Switched on Pop - Into It: The Business of Beyoncé

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

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Hey, it's Charlie. If you're a long-time listener of Switched on Pop, you've probably heard the voice of frequent guest Sam Sanders. He's one of my favorite journalists, hosts, interviewers, and has a particularly keen year for music. Luckily, Sam has recently joined Vulture, and he's launched a new show called Into It. It's a podcast about the pop culture we can't stop thinking about. Their first episode was about how Beyonce's self-titled album changed pop music and launched her as a business mogul. Sam and I are going to be chatting about it. And about Beyonce's magnificent new album Renaissance next Tuesday. But before that, let's take a trip back to 2013, listen to Beyonce's self-titled record, and get into it with Sam Sanders on his brand new show. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane. Peter Piper picked a pickled pepper. Cardi B. is casually the most charismatic celebrity.

in three, two, one. Okay. Hey, Sam Sanders here, and I am more than overjoyed to introduce to you Vulture and New York Magazine's newest podcast. It's called Into It. And this is a show all about the pop culture

we just cannot stop thinking about. The stuff we obsess over, the stuff we are into. If you had a Booth Mobile store and you had to play music all day. What three Katie Perry songs are on loop. I'm serious about this. Our goal with this show is to obsess with you and maybe even help you obsess better.

Because there's so much out there to obsess over it. It's too much. I was at a wedding on the weekend, and it was one of these weddings that's in a barn. So there was no air conditioning. And so no one was in the barn on the dance floor. But when California girls came on, we bolted inside. See? All right, this episode, to start, you're going to hear a fun game with me and two vulture stars.

And then we've got a wonderful meditation on Beyonce, the CEO. It's very timely for this Beyonce weekend. Happy Renaissance, y'all. And then we're going to wrap things up with something that we are calling Culturegeist. I'm not going to say anything else about it besides that. You've got to just stick around and hear it for yourself. All right, with that, let's get into it. You see what I did there. Do you hear what I did there? Here we go. Enjoy the show.

We are here today to play a game. And I feel like both of you are already in the spirit of like big game energy with me because we've taped some stuff before. I'm all for it. I feel like Dee rebukes the title of being a games girl. I don't know if I rebuke it. I just don't know if I identify. with it.

Rebuke is a strong word. I accept it when I'm winning, which is always. Wow. Wow. Well, let me tell you both about this game, and then you both tell me if you're still into the idea of being game people. Oh, right.

So this game, we are calling it into it, not into it. The rules are very simple. I mention a headline, and you both tell me whether you're into it or not into it. the winner will be chosen by me, and I will just pick the contestant whose opinions I agree with the most. Oh, great. Sounds fun. Sounds objective.

First things first. So before we start, I want you both to tell our listeners your names and your titles and what you do at Vulture. All right. I'm Rebecca Alter, and I'm a news writer at Vulture. Hi, I'm D. Lockett. I'm an editor on the culture pages at New York Magazine. So, yeah, I just edit chaos. I represent chaos.

I am the embodiment of chaos. Welcome to the party. Welcome to the party. I'm ready for it. Are you both ready to play into it? Not into it. Yeah, I'm into it. Hey, that's it's it.

That's it. Okay, here is the first entry for the game. You just tell me if you're into it or not. Are you going to call our names? No. just yell it out. Just say it's just be free. I've always wanted a buzzer.

You can do a buzzer sound. That's cool. Do you have a good one? That's great. That's great. All right, tell me if you're into this or not into this. Here we go. Number one, the chain smokers performing in space.

Hmm. Into it. I think I'm into it. Okay. Both of you, Dee and Rebecca, tell me why. I'm into it because I don't need them on this earth So if they're there, that's okay I'm into it because I think if we're going to be

Putting out more cultural exports into space The people need to know what we've allowed to happen Send them our worst, not our best So they can see the fullness of us Right? Exactly Yeah, yeah Decide whether or not you want to save us from ourselves First listen to the chain smokers and decide

If closer doesn't get you I don't know what will So this full story is kind of hilarious. According to the AP, the two guys in the chain smokers, Drew Taggart and Alex Paul, they're going to take a pressurized capsule tethered to a stratospheric balloon for a performance about 20 miles above the earth. And this whole thing is happening in partnership with the space tourism company World View. And the head of the company, Ryan Hartman, he says that he hopes this concert in the sky in space will get younger audiences excited about space travel, to which I say, huh, guess I'm not young enough. That was a lot of words that made no sense, starting with space tourism.

