Switched on Pop - Hear the Year: The music we loved in 2023

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Sign up for the Switched On Pop Newsletter When you make a weekly podcast about pop music, there’s some things that, naturally, slip through the cracks. On this episode of Switched On Pop, our hosts – alongside our editor, Jolie Myers, our engineer, Brandon McFarland, and our producer, Reanna Cruz – try to course correct that by discussing our team’s (and a listener’s) favorite picks of 2023. Whether it’s something we got to in the later months or something we felt still deserved its flowers, this episode hops around genres to show the musical versatility of the Switched On Pop team. We even got some of our selections, specifically Laufey and Chappell Roan, on the show to talk about the music that made our year. Who knows: maybe you’ll find the song to top your personal best-of list! Songs Discussed: Troye Sivan ft. Guitarricadelafuente - In My Room Troye Sivan - Rush Troye Sivan - One Of Your Girls Daft Punk ft. Julian Casablancas - Instant Crush Victoria Monet - On My Mama Chalie Boi - I Look Good Victoria Monét ft. Earth, Wind & Fire + Hazel Monét - Hollywood Laufey - Bewitched Laufey - Questions For The Universe Laufey - Dreamer Laufey - From The Start Laufey - Misty Stray Kids - S-Class Sampha - Spirit 2.0 Little Dragon - Twice James Blake - There’s A Limit To Your Love Chappell Roan - Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl Chappell Roan - Casual Chappell Roan - Femininomenon Village People - Y.M.C.A. Chappell Roan - HOT TO GO! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Switch on Pop I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And joining us... I'm Jolie Myers. I edit this show. I'm Brandon McFarland and I engineer Switched on Pop.

And I'm producer, Rihanna Cruz. Avengers, Unite. Assemble. Assembly, Charlie. Oh, my God. Is it Power Rangers Unite? I don't know, but. Whoof.

Switched on pop team, gather. It's that time of year. I clearly do not know my pop culture references, but I do know my pop culture music. And one of the things that happens at the end of every year is, is that we have our year-end best of list. Now, here's the problem. We have a podcast where you talk about the biggest pop songs all year long. You end up covering all the best stuff all year long.

And thus, I don't think it would make sense for us to review things we've already talked about. Instead, what I wanted to do, gathering us all together, is talk about the most important and favorite recordings that we haven't covered on the show this year. my understanding is you have each selected one song and or album, and we'll each share our favorites, including a listener pick. And if folks stick around to the very end, you get to hear how to listen to all of our favorite albums, a much longer selection. Okay, let's start the very top with our beloved producer, Rianne Cruz. What have you been listening to this year that has been particularly important to you? This is an interesting question, right? Because I feel like my listening,

by and large, haven't really been listening to a ton of new new stuff that we haven't covered on the show. But perhaps the record that I've been returning to a lot over the past few weeks is Troy Savan's something to give each other. The lead single Rush came out

shortly after we published Our What Makes a Gay Anthem piece and in the months since, there really hasn't been a spot to talk about it, talk about the record. However, I think the album is Savon's. finest. It's light and breezy yet evocative. There's a lot of delightful, unexpected sonic turns on the record, like in my room, which features Guitaryka de la Fuente. There's the song Rush, of course, which is like

if village people did house music. But the album's emotional centerpiece is a track called One of Your Girls, which may be my favorite song of the year. Beautiful stuff. Rihanna, tell us more. Yeah, I mean, I really enjoy this song and this album as a whole because it has very poignant expressions of desire and lust and these emotions expressed in the simplest of terms. And I think on this track specifically, Troy Savon uses a combination of what I feel is like 90s adult contemporary touchstones. There's like a light guitar, there's a meandering tempo. alongside vocoder manipulation and tongue-in-cheek lyrics like face card, no cash, no credit. To tell a very simplistic tale of romance and desperation and misguided pining. I think it's a near perfect song, and I feel like it's an example of less is more when it comes to pop music.

