Switched on Pop - Sounds Like Teen Spirit (with Elle Fanning)

Episode Date: April 23, 2019

Pop is inseparable from reality TV singing competitions. From Eurovision to American Idol, scores of stars got their start in singing competitions. We’ve long overlooked this influence on pop, but were inspired to look into the phenomenon by the release of Teen Spirit, a pop-musical film about a fictional singing competition . What is the history of these shows? Who got their big break on one? Is there a singing show musical aesthetic? We hit the books and records to find out, and the answers might surprise. Finally we speak with Elle Fanning, who plays contestant Violet in the film, about what it takes to train to be a singer primed for national fame. Songs DiscussedElle Fanning - Dancing On My OwnFrank Sinatra with The Hoboken Four on the Major Bowes Amateur HourGladys Knight on the Original Amateur HourAbba - WaterlooCeline Dion - Ne Partez Pas Moi Alanis Morisette on Star Search Girls Tyme with Beyoncé on Star SearchKelly Clarkson - A Moment Like ThisWhitney Houston - I Have NothingNina Simone - Feeling GoodJanis Joplin - Piece of My HeartSusan Boyle - I Dreamed A DreamElle Fanning - Don't Kill My Vibe (originally by Sigrid)Recommended listeningMavis Staples - AnytimeAnderson Paak - VenturaThe Beths - Future Me Hates MeMax, Quinn XCII - Love Me LessKhalid, John Mayer - Outta My Head* Correction: Though non-European countries do compete in Eurovision, Canada has not competed in the contest. Celine Dion represented Switzerland in her performance of "Ne Partez Pas Moi Celine" in 1988. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Popp. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Nate, today we get to talk about something which I have completely missed out on in my entire musical life. Okay. What's that? Reality TV singing competitions. Ah, I too have mostly missed out. I've dabbled in the voice a little bit. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I think this came about when I was sort of deep in high school and I was probably distracted.

by my studies and all the other things were happening in high school. And I just like... Your studies. Yeah, I was a diligent student. And you know, frankly, I kind of just felt like the message that anybody could be a star was kind of tried at that point of my life. So I just wasn't interested in these things. There's a new film that's just come out called Teen Spirit, which stars El Fanning as a contestant

in a British TV competition called Teen Spirit that promises to make some starry-eyed youth the next big thing. Gotcha. And she comes from the boondocks in the aisle. of White. She sings in karaoke bars. She takes lessons from a former opera star, forms a band and practices her craft to escape her humble life with her single mother. And I really enjoyed the music in this film and the way that it sort of uniquely tells the story of star creation from a slightly different narrative point of view and using the TV singing competition

as a narrative device. This is all fascinating to me. But it also got me thinking about what have I been missing out on. So a bunch of questions occurred to me. Like, how important are singing competitions in music, especially today with things like YouTube? What are the musical aesthetics of singing competitions? And so I thought what we could do today is have a little exploration into the influence of TV singing competitions upon pop music.

And then sort of look at whether what we find out conforms with this new film Teen Spirit, and we're also really lucky to have an interview with the star El Fanning about what it takes to train to be a pop star in a film. Right on. All right. I'm excited. This is going to be fun. So I thought to kick it off, we should just listen to a clip actually from Teen Spirit and get a sense of this TV singing competition music? Oh yeah. This is Robbins dancing on my own as performed by L. Fanning in the film Teen Spirit. Is this a TV singing competition song? You know, it doesn't strike me particularly as as the ideal material for one of these reality shows. Neither did the film. This is the funny thing. The film is in many ways, this is the, a story about pop

music itself with using pop music as a storytelling device. Right. But when she sings this song in a, in the competition in this film, the judges say that that's not really, that was not a good song choice. But I love this song. It's like nostalgia. Yeah. It built into it. It's funny. I'm thinking like, part of the reason it's not a great song is that there's a lot of silence in the song, as in like lyrical space. Right, right. You know, you sing a line and then you pause and the music kind of does the work. Does she love you better than I can?

There's a big black sky. Yeah. And then you sing another line. It's like, you should probably be a song where you're just singing nonstop. Yeah. And there's like, there's not a lot of vocal range here. So this was kind of like stuff I was intuiting. This feels like maybe this isn't quite right.

But like I said, I'm not an expert here. And so what I thought we should do is to get a sense of, did these things match the expectations? I wanted to go on a little bit of a journey and figure out what have we missed in the reality TV singing world. And so we should commence with a non-exhaustive, entirely reductive, but utterly surprising history of reality television, singing competitions. Okay, so when I think about reality TV singing competitions, I generally think about American Idol. Yep. That's a big one. Right.

