Your favorite musician's favorite TikTok show
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Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of low stakes game shows. I my friend David pears and I the finally have perfected my tender switch set up. So I mentioned on this show a while back, I needed a new game council mostly because there's a bunch of new games coming out that didn't support my P. S.

4。 I wanted something new. The team almost convinced me to buy a steam deck. But then they were like, oh, IT doesn't play the only game that you care about, which is A A, F C, which you be called fea. So that didn't work.

So I did a bunch of research and a bunch of trying stuff and eventually landed on just buying EFC twenty five and trying to run IT on my unbelievably old and kind of busted nintendo switch. It's not great games. Little leggy jumps a lot every time you wanna like, move down a menu.

IT takes a full second to think about IT, but IT works. I have the game, games downloaded all going fine. So of course, as I want to do then got very obsessed with the set up.

I bought a new controller from this company called power a uh, which looks cool, but I hate IT some already in the market. For another controller, I bought a doctor so that I can connect the switch to my ipad and use IT as a bigger screen. When I won the road, I bought a thing to connect IT to my T.

V. I bought a thing to connect IT to my computer monitor. I've done way too much work to make this all work.

But now i've gotten to the point where, basically, anywhere I am at any time with zero set up, I can play E A F C twenty five on my nintendo switch. It's the dream. The game does not worked very well, but IT works and I have IT.

And at least for now, that is enough. Also, nintendo, please release the switch to because my set up is now perfect. All I need is a Better council.

Let's do this. All right. When I hear talk about the switch, we are here to do the first episode in our new three part, many series, all about the future of music.

We've done episodes on this topic before and it's just something we really like talking about. And IT turns out music actually hits a lot of the stuff we care about most on the verda ast. It's about creators.

It's about policy. It's about A I, it's about infrastructure. It's about what IT means to be a person in the world.

Music just covers everything, and so it's really fun to find new ways to talk about music today. On the show i'm talking to a guy name, jack coin, who is a creator his on tiktok. You've probably seen his show and you may not even realize IT superfund conversation.

I really enjoyed talking to jack. I learned a ton. We're going to get into IT.

But first, i'm almost done with this game. There's this new mode called rush. Every game like seven minutes long.

I'm just onna finish that and then we'll get into IT. This is the verge cast. We'll be right back.

Support for the verge cast is brought to you by new on cx. Hey, the knee. Some kick is undergone a complete transformation, emerging as the civic ze cross over redefined for urban adventures, with a striking new exterior and a fully revamped interior boasting premium peaches.

The cakes experience has been totally enhanced to help you Better navigate city life, and the reimagine non kicks is outfitted with intelligent all wheel drive so you can keep going rain or shine. Learn more at W W W dot needs on U S, A dot com slash twenty twenty five dash cakes. Intelligent wheel cannot prevent collision or provide enhances traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions.

Welcome back. I'm so, so sorry to do this, especially ready to beginning. But I have to tell you a back in my day, sorry, just really quick. So back in my day, back when I was a kid, way back in the ancient history, that was the one thousand nine hundred and nineties and early two thousands, mtv was the biggest thing in music.

What is? I want my M T V.

all right, but. I probably don't have to explain the idea of television to most of you, but just in case M, T, V was A T, V channel that for hours and hours a day would just play shows about music. Sometimes IT would just play music videos back to back one after another for hours at a time.

And you really cannot overstate how big a deal culturally mtv was, in particular IT felt at the time. Like carson daily and T, R, L, total request live with the most important brands in the music business. I'm sure there are people who will say otherwise, but that how t felt to me at the time.

I just went back and found a bunch of old T R L episodes, which you can find a surprising number of, just by searching around on youtube. And I kept noticing that what I remembered about T R L and what T R L actually was, are two really different things. I remember T R L as the music video countdown.

They would do a top ten, usually over the course of an entire episode. And IT was a big deal for artists to get in the top ten. They would come on and be congratulated ted for moving up a spot.

But most of these episodes that i'm seeing is just artists like hanging out and talking about music they're sitting on. Coaches are schools are just standing in the crowd, just knit, hanging out. Some artists would bring their favorite music videos to talk about.

