This story originally aired on Switched on Pop.

After 10 years and 400 episodes, our friends at Switched on Pop decided it was finally time to revamp their outdated theme song. In this episode, they take us inside the chaotic, hilarious, and surprisingly emotional process of making a new one. Along the way, they get brutally honest feedback from top music critics, craft over a hundred layers of swirling synths and cinematic sound effects, and even get some sonic strategy from our very own Dallas Taylor.

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View Transcript ▶︎

[music in: Wesley Slover - Making Things]

I’ve been making Twenty Thousand Hertz with the incredible team at my sound agency, Defacto Sound, for 211 episodes and over eight and a half years. And in all that time, our introduction has always just been me, saying this:

Clip: “You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz. I’m Dallas Taylor.”

If you’ve heard a few episodes, you might’ve picked up on a theme… which is listening. I start our episodes with, “You’re listening to…” and I end them with, “Thanks for listening.” I also intentionally call you, the audience, listeners.

Now, one of my favorite things happens at the end of every episode, when you hear the voices of the people who made the show, reading their own credits. But in the intro, it’s always just me. And that started to feel off.

So I wanted to start the show in the same way we end it. With a small but mighty team, passionately making something together. It reflects what this show has always been: a labor of love, crafted by people who care deeply about sound.

So today, I’m excited to debut our brand new intro, which sounds like this:

[music quickly buttons into new 20K sonic logo]

[music resumes]

The idea to change our intro started with a conversation I had a few months ago with my friend Charlie Harding from Switched on Pop. He was thinking about refreshing their show’s theme song after 400 episodes… And as you’ll hear, it turned out to be a pretty epic endeavor.

Here’s Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan from Switched on Pop.

[music out]

Charlie: Nate, what do you think of when I play you this song?

Music: [Switched on Pop Theme Song]

Nate You know the TV show from the ‘60s about the band, The Monkees, it had that theme song. “Hey, Hey, with The Monkees,”

[clip: The Monkees Theme]

Nate I never loved it, but I found it sort of comforting when it would come on. I feel like this is similar. I'm like, “I don't know. It's not a great masterful piece of music, but I've kind of like, grown to love it over the years, I guess?”

Charlie: Thanks. You know, because I wrote it in like an hour. I don't remember the moment exactly, but I knew that we had our very first episode. We needed some kind of theme song. And I literally just dragged together a bunch of like Garage Band loops. I don't think there's an original piece of music in there. It's literally just a bunch of stuff that anybody has on an Apple computer.

Nate We've recorded 400 episodes. I feel like every time, you've cringed through our theme music. Not to mention the emails we've gotten from people saying, “What is with your theme music?” Let's give yourself a little bit of credit though. What are we hearing? We have this radio dial changing stations at the beginning. That’s symbolic, right? That represents our willingness to listen across genre and style, Charlie, to find common musical material. That's beautiful.

Charlie: Thank you.

Nate Now, does anyone listen to the radio anymore?Perhaps a question worth asking.

Charlie: I just feel like 400 episodes, 10 years of making this show, we need a change. And so today, we're going to rewrite the theme, and we're going to make it better. Or at least we're going to make it different.

Nate This is smart, Charles, because even if we end up with a theme song that still doesn't work, you will have let everyone in on the process, and they can see how hard you tried if nothing else. And maybe when they listen, they'll listen with sympathetic ears because they know you did everything you could.

Charlie: I appreciate it, because I think one of the great challenges with changing any kind of identity, is that there's all of this loaded nostalgia for the thing you already knew. And familiarity bias is real. In case you do feel particularly attached, I want to let you know, I think you're wrong. And so do some of the best voices in the world of music.

Lauren: My name is Lauren Michelle Jackson. I am a professor of English at Northwestern University and a critic at the New Yorker.

Charlie: Lauren is one of my favorite music writers, I literally teach her work in my classes, and when I played her the theme, this is what she said:

(repeat Switched on Pop theme)

Lauren: Yeah, it's trying maybe a bit too hard, right? It's not cool! It's not cool enough!

Charlie: Here's culture and music critic Kat Zhang of The Cut, formerly of Pitchfork.

Kat: It sounds like game show music. (laughs) Uh, it also sounds like, It wouldn't even make it to demo status, uh, if pitched as a pop song.

Charlie: Ian Fitchuk, currently nominated for a Grammy for Producer of the Year.

