The Sonic Brand Makeover We Didn’t Know We Needed

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I've been making 20,000 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.

You're listening to 20,000 hertz.

I'm Dallas Taylor.

If you've heard a few episodes, you might have 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.

You're listening

to 20,000 hertz.

The stories behind the world's most iconic and fascinating sounds.

I'm Dallas Taylor.

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.

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

You know the TV show from the 60s about the band the monkeys?

Yeah.

It had that theme song, hey, hey, with the monkeys.

Monkeys, and people say we monkey around.

Yeah.

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, yeah, 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.

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.

Yeah.

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.

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.

Thank you.

Now, does anyone listen to the radio anymore?

Perhaps a question worth asking.

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.

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.

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.

My name is Lauren Michelle Jackson.

I am a professor of English at Northwestern University and a critic at the New Yorker.

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.

Yeah, it's trying

maybe a bit too hard, right?

It's not cool.

It's not cool enough.

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

It sounds like game show music.

It also sounds like it wouldn't even make it to demo status

if pitched as a pop song.

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

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

it really just in no way mirrors the legitimacy of this wonderful podcast.

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

I'm Rashi Keshirway.

I'm a singer-songwriter and the host of Song Exploder.

And when I played up the theme.

I mean, it's, it's cute.

I like it because you made it.

But if I didn't know that you made it, my eyebrows might have gone up a lot.

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 a listener.

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?

I think you can.

I think if you change the bass sound to make it slightly less,

I think that would be good.

But I think you should keep the vocals.

Switch

time

pop.

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

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

John Karamonica, host of popcast at the New York Times.

John doesn't hold back.

All right.

I can tell you have a fondness for the game shows of Eastern Europe.

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?

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

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 the worst serial commercials that you've ever heard.

I'm going to go journalistic on you for a second.

Please, 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?

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

a sort of like

trap orchestra.

Womp, womp, womp, womp.

Like 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, dun, dump, dump, dun, dump, dump.

It's got a bunch of sound effects for sort of cinema stuff.

Oh, it's got a funk ending bass line.

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.

Okay, so two notes, right?

So, number one,

have you considered a radio dial with static in between?

So, you are switched,

and then the on is on like a country on,

and then pop is maybe like a metal

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 yeah why it i like it yeah so that those are my notes that's a that's a great review i appreciate it you're you couldn't be more welcome.

Well, that was humbling.

Totally.

It's really unfortunate, too, because this is the only original piece of music in the theme.

I found someone on Craigslist to sing harmonies.

Yeah.

We've never spoken, never met.

Just traded some files.

Hello.

So nice to meet you.

I am Charlie.

It's so nice to meet you.

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.

Was it Craigslist?

Yeah.

So in 2014, I made a theme song out of GarageBand Loops.

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 got to find someone to sing.

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, funkier, soulful tone, whatever you need for the diva role.

Listen, when I see the word diva, it is on and pop, and I'm like, Amare.

Do you have any recollection of doing that recording?

I actually do.

I mean, it's a little hazy.

I don't remember the melody.

You're gonna have to play it for me, obviously.

I can do that.

Here, let me play it for you a second.

No way, that is hilarious.

I sound so young oh switch time

that was a lot shorter than I remember though so do you know anything about this podcast that you've contributed to 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.

How many pieces out in the world would you say have your voice on it right now oh my gosh over a thousand projects like 2 000 so sounding crazy what's the biggest job you've done where people might have heard your voice i recently had a song placed on moogie spirited is santa baby

me too

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 10 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.

I delivered.

Okay.

Thank you, Maria.

Thank you so much for including me.

She crushed it, by the way.

Yeah.

She's arguably the best part of this intro.

Sorry, Charles.

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.

This is my fault.

I'm sorry, I have taste.

Here, let me play a few.

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

You rejected it.

And I still do.

In 2021, I tried this.

You said no.

I said,

that's daft junk right there.

After you said no in 2021, I tried again.

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

Oh my gosh, it is.

Like a bad rug rats spin-off or something.

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

You know what?

That slaps, but not an everyday theme song.

Also, not an everyday theme, our Beethoven miniseries.

pretty sick very sturdy drong and then a bunch of times i've just tried to get moody with it

you were deep in your feelings admittedly it was like deep pandemic when i wrote those three i could tell

it was not good times so year after year you you've found ways to fail.

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

Yeah.

What makes you think this time will be different, 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.

I'm Dallas Taylor, and I'm a sound designer and own a company called De Facto Sound.

And I also host a podcast about sound called 20,000 Hertz.

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.

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 800-58A, 800-58A2300-2300 Empire.

Today.

There's the theme song.

You know, we're thinking about like the friends theme song.

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

I think of things like a Sonic logo as something that's very short, you know, like a

like the Netflix thing.

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.

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.

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.

Wise.

Hans Zimmer?

I emailed.

Not available.

I'm not joking.

I really did email.

Good for you.

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.

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.

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 Archiris with our other friend Jossie Adams, who's also an amazing composer, also going to help out in this project.

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?

