Switched on Pop - What the 63rd Grammys say about the state of pop

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

The 63rd Grammys was as unprecedented and unusual as last year. Backdropped by the pandemic, the show was delayed and had to be taped in multiple locations in front of a bare bones audience. Echoing the public cries against injustice, standout performances by Mickey Guyton, DaBaby, and Lil Baby decried racism to the nation and to the Grammys—the academy made multiple public statements throughout the night promising to do better. The more light hearted performers played best against highly produced backdrops (Silk Sonic, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, and Taylor Swift), but others fell flat, lacking an audience reaction. Not unexpectedly, the Grammy awards ranged from predictable to jaw dropping. Notably, Beyoncé broke records: she now holds more Grammys than any other singer in history. And the major four categories —Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year — were all awarded to women. While the Grammy ceremony horse race can be as much a commentary on commercial worth as musical strengths, the ceremony has much to teach us about what pop music means in 2021.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch John Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm a pretty tired songwriter, Charlie Harding. It's 9.30 on a Sunday evening, which is about two hours later than either of us have stayed up in many months. And what we want to do tonight is summarize this most unprecedented Grammy ceremony, discuss some of the most memorable performances, dig into some of the most memorable performances, dig into some of the biggest wins of the night and try and make sense of what this Grammys tells us about the state of music today at a most unusual time. I feel like doing Grammy coverage is always a little

strange for us because we so much enjoy diving into the music of things. And the Gramies is this bizarre institution that is as muddled in popularity, commerce, lots of issues of institutional racism, sexism. It's all in there. Yet it's also this night that is incredibly important for the performers who are playing there as well as the artists who are nominated. And so I feel like what I want to do is sort of like

pay respect to them, right? Those for whom this event is really important. And try to get a sense of like, yeah, what went on here? You know, it is more of a concert than it is an award show. It's just a concert where they happened to hand out a couple of awards. I'm curious from your perspective, were there any standout performances or maybe some that might even didn't quite land?

One of the performances that stood out in a good way for me was actually by an act that was not nominated at this year's Grammys. It was Silk Sonic, the new project from Bruno Mars and Anderson Pack. And they tore it up in these matching 70s suits with the big lapels, with these perfectly choreographed dance moves, bell bottoms. It was like a throwback treat, and the song is good. I think we should talk about it on the show at some point. Coming episode, absolutely, yeah. Okay, good.

Because this, I mean, this felt like a preview of next year's Grammys watching this. this silk sonic performance. The recording academy happens to love Bruno Mars. I was talking with our friend, the producer, Danny Ross, and he's like, is there a decade that Bruno Mars hasn't borrowed from since the war? And because here not only do we get the 70s,

but they also did that incredible performance honoring little Richard. We're going back to the 50s, and it was a lot of fun. Oh, man, I can't wait for Flapper era, Bruno Mars. You know, we're going to get that pretty soon. But you think the super group

is the thing to come? Do you think these guys are doing something special? Yeah, this is definitely a portent of what's to come. Like superstars teaming up to do projects that reflect their mutual interests? Like, that's

going to be a thing and I'm all here for it. Maybe there's also an upset, though, in their performance, which is, of course, that Bruno and Anderson had a sort of last minute petition to play at the Grammys, put their new big group out into the biggest stage in music. And of course, there has been the ongoing discussion of the snub to the weekend who didn't get to perform. And so it is a little strange that Fruno, who again, darling of the recording academy, gets to perform.

The weekend doesn't. Anderson did win for lockdown, which I think is one of the better tracks of the year. I think we're going to see the themes of lockdown recur in a lot of the night. Yeah, a lot of these performances didn't try and escape from the reality of what's happening outside this Grammy's ceremony. They looked at it head on. And one of the performances that did that most strikingly was little babies. And I would say this was a highlight. of the entire performance.

This was not on a stage or a sound stage. This was actually on the... filmed on the streets of L.A., the segment, and it was almost like a short movie that incorporated themes of police brutality. This is for his song, The Bigger Picture, which deals with, lot of these themes, but the way it was presented was so striking and clearly so carefully

rehearsed between the blocking and the camera work and featured some brilliant cameos from activist Tamika Mallory and the rapper Killer Mike. This was so unexpected and very moving. And also filmed on the street that I commute up and down every time I go to work, when I go to So it really hit home for me. This performance also references a larger arc of American history, and especially of the Black experience. It opens with a quote from James Baldwin. When I was growing up, I was taught in American history books that Africa had no history.