Ian: It gives me the feeling of hearing one of my kids’, like, least favorite video game, maybe circa 2007 or 8 from another room and just being like, “Oh no, here we go again, this game!” And, uh, it really just in no way mirrors the legitimacy of this wonderful podcast.

Charlie: If we need podcast musical legitimacy, well, I know just the person who knows a lot about great music and great podcasts.

Hrishikesh: I'm Hrishikesh Hirway. I'm a singer songwriter and the host of Song Exploder.

Charlie: And when I played up the theme:

Hrishikesh: I mean, it's, it’s cute. I like it, ‘cuz you made it, but if I didn't know that you made it, my eyebrows might have gone up a little (laughs). It makes me smile and it kind of makes me laugh, which, you know, some people might see that as a positive thing, but it might not be the feeling that you want from (laughs) a listener.

Charlie: That's very generous of you. I think I'm going to get rid of the vocals. I think I'm just going to go, “Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.” Because that is kind of the melodic theme. Can I live with that?

Hrishikesh: I think you can. I think if you change the bass sound to make it, um, slightly less, “wah wah.”

[Bass sound]

Hrishikesh: I think, I think that'd be good. But I think you should keep the vocals.

[Vocals]

Hrishikesh: I think having the words in there, it does feel like an iconic part of the, the theme in, in my mind.

Charlie: Okay, some useful feedback from friends of the podcast, but I feel like we could use some really unvarnished criticism.

Jon Caramanica: John Caramanica, host of Popcast at the New York Times.

Charlie: John doesn't hold back.

Jon Caramanica: All right (deep breath)... I can tell you have a fondness for the game shows of Eastern Europe.

(laughter)

Jon Caramanica: Look, what I want to say is that, were you thinking of like a breakfast cereal spin off of the show to have that kind of sound? Like, is that where you were going with it? Were you thinking like, “This podcast thing, unlikely to go. However, there’s a packageables angle on the back end of this.” Is that where you were?

Charlie: I could have actually made some money if I did that.

Jon Caramanica: I am confident that if you went into an advertising or marketing meeting with that, right now, you would walk out with an incredible job music supervising some of the worst cereal commercials that you've ever heard.

Charlie: (Laughs)

Jon Caramanica: I'm going to go journalistic on you for a second:

Charlie: Please.

Jon Caramanica: What, were you hoping to evoke emotionally, but also kind of like philosophically in a listener who heard that? What did you want them to take away?

Charlie: I wanted it to be a jingle that was diva-esque, that would announce itself as being every kind of pop music. So it begins with a radio FM sweep that is completely anachronistic. It has, like, a sort of like trap orchestra, wah wah wah wah, we have those big horns, trap sort of sounds. It's got some wub wub from the dub step. It's got a swung piano going bump, bump, bump, bump, bump da dun dun dun dun. It's got a bunch of sound effects for sort of cinema stuff. Oh, it's got a funk ending baseline. Dun bump, bump, bump, bump. I wanted it to be maximalist everything, and I wanted to say “pop music.” I'm not sure that that brief says pop music anyway.

Jon Caramanica: Okay. So two notes, right? Okay, so number one. Have you considered a radio dial, with static in between? So you're switched and then the one is on like a country on and then pop is maybe like a metal pop.

[pop SFX]

Jon Caramanica: You know, like, have you considered that as a way to communicate, to telegraph multiple genres, number one? Or number two, you should have done something chaotic. Maybe you should have hand cut tape with one of those like hand splicers. Just a thought.

Charlie: DIY it. I like it.

Jon Caramanica: Yeah. So those are my notes.

Charlie: That's a great, that's a great, review. I appreciate it.

Jon Caramanica: You couldn't be more welcome.

Nate Well, that was humbling.

Charlie: Totally.

Charlie: It's really unfortunate too, because this is the only original piece of music in the theme. Uh, I found someone on Craigslist to sing harmonies.

Nate Yeah.

Charlie: We've never spoken, never met, uh, just traded some files.

[Apple FaceTime Sound]

Maria: Hello!

Charlie: So nice to meet you. Hi, I’m Charlie.

Maria: It's so nice to meet you.

Charlie: This is the singer Maria Z. I found my email exchange with her from 10 years ago, and I reached out to see if she remembered how we first connected to make this theme.

Maria: Was it Craigslist?

