Switched on Pop - Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars bring back the duet

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

It seemingly a terrible time to launch an over-the-top sentimental duet. This style of production peaked in the 80s and has had few chart topping success since. But as a sort of counter programming, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' duet "Die With A Smile" is an unexpected smash. This oddity from two beloved legacy artists may be more than a stand alone hit hit to promote Mars' Vegas residency and Gaga's upcoming film role in Joker: Folie à Deux. "Die With A Smile" more than hints at being interwoven to that film's universe, while also adhering to a forgotten musical traditional: the devotional duet in the style of Sonny & Cher. In the movie, Joker and Gaga's character Harley Quinn, have shared musical delusions about performing in a murderous Sonny & Cher like TV duo. But does this single come credit sequence song stand up to the best duets from the past? Listen to find out. Songs Discussed Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars - "Die With A Smile" Sonny & Cher - "I Got You Babe" Bread - "Make It On Your Own" Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway - "The Closer I Get To You" Lionel Richie & Diana Ross - "Endless Love" Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton - "Islands in the Stream" Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald - "On My Own" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Attention Spotify. Has arrived the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera. A fragrance intense with a character gourmet and addicive. Imagine a jasmine-envolventy, caramelized and tonka-tosted. A combination that seduce from the first instant and she'll awaya. Good Girl Jasmine Absolute,

hypnotic, irresistible. Discover it today and let you're involver for susentia. If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Peter. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are,

and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. Download the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.

I would argue that right now, co-labs are bigger than ever. Yes. But the devotional duet ballad is at a real low point. We haven't had a genuine pop ballad duo smash in quite a while, I think. Maybe now we are in luck, Nate, because we have a brand new duet by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga called die with a smile.

Within less than a week of its release, this song is doing more than just sweeping up our hearts. It is sweeping up the charts. It is being played all over radio. It's currently number one on Spotify's top 50. And it is

such an unusual release in this era of pop music. So I want to ask, why them, why now? What makes a great devotional duet, and how does this song hold up against the greats? Well, that's definitely one of the questions I have about this song, Charlie. Why now? Why is this

retro nostalgic throwback track resonating with people? Yeah, I would think that this is bad timing, like 40 years too late. Billboard compiled a list of the most successful duets of all time, and frankly, duets peaked in the 1980s. Think of songs like Diana Ross and Lionel Richie's Endless Love, or Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's Islands in the Stream, or Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald's on my own. Surely there are plenty of collaborations today, and there are some duets, notable exceptions like

at Sharon and Beyonce, The Weekend and Ariana Grande have many duets, Sam Smith and Armani stand out. Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are clearly digging up a sound from the past. So why are they doing it? Is my second question, which is I think it's because, you know, these are late career artists who need to grab attention and make hits. And one way to stand out is to create counter-programming. Don't sound like everything else, actually stand out

sound maybe like something old. And Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga, I feel like, are real fans of throwback material. Yeah, I mean, even the nature of this pairing seems designed to capture attention because it's not a duet that you would necessarily expect. They feel like, I mean, clearly they're both pop stars operating in similar circles, but Bruno Mars, I associate with more of this kind of glossy sort of all-ages sound. Whereas Lady Gaga, I think, of being a little more subversive, a little more playing to queer audiences, more theatrical or something. Mars is a bit more wedding dance music, Gaga, a bit more Broadway.

There you go. But they both really love drawing upon the past. Bruno Mars shamelessly copse from New Jack's Swing. Fonk. Don't believe me, just why I show! And soul. And of course, Gaga has her duets with the late legendary jazz singer Tony Bennett.

So two stars of the same era, both love the past, coming together to write a devotional duet that sounds like something that could have come out of another decade. But I don't think just doing it to make counter-programming and stand out from the rest, I think that they're also targeting the release of a major motion picture, the film Joker, Foliadu, my French accent, is not

worth trying. Foli adieu, is that? Foli adieu. Yes, thank you. It's coming out in October. Lady Gaga plays Harley Quinn, the love interest of Joker, played by Joaquin. The film takes place in the early 1980s, the same time period in which big love devotional duets are huge.