Well, over the last couple days, I've been doing some. deep research. Okay. And I have found that there are some surprising mega stars that are so imbued within pop culture that you might not know or you might have forgotten that they actually came through a reality TV singing competition, uh, history. So we're going to do a little bit of a lesson here, but we're actually going to turn it into a game.

I want to play you some tracks. Yeah. of the world's biggest pop stars over time and see if you can identify their early releases on these competitions. Whoa, okay. I make no promises, but I'm ready to play. So we need to go back in time, way back, almost a century. What?

I'm playing with my numbers, but 1934 to Major Bowes Amateur Hour. And I love this because not only do singing competitions start in radio, but it starts on a show called Amateur Hour, which is like the term, it's amateur hour, which I think is so fun. I'm going to play you a clip,

and I want you to see if you can identify who this indelible star is, one of the biggest names. Okay. We have now the whole broken four. They call themselves a singing and dancing fools.

Who speaks for the group? I will. I'm frank. We're looking for jobs. How about it? Oh, my hair. I gave you a lot of hints in there. This is easy. I heard a, uh, I heard, I heard a Frank in there. Yeah. I heard the Hoboken Four jersey. Yeah. Is this Frankie Valley in the four seasons?

This is Frank Sinatra. What? Yes. Frank Sinatra was first heard on the amateur hour. That's wild. And he's not the only one. Okay. Amateur Hour goes to television and I want to take take you to 1948 when a exceptionally talented seven-year-old goes on the show, and I don't know how you could possibly get this, but you're going to have to try. Okay. Oh, seven years old? Good voice, right? That's, I need to see a birthday. That's crazy. I'm just stabbing the dark. I'm going to say Nina Simone. This young woman won this competition three times. That is a seven-year-old Gladys Knight. Wow, Gladys Knight. Incredible. You know who was cut from the show.

Elvis Presley. I mean, like, some of the biggest folks. Okay, so we have gone from radio, moved on to television. I think the television competition world gets picked up post-World War II in 1956 with Eurovision. And for those of us who are not as familiar with Eurovision, it's basically an American idol-like competition meets. the Olympics because it includes nation states. And European nation states, they have an internal competition within each nation. And then the winner goes to a multinational competition. And there's

eventually a winner each year. And it was really a project of post-World War II healing, trying to bring different nations together. Wow. As, you know, instead of using tanks, using voice and dance, right? Yeah. That's, that's wild. So maybe, maybe Eurovision will will heal Brexit in 2019. Big question is does Britain get to participate?

Yeah, right? Because usually Britain gets into the top 20 no matter what because it's kind of like being in the UN Security Council of song and dance. In any case,

many stars have been minted out of Eurovision and I think you might get this one. Okay. We're going to go to 1974. In fact, this song is appropriate for Eurovision

because it deals with issues of European politics? Yeah. Yep. I know this one. It's about Napoleon surrendering. Oh my God. This song is so good.

That's Abba. I know that one. And if I didn't before, I definitely would have having just seen Mamma Mia 2. Here we go again last week. Can't recommend it enough. Fantastic scene choreograph to that song.

Please continue. But did you know that they were your version? I had no idea. Yeah. And I mean, if we could do a whole whole. So they were Sweden's

entry. We could do a whole mini series on Abba's influence upon all of popular music that like through Abba

you get to Max Martin get to Britney Spears, get to Ariana Grande. Like there's a whole sort of

Illuminati. Is that a proposal? Because it might be. I accept. Okay. So we got

Abba. I want to play one more from Eurovision. Yeah. This is one of the most important winners

ever. This is from 1988. I'm sorry to get it. You're saying you get it. I can see. It's your mind turning. But isn't she,

but isn't she Canadian? Eurovision's funny. There are people who participate in Eurovision that are not in European countries. So Australia is in it. Israel won last year. Wild. So Celine D.

on another reality show, uh, alumnus, fascinating. Okay. So now let's go to Star Search. Star Search was the big 80s, 90s,

progenitor to American Idol. Right. minted many of today's biggest stars. Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Christina Aguilera. Oh yeah.

Which one surprised you most? Your eyes are flying out of your head. My eyebrows went up Because was this pre or post Mickey Mouse Club? Because that's where I always thought That's where I think of Brittany and J.T. And company getting their start. Upon a cursory research, I'm not sure.

