Switched on Pop - Hotline Hello: Drake and Adele

Episode Date: November 4, 2015

Drake and Adele are two megastars who may not seem to share much in common on the surface, but their recent hits exhibit some surprising parallels. Both revisit past relationships over the phone and both conceal inner anguish beneath subtle musical shifts. Featuring special appearances by the game Snake, Lord Byron and Drake and Adele themselves*, you don’t want to miss this episode. Plus, we check in with Justin Bieber as he completes his epic existential pop suite. For more songs about love on hold, check out our Spotify playlist. And check out Sean Rameswaram’s final episode of Sideshow on Studio 360. Featuring Drake – Hotline Bling Adele – Hello Timmy Thomas – Why Can’t We Live Together Justin Bieber – Sorry Jack Ü – Where Are Ü Now? Justin Bieber – What Do You Mean? Breakmaster Cylinder & Charlie Harding – Why Am I Here? *not really  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. It's me. Message deleted. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. So Nate, a bunch of our listeners have been sending in requests for these two hot new songs.

The first is coming from an artist who I think we've neglected for way too long. Drake and his hit song Hotline Bling about a past relationship discussed over late. night phone calls. You used to call me on my cell phone. Day night when you need. Right on the heels of Drake, a few weeks later, Adele releases her single Hello, or Hello, where she calls up her ex-lover to dig up the past.

There's a remarkable collision between these two songs. I mean, they're both a kind of investigating relationships that are supposed to be over, but there's some lingering feeling there. not any closure. It's a rare thing to have two songs on the pop charts that so neatly parallel each other. And both these tracks were hopping on the phone and reminiscing about the past. Adele says, hello from the other side. I must have called a thousand times. And Drake says, you used to call me on my cell phone late nights when you need my love. We can stop right there because the phone is interesting, right? It's like Drake's song is very explicitly

used to call me on my cell phone, not my smartphone, not you used to Snapchat me, you used to Skype me, used to what's at me. You used to send me late night text messages saying, hey, you up? Yeah, this is a cell phone. This is like, at least what comes to my mind is like an early 2000s Nokia orange plastic phone with the antenna on which you could play snake. Right. I think in doing that, Drake sets this song in the past, or this relationship, rather. Yeah, I think the same thing is happening in Adele because you have this other anachronistic technology.

I think she references a landline when she says, when I call you're never home. You're only never home if you're calling a landline. So both these songs are putting us in the past, both by referencing a past relationship and by inserting this old technology, playing on a sense of nostalgia. Right. Okay, so then how is this mirrored in the music? Well, the first thing has got to be in Drake, like, you pointed this out to me, Charlie, when we were talking about this song, it almost, the beat of this song almost sounds like hold music. When you're waiting to talk to Comcast about your cable bill and, like, you're listening to this thing on repeat.

Nothing makes me more angry. Not only that, you know, even the quality of it sounds kind of distant, kind of muted. I wonder if that's because it's coming from a sample. Why can't we be together by Timmy Thomas from 1972? Oh, it sounds naked. Yeah, well, this sample is like famous for being incredibly stripped down and sort of technologically minimal. And it's sort of indelible character that just comes from it being basically a loop on a very early drum machine and just Hammond organ chords. Okay, so he's...

So Drake is sampling this and he sort of manipulated it so it sounds like it's even more distant, even more in the past. We feel the sense of nostalgia, the sense of looking back, right? It's this old R&B hit. It's this distant sound. Both of these songs are so clearly fall jams, right? If a few episodes ago we were talking about summer jams, we were talking about these embulient pump-up jams, these are like starting to become more appropriate for the season when the leaves are. falling off the trees and the wind is picking up.

This is like, oh man, change, loss, melancholy. So if Drake is appealing to nostalgia in Hotline Bling, Adele is working just as hard on Hello. The first thing I notice about this is it pretty obviously reminds us of her previous hit, someone like you. Definitely. Sparse piano chords, a black and white music video. Right.