And it's a film about shared delusions. Foliadur is a psychiatric syndrome where two people share the same delusion. In this case, Harley Quinn and Joker share musical hallucinations, which we hear motivated in the first Joker film. Okay. So that's it. You're crazy.

your defense for killing three young men? No. They couldn't carry a tune to save their lives. Music is important to Joker. And in the trailer for this film, we see Harley Quinn, Gaga, and Joker dressed up as what looks like a murderous, sunny, and Cher,

the king and queen of the devotional duet. You might be thinking, wait a minute, hold on. What is this happening? have to do with the song. I may be thinking something along those lines. Are you saying this is like a song from the movie or maybe used to promote the movie or just kind of a nice coincidence? Like what is your working theory here?

The song, as of this moment, has not been announced as formerly a part of this film. Yeah. And yet, Gaga's about to go on a giant press tour for the movie. Mars, obviously not tied to the film, is about to begin a Vegas residency. So it's good timing for both of them. I kind of think that the song is a release just like the I'm Lovin' It and Forever jingles that were, as we discussed in our musical SpawnCon episode, songs that were meant to be jingles, but were released into culture before they actually were found out to be jingles,

to sound like they were more naturally embedded in music than when they occur on television, film, whatever. You're like, oh, I know that song. I love that song. That's my operating theory and, and, musically, I think it's sound. I mean, just check this chorus lyric. Let me remind you of Joker's defining characteristic. She always tells me to smile and put on a happy face. It's his smile and his violence.

Dying with a smile sounds like this could very well be a credit sequence song that has not yet been announced, but is storming up the pop charts. I mean, on one hand, I feel like some counterbalances to your theory are the fact that in the music video, Gaga and Mars are dressed in more 70s clothing than 80s clothing. But do they look like they are part of a on-screen TV musical duo? They do. Okay. And the other thing I was going to say is when you read their description of how this song came about,

it was just this sort of chance encounter. Oh, we were both working in the studio late, and Bruno said, come over, I want to do something. And now that I'm reciting it back to you, I'm like, that sounds kind of suspicious to me. You know, some clowns perform magic, and perhaps this is some sort of act of deception. But let's move past the whole jokerness of it all.

I want to get deeper into this song and examine how it holds up to the great ballad, devotional duets of the past. I think there's no better text to compare it to than to Sonny and Cher themselves, and we need to listen to I Got You, Babe, finally. I think that I Got You, Babe, is sort of the or text of great devotional duets. Surely there were duets that occurred before this song in history. But this one was special, not only because it made them sort of publicly acceptable as a couple, Sunny, and Cher.

But because of the performance itself, this song has got everything. It has all the necessary elements of a devotional duet. It has the chemistry that you need, right? The lyrical concept is so clear, I got you, babe. When they sing that line, they're singing in unison as if they are one. without the full band backing them up, all they need is their voices together with a little bit of oboe for whatever reason. I was going to say, I think the one time this song has come up on our show before is when we were talking about great moments in obo pop history as a result stemming from our discussion of the same in Seals' Kiss from a Rose. But please continue.

We're talking about duets. Okay, so we've got chemistry on lock. It also has an amazing emotional high point. Moving from that quiet I Got You Babe to the end of the song, you have gone through an expansive, growing journey just like their love. I realize that usually when I hear this song, I just hear like maybe an excerpt of the verse and chorus and don't necessarily listen through the whole thing.

And as a result, sort of miss this dramatic build. and sort of increasingly fervent expressions of devotion that you've just played for us. That's really cool. Yeah, exactly. I feel like the depth of emotion that's represented in this song is what gives credence to the strength of their real life and on-screen relationship. And it comes from that emotional high point. It also comes from the third element of this song for me that really stands out

is their euphonious vocals. because, you know, any ballad has to have malisma and scoops and high notes and vibrato. Well, first of all, hello modulation. Yeah. And second of all, and more pressingly, you can't just drop a term like euphonious and then just move on like nothing happened. That's erroneous. I can see euphonious whenever I want to. Oh, you're out of control. All right. What is euphony for the folks out there who, didn't look it up in the Harvard Dictionary of Music 30 minutes before this interview started.

It is a beautiful and skillful way of singing a melody. It's the opposite of cacophony. Yeah, it's the opposite of cacophony is euphony. Okay. And you also actually grabbed my fourth element that I think needs to exist in a great devotional duet. You noted a modulation that occurred. I did.

