Switched on Pop - Harry Styles, Eschatology and Teen Girl Fandom

Episode Date: April 20, 2017

One Direction wunderkind Harry Styles has just released his first ever single, "Sign of the Times," and it's a doozy. Strap in for a discussion of the apocalypse, late Beatles, teen wisdom, and the amen cadence—among other demons exorcised in this most peculiar pop tune.  Featuring: •Beethoven 5th Symphony - Scherzo •Harry Styles - Sign of the Times •Prince - Sign o' the Times •David Bowie - Space Oddity •Zayn Malik - Pillowtalk •Steve Aoki + Louis Tomlinson - Just Hold On •John Lennon - #9 Dream •George Harrison - All Things Must Pass •The Beatles - The End •British Pathe Broadcast •Meg Says YouTube Channel •Megan Elizabeth YouTube Channel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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of the pre-mise on shopify.combe records Welcome to Switch on Pop I am musicologist Nate Sloan and I am songwriter Charlie Harding

Charles, it's just you and me today which is good because we have a very delicate subject to dive into. Yeah, we've needed a date.

It's been a while. I've lit some candles here. I've got our essential oils. We love bubble bath mixture. Okay, so what are we going to do today? So the past few weeks have not been the most rewarding journeys I've ever had through the Billboard Hot 100. I'm just going to be perfectly transparent off the bat here.

There's not much that has really lit a fire for me. So it sounds like we have nothing. nothing to cover, so maybe we should just take a vacation? Just have 30 minutes of dead air. Well, luckily, turn your eyes to the horizon. There is a savior in sight. Really?

Yeah, someone is swooping in to rescue us from our top 100 on We here. And it's someone very unlikely as their silhouette approaches. We see long,

lock, stringy, stringy hair, tight, tight jeans, a torn t-shirt. Wait a minute, hold on. So wait, wait, so you're saying like John Bon Jovi is having a return? Charlie, what if I told you that one Harry Stiles of a little music group known as One Direction has released one of my favorite songs on the pop charts right now? What would you say to that? I'd be very curious.

I have heard this song and I have some feelings about it, but I'm going to hold them close to my chest. All right, well, let me satisfy your curiosity by laying all my cards on the table by contrast. Okay. Yes, Harry Stiles. So we've covered One Direction before. That's right. Way back when. Actually, this is appropriate because I think that that was, I don't know, in our first dozen episodes or so. And I remember it was the first time that I really asked you to convince me of something I was skeptical of. I had an uninformed opinion that One Direction were a band just for young screaming children. And little did I know that they had some really extraordinary songwriting. So I feel like we can rehash this, me sitting here, Kermudgeony, and maybe you'll be able to pull me over to your side of it.

We'll see what happens. I make no guarantees. Yeah, my Kermudgeoning qualities are quite strong. Harry Stiles of the band One Direction, which is a group of young British men. formed on the British reality television show, the X Factor. X Factor. And then going on to massive global pop success. Yeah.

Until recently, the first member of this five-sum drops from the group that Zane Malick. Yeah. We covered his song a few weeks ago. Yeah, exactly. And that was back in 2015. And since then, there have been a steady drip of solo releases from the other members. of one direction, Nile Horan, and Lewis Tomlinson. And now Harry Stiles, who I think, again, I'm not an expert here,

but I think in some ways it's one of the most beloved members of this group. Right. So in certain circles, this is a big deal, the release of Harry Stiles' first solo record, Sign of the Times. And if you need any evidence of that, you can just type in Harry Stiles, Sign of the Times, into YouTube, and you will instantly pull up tens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of reaction videos, people, young people, listening to this song for the first time. Some of these videos consist of people reacting, responding to the song. Others of these videos just consist of people just crying, just crying, just crying for the entire song, just sobbing as they listen to the same.

song for the first time. For the past hour, I changed, I was too uncomfortable in the other shirt. Like, I am literally shaking. I have never felt like this before. I actually feel like I could throw up right now. I have this song. My heart is beating out of my chest. It's kind of wonderful and bizarre and fascinating all at once, but we'll come back to the culture around the release of this song in the second. and half of the episode. I feel like we're just talking about Harry's style celebrity. I want to get into the music.