Sometimes they would get host and talk about all the most popular videos. Sometimes IT had nothing to do with music at all. And once up, feeling like, why on earth is this A T R L epo? De, here's one good example. I found an episode from two thousand, one where Jessica simpson, who at that time was like at the peek of her powers, is talking about her new music. And he takes a quiz during another music video about other music and tea o.

He was just a simple, just, how are you on your your T R L trivia? You've seen the show before.

I have seen the show before. I hope i'm good. I'm not really good at this kind of thing.

But all they are, we've put you with their fans should will be able to confer with their fans, will give you five questions. And here are your five questions. Question number one is, what was the first instinct video to go?

Two number? Something about that clip just screams two thousand. One to me. I don't know why, just everything about IT, this is like a crazy blast from about, anyway, i've been thinking a lot about T R L N M T V recently, and really the whole idea of how we discover and get to know new music. Obviously, the whole music universe is different than IT was twenty years ago, and in so many ways are actually much closer to artists than we've ever been.

Every time an artist has an album coming out now, you suddenly see them on a million podcasts or they're doing some like our long interview with saying low for apple music where they walk around london, or they are doing cover songs on an australian radio stations, youtube channel like a version. By the way, one of the great things on the internet, there's more music content than ever, and we actually get more chances to see and hear from our favorite musicians than ever. A lot of the most followed people on instagram or musicians, all of that together, is why I had so interesting and almost strange to me that this little tiktok show has worked as well as IT has want to show hello.

You can notice you in far .

box video, the show is called track star, and it's all over the place on tiktok and integram. In case you've never seen IT, IT goes more or less like this jack coin, the host to his voice you just heard, meet somebody on the street. Sometimes it's a totally random person just happening to walk by.

Sometimes it's an a plus less musician. Sometimes it's something can't rate in between. And he hds them a microphones and a pair of headphones.

Jack then plays the song through the headphones. And if the person can guess the artist of that song, they win five packs. If they get IT right, they get to try again for ten box or keep the five bucks and walk away.

The number keeps doubling until they get IT wrong or walk away and then IT ance. It's a super simple premise and IT really works. Tractor is only a couple of years old, but IT has four hundred thousand followers on tiktok, another three hundred and forty thousand on instagram and is continuing to grow really fast.

But more than just the numbers, it's the guests that jack gets on the show that blow my mind just took score through some of the most recent ones. Key urban is on here. Julia, we drive.

This is here. Joe jonas, commonly. Harris, sure. Then running LED solution.

Or imagine dragons edge here in Olivia rodrigo neily fortAlice. O is here. Okay, sorry, you get the idea.

But these are a lists. These are big named people, and they're just rolling up to listen to jack coins, playlists. I needed to know why this show has worked. So I called up jacket at his .

office in in my films, jacquin and incoming content creator .

quick jack backstory. He got started as a creator way back in the day when he started working for casey nice, that who is probably steal your favorite youtube s favorite youtube E. R. He was an assistant or office manager. A producer eventually made videos for cases at beam and basically cut his teeth, both as a content creator and more specifically, as a content creator on the streets of new york city.

I worked done his very first youtube deo ever with him. And his thing was just, there's a million stories out there, especially in york city, if you look outside of trip and fAllen into a story um and so that attitude was really engrailed me from like the time I was eighteen years old.

Jack, by the way, calls himself a music guy but only in the way that everyone who likes music is a music guy. He likes classic rock and pop music and just likes music. He definitely did not set out to be known for making music related stuff. But a few years ago, he was working with brands on social media content, and he started a company with his brother and a friend who were both doing the same kind of thing to see if they can all just do IT more efficiently together.

We said if we put our our clients together um and we all help each other with our videos, will have extra time on the site to come up with our own original shows and ideas. I previously had a youtube channel. I'd worked with um youtube creators before and I just sense that there was a huge opportunity in the moment to do something with short of form video, boll, thon, tiktok, instagram and of course on youtube. And so we kind of carve out extra time for ourselves and resources from doing the and work to be able to create public opinion.

What was the thing you wanted to do first when you're like, okay, we're going to have this spare time to make something we want to make. Did you have a like initial sense of what that thing was?

