Dream, the album that California Girls is on, came out the year after Empire State of Mind. So it's very possible that Katie Perry heard that and was like, you know what? I want one of those too. And then made California Girls. The idea of the response song is super fascinating. And when we come back from break, we'll look at some of my favorite response songs throughout history. 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. 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 Wednesday. on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. So the response song or alternatively the answer song has always been a part of musical history. It probably stems from the fact that songs are an extension of ourselves and the songwriter and humans have an innate need to discourse with other people. This has always been a part of the things people make going all the way back to response poems

in the 1500s where Christopher Marr. Marlowe wrote The Passionate Shepherd to His Love in 1599, and the year after, Sir Walter Rally wrote The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd. So people have always gone back and forth in this regard. For example, we talked about the evolution of hound dog by Big Mama Thornton on a previous episode. That song, specifically Big Mama Thornton's version, spawned six answer songs, including Bear Cat by Rufus Thomas.

You know what you said about me, don't you, woman? Well, you ain't nothing but a bell cat. You ain't strut and sit out of my dog. You ain't nothing but... Now, that's a response song. Well, I don't know if it holds up anymore, but... Oh, you mean the incredibly outdated gender politics? Oh, yeah, yeah, that, that, that, that too.

That too. Fair enough. Yeah, time has not been kind to Rufus Thomas. These examples kind of slip under our radar. Fun fact, this land is your land by Woody. Guthrie was written as a response to God Bless America. Ooh, a sort of like socialist response to a nationalist song. Well, it was originally called God Bless America for me, but he changed it to this land is your land to make it, I guess, less explicit of a connection.

So I thought we'd take a look at some cool examples going all the way back to the 1950s, starting with The Wild Side of Life by Hank Thompson from 1950s. I didn't know God made honky tongue angels. I might have known you'd never make a while. Also a lot of not very thinly veil misogyny. Right. Like it's kind of a rude song, like basically saying, you will regret leaving me. to go have fun, question mark?

Like, it's very, very misogynistic, where it's like, I am the man, I'm the only important person of your life. You ought to settle down. Right, exactly. Like, very weird vibes. Yeah. Nonetheless, though, it spent 15 weeks

on top of the Billboard country chart, and the songwriter Jay Miller heard it, I assume, and wrote a song for the artist Kitty Wells in response called It Wasn't God who made Honky Tonk Angels, directly mentioning the line in Hank Thompson's song. It wasn't God who made honky-tonch angel. As you said, birds are your song. Many times think they're still single.

That has caused many a good girl to go wrong. So she explodes it out and it's kind of like, you know, you're saying I had to settle. down and you're upset because I'm going out to live that wild life. But in reality, if I choose to settle down, we know how this usually turns out, like, you're the one who's going to go saw your wild oats even though you're married. Ah, good response. I love the idea of listening to a song on the radio and just being like, I can't let this slide. I have to write something. I have to respond to this. I love that intertextuality, that kind of dialogue between songs. This is,

this is really fun. What else have you got? Well, in my research, I noticed that a lot of these songs are from the 50s and 60s, I think, because of those exact reasons, Nate, where it's like people heard things on the radio. And they thought, I guess, that the only outlet that they had was to make a song in response, right? Like, calling back and forth with the already famous song. Right, because they couldn't, like, tweet about it at the time. Right. Exactly. Like, they couldn't make an Instagram call out post. And they were like, you know what? I got to make a song about it. Or there wasn't a TikTok sound that you could reinterpret in your own video. Right. So the song Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles in 1961 also spawned a couple of songs. I think for similar reasons that the Hank Thompson song did. So it has that duel between the women singing the chorus and then Ray, where the women are saying, you know, get out. you're broke, you're a scrub, we don't want you, leave.

And he spends the verses talking back to them being like really harsh and mean and telling them, you know, you're the meanest old woman that I've ever seen, which is such a read. Like, that's so rude. Oh, Ray. So hit the road, Jack spawned two response songs. The first being by Nina Simone, of all people, come on back, Jack. Okay. Every woman's entitled to one mistake.