Yeah, the fact that this is an industry, I don't know. And also getting younger people, I feel like the one thing you don't need to like sell children on is like outer space. I guess just like, I think I agree with both of you on this as well. Like I'm into this concert of the chain smokers in space if they stay up there. So what you're saying is you want to pollute the rest of the galaxy, the universe. I do. I do. Let Mars have them.

Go ahead. Enjoy. Yeah, it'll be them and Elon Musk on a colony somewhere else. And I'm cool with that. It seems like we're all on the same page with this one. Mm-hmm. So with that, we'll move forward. buzzer sounds ready.

Yep. Here's number two. The event itself and the continuing coverage of the Benefer Vegas wedding. Into it or not? Tell me. Buzz buzz. Yeah. Buzz buzz.

I shouldn't have buzzed in so early. Choose your answer carefully here, Rebecca. I know. I'm feeling like it was really, I'm going to say not into it. Okay. Hey, tell me what. I'm tired of this cycle. I don't really, that wasn't, Benifer wasn't my culture.

I think I was a little bit too young for it the first time around. And so I'm not as invested this time around. Okay. Rebecca, Benefer is culture. Bam, bam. So it sounds like D, you're into it? Yeah, clearly. I'm very into it.

I'm capital I, capital I. It's very into it. How could you be against the cycle of love? Oh, I'm for the cycle of love. But the question was the news cycle of love. And the new cycle of love, That's also love. We're in a relationship with a new cycle.

We're in a relationship with the relationship. Wow. Someone took it meta. I feel like I'm like an unwilling party in the relationship. So, okay. So what we know so far about this wedding, we all know it at this point. It happened in Vegas.

Jennifer and Ben got married just about 20 years after they first fell in love very publicly. They used a Bluetooth speaker for their walk down the aisle. Beautiful. There was a pink convertible involved. J-Lo changed her last name to Affleck And right now this week, they are honeymooning in Paris. I will say I have a hard time reconciling my mixed feelings about this couple.

I believe J.Lo is a human angel here on earth. And I just feel like Ben Affleck is actually kind of dark-sighted and has a bunch of demons. And whenever I see that man, there's something dead behind his eyes. And I want to just tell J-Lo, Molly, you endanger girl. You got to run. He's not right. He's not right. Is this just because you don't like Dunkin' Donuts?

That too. Don't lie. Don't hide your truth, Sam. It's just he's not one of the ten most interesting things about her. There's you go. There's you go. Ben Affleck is just an honest man, transcending performance. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes on his back tattoo.

Correct. All I want to say is J-Lo. Please don't feel pressure to save this man. All right, this is the third and final, into it, not into it, for all the marbles. Kendrick Lamar, rapping with a little Kendrick Lamar ventriloquist doll at his concerts. This is true. This happened. Sorry, I'm pulling up the visual.

You have to watch the TikTok. It's kind of weird. That's horrific. Do you see it? I'm in. Dear, are you about to say into it? No, I was going to say I'm in conclusion. You can't do that.

No. I haven't seen the puppet yet in action. I've only seen photo. I'm giving you time to go Google Kendrick Ventriloquist doll. Except I don't really want to be haunted right now. No, no. You want to talk about demonic. You want to talk about dark energy.

You're asking me to summon hell. I'm asking you to summon hell for the show, for Vulture. Come on, do it for us. Go, watch it, please. Oh, this is. Oh, this is awful. It's so scary. scary.

I think I'm into it. I think I'm into it. Did you watch it, D? Off of Rebecca's reaction. Okay. No, I'm not watching that. You're being, you're siding with ventriloquism for the sake of taking me down. All right.

