Switched on Pop - The “Baby Shark” Phenomenon (with Andrea Silenzi)

Episode Date: September 17, 2019

For most parents, “Baby Shark” is the nightmare that will not end. Ever since the South Korean educational company Pinkfong released the song earlier this year, it’s almost impossible to avoid. ...The infectious children’s tune has more than 2.3 billion views on YouTube and made it onto the Billboard Top 40 list. So what makes this song so catchy and irresistible to children? And how do the rest of us cope with the unavoidable hit while keeping our sanity? Andrea Silenz, host of the parenting podcast The Longest Shortest Time, and Charlie explore the phenomenon that is “Baby Shark. Songs DiscussedPinkfong - Baby SharkFrank Zappa - Baby SnakesStevie Wonder - Isn’t She Lovely Suzanne Vega - Tom’s DinerBaby Shark/ Tom’s Diner mashup “Baby Diner”The Weeknd - I Can’t Feel My FaceRadioheadPinkfong - The Penguin DancePinkfong - Lions in LoveDrake - God’s PlanMicheal Jackson - Billie JeanWhitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With SomebodyBruno Mars - Uptown FunkBeastie Boys - Brass MonkeyVanilla Ice - Ice Ice BabyJosh Groban - River The Beatles - All You Need Is LoveHarry Potter theme Raffi - Baby Beluga  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. 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. the eater app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. So Charlie, I owe you an apology. What for?
Starting point is 00:00:56 I made you listen to the Pinkfong song, Baby Shark, way before you had to. That was unfortunate because it has been stuck in my head for a very long time. Oh, wait, I'm Andrea. Yes. You're Charlie. Yes. And we host different podcasts. I'm on yours right now. We're on Switched on Pop. Yes, but you came on my show, which is called The Longest Shortest Time. It's a Parenting Show for Everyone. And gave a deep musical analysis of the song Baby Shark. Which you played for me the first time when I gave an honest reaction. You thought it was Frank Zappa at first. When you said Baby Shark, I thought Baby Snakes, which is a really great Frank Zappa song.
Starting point is 00:01:30 And instead it ends up being this incessant and extremely popular kid song. And we did a really fun piece together in which we break down how that song works. And I thought it would be a really appropriate episode to play for right now. Why is that, Charlie? Because I have a very exciting announcement, which is that I'm going to be a parent. What? Congratulations. Thank you very much.
Starting point is 00:01:54 That's your first baby. Yes. Yes. And so I am orchestrating a little bit of time off by bringing in some guest hosts. Nate's going to be on the show talking with some of our favorite people at music, some people with some great perspectives. But to kick it off, I thought it would be really fun to, and appropriate, to play our piece together on Baby Shark to help the Switch on Poppy. listeners understand what is going on behind this phenomenon, which doesn't seem to be going away. Right. At the time we talked, Baby Shark was in the Billboard Top 40, and that viral growth
Starting point is 00:02:27 was pretty organic. It basically was responding to toddler demands on YouTube. And since we recorded, it's even more popular. I am surprised to hear that. I have some Baby Shark updates. What's the update? Nickelodeon has announced that they're about to make a Baby Shark cartoon. This is your future. Yeah. It probably is. We'll have to see how we feel about screen time. We haven't figured that out yet. But it sounds like...
Starting point is 00:02:53 Although maybe your child will have impeccable taste and they'll be like, Poppy, no more Nickelodeon. I want to watch classic film. We don't know your kid yet. We have no idea. But I'm excited to hear that he'll be calling me Poppy. I don't know yet. I don't know your kid.
Starting point is 00:03:09 I don't know your family. Yeah. Papa? No, I think it's funny. It's great. Okay. And also, Kellogg has announced that they're making a baby. shark cereal. I'm actually excited about that. Right. It makes sense. We don't have any kind of sharks in our
Starting point is 00:03:25 cereal bowls yet. Yeah. Oh, man. You will someday be in the cereal aisle and your little kid will say, Poppy, get me that cereal. It will spark further plays of baby shark. I'm kind of excited about the cereal. Sounds tasty. Are you excited about all the children's music in your future? I have a feeling my intention will be to as much as possible manipulate, which is a terrible word to use, the musical tastes of said future child, who calls me Poppy, so that it will not be only kids' music?