Well, so the reason we called the company public opinion was because I was about talking to people that was like a short hand waves and talking people um in the reason that we wanted to talk to people as we recognize that this man on the street type content was increasing in popularity but we felt like no one was doing IT great IT was a of like gotcha sort of making fun of people. Um let's catch someone in an awkward or funny moment and make them look stuff.

I elt half internet was people doing .

Billy pression. I and we felt maybe there's a way to do this that's like nicer um and more positive and and maybe we can try make you a little bit smarter um with the stuff you're doing. We are asking trivia questions about new york city and trying to educate people about new york city. That's where we got started.

okay. Was IT was that like a civic minded thing or was IT just fun in new starting new york is cool and that was good way to do IT.

It's it's a personal interesting it's something that i've always been uh interested, curious about and I think IT was like, okay, guys, we got dow. Oh ye there is interesting about talk point look at IT was just like the obvious saying, because we were here in new york and I love IT here.

the public opinion channel is very much alive and super fun too, by the way. And IT works just the way you think since it's obviously currently elections is and jack has been mostly running around asking people trivia questions about new york city and U. S. Presidents and how the two .

connect collide. Which president has a parkway named aftertime? You're drive.

driving and drift.

R two more questions.

But the problem they ran into early on was that most people in new york don't actually know that much about new york. York's whole thing, a whole appeal, is that people come from everywhere. It's a super transient town.

Has that makes IT so exciting? But I mean, your trivia, a game show isn't very fun if nobody knows any of the answers, right? I would say maybe our hit .

rate was two at at ten people who actually knew something about in new york that beside. So I don't really know the answer that question. That's an interesting content. And so IT was like our second show has to be something that much more universal and something that everybody can talk about because like I said, public opinion. What's something that is going to cast a wider net music was the obvious answer. Um and we found right away like the hit rate of just getting people to engage with us was higher and their reactions and the stories that came out of talking the songs um was really exciting.

Why was musically obvious answer I could imagine, especially as a new york ker, like a dozen thing that you might land on before music really like let's do jankez trivia, like let's talk about, you know, famous new yorkers or whatever. There's a lot of places you could go other than music.

why? Why finally thought about doing sports stuff and can continue to think about doing exports up? Because we have a little ten. Generally, it's super fun and people are so passionate about that and a few other things.

But I think simultaneously, we recognize that there was a lot of music conversation happening on the platforms, and tiktok is a music driven platform, right? Like the reason videos a lot of videos take off is the sounds that are attach them. So so we are like glorious get into the sound and music business because that's where the platform is driving people. And we pretty quickly realize that there's a lot of interest from record labels, from musicians, from music manager and P, R, to attach themselves to something that's making waves. In music and social media.

this makes perfect sense to me. Tiktok is many things, but IT is mostly a music platform. And remember, just to reset the time line here, this is like twenty twenty two early twenty twenty three, as everyone is going outside again, post endemic.

And a tiktok is still growing at an absolutely outrageous, unprecedented ate track star got a hundred thousand followers in its first months s of existence, which is wild. They start posting videos, and I took off immediately. And he's right.

It's definitely true that music is as universal as anything out there, but what do you think the odds are just as a thought experiment, that if you just walked up to some random person and handed them your head funds, that they would know the song you are currently listening to? I feel like pretty low, right? Just for fun.

Here's the top five songs in the united states right now as i'm recording this according to backboard, love somebody by Morgan wallet. I think I could probably k Morgan, a bar song by sub zi, that one i've got that's been everywhere for months, birds of a feather by Billy elish. Maybe I think I could guess the bill either song, but I can't hear that one in my head right now.

And there's like a whole thing of people who can just sound like Billy ellish. So I don't know about that. Die with a smile by lady gaga and bruno bars actually love both those artists and have literally never heard of that until right this second and expresso by spring, a carpenter, obviously. Yes, everybody knows a oppressed, so even if you don't think you know espress. So no pressure, but that's the top five songs in the country.

Do you know all five? Do you think everyone knows all five? Every time I watch tracks start that all I can think about how hard must jack have to try to find songs that people know? And how many throw away takes must there be of just total failure where people don't know the music?

