Obscure music is good and nice!

Some rare folks are born with the perfect music taste. But most of us have to look elsewhere for a tune that sparks a shoulder shimmy or two. Hosts Ben and Amory spend some time jamming to obscure music from Reddit. They also explore how a TikTok original becameDr. Pepper's catchy new jingle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcua0DMG3mw&list=RDWcua0DMG3mw&start_radio=1 And "baby, it's good and nice." Show notes: I wasn't sure on this one at first, but you can't beat the messaging https://www.reddit.com/r/obscuremusicthatslaps/comments/1q347vu/i_wasnt_sure_on_this_one_at_first_but_you_cant/. (Reddit) Boko Yout [9-2-5] https://www.reddit.com/r/obscuremusicthatslaps/comments/1o2e25h/boko_yout_925/?share_id=PasoAn615mngK4BbvP5oA&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1 (Reddit) Molly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chJu5t4GRA8&list=RDchJu5t4GRA8&start_radio=1 by Ecca Vandal Theme Song for Dr. Pepper: Let's Collaborate! https://www.tiktok.com/@romeosshow/video/7586923248651095310 (TikTok) Dr. Pepper's Viral Jingle Moment Has Everyone Pitching Songs to Brands https://www.instagram.com/p/DT3NOECADvx/?igsh=OWg1NzF4dHl5Nzlp&img_index=1 (Atlanta Black Star) Beautiful and unique music. Hope someone an share details about her and the music https://www.reddit.com/r/obscuremusicthatslaps/comments/1qnicg5/beautiful_and_unique_music_hope_someone_an_share/ (Reddit) everyday_naturalist https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTiItw4kWlB/ christycoysh https://www.tiktok.com/@christycoysh/video/7593241626689015062?lang=en

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. A recent episode explores how AI is reshaping our schools. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's Fall Drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall Lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 0:48Speaker 03

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite?

• 0:50Speaker 02

  Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 0:56Speaker 04

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites.

• 1:02Speaker 04

  Taylor Hansen? Nice.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  Try one.

• 1:05Speaker 04

  Mmm.

• 1:09Speaker 05

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. There's nothing like it.

• 1:18Speaker 06

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 1:28Amory Sivertson?

  Ben Slappy Dappy James Johnson, as you've named yourself in this, uh, this virtual room that we're in.

• 1:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Virtual room.

• 1:38Amory Sivertson?

  Together.

• 1:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  Amory Slinky Slivery Dippy Sivertson.

• 1:45Amory Sivertson?

  Wow. We've been working on that one for half a second.

• 1:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  How you doing?

• 1:55Amory Sivertson?

  I've got a song in my heart, you know?

• 1:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, you do?

• 1:59Amory Sivertson?

  I do.

• 1:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  I have 12 different songs in my heart.

• 2:02Amory Sivertson?

  You do?

• 2:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 2:04Amory Sivertson?

  Well, that's what brings us together today.

• 2:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  And love. True.

• 2:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm excited to talk about something that I've been wanting to talk about for a while.

• 2:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  We're gonna talk about music together and I'm excited for that because I have 12 songs in my heart and you have one song in your heart, which probably means that you're focused on quality and I'm focused on quantity, which is also maybe, you know, right in line with how we usually operate.

• 2:39Amory Sivertson?

  Quality is subjective in the musical, in the musical arts. It's about the joy it brings you, I'd say.

• 2:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, that's right. That's right. So, how do you find new music?

• 2:55Amory Sivertson?

  Man, I used to be so good at this. I used to work at a music station when I was in college. And I literally just sat on my butt and ran the DJ board.

• 3:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Amory Sivertson?

  And new music was injected directly into my ear holes. And now, I still listen to the radio, like an old woman. But I have never, I seriously have never done the like

• 3:24Amory Sivertson?

  for you playlist, what are those things called on the streaming platforms? Where it's like, recommended if you like.

• 3:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  I don't know, yeah.