Starting point is 00:04:02 Like, I hope we can mix it up and have a variety of things going on, which I think is possible. I love that you think you're going to have control over what your kid likes and doesn't like. No, I'm, I completely give up on that. I'm going to subtly suggest Best. Can ask a personal question.
Starting point is 00:04:18 Are you guys going to do a pushing playlist? I don't think we've talked specifically about a pushing playlist. We've talked about a playlist. I mean, yeah. Do you have a recommended song? Is there like a perfect BPM that we're supposed to use? That would be interesting. Well, we just did an episode with the Valentine,
Starting point is 00:04:33 Ellis, and Beyonce's If I Were a Boy was playing at the moment that their son was born. And that was their sex reveal moment. Wow. I heard in one of our birthing classes as a warning. of don't try to make everything perfect, you can't control anything. One parent, set of parents were certain that they were going to play, isn't she lovely by Stevie Wonder, at the moment of birth, which ended up having to play for about 12 hours because the moment it didn't come when expected. Which is like, I think the one's relationship to that song probably changes after hearing it 145 times or whatever it is.
Starting point is 00:05:08 Do they still like the song? I'm not sure, but I'm not going for that. Okay. Oh, and there's one more thing. We forgot to mention in this episode. the Suzanne Vegas song Tom's Diner. But do-do-do's our major theme of this episode, and we somehow forgot that. Oh, yeah. Interesting. When is that song from?
Starting point is 00:05:35 Yeah, way before Baby Shark. Well, this is part of the importance of this piece is trying to figure out when does this arrive on the scene? Maybe Susan Vega gives us a clue. There's a mash-up if you want to hear it. Why not? It's called Baby Diner. I like that version.
Starting point is 00:06:05 Maybe I won't be able to dictate the choices. and preferences of my child, but I think maybe I can get the remixes of the song that I like a little bit more. I'm going to at least try that. I like that remix. That's nice. Without further ado, here's Baby Shark on the long and shortest time.
Starting point is 00:06:26 Alexa, baby chair. Baby chair. Explicit isn't included with primacy. Have you seen this? It's a YouTube video where the super cute toddler in a bright yellow jacket is desperately trying to get Alexa to play her, favorite song in the whole wide world, Baby Shark.
Starting point is 00:06:47 How often do you watch this? I probably watch it a few times a week at work when I'm just like sort of slagging and need a little pick-me-up or, you know, I'm just taking a little break and I'm just like, oh, you know what I really want to see right now is that little girl struggling to play baby shark because it's so cute. This is my best friend, Casey. Neither of us are parents yet. Watching this video together, we kind of swoon at the moment when the toddler looks at her mom, like,
Starting point is 00:07:20 Mom, help. Hey, baby shark. Can you relate to her struggle? Oh, God, every day. It's like yelling into the abyss. And, like, finally, someone just hearing you and just baby shark. And that's the noise, right? Like, that's the noise of, like, sheer, sheer joy.
Starting point is 00:07:47 I'm Andre Slunzie, and this is the long. the shortest time. Baby Shark Edition. There go the hands. If you don't know this song yet, you have to trust me. This song is so insanely popular. Kids and parents and non-parents and famous rappers, we are all tuned into it. Because whether or not you like the song, it makes kids really happy, which makes a lot of adults happy too. Oh, it's just so easy. If you had something that could make you that happy, it's this video. It does make me that happy. This is your baby shark.
Starting point is 00:08:23 This little girl wanting baby shark is my baby shark. As a song, it's terrible. But it's got such a hook that you just, like, it's, you know, it's like eating ice cream when you're like, you're done. You're so dumb, but you can't stop. Today on the show, baby shark, do-to-do, do-do-to-do. It's a simple roll call for a nuclear family of sharks, plus. hand choreography. What's not to love? But oh no, many adults do not love it. To so many parents and caregivers, it's an attack on their sanity with no end in sight, no place to hide. So what can be
Starting point is 00:09:06 done about this thing that's catnip to kids and a plague on the spirits of adults? We're going to dive deep. And maybe, by the end, you'll hear the song in a new way. Baby Shark is a song without a songwriter. It has a history going back 20 plus years. It's a campfire song that many millennials learned at summer camp or in a church youth group. But the first time the internet lost their minds over the song was a viral video in Germany. The video shows a girl sitting in a lounge chair. And while it starts off mellow. She goes over the top towards the end. The sharks find a helpless swimmer, and they eat her. It went so viral that a DJ even did a mash-up version with the theme from Jaws. And then Pinkfong, a South Korean educational company made their version, which they
Starting point is 00:10:22 uploaded to YouTube summer 2016. Pinkfong is all. all about the mobile market and kids aged 1 to 5. So if your parent trying to limit screen time, they're enemy number one. Every time you watch one of their videos, they're ready to suggest 20 other videos with the same candy-colored animation. Pinkfong wants to get your kid hooked and then deliver them a never-ending supply of sweet, sweet shark. Search for Pinkfong on YouTube. Baby Shark went viral, but not blue-dress, white-dress viral, more of the other than, slow organic growth.