So more often than not, Younger people who grew up with, uh, the streaming platforms are much more playlist oriented and an artist agnostic, they're listening to songs and sounds and they know tons of songs but I I don't know that is and so IT is harder with like Young twenty some things because they just go on spotify and they listen to a playlist and then that playlist through that playlist, they discovered certain types of artists that they like um so if I can figure that out, it's helpful.

Okay, you like this one band. Maybe there's like a thread here that I can pull on. But but now I think there's a little bit to push back with that generation where some people saying, you know what, I want to go back and discover what the eighties was like, and you find these Younger people who are like, I love classic rock.

And some of those videos performed really well for us. Or we have a kid who's in high school and he's become really in the yacht rock. Man, here we are doing yacht rock with a seventeen world. Here you are.

Great song.

let's the rains don't want to want .

to play through to africa .

by total five dollars. Let's go jack. Great name and and the internet love this kid because he just was talking about how great yt rockies and he's like sixteen years old um and he was just had an amazing run of songs and was so funny and charismatic. So when we first started the very first episodes, I had created a play list of like game show I call I have a play list of my phone now called the game show, game song and IT just like great classic songs like if you got the five hundred greatest artists of all time rolling stone list and pick their best songs like that a good like songs everybody kind of knows um so we just I had to play a SAT and if you didn't know these songs sorry you're at a luck and then there is like the realization of, well gets out after two songs that kind of you wanted encourage them to go to five or six to more fun interesting video .

so now when they are doing a random interview with a person on the street, jack will usually start by talking with them a little bit about music. And but when is the celebrity? IT becomes a big research project to find songs that both might be in their real house, but also meaningful to them in both cases.

The goal, very explicit, is for people to do well at the game, but not so well as suspicious. You know, you want to make IT easy enough to be fun without making IT so easy. It's boring. And that's a really tRicky baLance.

So there's like a dialogue, what kinds stuff do you listen to? And I think we did one early version where somebody was like, I only love jazz music and so it's like, okay, as do a jazz theme in a video perform well? And you realized like having a group of different jays songs gives the video a theme in addition to the person that you're talking to.

There's another sort of narrative playing out there. And so shift did much more into can I try and find like groupings of songs that make sense together any time we do eighties pop, it's like it's clear what where you're going in. The audience wants to know what are the eighties pop songs is going to play here. So finding those teams is helpful.

And then um when IT comes to someone who's a celebrity is trying to research them and understand or listening to their music and thinking to myself, what what do I think they were inspired by? And if I can figure that out, they're going have a bigger reaction, say, how do you know that I was into this song? I just guessed IT based on these other songs, you've been ten. They sound like a like that that seems like the inspiration there.

As with everything on the internet, the whole process isn't quite as random in chaotic and man on the street as IT might seem in the videos. But I think that's fine and we're going to talk more about how track star works and why IT works. But first, we got ta take a break. 我 被 人 打。

Support for the verge cast is brought to you by nissan kicks. Hey, the kissing kicks is undergone a complete transformation, emerging as the civ size cross over redefined for urban adventures, with a striking new exterior and a fully revamped interior boasting premium peaches.

The kicks experience has been totally enhances to help you Better navigate city life, and the reimagine non kicks outfitted with intelligent wheel drive so you can keep going rain shine. Learn more at W W W that needs on U S. A dot com slash twenty twenty five dash cakes intelligent wheel drive cannot prevent collision or provide enhances traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions.

Alright, we're back. So let's just go behind the music here for a minute with track star and talk about how the show actually gets main because I think something about its structure and format is actually a big part of why IT works. So the whole thing just starts with jack just wondering, out into the streets.

new york. So the way that we approached like man on the street content creation is I have a sign that I hold up, that I breast in sharpie on cardboard, right? Whatever the question is, and the question might be, named artist win five dollars or IT might be like york sea trivia, when a prize and people see that sign and approach me and think, what is this about? I want to win some money.

I want to be a part of this. This is one way to do man on the street stuff. The other way.

The one I think you see probably more often online is just to ambush people with a microphone in a camera. Catching people off guard in that case is part of the appeal and Frankly, part of White fun to watch. But that was never jack thing.