I think we should probably stop keeping people waiting and just listen to it, right? Okay, yeah, let's get past his gorgeous flowing locks, his enticing eyes. One of them so just perfectly kind of off-kilter from the other ones. His impeccable bone structure. Sorry, what would you say? Oh yeah, music. Okay, let's drop the needle. Okay, Charles, first impressions here listening to Sign of the Times.

I remember my very first impression. First impression, the first time I heard this song a long time ago. yesterday. The first thing I heard was this chord progression. Simple, piano, not much going on. I was concerned that he was going to go for

the very common 1-6, 4, 5 chord progression, which is persistent throughout all of sort of 50s, 60s music. And I was like, too old school, too wonky. But he surprised me. He didn't do that. He made it a little different.

Yeah. So that was the first thing. I thought he going to do something expected. He kind of subverted my expectations. Right. Instead, he does something even more minimal than that classic four chord progression. He just drops one of the chords. Right. One

tonic chord, and then to the six minor chord, D minor in this case. We're in the key of F. So we go from F to D minor. And then just as you said, where you might expect him to drop down to the two or the four, he instead goes straight to

the five, C major, which inevitably takes us back to F major. And this chord progression, Charlie, F major, D minor, C major, F major, D minor, C major, F major, D minor, C major, F major, D minor, C major. It goes on and on and on. And on. Yeah, it's kind of remarkable in just the fealty that Harry Stiles and his co-writer Jeff Basker have to this chord progression because it is just relentless, just a gear turning into infinity, F major, D minor, C major. What do you make of this repetitive chord progression here? It's a sign of the times?

I don't know. Sure, no, no, no, no. I sense some facetiousness in your voice. And yet, let's talk about the title of this song for a second. And let's touch on maybe what we see as the lyrical meaning here. So sign of the times, what does that make you think of? People use this saying when an individual moment, usually a bad one, is representative of a larger, greater badness. That's typically the sign of the time statement that I'm used to hearing.

So let me throw out two other contexts for this title, Sign of the Times. The first, and this is the first one that came to my mind, is the Prince song, Sign of the Times. Yes. Or sign O the Times, O apostrophe, the Times, I should say. That was actually released 30 years ago, so maybe also given the recent passing of this brilliant artist, there is some connection there, but hard to say. I think it may be coincidental. That's a bold move to make that connection. You're saying I just made a bold move?

No, no, no. I'm saying it's a bold move on behalf of a young star stepping out of a boy. to make a connection to the 30th anniversary of an iconic album by one of the most iconic performers of all time. It is bold, but yet I'm not suggesting that he is necessarily doing so, especially because the music here doesn't really sound. It's not in Prince's sound world, especially. So let's go to another context for Sign of the Times.

This is actually drawn from the New Testament, from the Gospel of Matthew 16 to be dash three. When it is evening, you say, it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. Ooh, are you reading scripture to me now? Getting really romantic. I am.

I've never read scripture to anyone, but I'm reading it to you, Charles. Yeah. So all of the sudden, now we have a different context for a sign of the time. the times. In this context of the New Testament, we have an eschatological context. Are you hip to eschatology, Charles? I have no idea what you're talking about. E-S-C-H-H-A-T-O-L-O-G-Y. Eschatology. Write it down. You will be quizzed. Is the study of theology specifically concerned with the end of the world? Oh, wow, that's a real downer.

Well, Charlie, it depends on how well you're prepared for the rapture. Okay. I'm very confident of what's going to happen to me. Maybe you need to make amends, make peace. As Harry Stiles says, you can't bribe the door on your way to the sky, Charles. Well, let's move away from the biblical context here, and let's move to the eschatology of our Harry Stiles' sign of the times. Sure.