A key change. Yes, you must have rich harmony. The harmonies need to be as lush and rich as the love that is being sung about, right? And so if we take all of these elements together, chemistry, high point, euphonious vocals, and rich harmonies, what does that spell? C-H-E-R, share. It's the share test. Oh, the share test. Yeah, it's not the sunny and share test because I think his voice would drag down the overall scores of the share test.

So we have the share test, and what I want to do is look at whether or not Mars and Gaga can really hold a candle to this share test with their song, Die With a Smile. Let's go. We need to start with chemistry. Do Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga have believable chemistry here? Here's Bruno's verse. And here's Gaga's verse. And here they sing together. Together, they are lost in a dream.

They're getting over the things that they scream about. The song asks the age old cliche, if the world was ending, who would you want to be with? What would you want to do? In Bruno's verse, he wakes up from a dream and realizes, oh, I need to be with you. In Gaga's verse, she says, oh, we need to get over all of our screaming.

We just need to be together. And when they sing together, there are moments of unison, there are moments of harmony. I think there is deep passion portrayed. And for me, I hear believable chemistry. I do too. And for me, this is one of the key qualities that sets this song apart from some of the other collabs that we were talking about earlier in the episode. I'm really not trying to throw anyone under the bus here.

But when you listen to, I don't know, post Malone. and Taylor Swift sing Fortnights together. No shade on the song. Yeah, yeah. Chemistry, not the first word that comes to mind. Yeah, Post Malone has more chemistry with Morgan Wall

and then he does take for stuff. I'm sorry. So true. So true. So many of these so-called duets are recorded completely remotely where the two singers are never in the same room

at the same time. And that's why you never see a photo from the studio of them singing together. Now, I don't know if that was the case with the Gaga Mars. It doesn't sound like it was, but it could be. But either way, it sounds like these two people are singing together, you know, locking eyes and sort of singing at each other. They've done it convincingly to me.

It feels like they're in dialogue with each other, which is maybe more rare in a lot of contemporary duets. So it's got the chemistry. The next question is, does it have a high point? Uh-huh, the H. Yeah. As a refresher, here's what we hear at the very beginning of the song. And by the midpoint, I'd say it's a pretty big climb.

I would say so, too. I mean, I don't think there's a modulation in this song, a key change. We're not too rich harmonies yet. Okay, my bet. Oh, so you were just talking just like sort of sonic energy. Yeah, exactly. I mean, then, yeah, this is like big. This is filling the room.

It's grabbing your attention. It's making you say, whoa, what are these people singing about? Okay, so then euphonious vocals. We have that opening Bruno Mars falsetto. That's very nice. When Lady Gaga comes into her verse, she opens with this completely unnecessary, but lovely melisma. It's a nice line. And when they're screaming together, they are belting.

Now I see why we're using the word euphonious, because it starts with an E. But I love it. We need this word in the discourse more frequently. It could have said extra, too, maybe is another description. I could have said vocal acrobatics, but that wouldn't spell share. No, this is good. This is like the kind of song where the engineer has to really work the faders to make sure they're not peaking because they're going from quiet to soft. There's dynamics in this song, Charlie.

What a thought. Okay. last quality, rich harmonies. I think that it's got it just through and through. The core of the song is built around

this A major seven chord. Ooh, yes, Daddy. Sorry. I don't know why I said that, but I guess a major seven chords spring out something. Is that not exactly the response that you're supposed to have?

There's something about the quality of a major seventh chord that gives you that, yes, daddy feeling. Give me that chord one more time. Well, it's like A is such a bright key, but then that major seventh kind of makes it a little darker, so it's like, man, that's, that's doing something to me.

There's something about the construction of a major seventh chord where you have this major triad on the bottom. Uh-huh. And then on top, you have a minor triad. And if you put them together, you get the chord quality. And so it's kind of this ambiguous place, but it also has that really high degree of tension

from the first note to the last note, which together sound terrible, but in contexts, sound lovely. Yeah. It's like that minor triad is the death of the title of the song, and the major triad is the smile of the title. When you put them together, you get die with a smile. Oh, ooh, yeah.