I can tell if his too embarrassed to do IT, or feels too bad, or I just feels sort of growth. But whatever IT is, he didn't want to do IT. So instead he'd stand there with a sign, wait for someone to come up to him. He would explain the show, and then they were often running. Jack would hand them a pair of headphones, they've put them on and any.

hand them a microphone. So the handheld microphone was going back to when we run a way port, deciding what we wanted to do. I wanted to um capture this like local news feel and give like the idea of pending a microphone to someone on the street of a new york like we wrote down on the board voice of new york city.

That's what we wanted to be one of our intention. So when I have a mike and I said, you know what, we're going to give you a chance to spot and say your piece or put your thing, that was the the sort of well we were going to indicate visually with with the stick, mike and the flags. So that was totally locked in.

The headphones were both practical, so like you're not, we could cut the music however we want to, and people can sort of be in the zone. And then was also a visual signifier of when you put the headphones on, you're part of the game. And then there's the branding aspect where we felt like at some point before we started the shell am like a headphone brand will want to sponsor the shell for sure because this workers making headphones are cool. So IT was a lot of those things.

I think. Have you gotten a headphone sponsor yet?

We've had a few throughout the years. We ve had a different, different ones yet. We've worked with sanai zr bows and beats.

I think this kind of stuff is so clever, and it's the stuff I think about all the time when I watched these really successful social shows. If you create a show that requires nothing other than a set of blue headphones, a smart phones and to handheld local news microphones, you can do that show basically anywhere in with almost no set up.

Like, do you know why the hot one set is all black the way is, or why all of those like vanity fair videos or the wired auto complete series or just on White backgrounds is at least in part so that they can set up that set basically anywhere? Because when they have ve learned over the years is that if you want to do a show with famous people, your show has to be able to travel to those famous people. And in this case, it's a heck of a lot simpler than showing up and eating hot wings and talking about your feelings.

All you have to do show up, put on headphones and listening music. But there is one other thing about tracks are that's really clever and I think kind of unique in this space. It's also a game for the viewer.

There is like a couple different aspects of IT. There's playing people, snippets of songs like on when your living around on the car, on the radios, a game that everyone's played like this is not a new idea. So IT was more taking this concept of guest the artist and putting IT in a framework that's going to make sense for social media. And I think the biggest lesson that we took away with people like watching the guest, they like watching interaction, but they also like to be actively participating in what's happening. So a lot of the comments are, oh, you shouldn't put the alm cover because I guessed IT too soon like or if i've watch people watching IT on their phone looking over their shoulder and they're saying the answers as they are watching IT that happened like when I shoot IT to my mom for the first time, she's like that Bruce, bring team. And so then I realized you on to something because there's this active participation instead of sitting back .

in watching him, right, which is different from your average, like even celebrity interview or something where you you're just sort of in the audience like you're trying to invent something that you're both watching and playing simultaneously.

And I think .

because of that, the me show, yes, made a good game shows .

basically when you watch jeopardy, right, you're trying to answer the questions as quick as can whoever on uh and so I think what's cool is because of the celebrities and the regular people mix. Everyone who's washing feels like if i'm in new york, maybe I could end up being on the show and maybe I could win a lot of money. Would you say what? That's why we watch. Who wants to be a million years? All these other shells.

like we could win a billion dollars. At this point. I think I get why the show works. It's fun to play this kind of trivia game. It's fun to watch strangers succeed, and Frankly, even more fun to watch them fail. And there is also something about just all kinds of man on the street content that is compelling.

Like, do ever see those videos wear a bunch of dudes set up a baseball hoop or a soccer goal, and then they threw the ball to a bunch of strangers who either shoot IT or kicked, or get hit my head or fall on their heads, trying to do IT or whatever. That all works for the same reason. I honestly, I swear red to you.

I think I could make that shot. I hope that I get to try someday, and I will watch every single one of those videos when they cross my time. So I get why the show works.

But i'm still wondering why all of these big name musicians keep showing up on tracks are it's not the biggest show in the world. It's doing well, but it's not or shatt erin. And Frankly, a lot of these artists are vastly more famous than jack or trucks are kinder seems the key has more again than they do.

And plus, when they do come on, it's not like they do some nakedly promotional version of the game where they talk about themselves the whole time or they only listen to their own songs. There's tons of that kind of thing on the internet and it's all fine. But on tracks are they really are just another contestant playing the game.