It's deeply simple to me, and I think that's what manages to click. And I'm not the only one that thinks that. Fun fact, Trois ofon stated that Max Martin came into the studio. He played songs for him. When he heard one of your girls, Max Martin apparently stood up, asked them to play it again, gave the song a glowing review, and then walked up to the keyboards and played a synth line. And though he's uncredited for his contributions, there's this little synth electronic outro on the song that I think might be what Troy Savon is talking about. Ooh, speculation. Let's hear it. That was crazy.

Oh. Okay. I need to be this person for a second. What does face card, no cash, no credit mean? Great question, Nate. Because I see Charlie just nodding like, oh, yeah, like he's pretending he understands, but I know he has no idea. Brandon, Brandon, maybe, I don't know. No, he's clueless too. Okay. So, okay, face card in like drag and gay culture is like when you're looking at. right, right? Like, you're hot, you're looking good. It's like, okay, face card. You know, like,

face card never declines is a line on Renaissance. You know what I mean? Like, face card, no cash, no credit is basically Troy telling this dude that he's obsessed with, you're hot. And it kind of plays into this song, right? Because the song itself is about being gay and being attracted to somebody who's straight. And that's what the chorus means. Like, I could be like one of your girls or your homies. Give me a call if you ever get desperate. And the song is like peppered with these gay slang terms, like face card, no cash, no credit, in sort of like a cheeky way to continue the theme. So yeah, that's what that's what face card means.

I know exactly what you were talking about. Oh, of course. Great lot. I know, I know, I know, I had no idea. This song has one of my actual favorite musical moments of the year as well. I'm so glad you picked it, Rihanna. It's this moment of naked vulnerability when he says, look at you.

He has that little stutter step and look at you. Look at you. And who hasn't felt like that before? And it's such a universal feeling. Ooh, and the drums even kind of skip a beat. Like the music follows and is equally kind of hesitantly

jumping into the chorus. That's beautiful. I really like the sonics of this song, Rihanna. I hadn't heard until he played it. It's akin to Daph Punk's instant crush with Julian Casablanca's. And this isn't a best of review, switched on pop, but it was my favorite thing to produce this year.

It was probably that Def Punk series. And so I hear in the vocoder, the slow, sexy beat, one of my favorite recordings. A nod or not. I think it's just, yeah, the sounds here are very evocative, very sexy. It's simple. That's why I love it. Thank you, Rihanna Cruz.

Engineer, Brandon McFarland. What's up? What have you been listening to? what has been great for you. I think we're going to go with Victoria Monet and her song On My Mama. Yeah, Victoria Monet is an R&B artist. She's like originally from Sacramento, but moved to L.A. in the 2000s as like a songwriter. She wrote for Ariana Grande.

And yeah, her album is nominated for seven Grammys. including record of the year, which is on my mama. So, yeah. Okay, Brandon, you moved from NorCal to SoCal, just like Victoria Monet. I want to know how this song is connecting for you. Why is this a top pick? Well, I really instantly gravitated towards this song when I heard the sample hook. Okay, does anybody know what that is?

Had to have been there. Okay, so this is Charlie Boy, a Texas rapper who had a song called I Look Good. They came out in like the late 2000s. I won't be shy about my age. I'm 38. Yeah, Brandon. I was very much, you know, into snap music. This was like my, you know, high school years or whatever,

a little bit after I had a long white tea and jabot jeans and a big hat. And I was snapping, right? So this was like a song from that era. And so I just loved it. I loved it as soon as I heard it. Shout out to D.I.E. Mile who produced that record and most of Victoria Monet's album.

He's produced Lucky Day and Silk Sonic and her. He's an amazing producer and he's also up for Best Produce Record for this song. And yeah, I just think the whole album is crazy. She has a feature

from Earth When and Fire, which, like, who has that? You know, it's like very rare. Which is also up for a Grammy. And her daughter who she recorded on that song, it's called Hollywood, she became like the youngest Grammy nominee. She was like four months old when she brought her in the studio to like say a few things. And so if for all the dads, you know, in this group, you know what's up.