I'm going to say just around the same time. Totally. Okay. No, no, that just adds more to their mystique for me. Much more interesting, though, are the folks that I did not know about from Star Search. This is a 1890 contestant. Whoa.

feeling this. It's good voice. Yeah. Wow. But can you recognize that voice? And pure. 1990, this has got to be Jessica Simpson. Alanis Morissette. I'm now realizing what we're basically doing is the inverse

of the masked singer. That's so, I mean, no, this is fascinating, though, because that did not sound like the Alanis Morissette, I know, from, you know, Jack Little Hill. What did you hear and what do you expect? Well, it just sounded like more of a straight up pop voice, you know, very clipped and straight ahead and pure, not doing the kind of wild, edgy, rough vocalizations that you hear

on like, you, you, I don't know. Well, if we want to talk about distinctive voices, it's going to bring us to the final, and I think most important star who got started in the Star Search era let's play our final clip from 1993 oh that's funky

yeah that's like super rhythmic yeah is this Beyonce yes no way I can't believe you got that did you have any idea it sounded like her to me yeah unlike the previous example of Alanis like that just sound that

that like breathy kind of rhythmic attack. It was all there. Yeah. So this is, this is Beyonce performing in, I think they were called Girl Time, eventually became Destiny's Child. Wow.

And then we get the biggest star of all time. Okay, wow. Do you know, I'm curious, do you know if any of these people won Star Search? I have no idea. Yeah. Interesting. I have no idea.

But. I'm guessing it doesn't, that's not even a correlation. I mean, like just being on the show is maybe enough to keep, progressing forward to the music industry. I think this is exactly what surprised me in going into this investigation was that I never thought that some of the artists that I perceived as

I'll just say like the most artistically reputable game-changing biggest stars came through a system which I have sort of perceived as trite commercial like totally manufactured I mean, intentionally manufacturers. Yeah, yeah. Right.

And we know that many of these groups are actually put together by these shows. Oh, true, true. Right. So like One Direction is an example of that. Yeah, exactly. Which begs the question, like, is... So I think we both agree. We like One Direction. Yes.

Great musicality. Yes. We did a whole episode about Harry Styles' most recent album. We loved it. Yes. I guess it makes me question this, like, nature, nurture thing. Uh-huh. Are these kids just...

poised for artistic brilliance or does like actually working within that early manufactured machine help breed new artistic integrity and interest? That's a good question, Charles. And I don't want to sort of lean too hard on like the artistic integrity. Like some things are good or bad. Right. But I do perceive them often as acting in different ways. Like they're, they have, they're preferring different kinds of modes of expression where that I always sort of think of the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the.

performances is as much about the visual and the spectacle, which can be extremely exciting and motivating, and there's no reason people shouldn't enjoy that. But I see it as operating differently than Beyonce's Lemonade, which is a essential cultural artifact, and that they are coming, that she's coming through that system is just extraordinary to me. Okay. Yeah. So this catches me up to where my knowledge was at, which is American Idol. So American Idol launches is in 2002. And this is the real beginning of the decline of the CD era. And a real shift is happening in pop culture.

Napster's 1999. Even cable television is trying to figure itself out. There's more channels than ever before. An American Idol is one of the most culturally significant things that happens on television. It gets 38 million viewers at its peak. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. Does anything besides the Super Bowl?

I don't know, right? It was the number one show on TV for seven years. I remember seeing ads that they kept telling me that it was so popular. And it has had an undeniable influence on pop music. I already read a bunch of the folks that had come through idol and some of its spinoffs. The show has had five number one hits.

The first one, I think upon rediscovering, says so much about what the TV star competition is about. Yeah, it's nice. Nice little cadenza there. Yeah. So this is very, very saccharine, but I'm into it.

It's kind of self-referential, right? Well, that's the whole point. This is Kelly Clarkson's a moment like this. This is her first big hit on winning the competition

and it scores a number one hit for the competition. Remember, they're putting out albums and record deal. So this is a like multifaceted intellectual property. Synergy, baby.

And the song is literally some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this. I can't believe it's happening to me. It's as if she's narrating the experience of discovering fame while relating to all of the viewers who are excited to see themselves in the potential role of the superstar.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, 100%. What surprised me about going into American Idol is that though it had a long run, it disappeared in 2016, it's back again. Right, right. And we can almost see if it as a continuation of this much longer history of television, entertainment and radio entertainment.

Oh, yeah, the amateur hour. It actually only has a sort of short run of mega pop hit success. So by 2006, they actually have their last number one song. I remember Taylor Hicks. Do I make you proud with his song? I do remember here. And the last time they even had something in the top 10 was in 2012 with season 11 winner Philip Phillips. Oh, sure.

Yeah, home. That's a great tune. That's a great tune. Yeah, yeah. But that was the last, in 2012 was the last time they had a number 10, top 10. hit. I think part of the reason why is that there is, I hate the word, but a great degree of disruption in how one can make it in the music business. Sure. Right. So first of all, there's a ton of spinoffs, right? So you said you watch the voice. Love the voice. X Factor.