The name of her album being the age she is. when she records it. So she's appealing to not quite as distant nostalgia, but by employing acoustic instruments in a world of EDM, she's clearly referencing a musical past. She, too, is in a place of reminiscing. Yeah, definitely. I mean, Adele always stands out on the radio dial,

not by virtue of being the loudest or the most outrageous pop personality, but by the opposite, by retreating into a world of acoustic instruments and quiet textures and slow builds. She's willing to let her voice crack and show her true self, where other pop music might sound significantly more polished. No doubt. And this backward lens that we find in the instrumentation is also echoed in the way it's recorded.

Like when these drums come in, I believe, in the second verse. They sound very distant. It may be a similar effect in some ways to the drum. Drake's song, like they sound like you're hearing them on the other side of a door or something. There's a gap that needs to be bridged sonically. So we'll talk about how these songs are also lyrically very nostalgic in a moment, but you know, even before you hear a single word, the music sets the tone for these songs, puts us in a place of regret, second-guessing, and trying to bring the past back into the

present. Okay, so you've just moved us into the present, and I think what's happened. happening here is we both have a, you used to call me on the cell phone, I used to call and try to say, I'm sorry. And what they're both really doing here is saying, hey, is it over? In both songs, there is this open-ended harmonic ambiguity. We're never getting the kind of chordal closure that we want to get in a typical pop song. Ah, yeah. Okay. So hear me out here. I know it's maybe a little wonky. Let's wonk it up. Let's walk it up. Drake, hotline blank. Part of this song feels really unsettling because, as I said, we're not getting

harmonic closure. Uh-huh. So, okay, what does this mean? Well, what's going on is we're actually in a minor key. We're in a sad key. You know, this, this song is sullen. It's in D minor. That is the sad key. It is the saddest key according to spinal tap. In D minor, which I always find is really the saddest of all keys. I don't know why, but it makes people weep instantly. That's right, yeah. But we actually never really resolved this D minor because the chord progression is this vamp

back and forth between a B-flat and an A. What does that mean? Well, it basically means that rather than landing back home on D-minor, every single time that you think that he's going to close out his phrase, he lands back on this sort of open, ambiguous B-flat, which shares a lot of the same notes with D minor, but is actually a sort of a more ambiguous place to land. Huh, can you show me the difference between those two?

Okay, yeah, so here's a D minor. Uh-huh. Right. And then here's your B-flat. To confuse us even more, though, he's actually playing all of the notes in the D-minor, but with this B-flat in the bass, basically saying,

hey, we don't have total closure every single time we go back and forth on this vamp. So we're just like continually hearing this harmonic progression that never completely resolves. Yeah, exactly. So no resolution in the relationship, no resolution in the chords. It's dark, man. You know, Adele might do something similar. Okay.

In that she's also very reluctant to resolve to her home key, which in the case of hello is a flat major. Okay. I mean, we don't even start the song on A-flat major. Where do we start? We start on F-minor instead. Right, so it's also kind of like a minor power ballad is what we think we're getting ourselves into. Right.

And then as soon as you hear the second chord, though, which is the A-flat major, home of this, then you're confused. Then you're like, wait, is this F-minor or is this A-flat major? Where is the home here? Is it minor? Is it major? We don't know. because she immediately moves us back away. And then we cycle down to two other chords, E flat and D flat,

before returning to F minor. This is a very cyclical progression in the same way that the Drake progression repeats over and over. So does this, this constant oscillation between F minor and A flat major. Okay, so it's kind of like we start on sadness and sullenness. We move to happiness and potential, relationship opportunity, and then we fall back away from it, over and over and over. Exactly. I think you used the word unsettled earlier, and that's perfectly right. These are

two people who are sort of between two worlds. They're past and their present. And musically, harmonically, they can't make up their mind. So here's the F minor that begins the song and immediately makes you say, oh, F minor, hello, you will be my key for the next three and a half minutes. Sad, I will cry. But then just as you're getting used to that idea, the next chord that arrives is this A-flat major. Ooh, maybe. And then all of a sudden, you have like whiplash.

You're in major land. Right. And you're thinking, oh, okay, wait, this is my key. Right. And then two more chords. And then we're back at the F-minor. A-flat major. Oh, what?

