🧜🏻♀️ The Brothers Grimm, Lauryn Hill, Chippendales, Tubman $20s 💰 Switched on Pop's Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan 🎼
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Bonjour!
This week we’re getting to peek into the podcast app and listening life of Christine Driscoll, a producer at Pineapple working on a lot of different shows, most recently Welcome to Your Fantasy, about the Chippendales. I worked with Christine in a past life and she is one of the funniest, coolest people I have ever met. (And she is obsessed with Dance and Stuff, a fact that baffles and fascinates me.)
App I use: Apple Podcasts on my phone, Spotify on desktop
Listening time per week: Probably 3-4 hours? I love half hour shows and being able to listen to a lot of different, short things.
When O listen: Cooking, or more recently DRAWING. I mindlessly pulled up Zillow the other day to look for "fantasy houses" and felt like this... is ultimately not good for me. I remembered that as a kid, I'd spend hours drawing "dream" houses and that was definitely way healthier. Why wouldn't I draw now? I highly recommend doodling and drawing fun nonsense as a way to get away from scrolling. Podcasts are a great medium to get you in a flow state for that.
How I discover: This newsletter?! I also get most of my recommendations from coworkers.
Note: If there is any kind of art project or craft you want to do but have been putting off, just set it up in your mind as a way to pass time while listening to something. I have taken a lot of pressure off of myself this way and recently installed shelves, finished a painting, and cleaned my bike, while listening to Why is this Happening? and Past Present.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan
Charlie Harding (songwriter) and Nate Sloan (musicologist) host the Vulture podcast Switched on Pop about the making and meaning of popular music. Follow Charlie on Twitter here, Nate on Twitter here, and Switched on Pop on Twitter here.
How did you get introduced to podcasting?
We started our show in 2014 during the beginning of this current wave in podcasting both because we love audio storytelling but also because we wanted to maintain a long distance musical friendship after we both left San Francisco. We bought cheap microphones and audio interfaces and leaned heavily on resources from Transom and Third Coast to build our skills.
There are so many music podcasts, but Switched On Pop sets itself apart, probably because of the mixture of knowledge and fun that you and Charlie bring. How do you describe it to people? Why is it different than most music shows?
We say that the show is about the making and meaning of popular music because podcasting allows audiences to hear musical properties in pop that are harder to discern in written form. Hopefully the show gives people “a-ha” moments about their favorite songs. To keep it both entertaining and engaging, each episode is produced in isolation from each other, so that a highly researched outline is presented as a true extemporaneous conversation between two music nerds.
Why are you the perfect hosts for this show?
We balance each other nicely because we bring contrasting skills. Nate’s a musicologist and exceptional Jazz pianist with a broad repertoire across all of popular music. Charlie specializes in contemporary production and sound design. Our ears sort of meet in the middle.
If you were going to create another podcast, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it, what would it be?
Charlie wants to make a mockumentary about the self-help industry. Nate would like to do a mini series on the Irish tin whistle.
Should podcasters read their Apple Podcast reviews?
All online reviews suffer from the 5 star / 1 star problem. While we really love seeing praise from our listeners, and it does help us focus on what works well on the show, it is very uncommon to receive useful critical feedback from reviews. Better to consult with people who make great work and get targeted feedback.
How did you go from zero to Vulture?
We gradually built our show over the last 6 years. The show first distributed via a Wordpress RSS feed that Charlie built. We partnered with Acast and then Panoply in our early days before getting picked up by Vox.com (their award winning YouTube music series “Earworm” by Estelle Caswell had been an inspiration). Now we’re migrating to Vulture, Vox.com’s sibling publication where we will get to collaborate with many of their outstanding music journalists. It is a dream collab because we both love Vulture’s culture writing.
What is the #1 way to increase your download numbers?
#1 Create reliably strong material on a consistent basis while not getting too stuck to a formula. #2 create tentpole moments with deeply reported pieces and mini-series that take additional effort over #1. Then again some of our personal favorite pieces we least expect to find an audience surprise us. But that’s why consistency matters.
Can you shout other music podcasts that you love?