Starting point is 00:11:03 In 2018, the song swam into the adult world. Over 1.7 billion views with a B, billion, 1.7 billion views. Ellen show do do to do do, Ellen show to do then James Corden. Baby shock do do do do do baby shock do do do do do do. Baby Shark, do do do do, do, baby shark. Then this year, it even showed up on the NPR Politics Podcast. It has more than 2 billion views. That's billion with the B.
Starting point is 00:11:44 And now finally it's kind of working its way into the American mainstream. Baby Shark peaked at 32nd on the Billboard Top 100. Serious music critics at Rolling Stone and the AB Club started to write articles all about Baby Shark. I was definitely struck by how repetitive it was. Chris DeVille is a senior news editor at Stereo Gum, one of the original MP3 blogs. And he's not someone who ever thought he'd have anything to do with kids' music. All catchy pop songs are repetitive to an extent, but Baby Shark definitely drills the same few notes at you over and over and over and over again.
Starting point is 00:12:26 Maybe you can tell by the record store Cadence in his voice. But a big part of Chris's job centers around his musical taste, his ability to review new albums and discover underground bands. But then, three years ago, Chris became a dad. Right from the beginning,
Starting point is 00:12:41 with his infant daughter, he started singing her, his idea of lullabites. I know that I sang Can't Feel My Face by the weekend to my daughter when she was newborn. And that's a song about... It's about being either... madly in love with someone or being on cocaine.
Starting point is 00:13:09 His attempts to program his daughter's musical taste didn't stop there. I remember this one time when we were on a daddy-daughter date, we walked down by this reservoir. So we were sitting on a picnic table by this lake, and I remember playing Radiohead song off of my phone. I think I was just kind of like fishing for compliments or something. something. I remember I got her to say, I like radiohead, but I don't know if she was just trying to appease me. Chris now has two girls, a three-year-old and an almost two-year-old, which means
Starting point is 00:13:59 less radiohead and more. The Mother Goose Club. We listen to a lot of Mother Goose Club. We listen to a fair amount of Daniel Tiger. Hakuna Matata. What a wonderful phrase. The Lion King has really been popping off lately. And then Chris's daughters learned about Pinkfong. The thing that really started to drive me crazy was there's a whole album of animal songs by Pinkfong. Eventually it became this thing where the whole thing
Starting point is 00:14:35 was in constant rotation and the song where the lions proposed marriage to each other and promised to protect each other. I just learned about this horrific song from Chris Deville, the same music journalist who's written cover stories about Spoon, Tamanpala, and Run the Jewels. The guy who once feuded with the band Arcade Fire over an article he wrote titled, Remember when Arcade Fire were good? Now that he's a parent, he's focused on new kinds of tasks,
Starting point is 00:15:27 like worrying if the clean version of the Carter Five is kids safe enough. Since I became a parent, I have definitely had to let go of any delusions that I'm cool. I don't think I've ever actually been cool, but I've been able to sometimes create a semi-persuasive front. And parenthood has chipped away at that pretty quickly. Do I have great taste in music? Absolutely. but could I ever describe myself as cool after kind of riding around, blasting the latest Disney tunes in our SUV?
Starting point is 00:16:11 Probably not. As someone with strong musical taste, Chris had this coming. His daughters are just taking after their dad. In a bit, they say if you encounter a shark in the wild, your best line of defense is to stun the shark by punching him in the nose. But for parents being a... attacked by Baby Shark, maybe an up-close musical analysis will help you escape its bite. I'm bringing in a quote-unquote professional pop music critic who lives under a rock
Starting point is 00:16:41 because he'll be hearing the song for the very first time on our show. Stay with us. 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, 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.