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

Way too long.

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

I feel like I want to have some continuity.

Like, we do have a core melody.

Bum, bum, bum, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump.

Like, I feel like that, that is a sonic identity that I don't really want to lose.

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

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.

That works for me.

Timeless.

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

Ah, the Wendy Carlos of it all.

Yeah, exactly.

We need some synthesizers.

Yeah.

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.

Anything else?

Do we want a vocal again?

Do we need to say switched on pop?

Is it instrumental?

What's your take there, Charles?

Richieka says we need the vocal.

I think we got to keep a vocal of some kind.

There's got to be a voice.

Okay, so short, timeless, synthesized, but also continuing our original in some way.

Okay, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to call up Zach and Jossie from Archiris and let's see what they say.

Oh my goodness.

Can you take a step?

Can you come?

That was cute.

That was amazing.

We're a happy family.

Oh, it's so good to see you all.

It's good to see you too.

Zach and Jossie were hanging out with their one-year-old baby who took a few steps on FaceTime for me.

Very cute.

Do you want to talk vision?

Yeah, let's talk about music.

I don't want to rewrite this thing from scratch.

I think we 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, bump, bum, bum, bump, bump.

That is the theme.

And so I want to keep that.

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.

Because we were tied to Wendy Carlos, it must be synthesizers.

I love that.

And that actually, I feel like as a palette, to me, those sounds that Wendy Carlos was making back then sound timeless.

They sound timeless.

And they happen through every decade of pop music.

It sounds like a fun challenge.

Are the vocals going?

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

So it's basically just like

sound switched on pop music, right?

And then a minute of music.

It definitely seems fun.

All right.

Thanks for thinking this through.

All right, Charlie.

Yeah.

All right.

Love y'all.

Bye.

So I sent Zach and Jossie off for that brief.

And when we come back, we'll hear what they came up with.

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Congratulations to Nilo Batista for getting last episode's mystery sound right.

That's the chime of an Instant Vortex air fryer when the food is ready.

Like many modern appliance companies, Instant now uses upbeat melodies instead instead of simple beeps.

But as far as we can tell, this little tune is an original composition, not an existing melody like other brands use.

And here's this episode's mystery sound.

If you know that sound, tell us at the web address mystery.20k.org.

Anyone who guesses it right will be entered to win a super soft 20,000Hz t-shirt.

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Okay, hey, can you you hear me?

Yeah.

All right, where are you?

Outside the library.

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

Okay.

So I gave him our brief of like shorter, some mog synthesizers, and he sent back these songs as ideas.

First is the song Kid A off of the record Kid A.

I like it.

It's a little avant-garde, a little out there.

Okay.

But you know, so is some of our analysis.

So that seems appropriate.

Okay, the second song that he was interested in was Yesterday by No Name, specifically the string sense.

Those strings really fit our brief of something timeless.

They sound kind of classic, but also totally contemporary.

I like it.

Okay, cool.

The last piece that he sent was Mort Garson's Ode to an African Violet.

Plantasia, baby.

You know, we asked for synthesizers.

This is like a classic

sound that I would be honored to have as part of our theme music.

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?

I think it's definitely the right direction.

Oh, great.

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 always been sort of question and answer, switched on pop.

Like, can we still have that sort of back and forth element by changing the timbre or the harmony somehow?

Yeah, I like the call and response.

That's the only thing that comes to mind.

Okay, cool.

There's a couple 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, B flat, C.

Switch Don pop,

which is very like medieval.

Well, we could do different chords, like we could re-harm it.

And so like one option was to go like E flat, B flat, C.

Switch, Don, pop.

Or you could do like the upward approach, A flat, B flat, C.

Switch, don't pop.

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

Which I think is inspired by Jimi Hendrix's performance of the national anthem, which does the same thing, but many years earlier.

i mean we are an anthemic podcast so

okay so let's do the a flat b flat

c

yeah yeah that's the one okay and then i was thinking that we could play with the rhythm a little bit instead of doing the like bum bum bum bum bum bum which is very bluesy maybe make it a little more syncopated

and then slow it down nope i don't like it you don't like it?

No, I think if we change that, it becomes sort of unrecognizable.

And I don't know.

I don't know.

Something about that syncopation isn't working for me.

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

Okay, okay.

Fair point, Charlie.

If you don't like it, we don't got to do it.

I actually like the tail of it.

Da-da-da.

I feel like that has a nice sort of finality to it.

Whereas if we draw it out, then it just feels kind of

draggy to me.

Okay, well, it's not drag this is all about getting to the point few other notes i have 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 a little more personal yeah we should have our fingerprints on this thing yeah i'll play like mandolin or guitar you'll play some kind of keys let's do it okay i think i want to hear some vocals 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 in there.

Okay, so we've got the right direction.

Sounds like a plan.

Okay.

Can I go back to work now?

Yeah, I'll call Zach.

Right on.

Cool.

All right.

Thank you, Nate.

You got it, Chuck.

Zach, we love it.

You love it.

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?

Yes, of course.