We love Song Exploder, Hit Parade, Dissect, NYTimes Popcast, Mogul, Lost Notes, Punch Up The Jam, Dolly Parton’s America, Broken Record, Sound Opinions, oh and definitely Off Book, a long-form improvised musical that is the most fun.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Sometimes when I’m curating clips for Hark (remember you can get a code to try the beta version of the app…just ask me!) I take screenshots while I’m listening so I know which moments deserve to be revisited for capture. I have about 14 screen shots of this episode of Imaginary Worlds. It tells the most interesting story of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, which were conceived by the brothers Grimm in Germany before Germany was a country, but were solidified in our culture with heavy German influence. (During the Third Reich, the Nazis adopted them in their propaganda.) Other people were writing fairy tales at the time, but Grimm ones were the ones that stuck, all because of ethics, religion, and the Nazis. The story of why these stories stick with us today is fascinating.
💎BTW💎
🎙️This surprised me: more than one in five college students are also parents. Lantigua Williams & Co. and Ascend at the Aspen Institute have created 1 in 5, a show that illustrates the complex, human stories behind this statistic. Each episode focuses on a different student parent, capturing the obstacles they face as they juggle kids, Covid, relationships, health, and school. If you want something done, give it to a busy person, and these busy people are offering their stories with audio that makes you feel like you’re sitting at the breakfast table with their kids (as they serve you cereal before they rush off to class,) with interviews and storytelling. Full disclosure, I am working on this show with Arielle Nissenblatt (subscribe to Podcast Plunge and EarBuds)—reach out if you want to know more about it.
🎙️I wish everyone would listen to There Are No Girls on the Internet. Bridget Todd (you may remember her from such podcasts as Stuff Mom Never Told You) is writing the stories of marginalized people who are the lifeblood of the internet and technology. I have so many favorite episodes (this one) but a recent interview with Ifeoma Ozoma really made me think. Ifeoma is in the news right now (also listen to her talk to Farai Chideya on Our Body Politic) because she is a former Pinterest employee who alleged racial and gender discrimination at the company, and is co-leading new legislation to empower those who experience workplace discrimination and/or harassment. It’s a jaw-dropping story that is just so blatantly wrong. But I guess it’s an ad Bridget read that really made me think. I forget which product it was for, but she said something like, “listeners of TANGOTI know what it feels like to speak up in a meeting and be silenced or have your idea stolen by someone else…” And I was in my living room listening with my husband, who is not white, and I thought, “yes, we both do know what that feels like.” But are the people who should be listening to TANGOTI listening to TANGOTI? The people who don’t know what that feels like? This was the morning I was reading about all of the allegations against PJ Vogt, and I thought…is PJ Vogt listening to TANGOTI?
🎙️Bill Nye’s Science Rules! had an episode about exercise that was full of “whoa” moments. On it, Daniel Lieberman talks about how cultural running is, and why the individualistic nature of Americans makes them approach running differently (worse.) Ever notice that in a race, the Americans all run differently but African runners run uniformly? That all comes down to how they think about running. There are many facts about the physical nature of running, too. Why our arms and heads are so important, the truth about flat feet, how our feet evolved to be runners, and the truth about barefoot running. I am a runner (<—shameless plug) and don’t often like listening to runners talk about running. But this was juicy and fascinating. I don’t know why, but Bill Nye makes me happy. excited about the world, and when he’s talking about climate, he has a way of calming my nerves. It’s probably all because of Ellen’s Universe of Energy (RIP.)
🎙️Kenny Beats is a producer who studies the sounds and histories of rap, tracking which beats comes from where, and why. On Broken Record, he maps out the evolution of regional sounds in hip-hop, explaining what sounds like New York hip hop, what sounds like rap from down south and the west coast. And even how drug use and crime in certain neighbors has shaped sound. I swear to god I will never listen to another rap the same way. Listen to a clip here.
🎙️I love podcasts about podcasts, and I’m especially excited about Meta because it’s all about Australian shows. I don’t know enough about Australian shows, but one of them, CrossBread, is one of my favorites fiction shows of all time! (I wrote about it for the Bello Collective Best Podcasts of 2020.) Meta interviewed CrossBread’s Declan Fay. I got to learn more about the show I love so much, plus all the stuff Declan did before he got to CrossBread. Listen and then do not pass go, go straight to CrossBread. I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard about the This Is Spinal Tap-esque treatment of a Christian hip-hop brother and sister duo.