Blue Ivy could never. Yeah. Can never. Brandon, I feel like to bring her back to all my mama, I feel like the sample use is really smart, right? because I was unfamiliar with Victoria Monet until I started hearing the song on the radio and when I would go out in places. And, like, I instantly connected with it because I know the sample, right? And I was like, oh, okay, I already know the words to this song without me ever hearing it before. And that's what sticks with me.

I think that sentiment was felt throughout all of, like, entertainment. There were people like Carrie Washington and all these, like, black women that, like, instantly gravitated towards the song. And I think that, yeah, it's because of the smartness in the songwriting. Yeah, and also Victoria Monet is, like, mad, talented as, like, a dancer, too. Because, like, I've seen a lot of videos on YouTube and, like, on TikTok of her performing the song. And she's so gifted. And the way that she moves alongside her backup dancers, like, put together, it's a really great presentation of an R&B star kind of stepping into the spotlight. Yeah, she's one of those. Nobody else could do that right now, I think.

Yeah, people are like obsessed with her breath control, right? She's doing these incredibly calisthenic dance moves and not missing a single pitch simultaneously. I feel like so far our picks this year are kind of some sexy after hours music, which makes it an appropriate time to transition to Professor Nate Sloan, who in another life used to perform a after hours radio show. What was your handle? What is this segue, Charlie? Are you saying I'm like a phone sex operator or something?

I'm very confused right now. Your late night jazz radio show? Okay, okay. I think I understand what you're saying. After hours, you have to separate the sexiness because I was just spinning obscure jazz LPs from 2 to 5.30 in the morning. Extremely sexy obscure jazz LPs. What was your name, Nate?

Joe Flowers. I feel like Joe Flowers is a sexy name. That feels a certain, it brings a certain genesis qua. There was a woman named Patricia who would call me during the holidays and talked to me about how she was lonely and walking around her house with no, nothing on. And how during the day she was a dispatcher for the police station. But at night she just needed someone to talk to. Did she get on the phone and was she like,

Give me a call in to you out of the pillow? I'm Joe Flowers, and this is jazz after hours here at WBRU Providence. You know the number. It's 879-522, and we'll be here until 530 in the morning, spinning all your favorite jazz and blues classics. This is the only show that begins with a good evening and ends with a good morning. And now here's a little bit of Sonny Rollins' saxophone colossus to get your night started. That's what I'm talking about.

Okay, it is a little sexy now that I'm not. That was suggestive. Talk about voice card, am I right? So Joe Flowers, did you have an important pick for this year? Well, as we've all learned now, I'm an inveterate jazz lover. So one of the exciting developments for me in 2023 was the runaway success of the artist Lavei. And I need to establish right away, the person I'm talking about, her name is spelled L-A-U-F-E-Y, and her album, Bewitched has led to a huge resurgence on TikTok of jazz and Boston Nova covers.

It's resulted in her going on a worldwide sold-out tour and revitalizing a lot of classic jazz standards for a new generation of listeners. To give you all like a taste of this sound, we could listen to the title track of this album Bewitched. Nate, this is not the sort of Sunny Rollins picks that you would play as Joe Flowers after hours. What about LeVe spoke to you? What I gravitated towards in this album is the throwback sound, the organic recording process she used, the lush strings that she brings into the recording, the references to classic jazz and

pop of the 1930s and 40s. No, it's not like a Sunny Rollins tenor solo over bebop changes. It's an homage to an homage. I don't know. I can't say that way. Ever since the Switch on Pop listener told me I was using the word homage wrong. I'm very in my head about it. It's a tribute to this earlier era of popular music when jazz and pop were intermingled in this way that they're not really today. They're so separate. So I love listening to this and imagining that these worlds can collide together again. I've been surprised to see how much this is hit on TikTok with the Youngs, because it has such a vintage throwback vibe to it. And now that I've said that aloud, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise because the Youngs are into the vintage vibe. But yeah,