There's so many different shows. And I don't want to say too U.S. centric because there are European spinoffs. Of course, there are tons of Korean TV singing competitions where there's this entire history there, which I think we are overdue to get into at some point on the show. No doubt. But basically all this competition from different shows is diluting the audience. There's not as many people watching. The star power is not as much there. And people are popping up on YouTube.

They're popping up on Vine, right? John Mendez is a Vine star. Cardi B was a Vine star. Oh, interesting. Right? And so there's all these other ways to get exposure and build a fan base. we no longer rely on. You've got to go on television, go through a whole contest, be recognized by a premier set of exclusive judges that are going to determine your fate.

American Idol is back. It's still going. But I think it's kind of nostalgic. And there's a great degree of nostalgia in this film, Teen Spirit. What I want to do when we come back is I want to look at what is the sound of reality television? Is there a specific sound? And does this film, which is playing on nostalgia for the reboot of this TV era star making power, which is now sort of waning and tenuous at best, does it conform to those musical standards? We're also going to talk with L. Fanning.

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Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. What is the sound of a reality TV singing performance? I don't know, but I'm dying to find out. Okay, so back in 2014, Volcher writer Benjamin Solomon did The Impossible. Went and counted, tallied all of the songs that have been sung on all of the major competitions to see which are the most performed songs. Wow. And I want to look at the top three songs.

Okay, great. And see if we can identify some characteristics that make something uniquely for live reality television. I'm on the edge of my seat. Okay. I don't think you'll be surprised that the number one song is by one of the most talented vocalists of all time. Whitney Houston. Whitney Houston. Her song, I Have Nothing, has been performed 17 times.

Dang. times an American Idol, five times on the voice, twice on X Factor. Once on the winner is, I don't even know what that is. One on America's Got Talent. And there's probably more since, because this is a little dated, but I wasn't going to go and grab all the data because that's going to take forever. Nonetheless, I think we can just agree, Whitney Houston's voice, epic. Let's listen to I have nothing. And I want you to listen in for, is there anything in there that makes this worthy of being the number one most performed song on reality TV?

singing competitions. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Epic modulation. I love it. Yeah. So nice. So what are the main characteristics here for you? Okay, this is a great question. Okay, this is like a big part of this is virtuosity, right? It's the ability to sing difficult things well, right? This is a hard song to sing. Really hard song. As I was pointing out, there is this wonderful and difficult modulation there in that final chorus where it just ascends kind of at a strange and open undecided moment. You have to as the singer lead that moment. The music's not bringing you there.

So I think criteria number one is vocal dexterity. Totally, yeah. Let's go to the second most performed song. This is Nina Simone's Feeling Good. It's a new dawn. It's a new day. It's a new life for me. Yeah, it's a new dawn.

It's a new dawn. It's a new life for me And I'm feeling good This is, I mean, first of all, what an amazing song Just as a quick aside, I mean, the fact that this song is called Feeling Good And it's set in a minor key. Yeah.

Okay, so this one, I feel like, if they're doing it like the recording, when you start singing the song, you are out there on your own. Yeah, it is a cappella, there is nowhere to hide. Yeah. That takes a lot of guts

and a lot of, you know, self-confidence to be able to pull that off. That's exactly what I heard in this song as well. It's confidence, a lot of poise. And the way that she goes from being a solo voice into leading the band in, right? It's like all of a sudden the drama has increased. And I think related to that is a mode of ability.

Every vowel, every consonant is so perfectly formed and done in the perfect dynamic, the way the volume ebbs and flows to emphasize the smallest thing. Yeah. And as a watcher of the voice, I know this is the advice they're constantly giving the contestants is like you have to sing this song like you mean every word. Yeah. Like this is your thing.

It's all occurring you for the very first time and you need to sing it out. That's hard to do. It is hard to do. And you need to because your job is to transmit that feeling to the people in the audience who might probably almost definitely have heard this song before. Yeah. 15 times. And they need to hear it in a new way as well. And so you have to perform this.

to the top of your ability and also not be trite. How do you maintain being real and performative? So hard. Seriously. Brings us to our last song. Great. This is the number three

most performed song across reality. Singing competitions. It is by Janice Joplin. By the way of Big Brother and the Holding Company. What do you read in Janice Joplin's voice on Peace of My Heart? This, okay, so this is a good song to pick if you really want to show off your personality and your unique voice.

Because this song, if you're channeling Janice Joplin, you're just like letting loose, you're throwing in ad libs, you're leaving it all on the floor. Like, this is a song you pick when you're like, I have my own style and I want everyone to know it. Like, this gives you the space to do that. Sometimes when I produce a show, all I hope is that you're going to say the thing. It is exactly the thing that I want you to say, because I wrote down here, authenticity of voice. that's what I'm hearing. And that's exactly what you're hearing. I think that these...

