Bonnie McKee on the Song Machine, Pop Stardom & Ego Death
Pop Pantheon
DJ Louie XIV
4.7 • 630 Ratings
🗓️ 16 November 2023
⏱️ 46 minutes
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Summary
Bonnie McKee is the songwriter behind many of the most enduring pop hits of the last 15 years including Taio Cruz' "Dynamite", Britney Spears' "Hold it Against Me" and no fewer than 5 (!) of Katy Perry's #1s. She's also a pop star in her own right, having run the gamut from singer-songwriter-aspirant in the early 2000s through numerous major label deals and finally, her current career as an indie pop act.
Bonnie joins DJ Louie to talk about it all: her love of pop music, how she writes it, her experience as song-crafter to the stars, how the "song machine" works when it comes to major pop stars, the difference between writing songs for yourself and for other artists and how the pop music ecosystem has changed over her nearly 20 year career.
Listen to Bonnie McKee's "Don't Get Mad Get Famous"
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Pop Pantheon, the podcast where we completely overanalyze all of your favorite pop stars and then rank them in the official Pop Pantheon. |
| 0:17.0 | This is your host, DJ Louis the 14th, reminding you to please rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it now. |
| 0:23.3 | Follow us on social media at Pop Pantheon Pod. I'm at DJ, L-O-U-I-E-X-I-V on both Twitter and Instagram. And don't forget to buy our merch at Pot Pantheonpod.com and join our Patreon. Pop Pantheon all access at patreon.com |
| 0:19.3 | slash Pop Pantheon where we are providing |
| 0:21.2 | at least three bonus episodes of this show per month. |
| 0:24.5 | Finally, to Pop Pantheon all access at patreon.com slash pop pantheon where we are providing at least three |
| 0:38.4 | bonus episodes of this show per month. Finally, tonight in New York City, in conjunction with our |
| 0:44.5 | favorite podcast, Who Weekly, Gorgeous, gorgeous, is throwing a after party for Who Weekly's show |
| 0:50.7 | at the Pladium in Times Square. This party will be at Fishbowl at the Dream |
| 0:55.4 | Hotel in Midtown and anybody who's anybody can be there. So if you want to come listen to |
| 1:02.4 | pop music all night with your favorite gorgeous, gorgeous crew plus the Who Weekly crew. That is |
| 1:07.2 | tonight, Thursday, November 16th at the Dream Hotel Midtown at Fishbowl in their bar downstairs. |
| 1:13.8 | So I hope to see some of you guys tonight at Who Weekly Times Gorgeous, gorgeous. |
| 1:17.3 | This week's B-side is a little bit of a different thing for us. |
| 1:20.5 | We invited a very special guest on the show. |
| 1:24.3 | Bonnie McKee, who is a songwriter, I'm sure many of you are familiar with. She's |
| 1:28.7 | written hits like Katie Perry's Teenage Dream and California Girl and Roar. She's written |
| 1:33.7 | Tao Cruz's Dynamite. She's written Britney Spears is hold it against me, among a slew of other |
| 1:38.8 | classic pop records. And she's also a pop star in her own right, who has been in the industry for nearly 20 |
| 1:46.2 | years at this point, has been on quite a journey through the world of pop music, is a pop music |
| 1:50.7 | officinado in general, somebody who loves the format, loves the genre. So Bonnie came on to talk |
| 1:56.6 | all about her career, both as an artist and a songwriter and about pop music in general, |
... |
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