Lord knows I've made one. But baby, if you give me half a chance, I want to make it up to you. Come on back. Jack. Hey, Jack. Come on. Come on back. Come on back.

Jack. Hey, Jack. Come on. Come on back. Oh, who's they're calling me? Jack. He Jack. Okay.

That is so cool. I love this because you don't need to know. the original song. You don't need to know this is a response song. This rocks. This kicks butt. Right. But then if you do know, there's this extra layer of enjoyment that you get from listening to it. And there's some important things going on here. We've got the exact same descending baseline, this melodic line cliche, which is definitely something one cannot copyright. It is something heard in countless songs everywhere. So great on her to use it. And then in the call and response thing, she's playing both voices. She's modulated. the tone of her voice to play Jack and herself. It's theater in a way. Yeah, definitely.

And demonstrates that there's a lot of artistic merit in a response song. It's not necessarily a cheap, let me grab your hook, give it a new spin so I can get some extra plays. There's a lot of creativity here. But like I said before, come on back, Jack wasn't the only response song that hit the road Jack created. The Chantels released, Well, I Told You, the same year. Same line. The same descending bass line. Direct references to hit the road jack.

And even reverses the male and female voices in the original, where it was the women singing the chorus saying, hit the road, jack, leave. And then Ray Charles coming in and giving the gravely male perspective. Here it's the opposite, where the women are saying, well, I'm sorry, come on back. And the man going, why'd you go and break my heart? It's a more emotional perspective, I think, more multifaceted.

You know, as much as these songs put a spin on the original with new theatrical interpretations, it makes me think of a song from around the same era, which feels like for sure a obvious commercial copycat, an actual self copy, which is Chubby Checker with The Twist, which he follows up with The Twist Again. Let's Twist again. There's not enough sequels and pop music. I think that maybe that's the last thing. is not a response song. That is a different category, Charles. That is a completely different category.

What do you call it? The sequel song, the follow-up song. The twist extended universe song. The Let's Do It Again. I think the twist extended universe is really, that's a good label. Because there's so many different twist songs. I did the deep dive with my friends a few months ago. There's like a twist for every single location. Twist in Tescaloosa, Twist in Wichita, Checker Hive, rise up. Checker Hive, you know who you are. Okay, so not a response song,

this is a sequel song, it's its own thing. Sorry from the interruption. All right, what else you got for us? Yes, bringing it into the 80s, the response song is something you find a lot in hip-hop. One of the most famous examples of the response song phenomenon is what's come to be known as the Roxanne Wars, where in 1984, the group UTFO releases the track,

Roxanne Roxanne, Roxanne Wars. This is fun. The story of the song is like some dudes trying to hit on a girl. She blows each of them off. And as a result, they hurl insults at her and her family. It's almost like misogyny as part of the fabric of popular music. Right, you would think so.

Oh, could this be? Take on that girl they call Roxanne. She's all stuck up. Why do you say fat? Because you wouldn't give a guy like me. It's low. Right, low blow, calling her stuck up. Anyway, the song gets big.

The titular Roxanne hears it, Roxanne Chante. And in response, links up with producer Marley Marl to create Roxanne's revenge. My name is Roxanne. I said I met these two guys. And you know, it's she. too. Let me tell you and explain them all to you. I met this dude with the name of a hat. I didn't even walk away. I'm into it. I mean, any song that is Blank's revenge, like, I'm here for it. And you know what's gonna hit. I feel like this song delivers. Like, it doesn't pull any punches. I really like that this reminds us that the history of rap battles is connected to a bunch of teenagers getting a little fight and singing about it on a mic, which I think is a great way of working your stuff out. Yeah, and in Roxanne's revenge, she references Roxanne and Roxanne directly. She has, I said I met these three guys, proceeds to discuss her side of the story, directly references that

dude Kangle where he's like, he wore a hat. Like, you know, like it's funny. And a big part of rap, like you said, Charlie, the sort of rap battle is the idea of the disc track where it's like, you insulted me, I'll insult you back type deal, like Jay Z and Nas, like Ether vibes. But answer songs can be disc tracks in a sort of roundabout way, like Roxanne or even the Kitty Welles example. Generally, it's a response to the themes and messages of the original track, but anybody can put one out, and when you're directly called out, it's very fair to respond back. Here, though, UTFO responded to the response songs and got someone to pretend to be the real Roxanne on their track, the real Roxanne. Yo, Kang Go!