Sometimes literally the only promo they do is just saying their name. And obviously, even that is not a new idea at all. Of course, every late night, guess who plays a game with Jimmy san or does like the thing where they test british snacks versus american snacks? They're all promoting something without wanting to see like they're promoting something you don't mean, but like that's the tonight show.

Jack queen is great, don't get me wrong. But I think Jimmy fallon is probably just a little more famous. And yet apparently every single one of track star's celebrity appearances have come from those people getting in touch with him, not the other way around. That means a list musicians are going out of their way to be on his show. Who was the first artist first out?

Olivia, rod rio, Olivia rodrigo, or each year? And I came home with the order, but those two were very early on and close to each other. IT was crazy. yeah.

Why did they reach out?

I guess they have savy teams. And then I I think in hindsight now, I realized more so that this is part of the music business now is being on social media and make sure that these social platforms are aware of what you're doing in the music space. And so doing stuff on your own tiktok account is important and then appearing in the tiktok universe is important. Um or or your dreams aren't going to do well.

Yeah, I think for the reason I ask about that specifically with tracks are is you're not doing the thing where it's like let's do a pot gas where we talk about your album for an hour or you're not saying like let's rank your tend favorites of your own songs like the sort of standard things people do to promote themselves in their work.

People just come on and play your game, right? Like in the most they get to say, I watch the key urban one again right before we did this. So this is like fresh on my mind. All he says is my name is key urban like he barely promotes himself or his work or anything like at all. He's just like what's up on key urban and does the show with you. And on the one hand, it's slightly surprising that that a thing artists are willing to do in this dn age when everything is so transactional and promotional another but also the fact that they started coming to you just wanting to do that is like very cool and very unusual in the moment in the industry.

I think that and you can look at the comments section on that video um I think it's the best thing that he could have done to promote himself is to not talk about himself because people are saying, and this guy is really cool who knew ky. Urban was so cool? I knew so much about music and that's where they're commenting.

And then they're going to his profile and they're looking at his music. And I like, is this guy? Let me explore this myself and you give the audience the tool of feeling like they get to discover on their own instead of showing down their throats. And I think that's one of the great things about the show, is that we is not like heavy promotional.

There are two things in there that i've been really interesting and Frankly, very telling and very twenty twenty four. The first is the idea that you have to keep signaling to the platforms themselves, tiktok and instagram in the rest that you're relevant and you're around. You have to keep making your own stuff, obviously, but also showing up in stuff with a similar focus and a similar audience to be like k algorithms.

Other people think I matter. This is obviously a thing forever, right? Create collapse have been around as long as there have been creators. But there's something specific about signalling that to the platform that i've been really fascinating.

The other thing is the thing that keeps making me think of T R L, that maybe actually doing something that gets you out there, but doesn't just feel like pure promotion of your latest project is more important than ever. This is the reason people post their personal lives on instagram. It's the reason authenticity is everything, right? That stuff is what people care about now.

It's what they gravitate to. And IT feels more important to do and maybe harder to pull off on social media than just about on any other platform. And I think tracks are in things like I give people a way to show up in front of an audience that feels candid and authentic and not nakedly promotional, even when it's not exactly any of those things.

On a lot of the videos that jack does with well known artists, there are comments from people who love that the artist isn't promoting themselves on the key urban video, which I just be watched. There is a ton of that people love that. Keith is just a guy who wants to shop and talk about music.

And I think that works for Keith been. There are also, by the way, comments from people on every single one of these IOS who are just like, oh my gosh, imagine running in the so and so in new york or O M G. I can't believe you just ran into them.

I assume a bunch of those people are in on the bit, but I think they aren't all in on the bit. And I think that vibe is really important, both for the show and for the guests coming on to IT. Personally, I first found track star because of one of those Better known artists. I think, I think IT was Olivia Robert go the dead.

I was the number one song of the year, the year you were born. I didn't know that. Can you intend that? Hey, I move your red.

Thanks for having me. But I do also have a distinct memory of seeing the track star video with malm todd, who is an up in coming artist who was in tracts all time most popular video with more than fifteen million years.

Or you want to take.

