Baby Shark: From summer camp song to viral ea...

The “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle is one of the most recognizable melodies on Earth. But the story behind it involves a global competition, thousands of mixes, a Trojan Horse pop song, and a surprising amount of celebrity beef. In this updated version of one of our favorite episodes, we ...  Show more

Our 2026 Listener Story competition continues with five more incredible listener-made pieces. In this Silver collection, you’ll hear the surprising craft behind mechanical keyboards, the natural sounds hidden in Indian ragas, and how learning a new language can transform noise in ...  Show more

For most parents, “Baby Shark” is the nightmare that will not end. Ever since the South Korean educational company Pinkfong released the song earlier this year, it’s almost impossible to avoid. The infectious children’s tune has more than 2.3 billion views on YouTube and made it ...  Show more

The Nokia ringtone used to be heard more than a billion times per day, making it one of the most popular songs in the world. We tend to consider cellphone rings as somewhat antithetical to music. There is a whole subset of YouTube videos dedicated to the perverse thrill of watchi ...  Show more

When Smash Mouth wrote "All Star,” they knew that it was going to change their lives. But they never expected it would become an anthem played in sports arenas, soundtracked by Hollywood, and embedded into seemingly every internet meme. Darryn King joins the show to break down "T ...  Show more

What happens when your podcast’s theme song—cobbled together from GarageBand loops—gets called “game show music” and likened to a cereal commercial? You rewrite it. In this episode, we take you behind the scenes of Switched on Pop’s sonic makeover, from scathing critiques by musi ...  Show more