And that sense of confusion that I really poorly acted out just then suffuses the whole harmonic texture of this song. So whether it's Hotline Bling or Hello, both songs are connecting music and lyrics to give us the sense that these are people between two lives, between two places, right? Drake has left the city. Adele is in California dreaming. California dreaming about who we used to be.

That distance that we heard in the quality of the music is now echoed in the chords themselves, which can never settle on a static home. You know, they're just, they're always searching for something. Okay, so first we've got on the phone, our antiquated phones, called up, we said hello, and asked, hey, is this thing over? and then I feel like we move into this moment where they show their true cards.

Both singers in a lot of ways are feeling a lot more hurt than they're letting on. It sort of opens up there is this ambiguity, but there's a moment in both of the songs where they really do let loose and we can see how they really feel. Totally, yeah, they're both putting up a tough exterior, but then they let their guards down at key moments. Right. Okay, so what's going on in the Drake? The moment to me where we hear the real Drake, so to speak, is at the end of each verse. What's he doing? Well, first he says, ever since I left the city. Ever since I left the city.

And then he goes on to say, you've got a reputation for yourself now. Got a reputation for yourself now. Et cetera. Then he repeats that ever since I left the city. Because ever since I left the city. And then he has a new set of lyrics, but under the set of lyrics this time, the second, ever since I left the city, we don't have the same chord progression

that we did the first time. The first time, the same band's band, down on the dance floor, hanging with some girls I'd never seen before. The first time through this ever since I left the city section, yeah, we have the same vamp between D minor slash B-flat major to A-minor

that you were describing. The second time through this ever since I left the city section though, the chords start to subtly change. Right. It's not that same progression. It's new material. First of all, we go to major chords. Okay.

And second of all, we end on a very surprising major chord. D major. Wait, we were D minor as the key of the song. So where is he taking us? What's going on? Yeah, you're right. We were in an ambiguous D minor. Right.

And now we're ending this section on D major. So weird. It is weird, but it feels, it's a very poignant moment, you know. It's like the glimpse of a possibility of the life that these two people could have had if things had gone differently. You know, this could have been a major world rather than a minor world. But just as quickly as we hear that little glimpse. We go right back to the beginning, inevitably used to call me on my cell phone. We go right back to the beginning, inevitably used to call me on my cell phone and return to the original vamp.

This D minor slash B flat major just erases any memory of that D major. But briefly, we saw a vulnerability, a hurt, a sense of hope of longing. I don't know, some interiority there, just in this subtle shift in harmonic content. I think that... Feel free to disagree, too, because I know I've been reading online that a lot of people, people are not happy with Drake in this song because they think he's being very dismissive and's playing into certain tropes of like the good girl and a prescribed mode of conduct of feminized behavior or something. To me, I just see someone who's just lashing out because

he's hurt. Yeah, he's definitely lashing out. And it sounds like he probably is doing so in ways that aren't totally appropriate. I don't want to defend that by any means. But I think we can at least look at how he's really feeling. I think that he's really feeling. I think that he, he's, is very clear about what's going on for him in the bridge of this song. Oh, yeah. This is probably a key moment. These days, all I do is wonder if you're bending over backwards for someone else. Wonder if you're rolling up a bag was for someone else.

Okay, so in the bridge, this is definitely one of those places where I don't really like the lyrical choices that he's making in terms of reinforcing stereotypes. What he's basically saying is these days, all I do is I'm wondering if he's, you're hanging out with somebody else. And I'm constantly wondering, you know, you got something else with somebody else, and it makes me feel bad. He even goes on to say, you know,

you don't need no one else. And then musically, there's some reinforcement, right? Yeah, I feel like he's moved us into a whole new chordal progression. So where we had been in this vamp, we were getting some new material. Yeah, Charlie, just like in that Drake song, there are these moments where you hear, quote, unquote, the real Drake. Right.

There are moments in Adele's hello where you can hear just how vulnerable this singer is, even with her mighty pipes and her lush piano and strings orchestration. There's like someone who's very lonely and confused, maybe hiding in this narrative. Oh, poor Adele. What's going on for her? I don't want to make it seem too bleak,

but there are a few musical and lyrical moments that do concern me. Okay. How's she really feeling? So lyrically, check out this chorus. Okay. Hello from the outside. At least I can say that I've tried.

To tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heart. But it don't matter. It clearly doesn't tear you apart anymore. There's one element of that rhyme scheme that stands out, right? Yeah. We have like a series of perfect rhymes, A, A, B, B, I'd, I'd, art, art. And then all of a sudden at the end, we have this anymore. Like, where's that coming from?

Oh, it's left open. That doesn't belong in that rhyme scheme. It doesn't connect to anything that we've heard before. It's just like this very revealing little extra set of syllables that lets you know that she's not in perfect control, right? She's let go of this perfect rhyme scheme. She's let go of her composition and let it just show its true colors. And it's a moment, you know, at the end of each chorus that really grabs you, I think, precisely because it doesn't belong.

It's just floating there. It's kind of awkward, but it's also very true. Attention, Spotify. It has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Carolina Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, tofu caramelized, and tonka-tosted. A combination that seduce from the first instant and leave a wella.

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aside about rhymes. Yeah. Are you ready to get, are you ready to talk about Wanky? Are you ready to get deep? Let's go. All right.

So, you know, Don Juan by Lord Byron, this epic poem from the romantic era. Of course. Oh my God. There's this, if you read the, I think it's the Yale edition of this, of Don Juan, there's this, one of the greatest footnotes of all time can be found. The footnote, the footnote describes Byron writing a letter to a friend defending a slant rhyme that he uses.

Okay. He rhymes, he's making fun of the current poet laureate of Britain, who is this guy, Bob Southie. Okay. And he says something like, Southie is the laureate, but I see him more as a Judas This is scarier. It's much more elegant than that, but that's the rhyme. And he goes, you know, I know these two things don't really rhyme. He's writing this in a letter to his friend. He says, I know Loria and Escaria don't really rhyme perfectly. But here's my defense for including them. He says there's this story about the poet Ben Johnson, who's from, you know, like maybe a few centuries earlier than Byron from Shakespeare's time. Oh, man. We're going deep here. Yeah, this is like layers and layers, man. I don't even know if this is Googlable. He tells this story about Ben Johnson is talking to this other poet, John Sylvester, and they're having this little rhyme battle, basically like a hip-hop freestyle, sort of. And he goes, and John Sylvester goes to Ben Johnson, he says, I, John Sylvester slept with your sister. And Ben Johnson has to have a comeback. And he goes, I, Ben Johnson, slept with your wife.

and John Sylvester goes, well, that doesn't rhyme. And Ben Johnson says, no, but by God, it's true. So that was Byron's defense for including rhymes that didn't quite work. The truth is more important than the rhyme. And that's all to say that I think this is also true in Adele's hello, the truth is more important than the rhyme. And that any more that there's so much, That's such a pregnant word, right?

Right. There's so much temporal distance contained in that word, and it stands apart from the rest of the ordered rhyme scheme. So it's really this like a little window into Adele's psyche, I think. Few, I need some Gatorade, man. That was exhausting. Okay, let's take a refresher. I have one more thing to say about Adele.

Please. She's doing that thing that we love to hear. Soaring her vocals up to the point where they almost break in the chorus. When I hear that, for me, even more than the rhyme scheme, we know what's really going on for her. There's a tear underneath that vocal. Oh, word, yeah. And there's a tear in our eyes when we listen to it, right, Charlie?

Every time. I have audio evidence of you crying in the car to Adele. No, only on planes. Something about the altitude? I think it's the altitude or the dryness. I don't. Pressure, something. Yeah, sure.

Plus, there's a lot of dust in those fights, gets in your eye. Definitely, definitely. People are bringing on their pets now. I must be allergic, I think, something like that. Yeah, sure. In both of these songs, we've got two people who are truly hurt. They're trying to reach out and connect. I'm wondering, I want to imagine, a world in which Drake and Adele are actually speaking to each other.

Ooh, I like this. Where is this going? Well, maybe they're both on the phone. their relationships to each other. ...meaning about who we used to be. Did you ever make it out of that town? Ever since I left the city, you've got a reputation for yourself now. It's so typical of me to talk about myself. I'm sorry.

