Switched On Pop Launches On Netflix

Today, Switched On Pop launches on Netflix, marking the beginning of a new era for the long-running, ear-opening and award-winning podcast that has mastered a way to make critical listening fun. It was more than twelve years ago that hosts Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan were driving on the California coast, realizing that Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” was a masterclass in musical tension, and recognizing that there is so much more we could be missing from our favorite songs – elements that a show and their expertise would reveal. After nearly 500 episodes and counting, Switched On Pop’s pioneering approach to pop music and journalism has helped an audience of tens of millions, including diehard stans, staunch skeptics, seasoned scholars, aspiring talent, casual consumers and everyone in between to achieve one thing above all: listening closer to pop music, to understand why it moves us.

Co-produced with New York Magazine’s Vulture, and now partnering with Netflix for exclusive video distribution, the collaboration signals the latest evolution for a series that has transcended mediums: from audio and social feeds to a Switched On Pop book published by Oxford University Press, translated into multiple languages and adopted into curriculums at universities and colleges across the country; from live events with Maggie Rogers and Djo at NYU and Charlie Puth at Berklee to appearances on Good Morning America, PBS, CNN, NPR, Morning Joe and op-eds for The New York Times, and, as of today: on Netflix.

With a brand new look, filmed on camera in new studios in Los Angeles and New York City, new episodes of Switched On Pop will stream on Netflix, beginning with something the show has never done before: a four-part series focused on “The Art of The Song” – intro, verse, chorus and bridge. Aaron Dessner, Audrey Hobert, Trevor Horn, Cypress Hill and Tayla Parx** will serve as expert witnesses during the episodes, paired with examples that span contemporary music. Video will be released every Tuesday morning on Netflix, with audio continuing to be available on all podcast platforms, and more special guests, timely topics and events to be announced. Watch the trailer, and tune into Switched On Pop exclusively on Netflix: HERE

_“After twelve years and nearly 500 episodes, you’d think we’d have run out of things to hear in a pop song. The opposite keeps happening. When we listen closely, we always find that the hits have more to reveal, and now we get to show people with cameras rolling,” s_ays Switched On Pop co-host Charlie Harding, a songwriter, music journalist and music educator who currently serves as an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and Adjunct Professor at NYU Steinhardt’s Music Performing Arts Professions.

“Music is both a private pleasure and a public phenomenon. That’s what makes it endlessly interesting to discuss. We’re both teachers at heart, and there’s nothing better than revealing new facets of a song someone might have heard a thousand times before. That’s what these episodes are built to do,” adds Switched On Pop co-host Nate Sloan, a musicologist, performer, and associate professor at the USC Thornton School of Music, where his research spans jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and popular music.

Whether Harding and Sloan are discussing Taylor Swift’s recurring melodic signatures, Olivia Rodrigo’s heartbreak anthems, Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s time-bending duets or Stevie Wonder’s enduring harmonies, each episode of Switched On Pop is delivered with an “affable passion” that “will deepen your appreciation,” says The New York Times, which – along with The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Vogue, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly and more – has named the show among the best music podcasts. Previous guests have included generations of artists, producers and songwriters such as Chappell Roan, Jack Antonoff, Laufey, Robert Plant, Nile Rodgers, Brittany Howard, Talking Heads, Carly Rae Jepsen, Caroline Polachek, Seal, Sombr, Slayyyter, Zara Larsson and dozens of others who have explained how their hits are made, what they mean and why their musical ideas and production choices matter, because every song has more to give, if you listen closer.