Starting point is 00:17:20 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.
Starting point is 00:17:56 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. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think
Starting point is 00:18:21 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
Starting point is 00:18:41 who's coming into the United States. States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. So when we're working on this episode, I tweeted about Baby Shark. Can't help it, it was in my head. And that's when my friend Charlie Harding from the podcast switched on pop replied,
Starting point is 00:19:14 Baby Shark, haven't heard it. Is it anything like that Frank Zappa song, Baby Snakes? So tell me what you hope Baby Shark is. I think it's a musical thing. Otherwise, you wouldn't have invited me here. How popular would you think it is? Okay, wait. Do you think Baby Shark is as popular as, I don't know, Taylor Swift?
Starting point is 00:19:46 No. There are some things that play a huge role in the lives of parents that non-parents will never have to learn about. Like that cartoon Cayu, or those Kinder Surprise Egg videos on YouTube, or whatever the deal is with elf on the shelf. Are you ready? I'm embracing for it. One of the fun things about Baby Shark
Starting point is 00:20:08 is that it breaks down that wall. There's a fox. No, it's a fox riding a shark. Wow. It's like the hamster dance. It's like the modern macaroni. Oh, you're right because there's hand moves. Like, you know what to do with your hands.
Starting point is 00:20:39 Okay, we could. I can watch more. No, no, no, we're done. Is it a good song? What are our criteria for good? Will it be in your head later? Oh, probably. What makes it such a good earworm?
Starting point is 00:20:55 So what really makes this song tick is that melodically, it's extremely simple. It's basically three notes the entire time. And it's mostly just one note the entire time. The place when you almost are going to get bored of this song, it modulates into another key, it rises up. So there's always some kind of change that's happening despite this extremely simple underlying nursery rhyme-like melody. I just wrote a 15-page essay about how Drake does the exact same thing and why God's Plan is one of the most successful songs in streaming of all time. And it's actually very similar. He maps very rudimentary melodies.
Starting point is 00:21:48 onto a more complex rhythmic flow. He'll constantly kind of rework them and redivise them in the way that his rhythmic flow works against them. I think I mapped out in God's plan, he uses the same melody 53 times. But you don't get bored of it because it comes slightly differently each time you hear it. And it comes in different parts of the bar,
Starting point is 00:22:16 it's happening against different kinds of harmonies. And similarly, I think that, you know, this baby shark does the same kind of thing. It's just like a Drake track. When I hear the song, I don't like the song. There's a difference between I think the song is effective at doing what it does and my own personal taste. But one of the reasons why I don't like it is I think that the way that it presents sound, like the actual production of it, is it sounds like a certain style of kids' music,
Starting point is 00:22:48 which has become its sort of genre in of itself. And that's done actually just to like very particular production techniques. Everything from like actually cheap sounding instruments. to actually a lot of kids' music uses a lot of auto tune, which drives me absolutely mad. Because you're going to have all these kids running around with vocal dysmorphia being like, why can't I sing as beautifully as the person on the audio? So I think that's a problem. Right. Everything that's natural about it, the sounds of a hand on a piano, the sounds of a hand on a guitar, the gruff of a voice, none of that's preserved. Yeah, and what's particularly strange is like, I like, I like,
Starting point is 00:23:31 music that invites people to participate. But what's weird about the quality of this music is it actually just sounds like cheap EDM. There actually is an EDM version of Baby Shark. Sounds like this. Even with electronic instruments, it hasn't stopped kids from learning to play Baby Shark on their drum kits. It's now a song that your marching band can learn. And it's that reach that's made Baby Shark not just a song. But a meme.
Starting point is 00:24:16 We are already inclined towards recognizing patterns and melody and rhythm. So, like, when we hear those things, whether we want it or not, it's going to be in our head. When we mix that with a visual and our own body moving with it, and then it being recreated over and over through both what we see on the internet, but also our friends and our family, that just becomes embedded in people's life experience. Baby Shark isn't just on YouTube anymore. These days, it can show up on one of the most memorable days of your life. When you get to the wedding scene, you're trying to appeal to three, sometimes four generations. And so you need to stay fairly safe in your song selections. So by the time a song gets to a wedding scene, it's usually already known.