I'm into it for this one reason. Okay. Which is that right now, Ken Chukramar is in his very on the nose era. And this plays into the bit that he has decided to make his own, which is that he's playing God. And you know what? If this is how he sees that happening, praise be. And this is actually what I think is what Kendrick's aesthetic right now actually is. If you listen to the album, he's really giving off middle-aged dad vibes. He's a guy who's slowly losing his cool. And when I think of that kind of guy, a ventriloquist doll comes to mind. He would do that. He would do that. Like a middle-aged dad

would do some ventriloquist doll foolishness and think it's cool. It's a hobby. Dad needs hobbies. Take care of your kids. That's your hobby. I want Frank Oceans MetGala alien baby to beat this ventriloquist dummy up. Great. Now, Rebecca

wants doll on doll vibe on. The dolls are fighting. Five with it. All right, so Rebecca, you lost a point on Benefer. D, you lost a point on ventriloquism. So, I'm going to give the win to

because you really committed to enjoying the idea of Kendrick the ventriloquist and even though I completely disagree with you I admire and appreciate your hutsba as you should so D you get the first crown for the inaugural edition of Intuit Not Into It

Rebecca I'm sorry how do you feel? Well I just think based on the reason for her winning, it's like, okay, but at what cause? My conscience is clean. Thanks again to Rebecca Alter and D. Lockett. And we're going to take a break and be right back after my win. We're going to take a break to recover from that and be right back. Both of those win for me.

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remember where you were Is that a real question? Can I recall? Let me tell you

This is longtime music journalist Danielle Smith. Can I recall? What? I can recall. Tell me. I was in New York City. And my husband and I were guesting on Restive Soul, the Combat Jag Show. And, you know, we go into record, and it's a normal night.

a lovely cold, clear night. We're in there for two or three hours. And then we come out and the world is totally a light in a different way because this album has dropped. And what was so crazy was we were leaving the Combat Jack Show

pretty much going home, pick up luggage, and get on a flight to Aruba. And when we got to Aruba, Aruble was a light with the with the Beyonce album. It was like, oh my God. It was a global event.

Yes, it was a global event. She put all 14 songs on iTunes at once. You've got to remember. It's going to be a new trend, or do you think it's something that only a star like Beyonce could pull off? Well, first of all, only Beyonce could pull this off.

That Beyonce album from 2013, her self-titled fifth album. It fell from the heavens out of nowhere, it seemed, on an unassuming Friday, all 14 songs at once, and even more music videos. It was a moment. Such a moment, in fact, I can still remember some of the reactions. Oh my God. My favorite one came from the podcaster, Chrysle. You might know Crissel from her podcast, The Read. Oh, my gosh, guys, Chrysle is about to have a meltdown. There's this video of her discovering the new Beyonce album in real time while she's recording this live chat.

And I mean, that's how it felt. We all felt that. Oh my God. I'm buying it now. What the hell? Beyonce, the album, became the fastest selling ever on iTunes. And it went to number one in more than 100 countries, almost immediately. And if you think about it, it also established Beyonce.

the most daring and innovative executive in the music industry. So as we await the release of Beyonce's latest album, Renaissance, we thought we'd take this moment to look back at that 2013 release. And that moment when Beyonce broke just about every rule of the biz and changed the whole game. And she did it all back then without a single leak. A feat she couldn't accomplish this week. with her newest album.

You know, the same year that she released that self-titled album 2013, several big-name artists like Katie Perry, like Eminem. They had seen their albums leak early online before they were officially released. The biggest names in the business couldn't figure out how to stop leaks. And she did. And this is the thing that she knew. Like her mind, her and her team at Parkwood, they said, okay, well, usually the time when these leaks happened. are when the physical CDs are going from like the press to the stores.

She says, well, we can stop the leaks if we just don't do physical CDs. That's part of why this thing was only on Apple iTunes at first, right? Yes, it is why. You know, sometimes it was, you know, during the shipping of the CDs to the stores, but it even began to be sending the files to the manufacturing plant. Yeah, yeah. Because, man, you know, once something exists, as a file?

It's out there. It's over. It's done. It's out there. Yeah. It's out there. It's absolutely out there. Yeah.