Let's read this song in this end of the... the world apocalyptic rapturous light yeah what do we make of the lyrics here let's just start at the top just stop your crying it's the sign of the times welcome to the final show hope you're wearing your best clothes uh it makes me think of the in memoriam section of the grammies it's really sad wow you're just saying awful things and then laughing like cackling i should say i don't know what is wrong with you today a dark mood. I went to a really dark comedy show last night. I don't know. What is going on in Los Angeles? Okay. Well, my fatalistic friend, we can go to some other lines that also seem to have this

eschatological vibe. Sure. We never learn. We've been here before. Why are we always stuck in running from the bullets, the bullets? I don't know exactly what to make of this, but it does sound very ominous. It sounds like something inexorable is coming, right? Well, okay, so this is where I think I'm a little more critical of this tune because, yeah, I get it. It's apocalyptic, but it's also contradictory. The song is called Sign of the Times, like this specific moment, this period of time. And yet to have a sign of the times, you have to have a specific moment that is representative of a larger goings-on. And yet, you, you know, this. Yet this song is so non-specific.

It just feels like the lyrics are broad apocalyptic sadness. I find that to be a trenchant criticism, Charlie. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I don't. The surprise of my voice may suggest the begrudgingness with which I say that. But I don't disagree. There is a vagueness lurking at the edges of this song that is distressing if we think about it too hard. I will pull you over to the dark side.

Nevertheless, I think there's a sort of blurry. universality here that the songwriters are striving for. Sure. Yeah, of course. This idea that we got to get away from here. This is repeated over and over again this idea. We got to get away from here. It's a sign of the times. We got to get away from here. There's a sense of somewhere between panic and resignation that I get from this song that I find really interesting. And especially in these trying times in which we live in. I don't know that he needs to point specifically to what these signs are. We can locate them ourselves and whatever we're seeing as the sign of the end times. Do you know what I mean? So we've

established that there's an apocalyptic message, a sign of the times that things are not going well, and that's what we're trying to connect to. So I guess I would expect to hear that in the music. I think we do, but I think if you follow my reading, this is kind of how it goes. Okay. So in terms of the eschatology, and yes, I am going to try and say that word. as many times as possible over the course of this episode. Yes, okay. I'm going to refer to you as Professor Sloan throughout the episode as well.

So in terms of the eschatology of this song, there's definitely the sense that the end times are out there and they're coming, but for the majority of the song, it feels like we're in that moment right before, that pre-rapture moment. In fact, we're in this very cyclical world. And as Stiles says, we're stuck. Stuck and running at the same time

actually kind of captures the harmonic and melodic world of this song for about the first four minutes of it. Because as we've said, it's the same chord progression that repeats over and over again. We have two main melodies that kind of go back and forth. What are those? We have the first melody that goes, da da da da da da da da da da da da.

Nice little slide. It's pretty fun to sing, especially that little glissondo at the end. You know, that little slide over two semitones? Dropping down. Right, followed by another little slide. And this slide throws in a little hint of the blue notes. Just stop you crying.

It's a sign of the times. Welcome to the final show. I hope you're in your best clue. Where he's like almost becoming like a torch singer for a second there. All of a sudden it sounds very worldly when he hits that blue note, that E flat that he just hints at, kind of almost like a half tone in between the E and the D. Yeah. So that's one melody.

And then the other melody we get is the falsetto melody. And that one goes, That's like the sound of music. One Direction, as we've said, are our modern-day castradi. They always go high. So we have just these alternating between these two melodies over the same set of chords. Really the only changes we get in the first four minutes of this song. And yes, I said the first four minutes of this song.

Wait, hold on. Hold up. It's a pop song. It's over three minutes. It's way over it. So we're just talking about the first four minutes, and then there's another minute and a half after that. Ooh. Yeah.