I just have to beat the really go. So this one goal, this point, she's unBeatable.

Black said the fact that millions .

d was more popular than Olivia rugger go or ed sherin or any of the other names that have mentioned so far, by the way, that I mention Opera yet, because Opera was on the show pretty recently, while the type. This all continues to surprise me. But IT turns out that celebrities, even really big ones, aren't needle movers the way that you might think.

It's interesting. I ve thought about a lot like what would happen if, Taylor, we have came on the show. That would be huge moment, right?

Biggest artists in the world. I think we would maybe gain five thousand followers from amy tailors. We have done, I don't.

I think the video itself would do really well. And then maybe some people would write about IT, say, tail social media show. But and that would be valuable for us from a brain equity. Same point, but I would not boost the following uh in any meaningful but then down the road um you know orio might say, wow, this guy at tailor of time, we should pay a million dollars to do something else.

Let's talk about this, something else there. But first we had take a break. We'll be right back. Support for the verge .

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Alright, we're back. So tracks star is working, is popular. It's growing. The format is endlessly repeatable and essentially works forever.

The team does want to have Taylor swift ed on, just in case that wasn't clear before. And jack also has a running list of other ideal guests. He's talked to bunching interviews before about Bruce spring scene.

but there are a lots of others to brack obama, oh yeah, because he does. He releases his songs all the time and .

and nobody ever believes him. I love everybody is like there the way he listens to the song.

I I would actually blame the songs from his own. You really listen a million dollar baby like time, you rich. Md, like that's really your jam.

I'm imagining him anyway. That would be a fun one to do just like put him to the test. Um I think as far as musicians go, um there's palmer carney, so or ringgold even might be more legendary than palm cy. Um so there's like those classic just people who've been around for a long time where legends and icons are great.

And then um I think that there's a huge opportunity with like hip hop that we haven't fully tapped into were like an extended conversation, what knows would be really cool and talking about stuff that he's listening to and rappers that inspired him and he would be a little unexpected. And then you have more non musicians, more just like interesting people who care about music, I think be fun and athletes that's like the real untapped one like, I want to talk to lebron James like he loves. What would IT be like if he and I were in a room together?

I'm playing up songs that he's getting off far this .

my yeah be amazing.

Beyond that though, it's pretty clear to me that the public opinion team has tapped into something bigger than just the ninety seconds set up with the headphones on the microphone on tiktok. So now they're trying to expand outside of that.

I mean, I think it's exciting for us to experiment and add on different layers and try everything. So we recently started doing ahead and tracked our versus competition and where you get especially when you have two artists who have a song, the turning on or maybe it's a band with where you can create something that band rivalry and banter um so are experimenting without. And then we have another show that we do call tracks star presents, which is a performance shell um here in the studio and we put out episode every week or two uh and it's kind of like a tiny desk concert but with more conversation in between the songs and that's like a half twenty minute to half our episode on youtube is .

very different yeah is that how bigger focus is that for you right now trying to sort of build the like longer form youtube channel?

Well, we just for a long time, we had both shows, public opinion and tracks are on one youtube channel. And we recently decided to put them just because if you feel like there was two different is and so putting teter from videos up on the same channel didn't makes sense. So we finally support them and started a new track star youtube channel.

And our first video was five or six minute conversation with a million, a modern world from chicken shop date. And we realized she's amazing. We realized doing SHE her press, people said, could SHE come on tracks or she's can be in your we as, of course, I be amazing. We them for twenty to thirty minutes, probably each episode. And what you see, antick talks in ninety or less usually.

And we're like relieving so much great stuff on the floor like why don't we put out a five, nine episode and show people what that's like and then add some more layers to and so we just put out the first one and then we're putting out these um tracks represents sessions on the same channel. So we're really excited about about IT. The hard part about long format is you have to create the packaging.

You're not just a hundred percent rely on the algorithm to push IT to people who want IT, right? You have to get people to click in. Mush is a whole other game.

Do you think you're in a position now where you and tracks are are big enough that you can pull that audience anyway? Or does IT truly feel like starting from nothing, trying to make that happen on youtube?

IT feels like starting from from nothing because the consumption pattern is so, so different. Like when you're watching short form videos in your feed, it's like you're on the toilet, you're making coffee, you're in line for something. It's just like in the background without your day.