I've heard this artist everywhere this year. Jolie, I had a similar reaction. where I was like, oh my God, people in their teens and 20s like jazz, that was a cool revelation. And, you know, it wasn't just a surprise to you and me. Levei herself, I think, was stunned by the kind of unprecedented success that her music has had. And I got to sit down and talk to Leveh about some of the key sounds on this album and where they came from and how she selected certain jazz standards to include here. And I think you'll hear that she is as amazed and pleased as anyone to find her throwback sound registering with such a wide and diverse audience of listeners. Hi, I'm Leve. I'm a singer and a songwriter and I also play the cello and some other instruments.

My albums, my songwriting is very much just recording the story of my life. I like to say every song is like a journal entry. My first album was a lot of questions for the universe. There's literally a song on it called Questions for the Universe. A lot of like, oh, will I ever fall in love? It's a bit naive. It was the first songs I've ever written, really. And with Bewitched, I wanted to write a love album. I've had a lot more experience in that field. It's a lot more mature, I think, lyrically and musically, a lot more mature as well. I'm a lot more confident as a musician now. So I think I just allowed myself to really lead to what comes most naturally to me, but also what I love the most.

Let me be a dream. I can see the whole world from. I'll stay here for ever. There it is. That cold opening. I thought it would be a cool statement to just have it be voice and just have it be me later on top of me on later on top of me. Paying homage to, you know, when I started this whole artist project. I was just posting videos on Instagram and TikTok of me singing jazz standards and recording layers of harmony on top during the pandemic. So I thought it would be a cool way to pay homage to kind of that time to start it like that. I also thought it was just, I wanted something striking, like something that people would remember. Don't you notice how I get quiet when there's no one awkward silence. Don't you

This song was probably one of the fastest to write. I wrote it in like 20 or 30 minutes just on my couch and I thought it was kind of silly. It's so cool to see it go this far. I never thought music I made would ever be able to reach, you know, audiences that, you know, listen to pop music. And I think it just goes to show that it doesn't really matter what the genre of music is anymore. Like if people can resonate in some way or understand it in some way, it's there. It's enough. to see it go into the mainstream like that.

It's really cool and just very encouraging as a fan of, you know, older music. You know, I feel like I'm clinging to a clock. You know, I love jazz music and, you know, it's obvious that the Great American Songbook has inspired my writing a lot. And so I feel almost like a duty just to, to music, to my heroes, to record a jazz standard for every project that I put out. And Misty is one that is, it's not unknown. A lot of incredible musicians have sung it.

It's the pop music of the past. I think the lyrics are so beautiful. I often hear that from my fans, that, you know, they've found a community within the Leve community of other like-minded people. And I think that's just very beautiful. So. So from Leve's throwback jazz pop sound to Victoria Monet and Troy Savon, I feel like we've already kicked off this conversation with a wide range of sounds. Charlie, I feel like we should take five, come back, and then I'm very curious to hear what you, Jolie, and our listeners want to hear about.

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Democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period?

I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ice. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. All right, Julie Myers, let's pick it up from here. What have you been listening to? What's great? I have a feeling you're going to give me something very energetic and fun. I think you know where this is going to go based on what I bring to our editorial meetings. Yeah, I have no foresight as to what you're

about to say. I just, I feel like I know what you love. So where are we gone? A wonderful world of Polka. K-pop. Oh, K-P right, K-P. Yeah. No surprises to anybody on this call, maybe some surprises to the people out there in the world. But I want to talk about a K-pop group called stray kids. They are having a monster year, just a monster 2023. They released two albums, both of which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. They headlined the first night of Lollapalooza, Paris. They played at the VMAs, Billboard Music Awards. They sold out some stadium shows in the U.S. for the first time. They're just having an amazing year, enormous. And I thought we could listen to their first single from Five Star.

