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Welcome to Switched on Pop I'm musicologist Nate Sloan and this is the latest installment of modern classics where we talk to our favorite musicians and writers about the songs that they think belong in the pantheon of Pop.

Our guest today is someone I've wanted to speak to since I started seeing their byline attached to all of the best music writing of the last few years.

Profile of bad money there they were a searing critique of West Side Story there they were again a beautiful introduction to the Bay Area musician La Donia.

There it was again I'm pleased to welcome the person responsible for all of these pieces and more the writer and translator Karina Delvae Shorsky.

Karina thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you you nailed it on the pronunciation to amazing I may have practiced a dozen times may have not will never know multilingual music.

Thank you Karina what song have you brought for us today well the song that I selected today is that cat powers Manhattan let's listen to some of Manhattan by cat power right now.

Don't look at the moon tonight. You'll never be never be never be.

Cat power aka Sean Marshall released her first album in 1995 and her most recent in 2018 this song Manhattan is from her 2012 album Sun and which she plays virtually every instrument we're hearing herself.

Karina do you remember when you first heard the song.

It's so embarrassing and I knew that I would have to tell the truth on the podcast that the fucking Spotify algorithm fed it to me.

No shame in the Spotify algorithm game.

I did listen to a decent amount of cat power but I definitely heard it for the first time during my early years of living in Manhattan as an adult.

I grew up in the Bay area but my mom grew up in Manhattan and in Washington Heights specifically and my family lived there in Washington Heights in the same apartment for 65 years until December when my grandmother passed away.

So coming to live in Manhattan I guess seven years ago or so to do a peach yet Columbia like adjacent to the neighborhood that was like my family's neighborhood setting up shop in my studio apartment and admitting to myself that I wanted to be a writer and that I wanted to try that in New York was the period in which I was introduced by the Spotify algorithm to this song and it was an immediate hit with me.

So I love that Kizmit. I mean Spotify recommends us a lot of songs but maybe not all of them connect and so kind of perfect away.

Were there any particular lyrics that really resonated with you?

Yes. I mean I actually wondered what counts as pop first switched on pop and I think that this is probably like on the indie side of pop.

But to me it still counts to me almost every song about New York is a pop song because and like an including jazz because it's engaging with this iconic popular symbol not only for the US but for the entire world.

And so you're always going to be participating a little bit even by saying the word Manhattan and that kind of conversation I think but other than that the lyrics of this song are like as non pop song as you can get in some ways.

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