Charlie: Yeah. So in 2014 , I made a theme song out of Garage Band loops. Uh, and I thought, “Oh, we should have someone sing over this.” I don't really remember writing that Craigslist ad, but I was like, “I gotta find someone to sing.”

Charlie: You wrote me: “Hi there, I'm interested in helping with your jingle! I have a great home setup and could record and send everything back on Sunday. I have a big range and can sing with a lighter or heavier or funkier or soulful tone, whatever you need for the diva role.”

Maria: Listen, when I see the word “diva,” it is on and popping. I'm like, “I'm there.”

Charlie: Do you have any recollection of doing that recording?

Maria: I actually do. I mean, it's a little hazy; I don't remember the melody. You're going to have to play it for me, obviously.

Charlie: Yeah, I can do that. Here, let me play it for you a second.

Music: [Switched on Pop intro]

Maria: No way, that is hilarious. I sound so young. “Swiiiitched oooon Pop.” That was a lot shorter than I remember though.

Charlie: So, do you know anything about this podcast that you've contributed to?

Maria: Short answer? No. I think I work on so many things that I often forget what I'm part of. But I did check out recently since we reconnected and, um, I took a look at what you've been doing, and it's amazing, it's awesome.

Charlie: How many pieces out in the world would you say have your voice on it right now?

Maria: Oh my gosh, over a thousand projects, like two thousand, something crazy.

Charlie: What's the biggest job you've done where people might have heard your voice?

Maria: I recently had a song placed on the movie Spirited. It was “Santa Baby.”

Music: [Santa Baby clip from Spirited]

Charlie: Whoa. I'm so thankful to get to connect, it's so funny that we probably lived just a few miles from each other for ten years, and have been in this very roundabout way, a part of each other's lives. Your voice has been heard by like many millions of people at the introduction of our show. I think you nailed it. I asked for a diva vocal, and you delivered!

Maria: I delivered, Okay!

Charlie: Thank you, Maria.

Maria: Thank you so much for including me.

Nate She crushed it, by the way.

Charlie: Yeah!

Nate She's arguably the best part of this intro. Sorry, Charles.

Charlie: Yeah, totally! Hopefully we can find some kind of way to keep part of her vocals in our rewrite, but it's pretty clear from all the feedback that we've received that it's past time that we need to refresh our jingle. And Nate, I don't know if you remember, but I've actually tried to rewrite this theme song like a couple of times, and every single time you're like, nah, that's not it.

Nate Oh, so it's my fault. (laughs) I'm sorry. I have taste.

Charlie: Here, let me play you a few:

Music: [Switched on Pop alternate version]

Charlie: That was me just trying to get rid of using loops and make everything by hand back in 2019. You rejected it.

Nate And I still do.

Charlie: In 2021. I tried this.

Music: [Switched on Pop: Daft Junk version]

Charlie: You said no.

Nate I said, uh, “That's Daft Junk right there.”

Charlie: After you said no in 2021, I tried again.

Music: [Switched on Pop: Nickelodeon intro version]

Nate That sounds like the intro to a Nickelodeon show from the 90s.

Charlie: Oh my gosh, it is, like a bad Rugrats spinoff or something.

Nate Yes, exactly.

Charlie: Despite all of your rejections, there have been a couple of alterations to the theme over the years, like in our Anthems series.

Music: [Switched on Pop: Anthems intro]

Nate You know what? That slaps. But not an everyday theme song.

Charlie: Also not an everyday theme, our Beethoven miniseries.

Music: [Switched on Pop: Beethoven Mini series]

Nate Pretty sick. Very “sturm und drang.”

Charlie: Then a bunch of times I've just tried to get moody with it.

Music: [Switched on Pop: Moody intro]

Nate You were deep in your feelings.

Charlie: Admittedly, it was like deep pandemic when I wrote those three.

Nate Yeah, I could tell.

Charlie: (laughs) It was not good times.

Nate So, year after year, you found ways to… fail.

(Charlie & Nate laugh)

Nate Sorry, I'm kicking you when you're down.

Charlie: Yeah.

Nate (laughing) What makes you think this time will be different, Charlie?

Charlie: Well, I realized I'm way too close to this original theme, and I thought that maybe if we could get another perspective, that would help. And so I called up an expert on sound design to help me think about how to go about rebranding our show.