One of the things that works about the current making them them feel a little bit more call-and-response-y, maybe it would be fun if we got Nate and me in there.

Right.

We do want to put vocals back in.

Okay.

So the reharm is good.

I'm not changing any of the harmony right now.

Like, you're happy with that.

I think, or are you doing the reharm in the current version that you just sent me?

I am doing a reharm, yeah.

It goes to A flat, B flat, C, and then

during the lick, I kind of modulate to the four chord.

Oh, I like that.

Yeah, it feels new in a cool way to me.

It's like resolved, but not like 100% resolved, if you know what I mean.

I actually hadn't realized that the opening chord, that is an A-flat.

Let me hear that.

The first one is A-flat.

Yeah.

A flat, B-flat, C.

Well, that's funny.

I had heard it as if you were doing the C, B flat, C, the original, because it's so ingrained in my head.

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

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

Okay, cool, awesome.

Thanks, Zach.

Yeah, of course, Tuxen.

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.

You wanted me to play the last tag of the theme on, let's see, Irish penny whistle,

five-string banjo,

and grand grand piano.

Charlie, for whatever reason, I only pick the most annoying instruments to learn.

It's something deeply wrong with me.

Thank goodness that you can play the piano.

I know, I know.

It's my, what's David Grace?

And so I was like, what on earth am I going to do with this?

The goal was to add some personality and texture

to the synthesizers that Zach and Jossie had given us as a reminder.

This is where they left us off.

Yeah.

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.

That's pretty money.

Yeah.

A little Easter egg for the heads.

Yeah.

And when you layer it in.

Shockingly euphonious.

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,

but then layer it with some distortion.

Yeah.

A little Van Halen in there.

And this is what it sounds like with the synths.

Love it.

But I also asked Zach and Jossie to, of course, include some vocals.

And so we've got Zach on vocoder, Jossie 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.

Okay, and then the last thing is we asked for some sound effects that would swoop in and out.

John Karamonica said that we needed some tape sound effects, so I made sure to get some tape splicing in here.

Wow.

And the final theme, all together, sounds like

okay, that's sick.

I love it.

I love it.

How many tracks is this thing?

We are currently at, let's see, we're talking 102 tracks.

That is absurd.

That's more than like Nicki Minaj's starships.

What is going on?

How does a six-second jiggle have 102 tracks?

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, 12, 13, 14, 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.

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?

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

I love

the revamp.

It's smooth, very suave,

while still retaining a bit of the old sound.

So love it.

Much better.

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

Bill Nye, the Science Guy D.

Charlie, I think this sounds great.

Kind of reminds me of the theme song from 321 Contact, which I love.

So, yeah, thumbs up for me.

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.

Please leave a message for SwitchShop Pop after the tone.

So, between 3-to-1 contact, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and the futuristic answering machine, I realized that our brief that included heavy amounts of synthesizer makes the whole thing lean towards like PBS soundtrack music.

A PBS science after school program.

Oh my goodness.

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

A reading rainfall.

A reading rainfall.

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.

I know, I'm pleased.

The Bill Nye of pop music analysis.

But wait, there's more innate.

Oh, God.

More tracks.

You know, I spoke with Dallas from 20,000 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.

I love that.

Isn't that cool?

It's epic.

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,

a record drop, a cassette tape, a tiny bit of radio static from our original jingle.

And just the shortest blip of that synthesizer.

And this is what I came up with.

That's going in.

And when we're done,

audio bumper.

We got a sonic identity.

I don't know if it's dumb, and I like it.

Let me hear it one more time.

It's close.

It's close.

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

Yeah.

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

No.

You're a songwriter.

You're not a composer of soundtracks and scores.

This is new

to Rainford.

Okay, okay.

You are now.

Okay, sorry.

Okay, let me let me start over.

Charlie, you're an accomplished composer who has worked in many different fields and media.

But as far as I know, you've never, besides our own earlier jingle, you've never composed a sting like this before.

What did you learn through this process?

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 they would have otherwise never paid attention to.

Yeah.

But that includes myself.

I really thought a lot about what do we want to sound like?

And it was the process of exploring these sounds that really made it all come together.

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.

And then when I finally shared this thing back and got all this feedback of like, it's giving PBS, I was like, perfect.

Yeah.

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.

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.

Yeah.

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 exotic material is a fascinating challenge.

So

every time I listen to a podcast or

any show, really, I'm going to be thinking about like, okay, so what is 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.

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 thing, is.

But I also said I'd get you a song.

And Zach and Jossie of Archiris have delivered.

They've given us credits music.

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.

20,000 Hertz is produced out of my sound agency, DeFacto Sound.

To hear more, follow Defacto Sound on Instagram or visit de factosound.com.

Switched on Pop is produced by Randa Cruz, edited by R.

Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, music by Zach Tenorio and Jossie Adams of Archiris.

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/slash pod.

Additional material for this episode was written by Casey Emerlyn.

With help from Grace East.

It was sound designed and mixed by Graham Gold.

I'm Dallas Taylor.

Thanks for listening.