Beautiful. Can we pound? Yeah. Bam. I think these three songs capture the essential ingredients that are not essential ingredients of pop music. Right. But are the performance of aspirational pop stardom in front of a televised audience, you need to have vocal dexterity. You need to have confidence, poise, and over...

the controlled narrative development of the drama and the song, you have to have great emotive ability, and you need to have an authentic voice. Yeah, that's all. Yeah. Just all of that. NVD. No big deal. There's one other song that I just feel like in talking about our celebration of reality television music, we would be remiss not to mention. I dreamed a dream and time gone by.

Yeah, that's Susan Boyle, right? That's Susan Boyle singing, I Dream to Dream. And in the clip, in the live reaction, the behind the scenes, people say, you didn't expect to hear that, did you? Right, right. You didn't expect that. And because that's the last sort of essential part is that you have to have everything and you have that thing where you break all of the audience's expectations about who

you are, what you're capable of, because I think you have to be the stand-in for that audience. Like, everybody wants to see themselves in the potential role of the star. And Susan Boyle was this 47-year-old aspiring Scottish singer from a small collection of villages. And she, I think, really defied expectations about what a pop star could look like, sound like, all of the ageist expectations about pop stardom. And so I wanted to bring her into the conversation because I think you can't, you can't

just be a perfect singer and performer. You have to also represent something that is breaking from the mold. You know, I'm glad you said that because it also makes me sort of zoom out. The earlier you were saying, you know, we might have some biases against these shows because they don't seem authentic, because they seem manufactured, et cetera. But on the other hand, it's like when you think of some of the stars they've produced, Kelly Clarkson, Susan Boyle, Jennifer Hudson, it's like, they wow me. And I feel like they might not have been accepted by the traditional gatekeepers of the music industry, labelheads, and our people, because they didn't, as you said, their look, their personality, whatever, didn't fit the mold of a conventional

pop star. Folks like Clay Aiken and even Taylor Hicks, right? Like these folks just, when you see them on a stage, they feel more like, oh, that's like my friend. Sure. And maybe we're getting a little generous with our definition of star now, but point taken. I mean, this does make me think that these shows are really valuable and like introducing voices into the pop machine that might not be, might not make it otherwise.

But as we established, are these shows relevant anymore? That's a great question. Do they exist? Yes, these shows exist. Do they garner a large audience? Yes, they do. Are there more kinds of gatekeepers and entry points into popular music? Definitely.

If you're an aspiring performer, you don't have to play this game. There's a lot of other games you can play. to get there. What they don't have anymore is an entire, at least I want to speak specifically in the United States. Okay. They do not have the entire nation watching a thing, defining a critical moment. True.

There's no moment like this anymore. No. Which brings us to Teen Spirit. Excellent. Because there is a moment. This is a really different kind of film. This is a sort of pop musical where most of the music is diagetic. music. They are singing music in the song, but it's not a musical because it's happening in a reality

TV competition. Right. You saw it? Yeah, yeah. I'm a fan. It's a fun film. Part of the reason why I enjoyed Teen Spirit is because it is just full of nostalgia for things that I really love, which is some great music, and particularly some music, which was not the most heavily featured thing. So we hear, like, we hear grimes, we hear no doubt, which was very popular in its time, but is also very, very, very throwback at this point. Robin. Yeah, Robin. Even like what they do with how they perform the music,

it feels like it is older than it really is. So there's a version of Katie Perry's E.T. Oh, yeah, I do remember that, yeah. But it's done as like an 80s synthet. That was fun, yeah. And so it's like, it's really playing on this, this looking to the past. But I think it's appropriate because the idea of using a singing

competition as a narrative device at this point also actually kind of feels nostalgic. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a thing which isn't quite as important as it used to be. No. And there's almost like a surrealistic quality to the film in that respect, both in the songs you're hearing. And yeah, like you said, the sort of technicolor dream comes true vision of a singing competition in 2019 is also kind of like, oh, a little outer spacey too.

Yeah, outer spacey. That's a perfect metaphor. So what we need to do is we need to listen to one of the essential songs and moments from this film. The song, Kill My Vibe. Don't Kill My Vibe. The song Don't Kill My Vibe. Yes, don't Kill My Vibe. Sorry about that.

So this is El Fanning singing in a competition. What we want to look at is does it meet the qualities of vocal dexterity, a mode of ability, confidence? dramatic narrative and authentic voice. Ooh, high stakes. I'm going to tear me down, pick me up a word, then build me up like I depend on you. But I throw myself from heights that used to scare me. Get you surprised.

I'm the puzzle. You can't figure out. I'm going to say yes. Yeah. Let's talk about vocal dexterity. I mean, it's not, I don't know if it's Whitney Houston level, but it's, it's a challenge to sing this one. It's, it's a lot of sustained notes in the upper register. Yeah, this is a toughie.