Dallas: I’m Dallas Taylor, and I'm a sound designer and own a company called Defacto Sound. And I also host a podcast about sound called Twenty Thousand Hertz Hertz.

Charlie: Dallas will help an organization craft their sonic identity, and so I asked him to break down the various aspects of sonic branding, and what we should be considering.

Dallas: So there's a bunch of different things that all branch underneath the global title of “Sonic Branding.” So that can be something like a jingle. I think of a jingle as a short piece of music that has lyrics in it, like “Nationwide is on your side,” or “800-588-2300 Empire”, There's the theme song.You know, we're thinking about like, um, the Friends theme song:

Music: [Friends theme song]

Dallas: It's like a whole piece of music that's really designed to give you the time to transition into this world.

Dallas: I think of things like a sonic logo as something that's very short. You know like a “ta dum,” [Netflix sonic logo] Like the Netflix thing.

Dallas: And then, you know, you also have other elements that could be considered under this kind of sonic branding idea, like an audio tag. That could be something that is either happening at the very end. Like, the Intel chimes, [Intel Chimes] “dung, dung, dung, dung, dung.”

Dallas: Those are the main things that I think of under that sonic branding. And it's interesting because when you reached out about the Switched on Pop jingle, I would say it's kind of like between a jingle and a theme song, it does have like a lot of memorability to it. So my first instinct for anyone is like not to lose something that has existed for so long. That would be my gut of the direction to go. Probably less change than you want to make, but enough that you feel satisfied in it.

Charlie: Okay, so per Dallas, I feel like we need to rewrite our jingle, make a longer theme that we could use for our credits, and have some kind of audio tag that we could put at the beginning and end of the show if we need it. But since I have failed so miserably trying to rewrite the theme so many times, here's what I want to propose. I want to hire an actual composer.

Nate Wise. Hans Zimmer?

Charlie: I emailed, not available. I'm not joking. I really did email.

Nate Good for you.

Charlie: I… also want to keep it about friendship. You know, I feel like this is fundamentally about us hanging out, and our relationship to music together. That's how it all began. So I want to keep it humble. We don't need Hans.

Charlie: I want to talk to our friend Zach Tenorio, who has played on the show a couple of times; people hear his music every single time we play the ad break. That's him on the synthesizer:

[SOP Ad Break Synthesizer]

Charlie: This year, Zach is nominated for a Grammy for his arranging on Willow's new record. So, not just a friend, but acclaimed musician. Zach has been an old pal. He's in the band Arc Iris with our other friend, Jocie Adams, who's also an amazing composer, also going to help out in this project.

[Clip: Arc Iris - $GNMS]

Charlie: I thought we would hire them to redo our theme music. And I feel like we need to give them some parameters. So I'm just curious, like, what are the things that matter to you that we can give them in a brief?

Nate Okay, well, one of my issues with our old theme music is, I feel like it's a little long.

Charlie: Way too long.

Nate So I feel like one thing, let's keep it nice and quick, right?

Charlie: I feel like I want to have some continuity. Like we do have a core melody. “Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.” Like, I feel like that… that is a sonic identity that I don't really want to lose.

Nate I would love to have some textures that feel more reflective of what pop music sounds like in 2025.

Charlie: Well, I kind of want to keep doing this show for like another 10 years with you. And I got it so wrong in 2014. Maybe we could say a little bit more timeless?

Nate That works for me. Timeless.

Charlie: I feel like we should also honor the “switched on-ness” of our show.

Nate Ahh, the, Wendy Carlos of it all.

Music: [Switched on Bach - Wendy Carlos]

Charlie: Yeah, exactly. We need some synthesizers

Nate Yeah.

Charlie: I mean, after all, Wendy Carlos's Switched on Bach is our namesake. It's the most successful classical record. It legitimized the synthesizer. I feel like we have to include that.

[music out]

Charlie: Anything else?

Nate Do we want a vocal again? Do we need to say “Switched on Pop?” Is it instrumental? What's your take there, Charles?

Charlie: Rishikesh says we need the vocal; I think we got to keep a vocal… Of some kind. There’s got to be a voice.

Nate Okay. So: short, timeless, synthesized, but also continuing our original in some way.

Charlie: Okay. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna call up Zach and JOcie from Arc Iris, and let's see what they say.

[Apple FaceTime sound]

Charlie: Oh my goodness!