Starting point is 00:25:07 Steve Owen is a dad in the Chicago suburbs. And on the weekends, he moonlights as a DJ. Baby Shark is a huge hit with his almost five-year-old, but he wasn't sure if this was a true classic, like the chicken dance or the electric slide. Then one night at a wedding with a dance floor packed with kids, he decided to put Baby Shark to the test. I knew the BPM was going to match up with Billy Jean,
Starting point is 00:25:33 and Billy Jean's a really, really easy song to blend other songs with. And so I just kind of gave it a shot. And the kids went to the kids. crazy. The parents who knew it went crazy. And since the song's only about, you know, like a minute and a half or so, it was a great 90-second experiment and it worked. And then we got back to the rest of dancing. Is everyone doing the shark hands? Yes. The kids were totally involved. The parents, you know, were sort of half and half. They were trying. People who didn't have young kids were sort of vaguely aware that there were arm movements, but they didn't pick it up as quickly
Starting point is 00:26:19 as you might think. What are the songs you'll play it out of? It works well with Uptown Funk. I want to dance with somebody. Ice Ice Baby is a perfect fit. Brass Monkey from the Beastie Boys is a good fit as well. We're playing a song like, I want to dance with somebody or Ice Ice Baby and you switch to Baby Shark.
Starting point is 00:27:20 That's the DJ making a joke, right? Yes. Throwing on Baby Shark acknowledging a current cultural moment is a way to say, like, no, I'm here, I'm with you, I'm enjoying this. I'm not just reciting or redoing exactly the same things that I've always done. For Steve, Baby Shark doesn't just heat up a dance floor when he's out on a job. It's also a way to survive a Chicago winter at home with this five-and-a-half-year-old. When we can't get outside or when we're, frankly, just too lazy to go outside,
Starting point is 00:27:51 we can fire up some YouTube videos and he and I dance around in the front room. What are the chances of you playing it at your son's wedding someday? Oh, I would love that. I would be delighted to DJ his wedding, you know, if I'm still DJing by that point, and if music is still same way that is, I would absolutely love it. If music still exists. Yeah, you know, if there's still ceremonies and playing music on speakers, I don't know what they'll be doing by then.
Starting point is 00:28:17 I mean, everyone will be like, what's a shark? Yeah, yeah. The ice capsule of melted will be underwater by then, so we'll have sharks as pets and things. Who knows? If you need Steve to drop some baby shark in your next event, his DJ company is called Some Guys Entertainment. Now, let's all just be still together. You know, take a moment of silence after all this music. Oh, no.
Starting point is 00:28:46 Baby shark's in my head again. Can I ask you guys a question? Yeah. What are you doing to not go crazy when you are neck deep in? the history of baby shark. At the time, Steve asked me this, I just updated all my online dating profiles to say, girlfriend shark.
Starting point is 00:29:10 And that was the same week that our producer Jackie had made up her own version of the song. I'm in hell. Do do, do, do, do, do. Do, do, do. I'm in hell. I'm in hell. In a bit, we have the antidote to the ultimate earworm. It's the least we could do.
Starting point is 00:29:28 Don't go away. Welcome back. As promised, I'm here with a cure for Baby Shark. Up first is our guest, DJ Baby Shark. Listen to other pop songs that are around the same tempo. It's 115 BPM. And you can transition yourself out of Baby Shark and into Uptown Funk or into I Want to Dance with Somebody.
Starting point is 00:30:04 Just be careful going to the other direction when you're going to be listening to any old pop song and all of a sudden you're going to realize that, wait, this beat matches perfectly with Baby Shark. And all of a sudden, that earworm has made its way back in. And Charlie from Switched on Pop has a similar idea. Listen to a song, which is a cover of it, because it should both satisfy that melody worm that's in your head, but not be necessarily as bothersome.
Starting point is 00:30:30 Not feeding into it. And then, like, if you listen to, here's what you do. Like, go listen to Josh Grobe and do Baby Shark. And then just go listen to Josh Grobe. You're going to ask for help, and I stumble through the noise, trying to find some... You're going to have to interrupt basically an addictive behavior, which is extremely difficult. You need to take steps away from the thing. You can't go cold turkey.
Starting point is 00:31:04 So I took everyone's advice and followed the earworm to the bottom of the sea, and that's where I met the classical Korean Instruments version, the R&B version. And my grandma, can't forget about grandpa. Oh, that's my family. And my actual favorite, the Christmas version in Portuguese. At the start of this quest, I asked, where do baby sharks come from? And yes, tagically the answer is multiple paternity and big litters up to 100.