And neither did I. Nate, you noted the cameo by Tamika Mallory. She also, in her moment, made a plea saying, President Biden, we demand justice, equity, policy and everything else that freedom encompasses. We don't need allies. We need accomplices. It's bigger than black and white. This is not a trend.

This is our plate. Unto freedom. That was a hard-stopping moment, honestly. Not something I expected to see in like a Grammy's telecast. It was it was very, very raw and bracing. But these themes of combating and directly addressing racial justice were throughout the show, we had the performance of Black Like Me by Mickey Guyton, who we spoke with on the show

a couple months back. She had just had a child 30 days ago, which is amazing, and she was just stunning and belted. The song is gorgeous because it starts off really mellow and personal. Broke my heart on the playground. And then as it Bill, and she's leading to the punchline. The music swells up

and there's this gorgeous choir that joins her and that swell of emotion is matched in the performance, I think, just so beautifully. Yeah, she crushed it. Another performance that picked up on these themes very memorably, I thought, was DeBaby's performance of Rockstar. which started out with a really striking image of him in like head to toe in white Gucci,

conducting a choir and a violinist and a tenor singer. No, it's great. I love the idea of this song, sort of claiming its base, trying to overthrow institutions or sort of being the new rock star. But it's also a song which is addressing the everyday experience of having PTSD from simply living life as a black man. And, you know, especially addressing issues of police brutality. And there's this wonderful ad lib that he does, or he alters the line in the performance where he says, at the Grammys, probably get profiled before I leave it. It's a song that's just so full of these contrasts where musically contrasts this really beautiful guitar line, sort of classical guitar. Which makes sense that he's sort of conducting with the music, but it has this heavy trap beat.

And it is much a song about claiming his place as a rock star as constantly being persecuted. And also just the performance was like so sharp, big, shouts to Anthony Hamilton on vocals in that one. Such a pleasant surprise to see him there. And, you know, I think we're making it sound like kind of a serious song and a serious performance, but there's also a lot of levity, and that was significantly provided by this chorus of older choir singers who were dressed kind of like Supreme Court justices. And one of them, I know is destined to become a meme. It's the singer directly behind. the baby's right shoulder.

I guarantee there's going to be a million memes tomorrow about her. This being the Grammys, there, of course, weren't only performances addressing the biggest issues facing our culture and our politics. There was a great high in performance of what felt like a garage rock, three sisters just jamming out, having the best time. There was also Taylor Swift performed in what looked like she was in... The Shire? Yeah, the Shire. She was like on Middle Earth or something and Aaron Dessner and

Jack Antonoff were sort of in this cozy cabin covered in Moss playing their lovely folk songs Those were all very sweet It was snow white and the two dwarfs I think was the theme for that I have a favorite performance I have a feeling we might end up on the same one

But before we go to that Were there any performances for you that fell short? Yeah, there were a few You know I don't want to be mean I want to give all these artists their laurels, but I think one that didn't quite hit the mark for me was Roddy Rich, which came towards the end of the show. And, you know, he's an artist.

When I listen to his music, I just hear so much, like, crackling energy and vim and vigor. And when he was performing, there was a weird lack of vibrancy that I felt like didn't translate from the performance. So that one, that one didn't, didn't land for me. Yeah, I wonder about this because because of the context of the pandemic, this award show was very different than others, right? There was not a normal audience. It wasn't even recorded in one location. I believe it was recorded about five different locations.

Right. And some of those locations just didn't register as well. I think the sound mixing was off because of the lack of audience, the energy was off amongst the musicians. In fact, I actually found that the opener of watermelon sugar, a song which won awards and is a song that you and I both really love, it just turned from that high energy summer anthem to a like autumn, adult contemporary performance of the song. But I, of course, want to give the benefit of the doubt to the performers.

It seemed like something in the room was off. Totally. It was, it was, yeah, it was like the performance you'd see by a cover man at a senior citizen center. It was, it was, it was fine. I mean, he looked freaking amazing. Look great. The musicians played really well. It just didn't have that oomph that you want from that song. No, I know what you mean.

Another performance that felt like it just wasn't, yeah, it was lacking that feeding off the crowd maybe that you were talking about, that kind of a vacuum in the space was post-Malone. You know, I expected him to come out and do something pretty unforgettable. And instead, he picked a song that is not one of his biggest hits. Hollywood is bleeding. And just kind of like stood in some smoke machines and kind of looked at the ground for three minutes. And I was like, this is not the post Malone.