Well, and then it's like to make sure that she really surprised everybody. She released the album on a Friday when the cycle at that point was everyone putting out their new albums on a Tuesday. She said, I'm not doing it that way. I'm doing it this way. And then because she couldn't do any traditional press rollout because of the surprised nature of it all, she literally, her in Parkwood, just called up Facebook and Instagram and said, well, you do a big push on your platforms of like these videos of me saying the albums here on the day it's released. And they just said, yes, sure, for Beyonce. That's a big deal.

Yes. And it was such a cosine if you really think about it of social media. Yeah. It was a star of her stature basically saying. this is where my fans are. This is where the conversation is. This is where the real and new marketing is happening now. This is back when Beyonce had only like,

only 8 million followers at that time. She has like almost 270 million as of right now. But she knew. She and her team knew that this is where the Beyonce fans lived and she went right to where they were. I feel like right now, people experience music differently. Now people only listen to a few seconds of a song on their iPod. They don't really invest in a whole album.

It's all about the single. I think everybody was pretty traditional. No one was able, or very few, if any, I should say, artists or labels had gotten right with the fact that something was going to have to change. Like right now, if you look at a media plan or a marketing plan or an album release plan, the first sentence, if not the first words, are going to be social and media. But back then, that still wasn't the case. People were still talking about breaking songs at radio.

I remember people going to Ryan Seacrest's morning radio show. and be like, Ryan, here's my new song. Will you play it now? Yes. I remember that. And Beyonce was like, we're not doing that no more. No, no one wanted to believe in 2013 that social media that social media. It was changing everything, but so many label professionals, so many radio professionals,

so many singer-songwriters, just didn't want to believe it was going to be anything but a side dish. Yeah. When, as we know now, it is the main. Dish. And Beyonce knew that and took advantage of it early on. Yes. Beyonce knows how to make a meal. Okay.

A whole meal. Okay. A whole meal. And then I'll and kicked it up too because all of the like, she was like, I'm not even, I'm so sure of myself. This is the thing that makes her so seductive and sexy as an artist. Yeah. She's like, I'm so sure of myself.

I'm not creating 12, 13, 17 songs and then picking out the ones that I think are the best. And then those are the ones. are really going to push and make quote unquote singles. No, I'm not going to do that. All my songs are amazing. Bam, and all them are singles. I'm going to make a video for every single song, and I'm going to put it all out on the same day.

I'm not going to parse it out for you. I'm not. I'm going to smother and suffocate y'all with my stuff. And you just loved it for the audacity as much as you loved it for the art. I felt like I don't want anybody to give the message when my record is coming out. I just want this to come out when it's ready and from me to my fans. I told my team I want to shoot a video for every song and put them all out at the same time. Everyone thought I was crazy, but we're actually doing it. It's happening.

Can you talk about how much the industry was just different for an artist and different for a label? after Beyonce introduced the idea of the surprise album drop to the industry. You're asking me, how was it different before? Or after. So, like, you know, there are artists doing releases kind of in the way they've done releases, hoping for the best. And then Beyonce says, no, you can do a surprise release. You can do this.

You can change this. And eventually, everyone's kind of gravitating towards that. But, like, if you're an artist working at your peak in the 2010s, how much did your life change from before Beyonce did that to after? I think it changed everything. I think some people, though, some artists, some label executives still didn't want to believe. I think some people wanted to think, oh, well, it can be different for Beyonce because she's Beyonce. without giving her, in fact, the credit for changing the entire game.

I mean, what she gave artists permission to do was, frankly, to take the label and hold departments at labels, whole tribes of employees and just to take them out of the picture. Yeah. She essentially took out people at, you know, there used to be these things called magazines. I used to run them at least two. And there was a thing. There was a whole dance where you would get an advance CD and you would listen to it. and you would compare it in your minds with your teams at work. Well, which of these albums is going to help us sell the most magazines?