Zach: Can you take a step? Can you come? Whoa! Whoa! That was two!

Charlie: That is amazing.

Zach: We're a happy family.

Charlie: Oh, it's so good to see you all!

Zach: It's good to see you too.

Charlie: Zach and Jocie were hanging out with their one year old baby who took a few steps on FaceTime for me. Very cute.

Zach: Do you want to talk vision?

Charlie: Yeah, let's talk about music. I don't want to rewrite this thing from scratch. I think we've got to keep the core composition. I don't think that the sounds are important. I think what's important is a like musical gesture, like a “bum bum bum bum bum bum bum.” That is the theme.

Zach: That's it.

Charlie: And so I want to keep that.

Zach: Yeah.

Charlie: I want it to be a little bit more timeless and not trying to like match the trends of any musical era. I would like it to be more idiosyncratic to us. I would like to have something that I play, and I want to make sure Nate plays something.

Charlie: Because we were tied to Wendy Carlos, there must be synthesizers

Zach: I love that. And that actually, I feel like a palette, to me, those sounds that Wendy Carlos was making back then sounds timeless. They sound timeless. and they have been through every decade of pop music. It sounds like a fun challenge. Are the vocals going?

Charlie: It could be like vocoder. It could be some like, some way of using the voice.

Zach: So it's basically, it's just like sound: “Switched on Pop.” music, right? And then a minute of music.. It definitely seems fun.

Charlie: All right, thanks for thinking this through.

Zach: All right, Charlie. Yeah.

Charlie: All right. Love y'all. Bye.

[Apple FaceTime sound]

Charlie: So I sent Zach and Jossie off with that brief, and when we come back, we'll hear what they came up with.

[Switched on Pop sting] MIDROLL

[Switched on Pop sting]

[Apple FaceTime sound]

Charlie: Okay, hey, can you hear me?

Nate Yeah.

Charlie: Alright, where are you?

Nate Outside the library.

Charlie: Okay, So Zach sent me a little audio clip, and some inspirational music that I wanted to get your feedback on.

Nate Okay.

Charlie: So I gave him our brief of like, shorter, some Moog synthesizers, and he sent back these songs as ideas. First is the song “Kid A” off of the record Kid A.

Music: [Kid A - Radiohead]

Nate I like it. It's a little avant garde, a little out there.

Charlie: Okay, cool.

Nate But, you know, so is some of our analysis, so that seems appropriate.

Charlie: Okay, the second song that he was interested in was “Yesterday”: by No Name, specifically the string synths.

Music: [Yesterday - No Name]

Nate Those strings really fit our brief of something timeless. They sound kind of classic, but also totally contemporary. I like it.

Charlie: Okay, cool. The last piece that he sent was Mort Garson's “Ode to an African Violet.”

Music: [Ode to an African Violet - Mort Garson]

Nate Plantasia, baby. (Charlie laughs) You know, we asked for synthesizers. This is like a classic synth sound that I would be honored to have as part of our theme music.

Charlie: Okay. So that's the sound palette that he wanted to work with, and he was fiddling around after chatting with him yesterday. This is the idea, like, rough sort of demo. Is he going in the right direction?

[Switched on Pop - new synth demo]

Nate I think it's definitely the right direction.

Charlie: Oh, great!

Nate Now one thing I'm realizing I'm missing is the delineation between the two themes within that short melody. I feel like it's, it's always been sort of, a question and answer “Switched on Pop! [Imitates bass] Like, can we still have that sort of back and forth element by changing the timbre, or the harmony somehow?

Charlie: Yeah. I like the call and response.

Nate That's the only thing that comes to mind.

Charlie: Okay, cool. There's a couple of things that I wanted to get your feedback on. One was maybe evolving the harmony a little bit. So like right now, the whole thing is very simple. It's just in the key of C. It goes C, Bb,C “Switched on Pop,” which is very like…

Nate Medieval.

Charlie: Well, we could do different chords like we could re-harm it. And so like one option was to go like Eb, Bb, C. “switched on, pop.” Or you could do like the upward approach A flat B flat C. “Switched on pop.”

Nate I’m probably more partial to the ascending approach, reminiscent of the final cadence of Whitney Houston's 1991 Superbowl performance of the national anthem.