Yeah, that little line, don't tell, what did she say? Well, I just sing it, Charlie. You can do it. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, I don't know what she's saying. I can't even do it because it's fast and it's like, arpeggiated and jumping up and down. That's a tricky one, right, because it's high and fast coloratura. That sounds like a dexterous term.

Okay, a motive ability. Definitely in the sense that you can't sing this song like in a lack of daysical way. It will just not work. Well, except for, you know, where I get some of the emotion is when she almost, it sounds like she's slipping in and out of a singing voice. Like there's just, check out this moment right here. Okay.

It's like I'm a puzzle. You can't figure out. I'm very aware. of the control that it takes to be able to know when to sing the line and when to sort of speak the line. We've a word for that too. What's that? Shbrechtema.

No way. What does that mean? It's like speech, speech song. Ah, like a TikTok. By Kesha? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Of course. Yeah. Okay. So, emotivability. Confidence. Don't kill my vibe. I don't. Yeah.

It's confident. Yeah. Totally. Similar to Janice Joplin's piece of my heart. You can't. sing this without throwing yourself into it. Yeah, absolutely. Dramatic narrative.

This song has such a strong arc where it begins like this tiny little quiet thing and it just explodes and becomes more rhythmically complex. And it's about... More defiant, yeah. It's defiant. So, yes. When I first saw this film, I felt like the music wasn't very poppy, if you will. Like, don't kill my vibe.

It didn't feel like a song that I was going to hear on a movie. American Idol. Right. I mean, there's no, based on, there's no Whitney Houston, there's no Janice Joplin, there's no, uh, Andrew Lloyd Weber here. Yeah, this is unorthodox. It's a, it's also like a slightly more like indie aesthetic, if you will. Certainly, yeah. In fact, the film even kind of like makes fun of the other performers who are more poppy. Right. And I realize that this is for the, to fulfill the essential final ingredient. It's the Susan Boyle's spice. It's that surprise fact. Yeah, you've got to have that authenticity and it has to somehow be different than the rest because if you look just like the rest of the aspiring pop stars

and sound just like them and if you meet all of the bubblegum aesthetic, then you will be forgotten, right? You're just another one of the thing that I already know. I think our whole episode on Billy Eilish was sort of establishing her success around her ability to control this narrative of being different. Oh my God. Can you imagine Billy Elish on American Idol? That would be such a trip. Yeah.

To our earlier point, though, probably not pop TV competition material because the vocal dexterity, while she certainly has it, her vocal is often very restrained and whispered. And yet has one of the biggest albums of the year. Yeah, there you go. So when I first heard Teen Spear,

I thought, well, maybe the music isn't really sort of fitting the TV competition vibe. Right. I mean, even the title, Teen Spirit, that's a reference to Nirvana's smells like Teen Spirit, probably. Totally. Which is like the most anti-reality show song ever, probably. And so, even though it doesn't conform to some of my expectations, ultimately, all the sort of standard criteria are in there. Totally, yeah. What I really enjoyed, though, was the way in which it wove a narrative about how one becomes a star

which felt different than a lot of other stories that I was familiar with basically showing the hard work that it takes to be a star. It's not the born a genius, ever a genius. People just need to discover you.

Right. Right. And even when you think about the framing of American Idol it's very different than amateur hour. And I like this, I like the way in which Elle's character Violet becomes the star, does not begin the star. So I want to go to a conversation with Elle about what it takes to train to play that pop star figure. Cool.

So you play Violet in Teen Spirit. You are an aspiring pop star who begins their career in a karaoke bar, moves to singing in a local competition, and eventually onto a national stage. And one of the things I really enjoyed about this film is that it portrays, the hard work and development that it takes to become a pop star. It's not just a story of an overnight success. And I want to ask you about, how

did you train to play, and especially sing and dance for that role? You know, it was a lot of dedication beforehand, before filming. It was three months. The moment I found out I got the part, which I had to prove myself,

because I wasn't on the radar to get the part, because they were looking at goals. you know, singers, and those links from Poland. So I was not someone that they were looking at, but I saw press release of the film. It wasn't cast yet,

but just saw that Max had written this. I was directing it, and it was about a girl who seemed in a, you know, X-Factor type singing competition. And I was like, what is my ears perked up? And I got to, I kind of begged them to give me the script

and met with Max. We really saw the same vision for the film. And, um, but after that, he's like, okay, like, you know, you can do this, but you have to start training like yesterday. Um, and I, and I really did. I was filming the media at the time, um, as well. And my age degrees, he flew out to Savannah where I was and we started all of our local training. And Bob Garrett was, um, somebody who helped me with my local training as well. Um, yes, it was three months of that.

and also Polish lessons and choreography and getting the little dance numbers that we had in the film down. And Marius, who's the media supervisor, he helps me completely. He would record me singing through all the songs every day and videotape me and make me listen to myself back, which is as an actor is very different. It comes from a much more technical place, whereas for a scene I normally wouldn't analyze, you know, the scenes that I've done. So it was just, it was a different, I'm working from a different place.