And so this song kind of waffles back and forth between an A major seven chord to a D major seven chord. Thank you, Nate. Nady Gaga. All righty. Gaga's, she's so dramatic. I love it. So it's got the harmonies there.

I also think it has the rich harmony in the chorus, which does this sort of like carousel-like chord progression where it doesn't quite ever resolve. Goes from a four chord, to a five chord, to a three minor chord, to a six minor chord, and then just keeps repeating.

So you're not quite getting the resolution that you want because, hey, the world is ending. That is until very briefly, we touch on our home chord, the one chord, for a very quick moment, right when they say, die, then it descends down to the relative minor, back to the F minor.

So when we go die with a smile, the whole thing kind of fades down into the minor. We don't get our final resolution until the very end of the chorus. He'd want to be next to you right on that O'Dady, A major seventh chord, that nice little resolution back into the verse. And so these chords, I think, are doing a great job of following the concept. The rich harmony that jumped out to me is the one that occurs right before the start of the chorus when they say, like it's the last night. We get an F-sharp sus-cord.

Because when I think rich, I think of sort of thick and filling, right? And this chromatic chord, which is not part of the key of... A major, it's bringing us to that B minor where we start the chorus is like something that you wouldn't normally encounter in a pop song in 2024. It feels like kind of a throwback harmony in the way that this whole duet does. And to me, that's like a key element of that harmonic landscape of the song, is that moment. Yeah, and you were pointing out there's no modulation. Oftentimes we want these kinds of songs, some kind of harmonic variation towards the end. We don't get a modulation, but we do get a really nice re-harmonization of the chorus in its final repeat.

Very bright, all these nice chromatic chords, a nice little variation so that, you know, they can earn that very last moment. So, big picture. Rich harmony, yes. Euphonious melodies and vocals, yes. High point, yes. Chemistry, Yes, how many share points would you award this song? On a scale of Sunny to share. On a scale from Sunny to share. I mean, let's give it 10.10 share points. I don't know what.

Maybe a modulation would put it up to 11 or something, but I really can't think of what else this is missing. The one thing I couldn't quite find in this song were really overt references. One thing with a Bruno Mars song is you can often find the exact song that he was trying to dial in and update for the present. There's maybe a little bit of breads,

make it on your own, from 1970. Or like a touch of Roberta Flack and Donnie Hathaway's the closer I get to you from 1977. The harmonies are similar in both. those songs. I was going to say those major seventh chords really come through. Yeah. But I kind of feel like they're doing their own thing. I mean, it's old school that they're using these jazzy chords, that it's organic instrumentation, guitar bass and drums. It's in a six eight time signature, you know, that kind of a feel. It's using big old plate reverbs and things that sound like

older production, but it kind of is its own song. And so what I want to do next is, widen our data set to some of the best devotional duets of all time to see if the share test really holds up and see how Gaga and Mars compare against some of the greatest devotional duets of all time. All right. I've been waiting for this. Let's do it. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week. week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition,

work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey.

Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly 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. It's 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 immigrants, from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. When you think Love Ballad, when you think devotional duet, there is one song that must come to mind.

Islands in the stream. That's our second. Oh. I'll give you a hint. Two of the biggest Motown stars of all time. Ain't a mountain high enough. Close. I think you're going to have to tell me this one.

But I chose to omit that song's specifically because I think it's a bit too upbeat and not validy enough. How about Ryan O'Litchie and Ryanna Doss? Hint, hint, hint. Endless love. Yes. Lionel Richie, Diana Ross, endless love. Oh, that was painful.

From 1881. What do you do when you're making a major motion picture that is a middling success starring Tom Cruise in his first role next to Brook Shields? You ask Lionel Richie to write a song, bring in Diana Ross to sing along. You get nominated for Academy Award. You reach number one. You break records for Lionel Richie and Diana Ross for making one of the biggest songs of both of their careers. The question is, does endless love have share?

My immediate answer is yes, but maybe we need to go through the checklist. Okay, so chemistry. My love. There's only you in my life. They're only thing that's right. You're every breath that I take the step I made. They're not even singing together in the opening verse, and it seems like they're holding hands at the altar.

Like, they are singing right to each other. The only thing bright in my life, your every breath I take. What a beautiful metaphor. When they sing together, it's like she's finishing his words. These are two hearts beating. as one mate.