• 3:32Amory Sivertson?

  Never.

• 3:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  You like, you like pick a, you pick an artist and then you check the radio, you do the radio of this artist thing or whatever. That's how I experience it on YouTube Music.

• 3:42Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, you're a YouTube music guy?

• 3:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  I know, I'm one of the few, one of the proud. So, I am really frustrated by, like, I'm officially an old man now. Like, I'm, you know, I am in my middle age. And like, I am consistently conscious of the fact that like, it's hard for me to get new music. It's hard for me to figure out what the cool kids are doing. I'm still listening, listening to Damn by Kendrick Lamar, as if that's new music. I'm still listening to like Run the Jewels 3. I'm still listening to, you know, indie rock records that came out literally like 10 years ago at this point. Like, as if those are, that's the new music.

• 4:20Amory Sivertson?

  Same.

• 4:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, yeah, fair. But I will say I've had this huge discovery in the past several months, which shockingly has been on Reddit. Um, and it is the obscure music that slaps subreddit. Do you know of this?

• 4:36Amory Sivertson?

  I don't. This is great.

• 4:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  You don't?

• 4:39Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 4:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, my God. This is like brought me so much joy in the past like six months. Uh, that just has like filled the void in my life of like discovering new music.

• 4:49Amory Sivertson?

  Wow.

• 4:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  The beauty of this subreddit is like the only organizing principle is like the music has to frickin slap, like it has to be good. Like other than that, it doesn't matter.

• 5:02Amory Sivertson?

  Well, hit me. Give me an example.

• 5:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm just gonna give you a couple of tastes. Okay? Is that cool?

• 5:07Amory Sivertson?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay. So take a look at this one. This is a person who I, I think they may be a paleontologist because they are singing about being excited, uh, to support a dinosaur for president.

• 5:25Amory Sivertson?

  Well, this is already up my alley.

• 5:28Speaker 09

  I don't care much for politics, cuz I'm a paleontologist. But this year, I'm so excited to see another president that represents me. This geezer is fantastic. I never seen a menzo Jurassic. We get to have another dinosaur president. All I want is a dinosaur.

• 5:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's good, right?

• 5:56Amory Sivertson?

  Yep.

• 5:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  I mean, it, it, and it like, again, this could fall, this, I would like, I would put this in a, in a category of like, I'm not necessarily gonna like spend hours and hours following this person. Like, I'm not gonna go do a deep dive on them. Personally, I just appreciate the quality of what they do. And that they have humor and beauty and they're just like making a song that I can like appreciate on the internet for two minutes. And that may be the extent of our relationship.

• 6:42Amory Sivertson?

  So are most of, is most of what you've discovered on this subreddit in this, in a similar vein of like, this is something that sort of stops in your tracks. It's different. Or is this like, you have sought any of this out to download and listen to?

• 6:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, so, so I will say that there have been artists that have inspired me to go down the rabbit hole beyond, like, they've converted me to listening to their music, if that makes sense. This is an Australian artist who I discovered, and I discovered this particular song from them, which I believe is called "Molly."

• 7:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  Eka Vandal, this, this person from Australia. I was like, when I saw this song on the Obscure Music That Slaps subreddit, I immediately went and like, searched out her music and was like, oh, I'm into some of this. And I started to listen to it.

• 7:52Amory Sivertson?

  I feel like if you sent this music video to Mike, to my husband Mike, he would be like, this looks just like what you do at home. It's a lot of, um.

• 8:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  She does kind of look like you, I feel like, in her dancing around. That's like an Amory movement.

• 8:08Amory Sivertson?

  Fun dancing in the kitchen and on a rooftop and.

• 8:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 8:12Amory Sivertson?

  I'll bring this to my next kitchen offering in my home. It's great.

• 8:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm gonna send you another example of like, an artist who I started to follow after I saw their stuff. I think it's pronounced Boko Yout.

• 8:55Amory Sivertson?