We were a really great sort of, I guess, third party. We were between the artist and the fans. And Beyonce said, again, I don't want any of that. Yeah. You know, what I love about this whole surprise album release was that it was so good, so groundbreaking, so industry shifting, that a year later, Harvard Business School did an HBS case study on it that they taught to their graduate students at Harvard Business School. One of the big things they drive home in this case, Danielle, and you allude to it, is that, like,

Beyonce was relying on no one else for anything, really, besides herself. So, you know, the traditional relationship between an artist and a label is that you kind of have to rely on the label for a lot. And they get to call the shots. But with Beyonce, after she left her father's management and began to manage herself, she makes her own production company called Parkwood. And they just say, we'll do everything ourselves in house. And so with Parkwood, she is taking away a lot of the power. that a label would usually have. And what's so crazy with that album that she released in 2013,

she just called up Columbia Records when it was done and said, I'm finished with it. And when you look now at what artists are doing today, they've just mimicked that model that she set forth years ago. Yes, there used to be so much more control from the labels. People used to sit up in marketing meetings and just, around conference tables and just listen to an album and decide a room full of 15, 20, 30 people listening to a song from a Beyonce-like artist, and they would make the decision as to what the

single was. Yeah. Yeah. That literally just doesn't happen anymore. And Beyonce's a huge part of that. In some ways, some of what she was doing was happening in smaller ways. Smaller artists were saying, oh, you know, there's my space, there's SoundCloud, there's all these different things. I can just press a button and put my music out and release my music to my fans. Whether I have 16 fans, 1600 fans, or 16,000 fans, I have control. And Beyonce said, listen to me, I'm going to make that happen for me in a way that no one is going to be able to believe. No one is going to have spoken about any of it.

No one knows it's coming. I'm about to shut this whole world down at Christmas time. You know, we have talked for a bit about how Beyonce kind of changed the roadmap for other artists. But I wonder, what did that infrastructure of the, let's call it, old industry do after Beyonce and that surprise album and the change of everything? Like, how do labels adapt in the aftermath? How does traditional music press adapt in the aftermath of Beyonce saying immediately in one fell swoop, we need you a lot less than you thought we did? Oh, Sam. Do you know what I love about you is your optimism?

Oh. And the fact that you really think that anyone has adapted. Oh. Okay, tell me more. I do not know that the industry as a whole has adapted, whether it's the recording industry or the media industries. I wish I could say that they had. I think there is so much nostalgia for how things used to be.

You know, just like in the Motown era, there was nostalgia on the parts of the labels and media for what it had been like when jazz and blues were completely controlled. Oh, wasn't it great when we could just decide when people's jazz albums were coming out and blues albums were coming out? Wasn't it great when we could decide whether or not to put, you know, a jazz artist or a blues artist on the cover of our magazine? segregation was still so deeply in place. I think similarly now, it's like people long for the days when terrestrial radio really was the biggest player in the game. Yeah. Right?

And so it's hard to let go to imagine that, oh my God, it really has changed. Let's really start thinking about things differently. Let's stop acting like the intern is the social. social media consultant. That part. Like, come on. I even think about stuff that we might even see now with this quote-unquote, more traditional album release from Beyonce and say, oh, it harkens back to yesteryear.

No, it really doesn't. You know, when she announces the album, she does this big spread with British Vogue. And you read that piece and you look at those images and you've really. realize that Beyonce over the course of the last decade has totally reworked the relationship between an artist and a magazine like British Vogue. She was in charge. She was in charge of that. And they were happy to get her time.

Happy to. And they wrote that article as such. They were working for her. It's really the way things have changed. The power's flipped. It's completely flipped. I mean, Beyonce has gone on record. She's gone on record to me.

talking about how right at the, you know, at the time at the, when Destiny's Child was at its most popular, she was told and she was truthfully told and accurately told by her publicists and by editors magazines that they just didn't have a place for her on the covers of their magazine. Wow. So, Beyonce, to me, there's also some, hey, man, there's just a feeling of like, didn't you tell me that I couldn't be on the cover? Didn't you tell me that it wasn't allowed for me that historically just wasn't a thing that was done? And I know that it must feel somewhat right to her

that she is wielding the power that she's wielding in spaces that told her that she did not belong there. Yeah, yeah. My last question for you, because I really want to hammer home to our listeners, like we should consider Beyonce, not just as a musical artist, but also as a business executive.