But I also had to be aware that Violet is a growing performer herself. So, you know, sometimes we would be doing a live performance, have the live performance days. And as I, oh, you know, maybe as Elle, I've gotten a little more advanced with the performance aspect, but Violet, she's not quite there yet. So I would have to hold back a bit because obviously the film, out of, you know, not in chronological order with film. So I just had to be aware that she is someone who,

he isn't a performer yet either, and then kind of grows into herself. And that's kind of the beauty of how it's a coming age story in a way. But we're just trying to balance where she's at in the competition. Yeah, how does Violet's voice change as the story progresses? Because like yourself, she undergoes rigorous training to prepare for this competition. Yeah, I think. you know, finding her voice, it's very specific, you know, finding her voice is, you know,

the way she talks, being a college immigrant, but also growing up in England on the Isle of White, but also finding her voice for when she sings, because when you listen to pop stars, sometimes they sing with accents. You know, she has an English accent in the film. We were like, is she going to sing with an English accent, or is she not? So that was something we had to talk about, but I think emulating, you know, she's trying to emulate these pop stars that she listens to, so I try to do that myself.

Like I, you know, listen to Gwen Sufani and watched a lot of, you know, videos of these pop performers, myself, and try to find her voice in that way. And I think, you know, Violet gets a lot more, she grows into herself and gets a lot more comfortable on stage and figures out who she is as a performer. She's a very authentic

person. I think that's kind of one of also for young people to see movie like this, Violet's a very uncompromising character, which I think is really beautiful. She doesn't, the movie isn't about her changing herself to, you know, follow her dreams or passionate about her actually finding herself more. And that last performance of Don't Kill My Vibe was just such a, it was obviously very crucial one, but there's a lot of anger in that, which I think a lot of tint up emotion that Violet has had throughout the film.

She's a very tense person. kind of throughout the film to finally being able to let that anger out in song was something that, you know, she finally found her voice. Her voice starts so timid early in the film and then you really belt in your final scenes. The voice seems to have gone a long way.

One of my favorite cover is sort of, I think, in the development section where you cover Robbins dancing on my own, which is one of my favorite pop songs. And I wanted to ask you, how does that song for you embody Violet's story? You know, Jason on my own is the first song that Max shows. I think that that was, you would say that's a song that inspired the whole idea of the film. We heard that song and then got the idea to make this story.

You know, Violet, obviously, she is a loner. She has a very hard exterior. She's experienced a lot in her life. And that's kind of also with pop music, it can, be so poppy and such a huge, you know, dance track, which Robbins is, but it's a quite melancholic

sad song when you really listen to the lyrics. So I think the juxtaposition of that is something that completely is the story. Because, you know, obviously this is a movie with pop music and it's very fun, but

it has a lot of darkness in it as well, which even in the cinematography or the way it's shot and it's, you know, always kind of this duality, which is the film. So I, and it's one of the biggest, you know, pop anthems. It's so I love that song. It really does capture her character. I want to ask you about what is playing a pop star teach you about the nature of fame

as a pop star that is different than that of an acclaimed actor? Gosh, I think just being, you know, having a little taste in the music world. you do see a lot of, you know, what they go through. You know, even watch a kiddie-pins documentary and the Lady Gaga documentary and how, you know, there's so many fans once you have that success that they have and they feel like, you know, everyone kind of, in a way, lots of peace with them. So, you know, it's very kind of, wow, like for them to be able to stay true to themselves and still keep a bit of privacy, you know, in a world of where everybody hears their voice on the radio

and evidence feel that they're, you know, friends with them are so close to them. Because even me sometimes, I feel like, oh, I know. I feel like I know them, these top stars because they're in my bedroom. You know, I listen to them all the time. It feels so close to them. So, yeah. Well, the album from the film is fantastic. I really enjoy how sonically,

it unites a whole sort of decade of pop music in a really cohesive package covered all throughout with your voice. And I'm wondering, are we going to hear more music coming from you? Oh, you know, I love that. Honestly, I had the most incredible journey doing this, and it was such a rewarding feeling to feel like, you got through it, and we're able to sing this all. Because, you know, in the beginning, to hear the growth, I was able to hear that. And it's a very kind of a proud feeling where you say, well, I can hold my breath longer.