Two, two hearts that beat as one. This has more chemistry than Dexter's Laboratory. This is like the way they sing together is like their old friends having the time of their lives relishing every word. It's got that eyes locked quality that I mentioned earlier where you can really see them just like kind of look at each other and smiling. I think you're right. This is the sine qua non of devotional ballads.

It's got the chemistry, and it also obviously has a high point and euphonious vocal right at the climax of the song. They are singing. I mean, yeah, it doesn't get more impassioned than that. Okay, and then in terms of rich harmonies, remember how in Die with a smile, the chorus has this little, melt down, walk down from the major chord to the minor chord. Yes, from the die to the smile. Endless love takes this in an endless dimension. It does the exact same thing,

except it just keeps on walking down the scale all the way to the very bottom in this really lovely harmony. And the whole progression ends with this really rich chord. So beautiful. So passes the share test with flying, I don't think anything can do endless love better than endless love. Perhaps the share test should be the endless love test. But we're sticking to the acronym.

We've got to keep moving through another one of the biggest devotional duets of all time. That brings us to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's Islands in the Stream. So this song was originally written for Diana Ross by the Bee Gees and was given to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, it went number one. It was the second number one for both Rogers and Dolly Parton. It's titled after a Hemingway novel that was published posthumously. I think islands in the stream is a funky concept. Sorry, Hemingway. But a stream is a small body of water that I just don't think a stream has islands. And I understand the metaphor is about, you know, we're going to be the solid rock in the middle of all the things of life that goes by and are difficult.

but just, you know, a roaring brook, whitewater rapids through the river. A lagoon, perhaps, an estuary? I feel like a lagoon, an estuary, have more slow-moving water and don't bring up the metaphor of the turbulent waters sufficiently. Probably could have just gone with a river, but stream is a little more rhymable. Maybe that's part of it. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so immediately I'm taking issue with the title of the song.

How about the share test? Does this song have chemistry? I mean, yes, but maybe not quite at the level of some of these other songs. I don't know. We might have to get deeper into it. For me, it's frankly hard to hear this chorus without thinking of the impression that Jimmy Fallon did of Kenny Rogers alongside Miley Cyrus's Dali Parton. I mean, that's uncanny.

They look eerily like the originals. You know, seeing that, too, it's also the same. style that Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga are clearly going for. It's like the TV variety music show. Just in terms of the fashion and the hair, it's like they're clearly referencing islands in a stream, I think. You know, it's hard for me to love the chemistry of this song, I think, because of Fallon's impression, not just of Kenny Rogers, but also of the Bee Gees who wrote this song.

Because when I hear that, you know, uh-huh, it kind of feels like they're trying to force stand alive into a ballad. That's good. Well, never going to be able to unhear that now. Thanks, Charlie. It's also hard for me because I just feel like both these artists have such distinct vocal qualities that maybe don't blend in quite the way that I would want to really maximize the chemistry of the song.

I love Kenny Rogers. I love Philadelphia Parton. This song is beloved by many, and many will not enjoy my perspective on this. I just don't think I'm getting the vocal blend that I want there, and I'm feeling a little bit too much staying alive when I hear islands in the stream. So on the chemistry test, I don't know. I don't know the history, but you get the vibe that when they finish singing this song, they go to their separate dressing rooms and never speak again.

Whereas Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, like, chill and, like, have a drink can like share stories. Maybe Kenny and Dolly were great friends, but it doesn't scream that in the performance. Yeah, I'm not sure they're hanging out. I don't know about this chemistry. I don't even know if the song has the high point that we need to pass the share test,

except for this kind of odd bridge with some unnecessary horns. We'll give, especially Dolly, points for some euphonious singing in that moment. Okay, I just found an article in People magazine that Kenny and Dolly were great friends. So just to correct the rumors that I maybe unintentionally spread, nevertheless, does it sound like they're perfectly in sync

the way some of these other duettists do? I'm not sure. Okay, important fact check. And also, like, great friends don't necessarily make compelling romantic duet partners. Do they provide us, though, with the final element of the share test, rich harmonies, I think maybe a little bit in the pre-chorus. We get a nice major seventh chord, turns into a minor chord. So that's nice.

