Welcome to a mini episode of Switched On Pop.

Miniature because only one of us is here today and that's me Nate Sloan.

Hi everyone.

And I want to address a phenomena that's occurring before our very ears that no one so far

as I know has addressed.

It doesn't have a name as such but we might call it the final dropout.

Everyone is doing it from Taylor Swift to one republic to one direction to Rihanna

and many many more who can't be listed here.

And basically it's the technique of when you reach the final lyric of a song.

Instead of ending as you might expect most songs to end, certainly classical composers

have been ending songs for a few centuries with the biggest fullest possible texture,

Tuti, every instrument sounding at once announcing yes you have definitively reached the end

of this song.

This technique does something quite the opposite.

It reduces the texture to a single voice.

The pop star alone in the wilderness surrounded not by the orchestral forces but silence.

For a moment you're in your car at work, at the pool, in surgery, wherever you're listening

to Swift, Gaga, 1D.

And then all of a sudden it's like you're alone with them.

This is a very intimate moment.

And why is this happening?

Why does Taylor Swift end a song like Trouble with just her voice?

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