These days, all I do is wonder if you're bending over backwards or someone else. I've forgotten how it felt before the world fell with our seat. You got exactly what you asked for. Yeah, I must have called a thousand times to tell you, I'm sorry, but when I call you, you never seem to be home. You should just be yourself. Right now, you're someone else. Well, at least I can say that I've tried. You know, Nate, that Adele and Drake aren't the only songwriters feeling the hurt right now.

Who else is out there, Charlie? I think the real relationship referee has got to be our good friend, Justin Bieber. Ah, the erstwhile Bieber. He's released his third track in his existential trilogy. What, did he use the beat that we created for him with the help of Breakmaster's cylinder? Right, so those of you who, who... might have missed it. We did dedicate an entire episode to Justin Bieber and how in his 20s he is asking all of these existential questions like, where are you now and what do you mean?

And we had predicted he would release a third. So I think we were correct in our prediction. We had put out our own version of a Justin Bieber track, guessing what his new song might sound like. And alas, he did not use our track that we produced with the mysterious breakmaster cylinder. Don't pee. I know. But he did put out a really good song with his hit Sari, produced by Scrilex, who also did Where Are You Now?

You gotta go and get angry at all of my honesty. You know I try, but I don't do to up with apologies. I hope I don't run at a time because someone call a referee. So, Charlie, did we get close at least? Was there some, is there some lyrical or musical resemblance between our Ayrsat's Beber and the real thing? Absolutely. Because what he's doing is he's using the same musical palette for each of these songs. And I think we correctly identified it.

But just to make sure, let's put it to the test. All right, hit me. The first thing we pointed out was each of these songs starts with large, open. open piano chords in an ongoing loop. Where are you now? What do you mean? And Sari, I'll start out with this piano line. We should be buying lot of tickets.

We're getting so good at predicting the future. Okay, but we only pick the first number. Second number. Okay, what else? So in Sari, we actually move really quickly beyond this chord progression. It moves back down into the synth, but we also are getting the second color in Bieber's palette. the manipulated vocal.

In each case, we have a Bieber who has been time stretched, distorted, reconfigured. We have these manipulated sounds in the background. You mean the manipulative vocal. That's more or less exactly. how we did it. Thanks. So, first number, second number, correct? Yes. Third number. Thick, bouncy baselines. One, two, three, big piano chords, manipulated vocals, deep house baselines. In the world of breakup songs, I think Sari is going the furthest to really show its true emotional chord. Justin is reaching out and he's just apologizing. Now, I think in our alternative

universe, I would have really preferred Justin to ask, why am I here, go deeper and darker, but it's pretty refreshing that he's decided to go positive and say, hey, I'm sorry. Indeed, the sweet gets sweeter and the existential crisis is at least temporarily averted. And I must say, I'm pretty happy with our batting average. And, hey, Justin, if you do end up going in a downward spiral, we do have the darker track for you available anytime. Well, I did enjoy investing. investigating the melancholy loss and regret embedded in this Drake song Hotline Bling and Adele's hello. Yeah. Both cleverly using the medium of the phone conversation to get us to that place.

In tribute, we are crafting a playlist of great musical phone conversations. In addition to Drake and Adele, Stevie Wonder, and Tom Waits, We'll be making appearances, but we need more. So please tweet at us, Switched On Pop, and we'll add them to the list. You can find that playlist on our show notes, on our website, switchedonpop.com. Switch on Pop was produced by the two of us, and our logo was designed by Luke Harris. Thank you to writer Best Calb for voicing Adele. Disclosure, she's also my wife.

And thanks also to Sean Ramos Farm, who voiced Drake. Sean recently released the final episode of his podcast, Sideshow, a production of Studio 360, and in his last episode, he reunites his high school rap group. I think you'll really like it. And then come back in two weeks when we dive into another listener's suggestion. People have been sending us some brilliant tracks, so we're going to have a serious listening session.

See how these pop songs work, they're magic. Yes. And until then, I'm Charlie Harding. And I'm Nate Sloan. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.