I've slowly and painfully come to kind of love over time. This is someone I don't recognize. You know, it did have one thing that I enjoyed, which is it opened up with this sort of like these Gothic elements. It also had this choir, almost like Gregorian Chan. like very old school and sort of alluding to maybe some of the medieval themes that he has in his music videos.

I note that only because one of the things I enjoy about the Grammys is when an artist takes their song and sort of rearranges it, puts it in a new context. And the song that I thought did that better than any was from my favorite performance

or performances, which were from Megan the Stallion and Cardi B. Yeah. And Megan the Stallion opened up with Body, which I think is one of our favorite songs. But she updated it into this sort of like American jazz, like roaring 20s kind of thing. And when we get into Savage, we get a tap dance solo. You know it took every five of my being not to text you just tap. just tap dancing, tap dancing, tap dancing.

That was, I mean, and just to put my jazz historian hat on, just for a second, just for a second. This was a direct illusion. The choreography here was hearkening back to one of the greatest filmed swing dance, tap dance performances ever, the Nicholas Brothers in Stormy Weather from 1943. And all you have to do is go on YouTube and type that in, Nicholas Brothers Stormy Weather. You'll see these doing splits down the staircase like that. Just like totally direct reference to that iconic dance sequence. So that was like totally thrilling for me to watch. It's just another great example of an artist like Megan who also in some other stuff we'll talk about later on.

Really claiming her space here. Right. Like alluding to a much larger musical history. her music might sound extremely contemporary, but when you put it in that greater context, all of a sudden you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm here, I'm here to stay.

This is important. And I think that those musical choices are as powerful as the performances. So we have body, we have savage, and I think everyone was just waiting to figure out what happens when a bunch of suits from CBS and the Grammys try to duke it out and figure,

how are we going to do the first ever broadcast version of the song Wob? The answer? You say the word wet a lot. A lot. Which I feel like isn't necessarily any less scandalous. It solved nothing. It was very, I was very flush watching it. It was thrilling.

I was talking to Whitney afterwards, and we both said one of our favorite moments was just watching Cardi B just panting at the end of that performance because you just saw how much work she had put into it. It was also very awkward to have some banter with Trevor Noah, the host of the show at that moment.

And I would say awkward banter with Trevor Noah was another theme of the Grammy. But her, just like the energy she put into that performance, the hard work, it was just also apparent at that moment. And it was just, I don't know, it was a very kind of human moment in these award shows

that tend to be very carefully manicured and produced and really registered with me. It also sets up a lot of contrast between performers who have some of the more over-the-top kinds of sets and productions and those who did much more sort of laid back, close-up camera. I think there was probably a lot of challenges

in the multi-location shooting, just trying to figure out how to make this award show work. And so Cardi Bean and Megan the Stallion stand out, I think because this was that over the top, we have the jazz reference, we have this giant over the top set that went through a shoe that was 30 feet tall to a bed that was... Not a shoe, Charlie, a stiletto.

A stiletto. A shoe, it wasn't a pennylofer. It was a stiletto with a translucent glass soul that a woman was dancing inside. As money tornadoed around her, a shoe. There was a shoe on stage. That is the most grotesque understatement of this entire evening. I think the only thing that should be censored from the performance of WAP is my commentary

about the shoe. The shoe, okay, I got to collect myself here. All right, all right. Yeah, and there were these digital projections with the Cardi B performance that were pretty staggering. It was, it was killer. So overall, your feeling of the Grammys standing up as a concert performance. You have a good time? I had a good time. I found it really booing to see all these artists and from such different backgrounds and such different genres and such different stories. One of the common themes here was just like how hard everyone has worked for this moment.

And it takes me back to what you said at the start. this episode. It's like even if the Grammys is plagued by problems and issues, it's still really energizing to see people doing something they love that they've spent their whole life, even if they're only, you know, 21. They spent their whole life trying to achieve. And that, and that really came through in a lot of these performances. Also, I need to shout out BTS because their choreography was just one of the highlights of the night. They showed. how good precision choreography can be, and it was breathtaking. I think you're absolutely right.