[clip: Whitney Houston - National Anthem]

Charlie: Which I think is inspired by Jimi Hendrix's performance of the National Anthem, which does the same thing, but many years earlier.

[clip: Jimi Hendrix - National Anthem]

Nate I mean, we are an anthemic podcast, so…

Charlie: Okay, so let's do the Ab, [SFX: Guitar chord] Bb, [SFX: Guitar chord] C. [SFX: Guitar chord]

Nate Yeah. Yeah. That's the one.

Charlie: Okay. And then, I was thinking that we could play with the rhythm a little bit.Instead of doing the like, “bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump,” which is very bluesy.

Charlie: Maybe make it a little more syncopated? “Da ba bum, bum, bum, bum.” And then slow it down?

Nate Nope. Don’t like it.

Charlie: Ha ha, you don't like it?

Nate No, I think if we change that, it becomes sort of unrecognizable and I don't know. I don't know. That's something about that syncopation isn't working for me.

Charlie: You don't want to evolve and grow and change?

Nate Okay. Okay. Fair, fair point, Charlie.

Charlie: If you don't like it, we don't gotta do it.

Nate I actually like the tail of it. “Duh, duh, duh.” I feel like that has a nice sort of finality to it. Whereas if we draw it out, then it just feels kind of, uh, kind of draggy to me.

Charlie: Okay, let's not drag. This is all about getting to the point. A few other notes I have.

Charlie: I think it'd be really fun if we had Zach like have one moment where you play something, one moment where I play something, you know, just like to make it a little more personal?

Nate Yeah, we should have our fingerprints on this thing.

Charlie: Yeah, I'll play like mandolin or guitar, you'll play some kind of keys?

Nate Let's do it.

Charlie: Okay, I think I want to hear some vocals.

Nate Yeah, we're a show about pop music. And with some exceptions, it's a vocal art form. So I feel like we need some vocals in there.

Charlie: Okay, so we've got the right direction.

Nate Sounds like a plan.

Charlie: Okay.

Nate Can I go back to work now?

Charlie: Yeah, I'll call Zach.

Nate Right on.

Charlie: Cool. All right. Thank you, Nate.

Nate You got it, Chuck.

[Apple FaceTime sound]

Charlie: Zach, we love it.

Zach: You love it?

Charlie: I played Nate the audio samples. He digs them, loves the direction that we're going in. And we have a few notes because that's how this works, right?

Zach: Yes, of course.

[Notes dialogue montage]

Zach: So the re-harm is good. I'm not changing any of the harmony right now. Like you're happy with that.

Charlie: Are you doing the re-harm in the current version that you just sent me?

Zach: I am doing a re-harm. Yeah. It goes to Ab, Bb, Cb, and then, then during the lick, I kind of modulate to the four chord.

Music: [SOP theme in progress]

Charlie: Oh, I like that. Wait, hold on.

Zach: Yeah, it feels new in a cool way to me. It's like resolved, but not like a hundred percent resolved, If you know what I mean?

Charlie: I actually hadn't realized that the opening chord… That is an A flat? Let me hear

Zach: The first one is A flat, Yeah. Ab, Bb, C.

Charlie: Well, that's funny! I had heard it as if you were doing the C, Bb, C, the original, because it's so ingrained in my head.

Zach: Yeah, that's I mean that makes sense.

Charlie: And also, you just did it so subtly, I didn't even notice that you had done it, which is perfect.

Zach: Okay, cool.

Charlie: Awesome. Thanks, Zach.

Zach: Yeah, of course! Talk soon.

[Apple FaceTime sound]

Charlie: Okay. Well, in the last couple of days, since we caught up, I ran our feedback by Zach. He loved it. I gave you homework.

Nate You wanted me to play the last tag of the theme on. Let's see, Irish Penny Whistle…

SFX: [Irish Penny Whistle]

Nate Five String Banjo…

SFX: [Five string Banjo]

Nate And, Grand Piano…

SFX: [Grand piano]

Nate Charlie, for whatever reason, I only pick the most annoying instruments to learn. (Charlie laughs) It’s something deeply wrong with me.

Charlie: Thank goodness that you can play the piano as well.

Nate I know, I know. It's my saving grace.

Charlie: And so I was like, “What on earth am I gonna do with this?”

Nate (Laughs)

Charlie: The goal was to add some personality and texture to the synthesizers that Zach and Jocie had given us. As a reminder, this is where they left us off:

Music: [Synthesizers]

Nate Yeah!