Starting point is 00:31:48 But the baby shark's song, that came into our lives. That came into our lives thanks to kid demand. It was their strong preference for Baby Shark that made it an international sensation. That brought Baby Shark to TV shows and to podcasts, to high school Marchy band practice, and to so many future weddings. It's not often that the kid world gets to change the adult world, which is a beautiful thing that I'll appreciate more after I get this song out of my head. Is it in your head now?
Starting point is 00:32:18 You know, I actually think that the advice of how to get out of your head worked for me. Like, I like the playlists of all the different variations. This is something I'm excited about. Like, I recognize there will be plenty of moments where I might end up in Baby Shark Hill, where there is little choice, but to continue to play this song over and over again. And yet I'm aspirational about the potential for it being a launching pad for all kinds of other music. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:32:46 In our comments section from Longest Shortest Time listeners, a lot of them were sharing about the songs that they're, kid demands over and over and over again. Like Lila said, our three-year-old son absolutely loves the song. All you need is love by the Beatles. I think we listen to it 20 plus times a week. He's also really into the Harry Potter theme song. So that plays on repeat at our house frequently as well.
Starting point is 00:33:20 Oh, that's... Oh, isn't that rough? Well, that's heavy. I don't want cinematic music in my household. It's kind of like scoring your life. Yeah, but it's not a bit of bad. Baby Shark. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:42 Well, the magic of Harry Potter. And another listeners talked about how the song Baby Beluga is also really big at their house. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. You know, I have no idea what to think. I'm going to find out. Yeah, you're not going to know yet.
Starting point is 00:33:56 But if you do get baby sharks stuck in your head, we have a couple more tips from listeners about how to get it out. What's that? One is that if you get baby sharks stuck in your head, try singing it in the style of Bob Dylan. And you'll laugh so much, you'll forget the song completely.
Starting point is 00:34:10 Out of tune and overly serious? I don't mean to knock it. You just do your best Bob Dylan impression. Yeah. I'm not going to do that. Come on. How would Bob Dylan sing it? Give the listeners what they need.
Starting point is 00:34:22 Baby Shark. I don't know. No, no, I've got nothing. Oh gosh. I quit. Forget it. I'm not even going on leave. I just quit.
Starting point is 00:34:31 Okay. A couple more tips from our listeners. Someone named Benny Time has a version on Spotify that's recorded with real instruments. So if you're sick of all that EDM you can flip over and hear like a decent baby shark. That is my jam. Even though I cover primarily pop music,
Starting point is 00:34:46 I love playing mandolin and acoustic folk instruments. So I'll take that one. My main gripe with the song is the EDMness of it in that I want to like share music to which we can recreate. And I am going to set up a lot of synthesizers in my future home, I hope. But I don't know if I'm going to have my little kid using the synthesizers yet. How old did they have to be before they get to touch synthesizers? Have you ever seen...
Starting point is 00:35:11 Poppy, let me play with your synthesizers. It's going to be a while. It's going to be a while. Poppy has his toys. Yeah. They are my trains. One more tip is if you are on the Pinkfong channel and you're stuck listening to Baby Shark for hours on end,
Starting point is 00:35:26 they recommend checking out the Spanish language channel. So Pinkfong does a lot of songs in other languages, so this could be a cool way to teach your kids in Spanish. Oh, I like that. Okay. That's a positive. Poppy, please play Baby Shark. No, not that crappy one.
Starting point is 00:35:43 We want Pinkfong. Poppy, more pink fong. I'm going to lose this argument. Oh, yeah. Switched on Pop is produced by me, Nate Sloan, and he, Charlie Harding. Huge thanks to Andrea Selenzi for joining us. Our editor and engineer is the great Brandon McFarland. Megan Lubin is our production fellow extraordinaire.
Starting point is 00:36:10 Sari Terry is community manager. executive editors are Liz Nelson and Ashad Kurwa and the air apparent is Theo Otis Kalb Harding. You can find more episodes of our show anywhere you find podcasts or our website switched on pop.com. Say hi to us on Twitter. We love talking there and hearing all the cool stuff that you're listening to and we're always looking for more recommendations. We'll be back in another week with a fresh episode and until then thanks for listening. Shopify and bathe records of with the form of pay
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