How would you sum up Beyonce the executive in only a single sentence? How would I sum up Beyonce's legacy as a business person in one sentence? I think I would say that people talk about Ford, they talk about Nike, they talk about Coke and Pepsi, and they should talk about Beyonce. They should talk about Beyonce just like they do those other places. I think that she is not even at the middle of where she's going to be.

Thanks again to Danielle Smith. She is the former editor-in-chief of Vibe magazine and former editor of Billboard. Also, check out Danielle's podcast, Black Girl Songbook, and her book. It's called Shine Bright, a very personal history of black women in pop.

Culturegeist. Culturegeist. You're listening to Culturegeist. Culturegeist. I don't know, y'all. And now to a segment we're calling, Culturegeist, about all the things we can't stop thinking about. The culture that's haunting you, haunting me, haunting all of us,

for better or worse? So I always can't stop thinking about Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson. Like, they're always on my heart and my mind to some degree. But in particular, right now, I cannot stop thinking about this picture that Kim uploaded to her Instagram of her feet kind of up against Pete's chest. and it's just like them trying to be casual and playful. And like, look at us. We're just your normal, cuddly couple who are so happy.

And it's just haunting me. I can't stop thinking about why Kim felt the need to post it. I can't stop thinking about the term feet Davidson. I just, I can't stop thinking about any of it. Hi, my name is Jason and The Thing I'm obsessed with this week is the song 1985 by Bowling for Seventh. soup. That song did come out in 2004, but I am obsessed with it right now.

And the reason is that upon re-listening to this song for the first time as an adult, I realized that its retrospection and interest in nostalgia for the 80s through the lens of the soccer mom only includes the white singers of the 80s. They mentioned Bruce Springsteen. They mentioned Madonna. They mentioned Duran Duran, White Snake. But they don't mention Prince or Michael Jackson. And I have been near constantly mulling over the idea that there is an entirely white version of the 80s that Bowling for Soup is portraying.

And I can't decide if it was a character choice because they're talking about a soccer mom who might only like the white people. Or if Bowling for Soup fully just whitewashed the 80s accidentally. So that is my question for the week and that is what I can't stop thinking about. Hi, my name is Anusha. I'm Vulture's managing editor, and it's summertime, which means I'm spending six out of seven nights a week firing up my VPN and watching Love Island UK. This year, as is usually the case, I ride or die for the women. And as the season wraps up, I would love to see all of the girls band together and dump their jersey. boyfriends and take the crown. Because as long as they continue to cast hot, sophisticated, empathetic women alongside these emotionally stented six-packs that they call men,

I will not be supporting these relationships. So, yeah, women of the UK for the win. And the boys can fall in a fork. Bye. Thanks again to Anusha Paturu. Jason Frank and Gabby Grossman. And I'll share right now my culture guys this week. It is the amazing, the wonderful, the breath of fresh air that is Kiki Palmer.

And she's my culture guys this week, not because of her performance in Nope, but because of the press tour. She has been doing this incredible Angela Bassett impersonation with such joy and charm. You are love. And you are cheap. I don't want you. I don't want you.

She's just the best. All right, Intuit is hosted by me, Sam Sanders, and the show is produced by Jene West and Jolani Carter, and edited by Jordana Hochman. Our engineer is Daniel Turrick. Our music is composed by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder, and our podcast operations manager in Resident Kardashian Stan is Gabby Grossman. Hannah Rosen is the editorial director of audio at New York Magazine,

and we want to end this by giving a big thanks to Vulture Managing Editor Anusha Berturu and editor Neil Janowitz. And honestly, thanks to everybody at Vulture and New York Magazine and the entire Vox Podcast Network who helped us pilot this show. All right, we are back next Thursday with a new episode. Until then, dear listeners, keep getting into it. Nope, nope, that is not the sign-off. I'll think of a good one.

Until next time, be well. I hope you enjoyed Vulture's new show Into It with Sam Sanders. Don't forget to subscribe. I'll put a link in the show notes and come back on Tuesday when Sam and I discuss Beyonce's new record Renaissance.