  I love it. This maybe speaks to, I don't know, I've never, I don't talk about this publicly, but you and I have talked privately a little bit about the Taylor Swift obsession.

• 9:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:07Amory Sivertson?

  What this gets at for me is there's so much music out there. And when it feels like, um, society is just focused on one artist.

• 9:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 9:21Amory Sivertson?

  I, I get a little like, oh, but guys, come on, you know?

• 9:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Right.

• 9:26Amory Sivertson?

  And I know, I know that people who love Taylor Swift are not necessarily just listening to Taylor Swift, but it's also like, hey, not everybody needs to go to a tropical resort on vacation. There's also this and there's this and there's that, you know? It's just like, the world is so big and there's so much to consume that will open your brain in new ways and let's all dip into more music portals for our own, uh, well being. I don't know.

• 10:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  I love that. No, I love that. And I think like, you know, we are living in this interesting era where like, sometimes I miss monoculture. Like I miss the idea that like, oh, we're all gonna like actually consume this thing at the same time because it's great and we all agree that it's great. And the internet has like, basically like completely fragmented that idea in this way. But what you're talking about is also true, right? Which is like, you can also say that discovery becomes this like challenge for us in this, in this world of limitless opportunity. And again, like this is the other thing about this subreddit, right? Is it definitely has to slap.

• 10:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  And you're never gonna see Taylor Swift on this subreddit because it has to be obscure. It has to be someone that you probably haven't heard of. And so like, again, that's to me, that's, that's what so much of like, I have always loved about music is about, is about finding something new that like is exciting and you'd never heard of it before and it's like opens up this new world for you and you're like, oh my God, like, who is this person? Where do they come from? Like, what do they care about? Where do they believe in? All of this stuff. And so for me, this is the kind of thing of like where the joy is. Especially when it comes to like what the, in theory, what the internet is supposed to do, which is like, help us discover new things from places like we don't even know.

• 11:22Amory Sivertson?

  You know what I, I mean, another thing that I love about all of this is that when I was figuring out where I wanted to go to school and what I wanted to study and pursue, I had done this program at a particular institution that shall not be named because I was mostly music focused at the time. This, I was told like, yeah, your stuff is really interesting, but I can't really hear it on the radio. And, you know, I was, I was like 16 years old and hearing that to me at the time was a knife to the heart.

• 11:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  That is whack.

• 11:59Amory Sivertson?

  And

• 11:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  Don't say that.

• 12:00Amory Sivertson?

  They, they, you know, that's, that is fine. That may, that may very well have been the case. And yet I just think about all of the people out there who make stuff that brings joy and is more interesting than a lot of what you do here on the radio sometimes. And I'm just so glad that people do it for an audience of who knows how many people, but that the, the people that love it, love it. And I, that's, I just, I appreciate these people out there doing their thing.

• 12:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, well, that's my recommendation for you and anyone else who wants to discover new music, either just as like a momentary joyful curiosity, or an artist that you might grow to know and love well, is check out obscure music that slaps. It's worth it.

• 12:58Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, yeah, because you know how they say to eat the rainbow to be healthy? You got to eat all foods of all the colors?

• 13:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mmm.

• 13:05Amory Sivertson?

  I think you got to like consume the rainbow of musical variety and artistic and cultural variety in order to be a well person.

• 13:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  I love that. I love that.

• 13:17Amory Sivertson?

  So whatever helps you do that, you're here. And thank you for bringing this subreddit to my attention.

• 13:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  Of course.

• 13:23Amory Sivertson?

  And there goes the rest of my day.

• 13:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right.

• 13:25Amory Sivertson?

  Just kidding, because we're going to take a quick break, and then I'm going to tell you a story.

• 13:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right.

• 13:29Amory Sivertson?

  When we come back.

• 13:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  I can't wait.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. How should employers measure real skills in the age of AI?