It's a song called S-Class. So as I peel my face off the ground, I need to hear more about what's going on. All right. So that, I think, is actually the quintessential stray kids song. You've got just kind of explosive right out of the gate, layered production, nimble rapping, aggressive vocals, found sound in the production, an absolute journey. Every five seconds, you're doing something different, but it all holds together somehow. And I think something that's really cool about stray kids is they write and produce all their own music, which is not unheard of in K-pop, but it is kind of rare. I'm generally not a snob about this kind of thing.

Like, I don't think that you have to write and produce your music in order to perform it well and to get fans and worldwide success. But the reason why I think this matters for stray kids is because K-pop moves really fast. And a lot of these groups go concept to concept to collaborator, to collaborate, to sound, to sound. It's all over the place. Even if something works for them, a lot of times labels are going to switch a group's concept up just to see what happens. And Straight Kids has been allowed to really develop a sound and a signature. And I think that's really contributed to the fact that they've had just kind of smash international success this year. It feels like the culmination.

Brandon, I want to know what happened to you listening to that song because you've got the producer's ear. What was going through your mind? I've never heard a song that made me feel like I was in a video game and I was like going through different stages or like levels or something. And I'm not talking like a 2D video. I'm like the PlayStation 5 like super game. That sounds about right. Yeah, like in the best way. Like I don't even know what that sound was in the beginning. It was like a busy street or something right in the beginning. I think that's probably what you said when you mentioned found sounds, it sounded

like, this is the start of the game, this is where you're at, and then it just like hopped onto another thing and then another thing. Yeah, I love that. I counted like three genres in one song. It's insane. Listening to one minute of this song is like listening to 30 minutes

of like an album. There's so much packed into it. It's extraordinary. I know. I think you're absolutely. right, Nate, it has this feeling of 30 minutes of music condensed down into one minute. It's like listening to the perfectly cut trailer for some cinematic action movie, and you're getting all these jump cuts and scenes, and you're just like, I got to go see the real thing.

And yet, that is the entirety. I'm totally stunned, Julie. Yeah, I think, but a lot of what people turn to K-pop for is maximalism. Straight Kids has a very specific way that they do it, though, and I think Brandon hit on it. It does feel like you're kind of cruising through a video game. It's a little bit like Grant Thoft Auto, I guess. Like, I just crashed into a building, and now I'm doing laundry. And that is just like, that's kind of like the vibe that you get from it.

You know, they do, stray kids, they do all kinds of songs. They have ballads. They have a Japanese release this year that sounds like an anime song. They do all kinds of stuff. But I think that this is like this song S-Class is going to give you that real signature explosive stray kids feeling. Really pumps you up, gets you ready. This is how I pregame therapy. My straight kids.

That is so fun. Thank you, Jolie. I love that pick. So for the last of the team, I'm going to only choose one song. I've been accused of other times of choosing more than one song when we do this. Abuse of power.

My one song of the year is Samfah's Spirit 2.0. I think this is a song that maybe Brandon shared with the team first, a while back in one of our team meetings. And it's probably been the song that I have spun the most. Samfo is, of course, a UK artist. He's collaborated with Subtract. I think that's where I first heard him. Kendra Kumar, Salange, a lot of collaborators. He's got a voice that you want to collaborate with. It's like honey butter. His 2017 album process won the Mercury Prize. And Spirit 2.0 was, I believe the lead single off his new album La Hai.

It's a song about transcendence and spirituality, at least as I gather, which I think can be a really hard topic to sing about. Spirituality can be cheesy. It can be too literal tied to an ancient text, or it can be speaking too specifically to a niche audience. And yet, I think he does something where he takes this idea of transcendence and makes it both familiar and foreign in this very compelling way. So let's hear a spirit tomorrow now.

