Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

Switched on Pop

2hollis is the underground’s genre-hopping vampire

18 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is feral pop and how does it redefine music genres?

0.031 - 22.935 Noam Hassenfeld

Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce and more. And the best part?

0

23.376 - 37.896 Noam Hassenfeld

Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

0

41.101 - 65.785

AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control. With the AI Control Tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. What it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control.

0

66.406 - 69.711

To put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com.

0

79.107 - 81.289 Rihanna Cruz

Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm producer Rihanna Cruz.

81.529 - 84.292 Charlie Harding

I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

84.692 - 106.934 Rihanna Cruz

This week on Switched on Pop, we've been exploring the new sound of pop music through the lens of what I have come to dub feral pop for its uninhibited, experimental, genre-blending sensibilities. We've already spoken about the DJ Nino Jirachi and the pop star Underscores and how they both speak to this vibe through a palpable love for EDM and dubstep.

107.415 - 107.815

I want it.

112.553 - 123.089 Rihanna Cruz

And on that same vibe, there's digital sounds and textures and an approach that indicates no genre is off limits, often switching through multiple in the same song.

Chapter 2: Who is 2hollis and what makes his music unique?

692.306 - 715.163 Nate Sloan

Add a bunch more oscillators, which are basically sound sources. filter it and add some modulation. All right, now you're getting pretty close to like dubstep Skrillex sound. Lots of wubs. But what's missing is that OTT, that over the top quality. And OTT is a style of compression

0

715.143 - 743.67 Nate Sloan

that basically takes all of the loudest parts of your sound and squashes them and all of the quietest parts of your sound and makes those even louder. It's a way of almost like digitally flattening and enhancing everything. So here is the sound with no OTT. And here's some OTT. You add some more effects. And you've got a big part of that feral pop sound. That OTT is on everything.

0

743.931 - 767.815 Nate Sloan

Like here's a screaming bass. Put the OTT on it. Ah, yeah, I hate it. You can hear it just makes everything edgier, brighter, more intense, completely over the top. And that OTT sound, which started as an Ableton preset on a compressor and is now a plugin that people use on all kinds of synth sounds, that is just common throughout the entire feral pop sound.

0

768.135 - 772.582 Nate Sloan

It's that digital flattening, hyper aggressive sound you hear on all the synthesizers.

0

772.963 - 779.372 Rihanna Cruz

That's really cool because it puts a word to the thing that I've just been calling digital distortion this entire time.

779.521 - 788.164 Nate Sloan

There often are forms of distortion on there as well, but what the OTT does is it takes all of those characteristics of distortion and makes them over the top.

788.768 - 811.177 Noam Hassenfeld

Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce and more. And the best part?

811.638 - 826.143 Noam Hassenfeld

Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

829.348 - 854.003

AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control. With the AI Control Tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. What it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control.

Chapter 3: How does 2hollis's song 'Poster Boy' reflect contemporary themes?

924.427 - 939.629 Rihanna Cruz

This song is off of his record Star that came out last year. And we're hearing more electronic sounds here. The MRI sound that we talked about in Underscore's song Music is Back. And I think there's a lot of similarities between the two tracks.

0

939.969 - 941.912 Nate Sloan

Yeah, that da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

0

948.575 - 960.357 Rihanna Cruz

They both start with the MRI base, as we've called it, and have these ad libs that float in. You know, they're both going, yeah, and stuff like that.

0

972.284 - 994.825 Nate Sloan

It's the sound of computer music. This is music that was recorded to the computer with computer sounds recorded in a room. There's no sense of like being in the studio. It is stuff that is completely made on a device, which doesn't make it inhuman by any means. Maybe part of what makes Nate uncomfortable is so much of the stuff that you grew up loving the deepest. Like you can hear the room.

0

995.146 - 1008.104 Nate Sloan

You can hear the players responding to each other. This is everything programmed. This is everything manipulated and done in this very flat kind of way where there is no sense of space. It's anechoic pop. Vacuum sealed.

1009.547 - 1011.91 Rihanna Cruz

Another word for it could be DIY.

1012.025 - 1020.111 Nate Sloan

Yeah, it's very DIY. I mean, it feels like this could be made on a laptop that someone's had for a lot of years and is not running so well anymore and still makes some really awesome sounds.

1020.327 - 1042.198 Rihanna Cruz

Yeah, the vocals on here feel like they're being sung into like the Apple headphone microphone, you know, holding it above your lips. It's not clean by any means. And his voice, we could hear it a lot clearer on Flash than we can on Poster Boy, obviously. It's very bright and it's kind of giving like boy band pop punky heartthrob.

1042.579 - 1042.639

Oh!

Chapter 4: What sonic elements characterize 2hollis's music style?

1231.332 - 1257.424 Rihanna Cruz

It's an angle that is almost prophetic, which I find to be another similarity to underscores as we talked about last episode. There's a lot of fixation from these artists on the concept of fame, legacy. And a potential reason for this could be that these artists are currently making music. And in this time, people are finding it harder to make money and simultaneously earn

0

1257.404 - 1280.59 Rihanna Cruz

The idea of being famous and being a celebrity looks different than it did 10, 20 years ago. And so all of these artists are processing that in their own way. This idea of fame and how 2 Hollis is situated in it is a lyrical through line throughout Star, the album. He starts it off with visions of grandeur, even preempting the song Flash on the track Beginning.

0

1281.872 - 1299.874

I pay attention to you. The word flash, the camera flash.

0

1300.335 - 1302.058 Rihanna Cruz

It's also on the song Sidekick.

0

1303.27 - 1305.495

Wow.

1314.536 - 1328.01 Charlie Harding

That is so hard to listen to. I am struck that we already heard a song about sidekicks, right? That was Underscores.

1328.03 - 1330.553 Rihanna Cruz

That was Underscores. Yeah, your favorite sidekick.

1330.573 - 1331.414 Charlie Harding

Interesting.

1331.634 - 1343.487 Isa Whitney

What a surprising theme.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.