So this is a beast of a song right here. Yeah. But somewhat surprisingly, for four minutes, there's almost no variation from this pattern. The only thing that changes is the instrumentation. And that does change pretty epically. This is where the song wins me over more. I really dig a lot of this stuff happening in the back. background. Out of nowhere, we've just had voice and piano, very sparse.

Yeah. This ascending slide guitar, drums enter, multiple electric guitars, synthesized strings. It's all of a sudden it's this really rich, thick rock texture. I have to pause and say that before the texture even happens, my favorite moment of the song occurs. Right as all of these new sounds are coming in, there's this, do you know what I'm talking about I know exactly what you're talking about the ascending slide guitar glisando

a lot of people have been making Bowie references and it's so similar to space oddity where you similarly start with a song which is kind of sparse not a lot going on and then all of a sudden there's this kind of experience before everything lands and explodes and is phenomenal Yeah, and as in Bowie track, this is a pretty wonderful moment, I think.

You have to wait for it. You have to wait over a minute just to get a drum or a guitar in the song. Yeah. But when you do, it really pays off. Wait, wait, hold on, hold on, a drum or a guitar. Isn't this song called Sign of the Times? Like, where are the giant bass synths? It's funny that the song is about the Sign of the Times,

and yet it sounds like a Bowie track. Oh, you're saying it doesn't sound very contemporary at all. Not really. No. I was just kind of realizing it's, you know, it's all guitar and bass and drums focus, all instruments you might expect from a 70s rock anthem, but not something you're hearing a lot on popular music today. That's true.

Let's dig into that in the second half. I have a hypothesis about that. All right. Keep me waiting. All right. What else you got, though? Okay, so we keep going. The minutes roll by.

Yeah. At this point, you could rip Van Winkle your way through the song and just fall asleep for three minutes and wake up and be like, oh, same thing. Still happening. this cycle of chords, these two different melodies going back and forth. And if you just listen

to the first four minutes of this song, you could make a pretty strong case that it's maybe a little boring, honestly. Yeah. Maybe a little repetitive, maybe kind of missing something. Sure.

I will say it does get stuck in your head. It's very successful in this song. It is. You were singing those two melodies for the rest of the day after you listen to four minutes of it. Do do, do, do, do, do, do. But that's not.

not what happens because there is a change. And now I just actually want to focus on the last minute and a half of this song. So around the four minute mark, something remarkable happens. What's that? First of all, the melody changes. Oh, yeah, it does. When he says, we don't talk enough, we should open up. We hear a new melody.

Again, we've only heard these two melodies. And now all of a sudden, we hear a new melody. That sounds like this. but that's not all. The biggest surprise is still coming, right? So we've said that... But wait, there's more. We've said that this chord progression is just three chords cycling ad infinitum.

Right. F major, D minor, C major, and then back up to F major. But this time, something unprecedented happens. F major, D minor, C major, B flat major. Ooh, the chord that he had dropped out that I had expected at the very beginning. he brings it back at the end. Yes, the four chord, the subdominant B flat, and the chords descend down to this,

and we have this incredible build. Everything just crescendos back up to the F major. And all of the sudden, when I heard this the first time, I was like, whoa, okay, you know what, I'm sold. Harry Stiles, you win. This is a great song. Because all of a sudden, with this little change, he has kind of earned this moment of apotheosis and catharsis.

And suddenly, I think in the rear view mirror, the whole song makes sense, this endless grinding, cyclical core progression and kind of just exchanging back and forth these two melodies. This is them being running and stuck at the same time. Yeah. And then all of the sudden, it's like, I think the rapture is starting.

Like when we hit that B flat. Right. So the core of the sudden, chords are all just descending. They're going down and down and down and down. Then there's this rising line that brings you back up to the home key, and then you go down and down and down again. Right, because then the core progression cycles

back down to that B-flat and then back up. So now we have this new progression, F-major, D-minor, C-major, B-flat, and his vocals are getting more impassioned. There's more and more instruments appearing here. The texture is just getting thicker and

thicker, mighty drum fills firing on all cylinders. It's a really cool sort of George Harrison-like guitar riffs happening in the background. And Charles. So check this out. So B-flat, right? Yeah. We were kind of waiting. You were waiting for that chord from the very beginning of this song.