Ways will catch you, life will catch you, love will catch you, spirit can catch you, yeah. So this song is so transcendent to me. It gives you this feeling of leaving this earth into this sort of spiritual realm. And I said it has this, both feels familiar and foreign at the same time, because I think that feeling of transcendence, for anyone has any kind of religious practice or any kind of spiritual practice, you know, that feeling of transcendence is, on the one hand, right there in front of you and available at any moment. But you kind of have to, like, peel back a layer of reality and see something larger that's always there. And he does this, I think, in the use of sounds and the way that he constructs his lyrics,

this song speaks to me from a producer point of view because he uses these really, these sounds that are almost like hard to describe but feel familiar. It starts with this Moog semi-modular synth that's doing these like bleep bloops. He talked about it on Song Exploder that the sound reminded him of the West African instrument, the Quora, and that it was a sound that he heard a lot playing growing up in his house. He also references other early childhood elements. There's a lyric about a children's book that he reads. The synthesizers that then come in over these Moog semi-modulars that sound kind of like a cora are doing so using this technique of stacking fifths.

He's actually basically taken the synth and tuned one of the notes, up a fifth from the other note. And when he does this, it starts to create these harmonies that are, again, familiar, but adding these voicings that are a little bit unfamiliar and are both comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. The drums are doing the same thing. They skitter along in this sort of like unpredictable nature. There are these beautiful strings created by Owen Palette, one of the musicians who once inspired the creation of this show, actually. There's so many things in here that I just really love.

And then, you know, the lyrics, they're transcendent, but they're about mundane things, about daydreaming on a sofa, going for a drive, sitting on a park bench, all places where you're able to feel this feeling of going beyond. I really love Spirit 2.0. I'm really grateful that Brandon brought that track to the team because I've been listening to it nonstop. Yeah, same. I love that song. I have a soft spot for artists that try to blend sense. and live sound. Hmm.

Like groups like Little Dragon do it really well. Maybe like James Blake. There's a limit to your love. Your love, your love, your love. There's a limit to you can. I always imagine Sam for like starting on the piano. A lot of his songs like feel like they can be sung that way.

And then with him just being a phenomenal vocalist, his voice is almost like operatic. Next thing I'm drifting into open sky. And I don't feel so scared. The synth stuff that's not over the top, it's not bombastic at all. It doesn't lead anything per se. Like really the melody in the piano or really the standouts. And then all these other things, all these other sonics like, transcendent is the word, I think.

Thanks for sharing that, Charlie. That is a stunning track that makes me optimistic about the future of music. I feel like we have had an incredible array of music from the five Power Rangers, Avengers, here. Now we should kick it over to our listeners who have impeccable taste. I mean, the people listen to the show are at the vanguard of all music. So Rihanna, my understanding that you took one of our listeners' favorite artists of 2023 and actually tracked them down to understand the secret behind their success.

Well, yes, we have a listener recommendation. Here is Lauren, a listener of the show, who wrote in asking us to talk about one of the breakout pop artists of 2023, Chapel Rhone. Hi, I'm Lauren, and I'm a huge fan of Chapel Rhone's music. I think she's a super unique and interesting character and sound and pop right now. Her songs are so clever, funny, smart, emotional, and overall such a fun time. I just always have a great time dancing when I'm listening to her music. So that is Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl off of Chapel Rhone's debut album,

The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, which came out this year. And Chapel Rhone is a pop artist from Missouri. She's been releasing music for over half a decade. but this year put out her debut record. And it's been captivating people, as this listener says, through, you know, mostly by word of mouth and the promise of fun, danceable pop music. You know, Lawrence has it in the message. Her music is fun and exciting. And it's understandable why people are so into it.

So, since Chaparone is a name I have heard countless times this year, I thought we should get her on the show and unpack some of her sound and why it's sticking with full. Hello, I'm Chaparone. I'm a singer. So in your case, you've been releasing music since 2017. What was your intent with your debut record? I just kind of released an album of kind of the fantasy pop star version of myself that I dreamed of being whenever I was little. So this is just kind of an homage to like my childhood view of pop singers. So in your words, what is like the, like, the, chaperone sound. I see slumber party pop. Because it feels like that.