• 14:02Speaker 10

  Instead of observing the final artifact, instead of observing the final essay or the final program, observe the entire process of creation.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts, and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode on rethinking academic and job assessment when AI can do the work.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite?

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  Taylor Hansen? Nice. Try one. Mmm.

• 15:21Speaker 05

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. There's nothing like it.

• 15:30Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, so my story comes by way of one of our sound designers, Emily Jankowski, who was not intending to pitch this for an episode. She just sent this to me. She DM'd me some links on Instagram. She knows that I love a good jingle.

• 15:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 15:49Amory Sivertson?

  Are you much of a soda man? I feel like I haven't seen you drink that much soda.

• 15:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, only in my darkest moments do I slip down the soda stream.

• 16:04Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, well, when you slip down the soda stream, what's your soda of choice?

• 16:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm a Dr. Pepper. I mean, Dr. Pepper, it's tough to beat Dr. Pepper.

• 16:13Amory Sivertson?

  There you go.

• 16:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  If I'm going soda, yeah.

• 16:16Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 16:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  Although...

• 16:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  In my later years, Fresca. But that's a whole other story.

• 16:23Amory Sivertson?

  All right. Well, sadly, this story is not about Fresca, but it is about Dr. Pepper, which is absolutely my one soda of choice. It's Dr. Pepper. So this involves a TikTok creator who goes by Romeo.

• 16:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 16:37Amory Sivertson?

  Their name is Romeo Bingham, but they're, you know, they're known as Romeo.

• 16:42Amory Sivertson?

  And in late December, they posted this video.

• 16:46Speaker 11

  I have a theme song for Dr. Pepper and it goes like this. Dr. Pepper, baby, is good and nice.

• 16:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, I've seen this. I love this story. Dr. Pepper, baby, is good and fine.

• 17:04Amory Sivertson?

  It's nice. It's good and nice.

• 17:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, I'm sorry. It's good and nice.

• 17:09Amory Sivertson?

  Yes. So just this person, the camera kind of, kind of under their chin, singing this song.

• 17:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  Looking at the ceiling. They could be on the bed. They could be anywhere. Yeah.

• 17:22Amory Sivertson?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is not a highly produced video, shall we say.

• 17:26Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, no. It's nice and casual and cozy and genuine. And the caption says, Dr. Pepper, please get back to me with a proposition. We can make thousands together. And then the text on the video itself reads, had to act on this before someone got sent this in a dream and steal it from me. So I impulsively posted this. Okay. So this, this little song blew up. It has tens of millions of views.

• 17:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 17:51Amory Sivertson?

  And it got the attention of the people at, of course.

• 17:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Dr. Pepper.

• 17:56Amory Sivertson?

  Dr. Pepper, baby. Yes. Dr. Pepper told Romeo to check their DMs. And then about a month later, Dr. Pepper aired a new commercial during the college football playoff national championship on ESPN. And we're going to watch, and more importantly, we're going to listen to that together.

• 18:18Speaker 11

  Dr. Pepper, baby, is good and nice. Dr. Pepper, baby, is good and nice. Dr. Pepper, baby, is good and nice. Good and nice.

• 18:34Amory Sivertson?

  They've got some.

• 18:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  They do a little repeat.

• 18:36Amory Sivertson?

  Choir vocals.

• 18:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Good and nice.

• 18:39Amory Sivertson?

  And the cans of Dr. Pepper are dancing.

• 18:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  There's a little bit of a, whoo, somewhere in there.

• 18:46Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. So Romeo told People Magazine that Dr. Pepper licensed the jingle and treated it like a real creative collaboration.

• 18:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:54Amory Sivertson?

  Romeo was credited and they were paid, although I have not heard Romeo confirm the amount that I've at least seen circulating on social media, which was.

• 19:05Speaker 06

  Romeo, you mean to tell me that you made $2 million off of a Jingle Jangle?

• 19:09Amory Sivertson?

  $2 million? $2 million? For her Dr. Pepper jingle? So whether it was $2 million or however it shook out, this inspired a lot of people to start coming up with their own jingles for big food and beverage brands.