Yeah, what's up, girl? I'm the real Roxanne and I rock your world But you're all stuck up Well you say that Because I wouldn't give guys like you no rap I was walking down the street in the afternoon I gave you a smile so you assumed That if you said hello

I wouldn't be flatted But I kept walking and your ego was shattered I'm Roxanne At this point Shit went back and forth for a little bit And then everyone in their mom got involved We had random ass people Doing Roxanne's siblings

parents, friends. Someone was Lil Roxanne, Roxanne's baby, Roxanne's doctor, several claiming to be Roxanne's man. And there was even a dance craze called Do the Roxanne

that someone tried to start capitalizing on the craze. Maybe even a Do the Roxanne again. Sorry, Chebby-checker. Do the Roxanne Tuscaloosa. Wild stuff. I mean, the Roxanne wars. I'm glad we all survived them,

honestly. because it sounds like this was a real, yeah, take no prisoners affair. Nobody was safe. Yeah. Nobody knows the exact amount of Roxanne responses, but there could be up to 100 out there to Roxanne, Roxanne, Roxanne. Like, everybody in their moms was commenting on the Roxanne UTFO beef. It is regarded these days, I think, as the first hip-hop beef, generally. So response songs, you know, can take the form of discracks, people.

kind of responding to one another on the street, you know, sort of like the adolescent vibe. It also is happening in the studios in the 80s as well. Let me play you this, and I think you guys can tell me what this is in response to. This is obviously a response to Jackson Vives ABC from 1970s. This is a late reply. Yes, this is Candy Girl by New Edition from 1983.

And exactly that, Charlie. It is a response song to Jackson Vives ABC. Definitely seems to be referencing ABC. But, Rihanna, I wonder if this is the same kind of response song that we've been listening to so far, because this feels a little different in that they're not, like, directly referencing the lyrics of ABC and responding to them in some witty, sarcastic or combats. of way. This seems more like an interpolation or an homage or I don't know what the word is, but some other kind of subgenre. I think it's like a response song more in theory than in practice

because new edition was formed as a general response to the Jackson 5, the 80s answer to the Jackson 5. And it's kind of an updated version of ABC. It has an extremely similar melody, kind of like flowers where like instead of going up, like ABC, one, two, three, it goes up and then down, where it's like, candy, girl, you are my world, like up and down instead of just up. That one's close. They even have like a sort of similar structure where they're both broken up by a pseudo-talking break in the middle. Kind of like a very blatant ripoff in my eyes. I totally agree, Rihanna.

Rip off is a maybe more critical way to describe it. loving homage, perhaps, is another. Either way, I can see how this is a response song, but I do think it has, it's a different kind of response song than flowers, because this is more playing with the material in a way that the audience is familiar with and recreates the song, but doesn't necessarily like pit itself against the original in some way. Fair. And I have one more example that kind of is or is not a response song, depending on how you look at it. But we have to go all the way to the 2010s. In the time between, you know, Candy Girl and 2010, there were a lot of response songs, obviously, but they were on the more obscure side. There's like an REM response song in there. Liz Fares' album Exile in Guyville is allegedly a song-by-song response to exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones.

But in the popular canon in 2014, we have Anaconda by Nikki Minaj. Of course. Yes. My anaconda don't My anaconda don't My anaconda don't want none Unless you got buns, hun Of course, we can all recognize the sample

The iconic baseline in Sir Mixalots Baby Got Back She's just so I like big Nate earlier you said that perhaps Misogyny is just built into the entire history of the response song but I really don't understand what that could be referencing here.

