Hopes and Fears of Mac Miller, Future, Drake, and Billie Eilish

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2020

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mac Miller, Future and Billie Eilish all have good and bad news to share. On Miller’s posthumous album, Circles, he exposes personal struggles with fame, addiction, and mental illness — sobering topics given his unintentional drug overdose last year. Yet at the same time we hear him searching for “good news,” practicing self care and accepting that “there's a whole lot more” waiting. Future & Drake’s celebration of material excess also finds them “working on the weekend” just to keep up appearances. Similarly, Billie Eilish has achieved “everything [she] wanted,” but dreams of death and darkness overwhelm her. But she’s buoyed by the support of her brother FINNEAS. Many pop songs are about a single emotion: love, heartbreak or exuberant joy. But these great songs evoke more complex emotions, existing somewhere in a liminal space between our hopes and fears. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	First, sweet tarts dare to combine sweet and tart, but they didn't stop there.
0:06.0	Now they've combined soft and bouncy to bring you new sweet tarts, gummy fruity splits.
0:12.0	A uniquely delicious dual-sided gummy with one side that's sweet, and the other side that's tart.
0:19.0	But entirely smooth and squishy.
0:22.0	A powerfully perfect combo.
0:24.0	Sweet tarts dare to combine.
0:30.0	Sweet tarts dare to combine.
0:33.0	Sweet tarts dare to combine.
0:36.0	Sweet tarts dare to combine.
0:40.0	Welcome to Switched Unpop.
0:42.0	I'm a songwriter Charlie Harding, and I'm a musicologist Nate Sloan.
0:45.0	You know Nate, some of my favorite music can speak to multiple emotions at the same time.
0:51.0	Yeah.
0:52.0	And as I was listening to songs to think about what we would chat about this week,
0:55.0	I kept hearing this theme arise.
0:57.0	A combination of hopes and dreams, but also fears and nightmares.
1:03.0	Two things that you would think might belong in different songs, but are often happening in just one track.
1:10.0	I don't want to wax too philosophical, but what that might mean at large.
1:13.0	But these songs really stuck with me.
1:15.0	Not only did they get stuck in my head, but existing in this sort of like liminal emotional space was powerful.
1:22.0	And so I want to take three songs today.
1:24.0	One from Mac Miller, off of his post-emiss release, another from Future Featuring Drake.
	...

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