• 19:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:26Amory Sivertson?

  And the news site, Atlanta Black Star, posted a compilation of some of these on Instagram. And here's a bit of that.

• 19:34Speaker 06

  Pizza Hut, uh, uh, uh, Pizza Hut, pizza Hut, uh, uh, uh, Pizza Hut. The crust don't lie. Got to get my hands on some pot.

• 19:47Speaker 06

  Mountain Dew is for you.

• 19:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is great. I'm in.

• 19:59Amory Sivertson?

  Same. So Romeo already had a pretty big TikTok following before this. A lot of their posts would get tens of thousands of views, but now they get millions of views.

• 20:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  Of course.

• 20:10Amory Sivertson?

  And they've already dropped a couple more jingle ideas.

• 20:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  Of course.

• 20:13Amory Sivertson?

  Including one for the coconut water brand Vita Coco. Vita Coco, you'll go loco because it's so dang delicioso. Boom boom. And, you know, when you scroll through the comments of some of their recent videos, you see other huge brands in there basically saying like, do us next. We want a jingle too.

• 20:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  Of course.

• 20:34Amory Sivertson?

  Goodyear comments and is like, up for driving a Goodyear jingle?

• 20:40Amory Sivertson?

  There's Wix, there's Panda Express. Twitch says, please, we need one too. Lipton Ice Tea.

• 20:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  I mean, go get it, Romeo.

• 20:47Amory Sivertson?

  Crumble Cookies says, we have never wanted anything more, which this is when Ben, I'm like, we gotta quit the podcast and just get to work on.

• 20:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  I was about to say, this is like, we should just be doing this all this, all the time. This is what we should just be doing all the time.

• 21:03Amory Sivertson?

  I think this is why Emily sent it to me, our sound designer, Emily Tankowski, because she knows the joy that I get from this. This is how I live.

• 21:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  She didn't send it to me. So clearly she thinks one of us is better than the other.

• 21:14Amory Sivertson?

  She just doesn't know enough of your repertoire, but like, this is the stuff I do all day. I am doing this all day anyway. But, but I'm, I'm, I'm just so delighted to see this. I mean, I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Romeo too, but I'm, I'm so delighted because I also thought that jingles were kind of dying out. I was born in the late eighties, grew up in the nineties, grew up, felt like surrounded by jingles.

• 21:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Well, they have less of a venue. They have less of a venue because television and radio were the places for the jingles. Like that is, that is the, the, the natural habitat of the jingle are these like broadcast media technologies. And that's harder on the internet, I think. It's, that's part of it.

• 22:00Amory Sivertson?

  I mean, I don't watch TV anymore either. I don't watch like broadcast television. So maybe they're, maybe they're healthier than I.

• 22:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  You and a lot of other people.

• 22:07Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. Maybe they're doing okay, but this gives me some hope. And as you were sort of hinting at Romeo now has a manager's name and contact on their TikTok account now.

• 22:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  Of course.

• 22:18Amory Sivertson?

  They have what appears to be a brand spanking new website, Romeosshow.com, where companies can reach out about working with Romeo on a jingle of their own. But also some of their other content also really touched me in a different way. They talk about having bipolar disorder. They talk about their anxiety. They make, you know, kind of like positivity pep talk videos that are clearly,

• 22:45Amory Sivertson?

  seem to be coming from a very personal place that they're trying to radiate out into the world. And I was really moved by a particular video that they posted before the Dr. Pepper video. That's more in the performance poetry realm and the message is really, it's this kind of like an it too shall pass message about small things like having a stomach ache, but also much bigger things like debt and being in a period of serious depression.

• 23:13Speaker 11

  When you're in your room and you're depressed and you're laying in bed, you can't eat, drink, sleep or shower, or you overeat. And you feel alone and nothing's ever going to change. Well, that feeling, that feeling will end too.