🎙️On Gender Reveal, Tuck Woodstock interviewed FANTI’s Tre’vell Anderson. It’s a great conversation about “all black lives matter” and trans representation in TV and film. There’s a moment when Tre’vell talks about never feeling safe, but refusing to not be themselves. Because that isn’t living. It made me want to cry. Listen to a clip here. And if you want more Tre’vell, listen to them on Follow Friday.
🎙️I have been waiting FOR-EVER for Welcome To Your Fantasy to launch, and it’s here! I have been a fan of Natalia Petrzela for awhile…her podcast Past Present with Nicole Hemmer and Neil Young was one of the first shows I listened to. (I wish I could remember how we found it.) Natalia is this magical combination of spunky and sharp, she always reminds me that serious things can be fun. And Welcome To Your Fantasy = murder + chippendales, which exist on two opposite ends of the fun spectrum. Natalia is also a fitness instructor, and if I were to take a fitness class, I would be in the first row of hers. (This got me thinking about which other podcasters should have fitness classes. Jackie Johnson, Richard Parks III? Richard’s Famous Foods Fitness Class?) Wow, where were? Episode one of Welcome To Your Fantasy delves into the history of the Chippendales, where you find the seeds of The Chippendale Murders. I love the questions Natalia asks and how she tells the story. In episode one listen for a) a Chrisine mention (from my interview above) and a Disneyland anecdote.
🎙️Once again, The Alarmist does a great job of providing a thorough explanation of something serious and difficult in history, somehow, with lots of humor and fun. In the Flint water crisis episode, host Rebecca Delgado-Smith dives into the history of the crisis, and all the players involved in making it happen, trying to figure out who’s to blame. On the aftermath episode, Corey Stern, lead counsel for the proposed settlement of over $641 million for the children of Flint, comes on to iron out the convoluted details of this story and explain how the banks and government were involved, as well as how he’s dedicated his work to representing lots of people, kids, and families in Flint. I think we all know this story for the most part, but until I listened to this, I realize I truly didn’t.
🎙️99% Invisible’s 12 Heads from the Garden of Perfect Brightness begins with a three-day auction from the private art collection of Yves Saint Laurent, which had 733 items up for sale. The auction turned into a protest—art collector and dealer Cai Mingchao bought two of the items for fourteen million euros each, but after he won, Cai refused to pay. He was making a statement about the pieces, which had been stolen from the Chinese in one of the worst incidents of cultural vandalism the country has ever seen. This is the story of the end of the second Opium War in 1860, which led Western forces to steal or destroy nearly five million pieces. (A great podcast, Stuff the British Stole, has a great episode about this, too.) There’s an interview with Ai Weiwei, who says these are propaganda pieces and choosing them as symbols of Chinese treasure is ridiculous. (He also provides an explanation for why 2020 sucked so much, based on the Chinese Zodiac calendar.)
🎙️Into America is doing a really interesting series for Black History Month, Harlem on My Mind, following four figures from Harlem who defined Blackness for themselves and what it means to be Black in America today. I’m biased—she is a Tink client—but I loved Morgan’s conversation with Trymaine Lee about Jessie Redmon Fauset about what Jessie means to Morgan and what it feels and sounds and smells like to live in Harlem, and why Morgan felt she had to live there. The story of Jessie Redmon Fauset is interesting and not well-known. It’s good to retell Black stories during Black History Month, but here’s one we aren’t telling enough. Listen to a clip here.
🎙️Throughline has a wonderful piece on another figure who made his way to Harlem, Jamaican-born activist Marcus Garvey, who founded an organization of Black nationalists and was known to many as "Black Moses." He had a vision of pan-Africanism and must have felt so defeated when it didn’t culminate, and while he came to be scorned by many, his vision and message of hope is alive in the people who dream of Black potential and greatness. (The episode closes with a Bob Marley song, who sings lines of a Marcus Garvey speech.) Listen to a clip here.
🎙️On Nocturne, Vanessa Lowe talked to Lia Ditton, a rower who has racked up more than 150,000 nautical miles of experience, the equivalent of 8 laps of the globe. Lia talks about the 86-days of solitude she endured going from San Francisco to Hawaii, and one of the most terrifying aspect of the adventure, night time. Lia would have to sleep in her boat but sleeping wasn’t easy—she was semi-traumatized by the danger she faced during the day which made it difficult to rest. It’s a fear that sounds so intense I don’t think I could endure it.