I was. As I said, I expected that chord to be the third chord they play. Just because the chord progression is so common, the pattern of the F down to the D minor is like, oh, B-flat's the next thing. It's obvious. So here it is finally. Here it is finally. But what's crazy about this is that not only does it take us four minutes to get this B-flat subdominant four chord. Check out what's been happening in the melody.

Let's go back to the very beginning. Our first melody, I'm just going to break this down in notes for a second. So we're in the key of F-major. Okay. F-major has seven notes. F, G-A, B-flat, C, D-D-E. Yeah. So the first melody covers four notes.

Just stop you crying. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. F, F, F, F, F, G, E, D. Okay? Yeah. And then it goes a little further down. It hits C. When we got to get away from here, it goes E, D, C.

Okay. So now we've covered five notes. Okay. Collectively, we've covered F, G, E, D, and C. Yeah. So that just leaves three more notes in this song. No, only two more notes. A and B flat.

Yes. We get the A in the other melody, the high falsetto melody. The one that goes, da, da, da, da, da. because that melody goes, C-A-C-A-G-G-A-A-G-G-A. So he's kind of dancing around and there is a note that he's not hitting. Right.

I see where you're taking me. He uses all the notes of F-major in these melodies. Right. Except B-flat. He uses six of the seven notes. Even when we get to this four-minute mark. Yeah. And finally we get that B-flat chord.

We still don't get a B-flat in the melody. Still don't get a B-L-Lag in the melody. Okay. When he says, we don't talk enough, he's going, AG DC. Okay. It's not until they go into the next section where he repeats the line, stop your crying, and then he goes, we gotta get away, and his voice goes up and up,

and it's getting more and more intense, and he almost shouts, we got to get away, and at that moment he finally hits the B-flat that he's been avoiding this entire song. The melody has been, as you said, dancing around. And what's the experience of that? I think at this moment the song like reaches some form of completion. Some kind of like holisticness. Like we've finally gotten the B flat in the chord progression and now we've gotten the B flat in the melody. And it's like everything has come together.

Ascendance? Yeah, ascension, sure. Alia, Kaliuga, whatever it is for you. This is that moment. This is like the eschatological moment of the song. Okay, so Professor Sloan, you're saying... It's interesting because I don't know if it's positive or negative, because he's still saying we've got to get away,

even though it sounds very triumphant. It's like, I think, again, I said there's like a mix of panic and resignation here. Right. I almost hear that resignation, even though it is very, like, celebratory. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, what's also interesting about this is that B-flat that they've been saving Yeah. Has a very specific function within Western tonal harmony

where it's known as the plagal cadence when you move from B flat to F, when you move from subdominant to tonic. The plagal cadence. It's called the plagal cadence, but it's also called, do you know the other name for that, Charles? Reach way back to sophomore year of college

and your music theory course. Is it the church cadence? Amen. Wow. Wow. Charles, A-plus, plus gold star. you nailed it, the church cadence, the Amen cadence. Because it's the final sung prayer in Christian liturgy of Amen.

You always do that B-flat-F subdominant tonic cadence cadence. Okay, so the word ascension is totally appropriate because if this song is some apocalyptic prophecy and the rapture is happening, we're building up with this sense of tension and angst, and there's something lost and something missing throughout this lost note. And when we hit it, it's the note, which is that amen chord. He's singing amen at the very end of the song, ascending up into the heavens through the rapture. Yeah, I couldn't have said it better myself, Charles.

That's why you quoted the scripture earlier, isn't it? It all comes full circle. Speaking of which, let's step away. Let's digest everything that has just happened. I know it's a lot. And when we come back, let's talk about some of the influences that you're hearing in this piece. And let's talk about some of the reception of it. I promise no more eschatology.