That was the other performance at the Grammys, where we got the production level that I expect of something like the Grammys in a non-pandemic year, and it was over the top that went through so many different sets. Right. They ended on the roof of a building in downtown Los Angeles. I may have run out onto my porch to see if I could see the fireworks that were,

lighting off behind them. I couldn't, but I could imagine it. But what's nuts, Nate, is they actually recreated the entire Grammy stage in Seoul because it wasn't feasible to fly to L.A. for this event. So you weren't going to see them. Wait, and that skyline was not the L.A. skyline? No. If it was, it was projected. I don't know. I was just running out on my porch, looking into the night sky for no reason. That's very disquiting. Well, kudos. I think that is the context of the music from this pandemic era as well. It's like we have on one hand all of these songs that are addressing racial injustice and the protest that started the summer and are ongoing. And there is also the music which is just like, help me escape this. I need to have fun. We have a record like Dooley, but Future nostalgia, which is a Grammy winner. But BTS Dynamite, it just gives you exactly that because you exactly that field that you need. And so I think from the performances, I was glad to have a sort of a mix of things. Yeah.

Shoes, you know, lots of shoes. I'm not good. I can't let it go yet. I can't let it go. Okay, so those are some of the performances that stayed with us. When we come back, let's break down some of the wins, some of the upset, some of the surprises, and some of the most well-earned victories. See you there. Attention, Spotify.

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in Shopify dotes bar records. When you watch the Grammy is the funny thing is that

most of the awards have actually been handed out before the official big event.

There are four premier categories, though, that everyone's always watching.

Best New Artist's Song of the Year. album of the year and record of the year. So I think it behooves us to look at the winners and think about what is their music standing for. What's it meaning to us? How did it land? Should we do them chronologically as they were announced at the ceremony?

Yeah, let's do that. So they begin with best new artists. Here I was both predicting and pulling for the eventual winner, Megan the Stallion. Yeah. There's a lot of tough competition in this category. K. Trinata, who we recently. spoke to on our show, incredible DJ and producer, Chica, a fantastic young rapper, Phoebe Bridgers. How to describe her?

I don't know. Great musician. And many others. But Megan the Stallion, she has had an incendiary year. And I feel like she's not only one of the most successful musicians right now. She is a cultural force. How could she not be the best new artist right now? Yeah.

I was also on this one with you. I mean, given that Savage had to be the biggest song of the year, at least it never left my ears. Yeah. You hear those four notes. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dumb. I'm a savage. Classic, bougie, ratchet. And it's like, you know exactly what's coming.

I feel empowered just hearing those four piano stabs, just one pitch and then up, just one. One chromatic note, stepwise. It's like so simple and so powerful. And that's what Megan the Stallion does so well. She finds these rhythms, these intonations, these lyrics that are just like so perfectly crafted. Same thing with something like body. We're just like body, yada, yada, yada. It's like it sounds like it should have always existed, but, you know, she did it first.

Exactly. Okay. So Megan the Stallion. Best new artist. No surprise. Since she had Hot Girl Summer, it's basically been Megan the Stallion. the charts nonstop, which brings us to the next category, which is Song of the Year. And there were a lot of big songs in this one.

I honestly did not know where this was going to go. Yeah, no, this was unlike the previous category, this felt very up in the air, some really strong contenders. If the world was ending, you talked to J.P. Sacks about writing that song recently. It's clearly something that's very germane to the world right now. I could know each other and it's fine. But if the world was ending, you'd come over right. You'd come over and you'd stay the night.

I could have seen Don't Start No winning this. I felt like this was the other vibe of the pandemic, right? Just complete release. Give me something to dance to alone in my house. What about circles? I mean, that song was you. It's, it's everywhere. We all know it.

It's like, like a nursery rhyme in our heads. What about a cozy, warm cardigan? I mean, you just want to snuggle up in a cardigan. And when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed. One and said I was your favorite. Not really, that doesn't really jive with the message of the song, though, I would say. Because it's an old, it's an old cardigan. Yeah, I don't know.

was like hanging up my card again. I didn't buy any new clothes this year. It made sense to me. Okay, so right, right. I guess there's two sides to that metaphor. Okay, anyway, stiff competition is what we're saying. Right. And I was pretty surprised by the eventual winner. The award went to her and her co-writers for the song, I Can't Breathe. And, you know, Song of the Year represents the underlying song, not the recording itself. This is a songwriter's award and I think this is falling up on the themes that we were talking about earlier in the performances. This is a song that is directly about addressing racial injustice. It's a beautifully crafted song and a beautifully sung song by her. And it was also really fascinating to learn

from her acceptance speech that she wrote it with her collaborators over FaceTime. I mean, that's pretty remarkable for a song to have that origin story in Win a Grammy. But isn't that also like how everybody has been living, right? It's like, oh, you're really? You're writing a song doing in the exact same way that people are organizing protests and the exact same way people are connecting with their family. It's just like that is the reality that is what we're that's what we're in. I think what was surprising about it was that there was another song that dealt with some of those same issues, Beyonce's Black Parade, a kind of Afro-Futuristic ode to black excellence and black achievement and black struggle. I think out of those two contestants,

since, you know, just maybe Beyonce's star power might have carried the day. So this was, I would classify this as something of an upset for her to come out with this award. Yeah, I have to admit, I was surprised here too. I thought that her song was remarkable. It's an incredibly powerful song. But I did think that this would be Beyonce's major four category winner. All right. That takes us to album of the year.