Charlie: And of course, everyone thought what that needs is some banjo, some penny whistle, and some additional piano. So this is what I did with your material.

[Layered banjo, penny whistle and piano]

Nate That's pretty money.

Charlie: Yeah!

Nate Little Easter egg. For the heads.

Charlie: Yeah. And when you layer it in.

Nate Shockingly euphonious.

Charlie: Okay, so your little, banjo, flute, piano thing completes the second half of the theme, and I layered together a bunch of guitars for the first half of the theme. I wanted to complement the sort of funkiness of the synthesizers.

Music: [Funky Synthesizers]

Charlie: But then layer it with some distortion.

Music: [Funky Synthesizers with distortion]

Nate Yeah! Little Van Halen in there.

Charlie: And this is what it sounds like with the synths.

Music: [SOP new theme + new synths]

Nate Love it.

Charlie: But I also asked Zach and Jossie to, of course, include some vocals. And so we've got Zach on vocoder, Jocie on lead vocals, and I even buried a little bit of the original vocals that I did as a demo. I'm not going to isolate those. And I also included some of Maria's original harmonies.

[Maria Z harmony vocals]

Charlie: Okay. And then the last thing is we asked for some sound effects that would swoop in and out, John Caramanica said that we needed some tape sound effects. So I made sure to get some tape splicing in here:

SFX: [Tape Splicing]

Nate Wow.

Charlie: And the final theme altogether sounds like:

[Full new SOP theme plays]

Nate Okay. That's sick. I love it. I love it. How many tracks is this thing?

Charlie: We are currently at, let's see… we're talking a hundred and two tracks.

Nate That is absurd. That's more than like, Nick Minaj's “Starships…”

[clip: Nicki Minaj - Starships]

Nate What, what is going on? How do, how does a six second jingle have 102 tracks?

Charlie: Because there's so many layers of synthesizers. I mean, my guitar tracks alone are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16 tracks of guitars. Your banjos, flutes, and pianos are all layered twice. All the vocals are stacked like 12 times. The vocoder is stacked multiple times. There's just like, endless layers that are all just like gently supporting each other.

Nate Okay. 102 tracks, 12 critics, five composers. Have we nailed this thing? Have we threaded this needle? Have we corrected a decade of offensive theme music?

Charlie: Well, I played it for some of our earlier critics, and uh, here's what they had to say:

[Full new SOP theme plays]

Lauren: I love the revamp, it’s smooth, very suave uh, while still retaining a bit of the of the old sound, so love it!

Ian: Ahh, much better!

Kat: It sounds like a cool upgraded theme to like a Bill Nye, The Science Guy type show, which is not off.

Music: [Bill Nye theme song]

Hrishikesh: Charlie, I think this sounds great. Kind of reminds me of the theme song from 321 Contact, which I love.

Music: [321 Contact Theme]

Hrishikesh: So, yeah. Thumbs up from me.

Jon Caramanica: Yeah, this sounds to me like what a movie in, like, 1983 would have imagined that an answering machine outgoing message would have sounded like in 2050.

(Charlie & Nate laugh)

SFX: [Dial tone]

Nate Please leave a message for Switched on Pop after the tone.

SFX: [Answering machine beep]

Charlie: So between 321 Contact, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and the Futuristic Answering Machine, I realize that our brief that included heavy amounts of synthesizer makes the whole thing lean towards like, PBS soundtrack music.

Nate A PBS science after school program. Oh my goodness.

Charlie: Which, is that not appropriate for what we're doing?

Music: [Reading Rainbow Theme song]

Nate I mean, it's probably so subconsciously buried in our synapses that it was only a matter of time before these sounds came out. Who wouldn't aspire to bring the mix of entertainment and edification that Bill Nye has provided over the years? That's the greatest compliment you could ever get.

Charlie: I know, I'm pleased.

Nate “The Bill Nye of pop music analysis.”

Charlie: But wait,there's more Nate.

Nate Oh God. More tracks?

Charlie: You know, I spoke with Dallas from Twenty Thousand Hertz, and he told us that a podcast doesn't just need a little jingle, it needs a sonic identity. And so, I was thinking, how could we extract a little, bumper sound effect that would play at the beginning and end of our show, or whenever we needed it. And I think Zach gave us the perfect material. It's right at the very beginning.