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and you drew, I think, a very compelling comparison to the work of David Bowie here. Yeah. Which I think is totally valid. But I think I would like to focus on some other sonic animals. I hear here. What are you hearing? And that would be to the work of the late Beatles, the solo Beatles. Ooh, the solo Beatles. Yeah, particularly John Lennon and George Harrison's post-Beatles careers. I mean, this seems fitting because like the Beatles, One Direction is now starting to release solo material trying to

define themselves. So for me, it's interesting that maybe Harry Styles is like, oh, I'm going to go to the Beatles and figure out how to do the solo thing. Yeah. Especially because you might argue that he needs to differentiate himself from the other one direction soloist out there. Sure. Which I think going back to your earlier point is maybe why he's doing this somewhat retro nostalgic sonic landscape here. Because if we look at his former bandmate Zane's song, Pillow Talk, here we have a very contemporary hyper rhythmic R&B track. Ditto, if we turn to Louis Tomlin. instance collaboration with Steve Aoki, just hold on.

Both steeped in the current electronic music trend of our time. So perhaps Harry Stiles is thinking, okay, I need to differentiate myself. I need to stand out from my erstwhile colleagues here. And in doing so, references songs like John Lennon's number nine dream. Also present is that kind of ascending, slide guitar that we heard in Sign of the Times and Bowie Space Oddity. And then when we get into the moments in Sign of the Times, when we have these really thick instrumental textures

with lots of guitars playing simultaneously, it seems reminiscent of tracks like George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. I think there's a lot of references to classic British rock in this song, Sign of the Times. But for me, the most sort of trenchant ones are those Beatles reference because they seem just like so in line with what he's going through at this moment releasing this song. I can even hear a little bit of the B side of Abbey Road where you have basically the beginning of the Beatles solo directions and a long buildup across songs about the end. So there's a bit of those sounds of the pianos. Oh, interesting.

The electric guitars, the strings, yeah, all of that. Oh, that's cool. I like that. So there might be another Beatles intersection, too, in that both One Direction and the Beatles, they might not have much in common, but they do have one thing in common, Charlie. Do you know what that might be? What might be the first thing you think of is those two bands having in common? British boy bands?

Yes. Take that one step further. They didn't both perform on the Ed Sullivan show. No, they did not. The boy band. Go with the boy bands. Think of the fans. Think of the... Beetlemania. Beetlemania. One Direction. One Domania.

One Domania. That's like a super catchy. Ooh. Ooh, the One Domania fan club. We should start that. New podcast. I think, right. I think one of the first things we think of when we think of both of these bands is the figure of the screaming teenage girl. That's right. Yeah. Go on. Scream. They're here. George John Paul and Ringo. The Monets of Murphy's eyes up. Was it any wonder the seagulls on the nearby reservoir flew off in hysterics? And again, when you think of Beatlemania, that's what you think of,

and when you type in Sign of the Times into YouTube, you get a lot of screaming, crying, fainting teenage girls. Fainting in front of the YouTube camera, that's kind of funny. Okay, I made that one up, but I'm sure it's out there. I don't doubt that it exists. But as we did with the first time, we talked about One Direction on this show, I think this gives us an opportunity to take teenage fandom seriously. Because it is so diminished and made fun of and mocked in our culture, right?

These teen girls going crazy for Harry Stiles and Justin Bieber and Chris Brown and other young handsome male phenoms. I mean, it's something we don't take seriously. We just, you know, we don't take that. that culture seriously and it's across other genres, you know, it's, it goes into literature for teenage girls, movies, fashion. It all seems very frivolous and silly to us, right? I don't want to say right, because I think that makes me a bad person, but I do think that that is a cultural trope. It is a cultural trope. Okay, so fair enough. And you, don't worry,

you are a bad person, Charlie. You are not, you are not ascending. We've established that. You are not ascending. I'm getting up there, but you're, you're staying down here. So I'd like to suggest that it might be a service to us to take seriously what teenage girls are listening to and what they love. It's interesting. You watch some of these videos, and it might surprise you the reasons that people seem to love Harry Stiles. Oh, I hear more. I mean, he's so wonderful.

