The Curious Return of 2000s Music

At some point in the last year I looked around and realized… 2000s music was EVERYWHERE. Nelly Furtado. Timbaland. Eminem. 50 Cent. MGMT. In Bama Rush videos. At sports games. In the background of TikToks of teens plaintively yearning to be 2000s teens. In weird animation videos meant for seven-year-old boys. Why THIS music, and why RIGHT NOW? Musicologist Nate Sloan — co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, Switched on Pop — has all the answers, or at least most of them.

Timbaland and Nelly Furtado were responsible for at least 50% of bangers released between 2000-2010

If you like the show, it is RIDICULOUSLY HELPFUL if you can share it with others. Send it to your nerdy friend or coworker who’d love it. Post it on Instagram. Follow or subscribe to the pod on your podcast app, and/or write us a quick review on iTunes.

Also: we’ve made enough through subscriptions to pay Melody through early March, but without more… we can’t keep making the show. So if you like the pod, if you want it to continue, consider subscribing today. (And if you’re already a Culture Study newsletter subscriber, you get a screaming deal).

---

Scroll down for:

• Show notes, including visuals of some of the things we talk about in the pod

• A link to submit your own questions/ideas for future pods

Scroll up and look for the drop down menu to find:

• A transcript of this week’s episode (these are currently automated — if we get enough subscribers, we’ll pay someone to do them and they’ll be even better)

• The way to play the podcast RIGHT HERE ON SUBSTACK. (Here’s a useful link that connects to basically every player). If you’d like to add the subscriber-only podcast to your podcast app, here’s how. (Sorry, Spotify refuses to play nice with paid subscriber feeds).

---

Show Notes:

• THE ONE, THE ONLY, SKIBIDI TOILET:

• A frankly hilarious Guardian article on the moral panic over Skibidi Toilet

• Switched on Pop’s “Listening 2 Britney” series is a must (I am also a huge fan of this ep on Seal’s Kissed By a Rose, FEATURING SPECIAL GUEST SEAL!!!)

• The original music video for Hey Ya!, and Obadiah Parker’s cover

• Mentally, I’m at the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (and Slate’s oral history on how and why it was made)

• One of my absolute favorite music podcasts: 60 Songs That Explain the 90s (I have so many favorite episodes but “Return of the Mack” is a great place to start)

• Nate recommends Laufey as an upcoming artist— check out her Tiny Desk Concert

• Just a very popular TikTok compilation of Timbaland’s 2000s hits

  

  @jakubkosmal85Together we will be the perfect soulmates❤🌷 #freestyle #hiphop #timbaland #dance #wave #soulmates #viral

  Tiktok failed to load.
  
  Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

• “2000s music just hits different”

• “2000s hip hop > >”

• If you want a whole bunch more in this vein — I’ll be posting them in my IG Stories starting Wednesday morning (check in Saved Stories for ‘2000s Toks’ if they’re not showing up in my normal stories)

• Follow the show on Instagram!

---

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• Very Contemporary Architecture Trends (like ‘modern farmhouse’) and/or wtf is going on with Chip & Joanna Gaines these days, why is their new show so banal

• Whatever Bradley Cooper’s deal is

• Anything you need advice on!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)

---

For today’s discussion: What 2000s song are you hearing everywhere….and how did it get there? IS IT A BOP? What 2000s song do you *wish* was everywhere?