Another category I would categorize as hotly contested. Maybe some of the likely candidates here were Taylor Swift with folklore, Dua Lipa with future nostalgia, Post Malone, Hollywood's bleeding. I got to say, I was there even for Jesse Volume 3, Jacob Collier. I know that the Academy love super talented folks. We like Jacob. Even the Heim record, Women of Music Part 3, that was a super rad record. There's a lot of good stuff here.

Black Poo's record, the Coldplay record, Janette. I go, there's not a bad record in there. Yeah, no, this category, I think, had some of the richest musical offerings. And this felt like another one where you didn't know where it was going to go. No idea. And maybe two albums represent the kind of poles of that. Duolipa, Future Nostalgia, Taylor Swift, folklore. One, Duolipa, released prior to the pandemic and is just this buoyant, dancey, throwback to

70s and 80s, grooves. like escapist fantasy and then the other way, I know you like this beat, because Jeff been doing the damn thing, you want to turn it up loud, future nostalgia is the name.

And then the other Taylor Swift, as you said, made entirely in quarantine, sent audio memos back and forth between her collaborators and has this sort of hermetic, rural cabin in the woods vibe.

I guess you never know These two albums me, you really should have showed. And if you never bleed, you're never going to grow. And it's all right now. These two albums could not be more different from one another. No, definitely not. I guess if there is any scene that leads us into this moment, though, it comes from the Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana in which she finds out that reputation has not been nominated.

You are not nominated. It's um this is good this is fine I just need to make a better record and I just love this moment where she's like gotta write a better record yeah and she did it Taylor Swift won album of the year with folklore which we have deconstructed ad nauseum

but this is a important big win for Taylor she becomes the first woman to win album of the year three times tying with Paul Simon Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra she's in pretty good company yeah I think I think this was was well earned it. This is very much an album in the sense that it has this cohesive sound that it seems very carefully plotted to take you on a kind of journey of highs and lows. And I think this is maybe more than any of the other offerings here, the one I'd be most likely to put on and listen to from beginning to end. I might be a future nostalgia guy on some days and folklore and others. Depends how much I need a cozy car.

already get on. Yeah, well, the good thing we're not Grammy voters. We don't have to choose. We can have both. And I think it's like a larger theme for for us as well. It's just seeing like, it's, I don't love the value of creating the horse race between artists and different works of art. It's such a bizarre exercise that we have to go through because as much as we can create the comparison between these records, they also just like, yeah, they couldn't be more onalike. And so it is, it does feel like apples and orders in some ways. Now, the first final of the big four. It's record of the year. Who are some of the front runners here, Chuck? Well, important clarification for folks, right? Like, we have song of the year, record of the year,

make sure we're all clear. Song of the year celebrates the song. Record of the year is the recording and performance. And I think it's actually notable to say that record of the year is now the last category. It's the thing that they want to have you stick around through all of the ad breaks for. It is the culminating moment. No longer album of the year. That's changed in the last couple of years, which I think says a little bit about where our culture's at. I think in some ways, records are more important than albums. Okay. Okay,

Professor Grammy. That was interesting. Go on. Go on. This was the, oh, I feel uncomfortable talking about it. Yeah, it was a really weird way to end the night. Let's just jump right into it. The winner was Billy Eilish

with her song, Everything I wanted. I love this song. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, It's wonderful. And it's also very unusual that she won this award last year when she swept all of the major categories. But there's, I know that you two and Roberta Flack have also done this. But I think it was the only three that have run record of the year twice in a row. So it was a surprise.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it was. And I mean, how would you characterize her emotion upon being announced that she was the winner? I would characterize her as extremely surprised. Mortified, Charlie. She was so embarrassed. And she said so when she got on stage.

It was... You're right. That's what I said. When I saw her take off her mask, the first thing I said was, oh, she didn't want to win this. That was the... I've never seen anyone react to an award like that. Like, what, I mean, emotions tend to range from ecstasy to at least like, you know, some sort of mild glee.