And I mean this in the best way. Like, he has charmed the world just by being himself. Like, he doesn't have to do anything special. He doesn't have to put anything on. Just being him is enough. tearing up. I'm so ready. How many minutes have we got? Okay, two minutes. My hand is actually just being him is enough. I don't know, there's something beautiful about that to me. This is a very pure love that these fans feel for one direction. And it's one rooted, despite all the

the branding and corporatization of boy bands and girl groups like this, I think there is a beautiful authenticity in the relationship between these fans and their superstar imagined paramours. Oh yeah, you know, you were talking about how teenage girl fandom is not taken seriously, and it takes me back to the Spin Magazine piece that I read. The title of this post is Harry Styles, sign of the times, is pompous, overblown, and too long, and his fans are going to love it. And what does that title infer about his fans? I think that there is this, really nasty gendered criticism and youth criticism happening in this piece, which frankly, it just sort of makes me discuss that I went along with it for a moment. Because when I listen to this,

clearly this person is having a very powerful relationship to the singer, and especially with the message of getting to simply be yourself as a young person, that's really powerful. Yeah, Charles, I love that you said that. And we ignore the taste of teenage girls at our own peril. Because just as the Beatles were, their success was really predicted by their teen girl fans. And in some ways, I should say, fostered because these were the people who,

when the Beatles were getting their start at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, were actually spreading the word about the band, creating fan clubs, buying their albums. People didn't really, and by people, I mean, like, mainstream journalists, like, didn't really take the Beatles seriously at first. they also thought that there was just a teen fad,

beetle mania, the mop-haired androgynous crushes of pre-pubescent girls. Weren't they surprised then when the Beatles turned out to be one of the most dominant forces in music of the 20th century? Now, am I saying that one direction in Harry Stiles? Are John Lennon? I don't know. The Beatles are John Lennon? I don't mean to suggest that. Yeah.

But I do think it's a mistake to push the taste and opinions of teen girls to the side just because they are trivial and not based in hard fact, but just sort of raw emotion or something. As you said, that seems to be a very troubling and very gendered and agist kind of view. Definitely. And aren't we even somewhat complicit even to laugh along that, oh, they could never be the Beatles and maybe we? where here we are becoming set in our ways. I think we shouldn't sit here and judge the history of music until maybe a little bit later. I think you're absolutely right. And let's make a pack.

The next time we discuss any of the members of One Direction, it will not be you and I, but two teenage girls here instead. That's a great idea. I'd like to do that. Okay. Great. Then we said, we're virtual handshake over the phone? Virtual handshake.

All right. Done and done. Charlie, thank you so much for diving deep into Harry Style's sign of the times with me. I'm going to go now and listen to this F major, D minor, C major, F minor, D minor, C major, C major, core progression, and just wait for that B-flat release when I can float up into the celestial happens once again. And I'm going to continue to break down my own obnoxious early teenage years, predisposed expectations of music and taste and get out of those ideas. of connections between good and bad and celebrity

and what is serious based on youth sentimentality. I feel like I need to go do a little bit of gratitude journaling and in reflection. Amen. Plague cadence. All right, that's a beautiful ending. Switched on Pop is produced by me, Nate Sloan. And me, Charlie Harding, our editor, is the wonderful Bill Lance.

Our design is done by Luke Harris, and we are a proud member of the Panoplaid Network. You can find more of our episodes on whatever device you use to listen to podcasts. Check us out at our website, www.switchedonpop.com, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook that's at Switched on Pop. We'd love to hear what you think of young Harry's debut single. Yeah, we have to say that we actually covered this song because the amount of requests on Twitter was overwhelming,

and we're very thankful for all of the noise. So if you drop us a lot on Twitter, it's very likely that song might end up on the show. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode. Until then, thanks for listening. For listening.