You really, you physically feel stronger with all the practice. And now having the album out there to the world is definitely very scary. But really a pinch me moment. It is super exciting to see myself pop up on Apple Music or Spotify as an awesome. artist, something that I did definitely dream of when I was a little dream of myself performing on stage. So this is kind of a dream come true. And you know, who knows? Like I enjoyed it so much. So I would love to. Maybe it wouldn't be pop as poppy of music, but... What would it be? I think I think I'm a little more like folk-y country, a little more like

bluesy in a way, like I think. A little more a singer-songwriter, I guess. But I do love the pop songs. So in days, people do such mashups, you know. The genres are merging. Absolutely. El Fanning, thank you so much. The film is Teen Spirit. It's fabulous and it's really fun to get to hear the development of your voice in the film

and get to hear about your process. Thanks for chatting with us. Thank you so much. Thank you. I love that. The idea of, you know, basically accidentally recording an entire album and now being like Star and Apple Music. No, I think, you know, you led into that interview with this note of the work that goes into being, you know, a successful singer. And it's fun to hear from someone who has just gone through that work, you know, who has trained. I mean, it's like life and art meeting, right? Because the movie is her, like, you know, meeting this mentor and training and learning how to do this. And that's also what she was doing behind the scenes at the same time. So in a way, it's like cinema verite or something. It also teaches me that all of my pre- existing biases against the TV singing competition narrative and sort of aesthetic need to

probably be thrown out. Oh, yeah. I was definitely coming at it from the wrong perspective and not seeing it for what it is. Getting to really see and hear that hard work makes me deeply appreciate it. And when you have to have all of the dexterity and perfection and complete authenticity and like I'm just like any person and that constant switch between those two, that's something I really admire. It's magic.

I know. I'm in awe. It is the most spectacular part of the spectacle. Are you going to be cutting an audition tape soon? Is that the sense I'm getting here? No, it's not something that it's ever achievable for me. Maybe in my late 40s I'll have a Susan Boyle moment. I love it.

I love it. One more thing. We've been getting some really fun requests on social media where people give us amazing recommendations. and people are asking, what are we listening to? Because on our show, I feel like we only get to really address one thing at a time. There's usually like one song and then a bunch of history and other songs that relate to it. But people want to know what we find interesting that maybe isn't making it onto the show just because of time or whatever it is. Yeah.

And so I wanted to share just a few of our favorite tracks really quickly. And I wanted to lead with Anderson Pack's new album Ventura. Oh, it's so good. Have you listened to this already? Yes. It's all I listen to. Oh, what's your take? I'm obsessed. It's brilliant from beginning to end.

It's funky. It's political. It's lush. It's clever. It's moving. I can't say enough. It has a lot of that thing that you keep hitting in your pocket. It has Andre Benjamin on it.

I mean, it's like, oh, it's good. Smokey Robinson? Are you kidding me? And it's got the jazz. Yeah. Lots of jazz. Are you liking anything right now? I've been really digging a song that just came out by Mavis Staples called Anytime.

Mavis Stapel. Yeah, the Mavis Stables of the Stables Singers. It's a really cool track. It's written and produced by Ben Harper and is probably also the best thing he's done in quite some time. Cool. Mavis Staples' voice sounds incredible.

Like so just deep and worn, but like perfectly lively and on tune. I can't say enough, man. I'm such a fan. I got one more. Okay, hit me. I was just listening to like new music. Friday the other day and I found

Max and Quinn 92's Love Me Less It's this really funky like it's like musical theater trap And it just had this beat that had me instantly hooked. It's one of those things where I don't know I can be a difficult listener sometimes

And this is a song that came on I was like oh I like that Just instinctively Penetrated your defenses Cool I love it All right that was fun Do you get one more for me? I've also been feeling one of Khalid's new tracks called Out of My Head. This is just, I mean, we're fans.

Oh, yeah. We've talked about him a lot. His voice is his butter. Yeah. His whole persona is really generous. And actually, he was a coach on the voice this season. Get out of it, really? Isn't he like 13?

Yep. But he's got a lot of wisdom. And I also love this song because it's, features a ripping guitar solo from John Mayer. And I just love, I love hearing like an in-your-face electric guitar solo once in a while. So we'll put up these songs that we've been listening to in our show notes and send us notes about what you're listening to as well at Switchdown Pop on Twitter and social media. Switched on Pop is hosted by me, Charlie Harding. And me, Nate Sloan.

We're produced by Gillian Weinberger, edited and mixed by Brandon McFarland. Our community manager is Sarah Terry. and our executive producers are Nishak Kerwah and Allison Rocky. You can find more episodes where every listen to podcasts, including the Apple Podcasts app, Spotify, et cetera. And you can always find episodes on our site, www. www.switchedonpop.com. We'll be back again in another week, and until then,

thanks for listening.