And then when they go to Dolly, this song makes a completely absurd modulation, the thing that you've been looking for this whole time. We go from C to A-flat. So we've got a modulation for you, N. Pretty rich. Okay. Okay, I'll take it. On the share test, I kind of feel like we're getting like two out of three that I need here.

Like, doesn't quite have the chemistry or the high point for me, does have some euphonious moments, some good, rich harmonies. Somehow, one of the biggest duets of all time, which everyone else seemingly agrees is a great song. It's not passing my test. Which brings us to our third and final number one duet that I want to share with you today, Patty LaBelle and Michael McDonald's on my own from 1986. Oh, no, that's the name as a Rob. Sorry. I don't know. I wasn't sure what was happening for a second.

I think this is a really cool frame for a song. You have this duet where from the start, you think it's just another love song. It's going to be forever. It's always going to be true. And then this punchline, it hurts. I'm lying here beside you on my own. It's like we're together, but we are separate. And this theme continues in Michael McDonald's verse.

We're talking about divorce. We are working things out. And when they sing together, man, doesn't it seem like they're still together? Yeah. It's like they keep trading on my own, but they're never singing it together. but they are singing so over the top that in this moment, I feel like we're getting everything we need. It's the chemistry.

It's emotional high point. It's euphonia singing. It's got these rich chords underneath. On my own is doing it all for me. It is shared of the max. And, man, Michael McDonald's, he's like the king of euphony. Yeah, I'm not totally sure

that their voices blend either, simply because nobody can blend with Michael McDonald, except for Michael McDonald's. He's just such a distinct voice, and yet perhaps that is appropriate for the theme of this song. It has devotion, but it's through conflict. It's like they're finding love for themselves within the conflict of this relationship. You know, another thing I love about this song is that it was written by one of my favorite songwriters, Bert Bacarach. And that's interesting to me because this song wasn't from a movie, but a lot of Bacarach songs were, you know, Alfie.

rain drops keep falling on my head from Butch Cassie and the Sundance Kid and I feel like there is something kind of cinematic about so many of these devotional duets and it's probably not a coincidence that a lot of them appear or are written in conjunction with movies like endless love you said was written for a movie

we're arguing that Die with a Smile might be related to this upcoming movie and now I'm thinking about other duets right? A whole new world from Aladdin there's an amazing devoting duet from a movie. Yeah.

Or what about shallow? We're far from the show. By Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, which shockingly has not come up yet in this entire discussion, but is probably one of the most iconic, like 21st century devotional duets, and is also from a movie. So maybe there's something about the cinematic nature of these duets that we like to see them in film and imagine sort of the relationship between,

the protagonist. Well, thank you for reinforcing my core argument here. You know, we don't know yet whether or not this song is going to be tied to a film, but it feels so obviously connected. I mean, we have given it the share score. And if we go back and listen to Sonny and Shares, I Got You, Babe, check out the key lyric. When I'm sad, you're a clown, and if I get scared, you're always around.

I wonder if there's a reason why this throwback devise. devotional duet by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars is visually referencing a TV on-screen musical duo from the past. It is musically hinting at the past. I think that there is some underlying conspiracy going on here, and that this song is going to soon reveal itself to be something even bigger than what it already is. Well, if so, you heard it here first, people. Time will tell. And if not, you and I will have to record our own devotional. duet. You know, I think unlike Harton and Rogers, who are

indeed good friends, I think you and I have true romantic chemistry. Do we have the share factor? No, probably. No, no, no. Switched on Pop is produced by Randall Cruz, edited this week by Julie Myers, engineered by Brandon Farland,

illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Special thanks to David Wolfert. Our executive producer is Nishot Kerwa, a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network, a production of Vulture. It's part of New York magazine. You can find that at NYMag.com slash pod. Find us on social media at Switchdown Pop and Wax Lyrical on your favorite duets of all time and see how Die with a Smile stacks up against them.

And tune in next Tuesday. We'll have a brand new episode exploring the past and the present of one Sabrina Carpenter. Until then. Thanks for listening. Convierte your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. well, the best conversion

of the world. The incredible system of the Pago Facility facilitation the website on your site and the

website and in the world. That is music for your ears. No, you'll

make more your business will be a super success with Shopify. Empeas

your period of a month for a euro a month in Shopify. coms

bar records.