Switched on Pop - The Final Dropout

Episode Date: May 15, 2015

How does a good pop song end? With a bang, right? As it turns out, explosive endings are kinda over. Songwriters are instead opting to end with a final dropout. Even the biggest pop anthems close with a quiet final moment. In this musical short, Nate, our resident musicologist, offers some theories as to why. FEATURING Taylor Swift – Blank Space One Republic – Counting Stars One Direction – Kiss You Rihanna – Don’t Stop the Music Mozart – Symphony No.41 in C K.551 “Jupiter” 4. Motto Allegro Taylor Swift – Trouble Lady Gaga – Alejandro  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to a mini episode of Switched on Pop Miniature because only one of us is here today and that's me Nate Sloan. Hi everyone. And I want to address a phenomena that's occurring before our very years that no one so far as I know has addressed. It doesn't have a name as such, but we might call it the final dropout. Everyone is doing it from Taylor Swift to one republic to one direction to Rihanna

music music music and many many more who can't be listed here and basically it's the technique of when you reach the final lyric of a song instead of ending as you might expect most songs to end and certainly classical composers have been ending songs for die on a few centuries, with the biggest, fullest possible texture, Tuti, every instrument sounding at once, announcing, yes, you have definitively reached the end of this song. This technique does something quite the opposite.

It reduces the texture to a single voice, the pop star, alone in the wilderness surrounded not by the orchestral forces but silence. Attention Spotify. Has arrived to the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, taffy caramelized and tonka-tostata. A combination that seduce from the first instant and she has a wella.

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That is music for your ears. No, you'll be more vets. Your business will be a super-exit to Shopify. Empiece your period of time for one euro at month in Shopify. For a moment, you're in your car, at work, at the pool, in surgery, wherever you're listening to Swift, Gaga, 1D, and then all of a sudden, it's like you're alone with them. This is a very intimate moment. And why is this happening?

Why does Taylor Swift end a song like Trouble with just her voice? One possibility would be that this is a way to convey your personality, your individuality, to give listeners a sense of who you are, ending the song with the most untrammeled version of yourself, your voice alone, but perhaps a slightly more cynical, And this commercially minded take would be that this is actually a really effective way to move from one song to another on the radio. DJs must love this final dropout because when they get to the end of the song, all they have to do in order to transition to the next song is immediately start playing it. There's no fade-outs to deal with. There's no stings, which is the term that refers to an abrupt ending.

It's a really seamless way to move from one song to another because you're pivoting on just the voice. And it's not, say, as schizophrenic of a move to shift from the oral assault of a Lady Gaga song to the comfortable ballad of one republic, for me. instance. This final dropout provides a bridge to move from one song to the other while still maintaining the identity of each performer. So if we look at it in this way, maybe the final dropout is an example of pop music's form, its very construction being beholden to the medium in which it is mainly presented, which remains radio for the most part. Though this could also apply to creating a Spotify playlist or Pandora or whatever,

artists and producers might recognize that their songs are rarely heard in a vacuum. They're often heard sandwiched between two other songs, and the more effectively they can place their song in whatever context it's going to and give that song a strong identity all its own, the more people are going to want to listen to it again. So next time you hear a final dropout, First of all, shoot me an email because I want to make a list of every time this has ever happened. And maybe ask yourself, why is this song doing this?

Is this an artistic choice? Is this a commercial choice? Or is it a little bit of both? Until next time, I humbly remain your resident musicologist here at Switched on Pop. Nate Sloan. As always, you can check us out on iTunes or at Switchedonpop.com or tweeted us at Switched On Pop. And thanks for listening.