• 23:30Speaker 11

  So why not stick around to find out what begins after all the little things end? Why not put your efforts into something that will end and create something beautiful? Thank you.

• 23:50Amory Sivertson?

  So yeah, this started out as an appreciation of a goofy song gone viral turned huge commercial. But going down this particular rabbit hole, it's now for me turned into an appreciation of this particular creator Romeo and how true they seem to have stayed to themselves over the course of their social media rise. And I know in some ways they're at a beginning of a new stage of, you know, massive attention, but I hope that they will also continue to keep bringing the goodness that they already are to the world on the internet. So viva la Romeo, I guess.

• 24:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  Viva la Romeo. And I, you know, I think like, on the one hand, like, what's more American than a, you know, a regular person doing something that somehow like serves a larger corporate brand and getting rich off of that? And also, and also like brands glomming on to stuff that they recognize as like potentially like a good story, quote unquote, for the brand to tell. I guess my takeaway from this kind of thing is like, anyone can have a stroke of genius. Anyone can, can come up with something that is, that

• 25:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  is truly irresistible. And hopefully the people who do that in a way that like gets them a bunch of attention and potentially compensation. And, and it does seem like, like Dr. Pepper went about this the right way, in the way that they like engaged with Romeo. But hopefully this kind of thing like. Results in, you know, non-material-based happiness, if that makes any sense.

• 25:42Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. And who knows, if Romeo becomes the Taylor Swift of commercial jingles, we're gonna be back here in, you know, months or years from now, being like, come on, guys, you know, you have to eat the rainbow. We gotta eat the rainbow of of silly jingles.

• 26:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. I love a silly jingle. All right, let's get back to the

• 26:08Amory Sivertson?

  Silly jingles, you might say, are good and nice.

• 26:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Are good and nice.

• 26:25Amory Sivertson?

  Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was produced by Kalyani Saxena and us, your co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Anne Marie Sivertson. It was edited by Meg Kramer, mix and sound design by our production manager, Paul Vikes. The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Grace Tatter, Emily Jankowski, Chiosna Bernado, and our managing producer, Suma Tijoshi. Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between sudden, unexpected virality and, oh, my God, this music is so good. Why aren't more people paying attention to it? And on that note, please, please, please check out Two Christie, who made the song Dinosaur for President. That's the number two, K R I S P I I.

• 27:08Amory Sivertson?

  Also, Eka Vandal and Boko Yout, all of whom you heard in this episode. But also, Ben and I talked about a lot of obscure artists who didn't end up making it into the episode, but you should absolutely check them out, too. And those are Mari Miranda, Kristy Koish, and Michael Fordinall, also known online as Everyday Naturalist. Do you have an untold history, an unsolved mystery, an artist you want to tell us about, or some other wild story from the internet that you want us to let other people know about? Hit us up, [email protected].

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring Janet Kang, Executive Director of the Just Horizons Alliance, on who stands to benefit from AI in education.

• 28:21Speaker 12

  I am absolutely in favor of AI in learning in the right context.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  And just to explain why you're excited about it.

• 28:27Speaker 12

  Oh my gosh, individualized support, right? Personalization and to be able to scale quality education in places where it was historically impossible. So for certain kinds of learners with different kinds of learning styles and disabilities, for example, speakers of different languages, there are amazing ways AI can boost learning. It just has to be with the right context. And age appropriateness is something we do a lot of work in because it is very different depending on where in that maturity cycle you are in terms of how your brain develops.

• 28:59Speaker 00

  Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts. And learn more about the Marotra Institute for Business Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.

• 29:17Speaker 13

  Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon fall drop because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's fall line has some really versatile transitional pieces, so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece, and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in store and online now at lululemon.com.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite?

• 29:50Speaker 02

  Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  Taylor Hansen? Nice.

• 30:04Speaker 03

  Try one.

• 30:05Speaker 04

  Mmm.

• 30:09Speaker 05

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. There's nothing like it.