I like that. It's like, it's more than bedroom pop. Not that it's more, but it's not as chill as bedroom pop. Yeah. But it still feels like fun with all your girlies. And you dance around and like do makeup and play dress up or play video games, whatever. And then at the end of the night, there's always that girl that like cries. And then everyone starts crying.

So that's what I feel like it is. Do you feel like you and other stars of a similar age approach pop music differently than stars from, you know, a previous generation? I think we approach it the same. I think we have less limits. Like, I think Miley really sacrificed herself with the foam finger. And now, like, we get to do that in like, you know, really bats and I. Even Kesha having her mom dressed up as a penis on stage. Like, that was very jarring for 2011. So I feel like I can have a chorus that says, needy been in the passenger seat and you're eating me out, is a casual now. And people are like, yep, you know.

I feel like, if anything, like, millennial pop paved the way for Gen Z to be even more obnoxious. Well, I mean, your music contains a lot of, like, chants, group vocals. kind of like callouts to the audience and that sort of thing. There is, I feel like, an incorporation of community on the record. Was that your intention? Yeah, absolutely. You can be like, oh, I see what she was doing here. Like listen to every bridge of every song.

And it's like, oh, this is call in response. Or I literally made hot to go because I wanted something like the YMCA. where everyone knows, like, to do a dance. Like, it's everyone can do it. And I always think of the crowd. Like, I'm literally in the studio right now. Like, we're working, because we have to start on the next album, like now. That's quick.

Oh, I know. And we literally just had a part that we just wrote, like, 10 minutes ago, that we were like, oh, leave this section blank because people will love to sing this song, Acapella, with me. So it's very much included and thought about because it's so fun to get everyone in kind of this religiously pop space and very spiritual to be singing together. It's very community-based. You're right. So yeah, that's why I can imagine listeners love Chapel and they love these songs because there is a community element. I feel like with modern pop stars, you know, like Chapel Rhone kind of commanding the cultural zeitgeist,

I feel like live shows and incorporation of the community is really important in their pop star presentation. So I expect to hear a lot more of Chapel Rhone in 2024. So I thought that was a fitting note to end the episode on. I will say that even though the year is not over and we will be continuing to work together, before the holiday. My favorite part of making the show is doing it in community with the four of you and all of our listeners. Jolie, Brandon, Rihanna, Nate, all of our listeners. Thank you so much for these recommendations. We have, though, one more thing for you. We've only gotten to cover six songs, our favorite picks of the year. But in reality, we've been listening to so much music.

I have sourced the top albums from all of our team. Jolie, Brandon, Rihanna, Nate, you have all shared with me, things that you love. And I want to share those with our listeners. If you want to hear them, you can subscribe to our newsletter, which we are relaunching, is in our show notes. And it's on our website. Okay, this is exciting. We have thousands of subscribers, but we haven't been writing in quite a while. So what we want to offer you are behind-the-scenes thoughts on the music store.

happening on and off our show and be your personal guide through the world of pop. We'll share our weekly playlist of songs on each show, as well as recommendations of what else to listen to curated from our team. If you want to listen to all of our favorite picks, check them out in the Switchdown Pop newsletter. Thank you, everybody. This has been so much fun. Thank you. Thank you.

Avengers Unite. Assemble. I'll never live it down. Switched on Pop is produced by me, Charlie Harding. Also produced by me, Nate Sloan. And it's also produced by me, Rihanna Cruz. Edited by Jolie Myers. Engineered by your boy, Brandon McFarlane.

Iris Gottlieb does our illustrations, and Abby Barr does community management. And Ashok Karwa is our executive producer, remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture. Send us all of your favorite things that happened this year in music. You can find us online on all the social sites at Switched On Pop. Our website is Switchedon Pop. Our website is switched onpop.com. You can contact us there as well.

Again, subscribe to our new newsletter at our website and in our show notes. We'll be back again next week with a brand new episode. And until then, thanks for listening.