🎙️Goddammit, Short Cuts is a treat. On Acts of Love, Josie long presents two short, sweet love stories. The first one is a slow, beautiful punch to the heart that actually made me feel physical heart pain. (Hear part of it here.) And the last one, about a woman who cared for and buried AIDS victims when nobody else would, was perfect.
🎙️When I read that Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation went Diamond last week, I paused what I was listening to and started Dissect’s series on the album. I have always wanted to listen to it, and now’s the perfect time. I’m still listening to it, but am loving every second. The Doo Wop (That Thing) episode outlines how Lauryn Hill combined hip-hop, 1950s doo wop, and cut lyrics to create this song that when I first heard as a freshman in high school, I thought was just a BOP (it is) but now I know it’s so much more. And every single one of those lyrics (those lyrics I screeched out the window of my 1988 Cabrio!!!) is explained which gives this already mighty song even more powerful. Listen to a clip about the genius of Doo Wop here.
🎙️Writ Large is about the books that changed the world, and I can’t think of many books that fits this description more than Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Host Zachary Davis talked to Professor Robin Bernstein about what Harriet Beecher Stowe was setting out to do when she wrote the book, and how pop culture has reversed many of Stowe’s messages. I would bet that your ideas of Uncle Tom’s Cabin are totally off—how we think of it today has strayed so far from how it was originally read in 1852. This episode sets us straight. Listen to a clip about how pop cultures has twisted all of Stowe’s original intention for the book here.
🎙️I have wasted too much time being angry that Sacagawea is not on the twenty dollar bill, or that Andrew Jackson is still the face on the $20 bill. But this episode of The United States of Anxiety reframed the entire “Harriet Tubman should be on the twenty dollar bill” argument for me. Dr. Brittney Cooper argues that since Black bodies were a form of payment during slavery and in many ways have been ever since, slapping Harriet on the $20 would add insult to injury, a continuation of the practice of making Black people commodities. And maybe Tubman shouldn’t be featured on a symbol of our country’s obsession with capitalism??? Is this the right way to honor her legacy? Would she even want this? Dr. Cooper claims that we are hijacking Tubman’s message to make ourselves feel better, but in doing this we are twisting everything she stood for. I entered this episode unsure of where this argument would go, and finished it punching the air and saying, “fuck the $20 bill! Harriet is too good for it!” (I admit I can be gullible, but it’s a very engaging argument to hear from Dr. Cooper, who is passionate and convincing.)
🎙️On Tight Lipped, Noa Fleishacker exposes the age-old lie that Black women don't develop endometriosis, where this lie came from, and why it’s been considered the career (white) woman’s disease. This a side story to the much larger one of doctors who ignore Black women’s pain (and the once-again age-old myth that Black women do not FEEL pain.) If this interests you, check out NATAL, a great show that exposes the truth about giving birth when you’re Black. (And how it’s not the same experience if you’re white.) I love hearing these stories, because these women are, among other things, being completely gaslit by the medical field, and it must take a lot of guts to stand up and say something about it. (To harken back to the TANGOTI episode I referenced above: so many Black women are tired and deserve all the naps.)
🎙️For the first time, you can get access to American Hysteria’s 2019 live show on Patreon (pay what you can!) Chelsey, who has a background as a drag and performance art producer, created a vaudevillian bananas bonanza with skits, drag, dance, stand-up comedy, and videos from clips you'll remember from season one. Special guests include Satan, Tinky Winky, John Harvey Kellogg, and Alex Jones.
🎙️Last week I incorrectly stated that Maria Hinojosa was the host of Suave, and I was wrong. The host is Maggie Freleng!
🎙️I don’t know what to say about the Reply All thing. It makes me feel le tired. (If you need to be caught up, you can read about it here and Eric Edding’s Twitter thread sums it all up.) It’s a sad story about what is happening to podcasting, this young, scrappy industry, that is kind of like in its preteen stage. Also yes I think it’s strange that the NYT is reporting on racism at Reply All, which was reporting on racism at Bon Appétit. God, this is depressing. Sruthi apologized on Twitter, but I hope they address this on the actual show. Lots and lots of Reply All listeners aren’t on Twitter, aren’t tapped into podcast news, and will have no idea what went down.
🎙️I love you!