Could you just break it down for me line by line, like lyric by lyric? No, no, Charlie, I said misogyny is an inseparable part of the fabric of the popular music industry. Okay, but this song gets a pass? Not just the response song. So you're saying it's a bigger conspiracy. I'm saying this goes right to the top. Or the bottom? No, boo.

No, I mean, that's fitting. because this song, of course, is an ode to the butt, right? The ode to the rum. Now, in Anaconda, Nikki Minajah's song, it primarily relies on the sample of Sir Mixalot to draw a comparison. And you could say even that Nikki Minajah's song is from the reverse perspective of Baby Got Back,

objectifying the men for the same things that Sir Mixalot was objectifying women for. Flipping the gaze. Exactly. Very flowers of it all. And here's smooth skin. You say you want to get in my bins. Well, use me, use me, because you ain't that average groupie.

I seen her dancing. To hell with romance. And here's Nikki. I feel like one of the ways that this is a response song is demonstrating her prowess as one of the best rappers alive. being like, yeah, the last one, the original, it's okay. It's got a flow, but watch me go. It's showing up Sir Mix a lot, definitely. Yeah. Even by like using his voice and incorporating it into the song, I think that's like another

meta-textual layer to the response song that by having the sample of the original, it has that extra connection where it's like you might not notice that this song is pulling the same themes, I guess, but I'm going to shove it in your face, sort of. Right. It's not as implicit as Miley's response song, of course, but rather flipping the explicit sample to draw the same reverse perspective. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Yeah. I can see how that works, where it's like sometimes maybe you actually need the sample or an interpolation in order to properly say what you got to say. Right. Like it might be like a little bit like, I guess, tinfoil hat-y for me to be like, no, Anaconda is responding to Baby Got Back.

But I think it's there, you know? I think like any song that uses a sample with similar themes kind of draws that response song connection, whether they intend to do so or not. And this song is about a similar kind of objectifying that the original also has. Listening to flowers with y'all and then hearing this history of the response song makes me think that on one hand, this is something you can do to help juice up your song a little bit and like give yourself. maybe a slightly better chance of getting a hit because you're kind of building in a little bit of drama to the song. You're kind of playing off people's love of another song or hate of another song that they might have already. But it's also kind of a risky move, I think, because if you don't pull this off, if you make a reference to original song that's perceived as corny or trying to

kind of ride the coattails of the original song or disparage the original song in some way, then maybe you're going to lose your audience. So it strikes me on one hand, this can be very effective, but it's also something of a gamble. And when we're listening to people like Nikki and Miley, do this and pull it off, we're really hearing something that could have gone awry, but in their cases turned in to these massive hits.

That was a good closer. That's why they call me Kira Sedgwick. As we've demonstrated over time, there's so many response songs that are out there. I know my personal favorite, Boys, Boys, Boys by Lady Gaga, response to girls, girls, girls by Motley Crew. But it's not just about me.

We want to know your favorite. So hit us up at Switched on Pop on Twitter and Instagram and tell us what response song has you responding to that in your head. Find more episodes of Switched on Pop anywhere you get podcasts, our website Switchedonpop.com. Next week, I am talking to journalist Justin Tinsley and producers, Mike and Keys, about the legacy of Nipsey Hustle's album, Victory Lap, five years after its release.

We're listening to some amazing music, talk about an incredible figure in the 21st century musical landscape. It's going to be a great listen. Looking forward to it. This episode switched on pop, though, was produced by Rihanna Cruz, engineered by Chris Shirtleff, edited by Art Chung, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, community management by Abby Barr, our executive producers of Hanna Rosen and Ashokurwa. Remember with the Box Media Podcast Network

and a production of Vulture. We're going to see you again next Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Attention, Spotify. Has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Carolina Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive.

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