SFX: [SOP Sonic identity]

Nate Oh, I love that.

Charlie: Isn’t that cool?

Nate That's epic.

Charlie: The only thing is, I feel like it's a little too long. Like I want something super short. So over too many hours, I toyed with these sounds, which are comprised of a tape stop:

SFX: [Tape stop]

Charlie: A record drop:

SFX: [Record drop]

Charlie: A cassette tape:

SFX: [Cassette tape]

Charlie: a tiny bit of radio static from our original jingle:

SFX: [radio static]

Charlie: And just the shortest blip of that synthesizer:

SFX: [synthesizer]

Charlie: And this is what I came up with:

SFX: [SOPaudio bumper in]

Charlie: That's going in, and when we're done:

SFX: [SOP audio bumper out]

Charlie: Audio Bumper! We got a sonic identity! I don't know if it's “Ta-dum”, [Netflix Tadum] but I like it.

Nate Let me hear it one more time.

SFX: [SOP audio bumper in and out]

Nate It's, it's close. It's close. I think we're, we might have to take that one to the woodshed for a sec, but I like where we're going with it.

Charlie: Yeah.

Nate Okay, Charlie, you're not a sound designer.

Charlie: No.

Nate You're a songwriter. You're not a composer of soundtracks and scores this is new-

Charlie: I am now-

Nate -terrain. Okay. Okay. You are okay. Sorry. Okay. Let me, Let me, start over Charlie. You're an accomplished composer who has worked in many different fields in media. But I, as far as I know, you've never, besides our own earlier jingle, you've never composed a sting like this before. What'd you learn through this process?

[music in: Midlo - Medjool]

Charlie: Well, first of all, these are the kind of things that people don't have opinions about until you ask them. And so everybody listening right now is going to have all of a sudden a very strong opinion about something which is completely irrelevant that they would have otherwise never paid attention to. But that includes myself, I really thought a lot about do we want to sound like, and it was the process of exploring these sounds that really made it all come together.

Charlie: Like, I knew we wanted to maintain some consistency in our sound identity, and so we couldn't throw out the jingle completely, I wanted to lean more into something which is honest to ourselves, which I think is that synthesized Switched On sound with us playing our instruments in there, including our goofiest instruments.

Charlie: And then when I finally shared this thing back and got all this feedback of like, “It's giving PBS,” I was like, “Perfect! That's actually where I do want to be.” Like, my dream is probably to have a music education show on PBS. And so in that way, I think it's been a success going through this process and uncovering these sounds.

Nate Yeah, that's something I would not have anticipated at the start of this process. I would think of making a jingle as a purely kind of calculating and almost scientific process. But it's actually very emotional, very human, very much about what our hopes and goals and ambitions and loves are. And how to fit that into five seconds of sonic material is a fascinating challenge.

Nate So every time I listen to a podcast or, or any, or any show, really. I'm going to be thinking about like, “Okay, so what does this jingle trying to tell me? What does it tell me about the people who made it, and the values of this particular piece of media?” And hopefully a bop as well. Hopefully we've created, you know at least a Top 40 billboard hit, if not Hot 100.

[music out]

Charlie: Well, on that note, I said that I would get you a jingle. I said that I'd get you a little sonic logo, or tag, or bumper, whatever you want to call that little “budup” thing is.

Nate Yeah.

Charlie: But I also said I'd get you a song. And Zach and Jocie of Arc Iris have delivered. They've given us credits music:

Music in: [SOP credits music]

Nate This is epic. This is like what they play, before you're about to watch a light show at the planetarium or something. It's so fun.

That story came from Switched on Pop, a podcast about the making and meaning of popular music. Each week, Charlie and Nate pull back the curtain on how pop hits work magic on our ears and our culture. In recent episodes, they’ve explored how Rihanna’s hit Umbrella transformed how pop music was made, and how Spotify’s algorithms dictate the soundtrack to our lives. Follow Switched on Pop right here in your podcast player.

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of my sound agency, Defacto Sound. To hear more, follow defacto sound on Instagram, or visit defacto sound dot com.

Charlie: Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb.**

Charlie: Music… by Zach Tenorio and Jocie Adams of Arc Iris. We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com/pod.

Other Voices: Additional material for this episode was written by Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Graham Gold.

I’m Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.

SFX: [SOP audio bumper out]