This was just, she was like, it was painful. And she got up there, and she devoted the 75% of her speech to praise for Megan the stallion. Megan, girl, I was gonna write a speech about how you deserve this, but then I was like, there's no way they're gonna choose me. I was like, it's hers.

And basically the sentiment that she should have won the award. Yeah, record of the year is often, one of the more commercial awards, and I think it's pretty undeniable of all of the songs in the category that Savage by Megan the Staley and featuring Beyonce was the obvious pick. Folks were extremely surprised. It was stunning to see that loss. Yeah. You know, that wraps up the big four categories, but, you know, what you're saying also leads me to maybe a few stray thoughts from the evening that we, that we're saying. can end with. One of them relating

what you were just talking about is that I think it's important to acknowledge another kind of historical event. It's Beyonce breaking record. The most Grammy wins in history. Is that right? Do I get that right? This is a little complicated.

The most important thing is that she is the most award-winning performing artist. She now has 28 awards. She is tied now with Quincy Jones, who of course is a producer, and the most wins is by George Salty. George Salty. Oh, the conductor of the Chicago Philharmonic? Yes, exactly. He died in 1997. Oh, that's fascinating. But let's stuck up on these technicalities. It's a big moment. It's an extremely

important moment. Coming into my house and lecturing me again. this was the underlying drama through the night, I think, because people were, I mean, many people who are maybe bean counters like me, are watching to see how these things are going to unfold. And so when best rap performance went to Megan the Stallion and Beyonce, all of a sudden she ties Alison Krause for most awards awarded to a woman in a Grammy's history with 27 for non-instrumentalists, it's such a wonderful moment of the show.

If you know me, you have to know that ever since I was little, I was like, you know what? One day, I'm going to grow up and I'm going to be like the rap Beyonce. Yeah, this was so cool to see. It was Megan fan girling at just like standing next to Beyonce and Beyonce kind of taking on the role of like the wise elder statesperson. And it was just, it was another one of those human moments that really brought the ceremony. home. And so did Beyonce's acceptance speech for her best R&B performance win? It was about, it was so much about motherhood and about, you know, family. So much. I know my daughter is watching. Two daughters and my son, y'all are all watching

Blue. Congratulations. She won a Grammy tonight. I'm so proud of you. I don't know that. I found that very striking. You know, Whitney was telling me what that meant to her in a year that has been really tough on women, especially women who have had to leave the workforce and been forced into positions of caretaking. This was not just this Beyonce moment, this was a ceremony that really felt dominated by women, I think. And that felt meaningful. That felt earned. Yeah, absolutely. She even points to how as an artist she feels that it's important now more than ever to reflect the times and that it's been a difficult time

that she's wanting to reflect back stories especially in her song with Black Parade but it's really clear as you were saying that she's just I think a mirror for so many people in an absolute inspiration and I think for a lot of us getting to watch Megan the Stallion watch Beyonce or be on stage with her

and just sort of mouth agape I can't believe this is happening that is the highlight moment of yeah totally let's let's let's end on that moment of efflorescence and because I mean, it's not going to get better than that. Hopefully in 2022, you and I will be sitting on the same sofa, watching together. Maybe we'll be sitting in a big shoe.

Who knows? Just a big old shoe. I'll never live this down. Switch on Pops Award for Best Producers goes to Charlie Harding, Bridget Armstrong, and me, Nate Sloan. Thank you to everyone. I'm so honored to accept this award. the award for Best Mixer, Editor, and Engineer, and Soon to Be Fathers, it's a very specific award.

It's Brandon McFarland. I mean, there was no contest there. What else is on the docket check? Best Illustrator, undeniably, goes to Iris Gottlieb. Oh, fantastic. Supri. Upset win over a Shepard Ferry there. No one saw that coming.

And, you know, best on those social media keys just had to go to Abby Bar. Abby Barr, a legend, a five-time winner now, actually. There was actually a strange tie between Best's executive producer, went to both Nishakura and Hana Rosen. The award for Best Duo Act, I mean, we all saw this coming. It's a Vulture and Vox Media Podcast Network. The award for Best next week's episode goes to Nate Sloan, producing a piece about the return of the funk guitar with beloved guitarist Corey Wong. It's going to be really fun. to see her wait no don't start the music i'm not done don't don't play me off i've got more to say

we'll be back next tuesday with another episode and until then thanks for listening