Where is youtube is like you ve got a really dial in and pay attention to IT. Even a podcast can be like you're in your car, it's in the background, you're walking to work. Where is youtube? You really have to get you. And and I think it's on a huge presentative IT now is happening on connected tvs. So you really got ta get people to say, instead of watching netflix, i'm going to watch track star for a half hour and it's a big jump and hopefully we get some people, but I think we have to find that people are early looking for a great stuff on youtube and get them discover us.

A big part of making the existing channel work and the success of all these new initiatives hangs on the person in these videos that we haven't talked that much about yet. That's jack. He's always really involved in the tracks or videos.

He's often wearing a backwards hat or like a cool overcoat, but he is always laughing and having fun with the guest. And he's the one who really sets the vibe for the whole thing in a way that I actually think is really important. He, like, points to the camera and demands of the person that they introduced themselves, regardless of whether it's a person that you've never seen before and we will never see again. Or if IT is like one of the fifty most famous people on planet earth, I love that he's kind of reluctant to give himself much credit. But I really do think he's a bigger part of IT.

I might seem. I think my job is to be very a sort of optimistic and kind and make people feel comfortable and sort of trying and bring out a positive like as you watch to show, i'm really smiling and i'm laughing and i'm gigi all the time. That's true. That is who my personality is. But I also think that helps make the render personal history comfortable like i'm not trying to play gotcha.

I'm trying to encourage you to get these songs correctly because when you get something right, you're excited and you're happy and you're like all how I just won five books and then I can come in and say so tell me about your life like how did you grow up or tell me about your mom, whatever. And saw it's sometimes I referred as like the game show is a trojan horse to get people to open up because they are distracted by guessing songs and then they're much more comfortable and willing to talk about everything else, which is like eating the hot ones, eating, eat, the harder they get, the more you're distracted by how spicy IT is. So you talk, write your feelings. Um so I think probably a large part of my role in and where IT comes from is my whole career of making videos in doing youtube content. I've always been told the best part of what you do is when you're engaging and talk in a regular people and having off the tough conversation, you should have lean into out.

This is the sneaked est thing about tracks are and it's the thing that makes IT different from so much music content out there. It's actually really only a little tiny bit about the music. jack. Seems we've always understood this thing as a conversation show with sort of a loose music structure, rather than a thing where the music is the point. And honestly, even the music he picks is meant to make that other dynamic work Better.

So before I go into IT, or even at the beginning of the conversation, i'm asking about what you listen to or what are some who are some artists that have resonated with you? Or I researched the celebrity and I try and find things that they're they're going to have an emotional response to and that helps open people up like, way you played this song. Like, how do you know that this is like the song that I dances my first dance of my wedding.

And so that's gonna trigger an emotional response um so that's the intention of the songs is to try and find things that remind people of my dad. Baseball Prices tell me about that um so i'm hoping that that's working. It's not easy to do like always on this, bob, but that's one hundred percent driving for all the time.

I feel like that has come up a bunch where you play a song for somebody and oh, this is this song indirectly inspired some other song that I wrote. I was like meaningful to me as a teenager or whatever and I always assumed that was mostly research uh, but it's it's interesting that is a mix of research and just sort of educational guesses about what music people like.

You'd be surprised how often I stumble into something that I had no didn't realize. There is all this meaning behind IT, and that's like my favorite moments of in doing the show.

If you think about that, set up music as a way into other kinds of content, and especially into personal conversation, you go all sorts of ways. And that, in a nutshell, appears to be the tracks are plan.

There have been a lots of conversation about starting a record level. And so it's not like happening tomorrow, but it's definitely something that's tracks our records could happen.

A it's a good name. yeah. So that's good. What why I do a record level with that look .

or there's it's too fold. Uh, there's because of the sessions that are happening in here. We have artists coming in due covers. So there's a lot of um I think a lot of covers are blowing up online and there is opportunity, their triple jays like releasing staff and a few of those different online publishers have fully songs in construction with artist an opportunity there. And then like like he talked about like discovering new artists.

What if we what if we got a poor of money together and we said we're going to to invest a million dollars in ten artists and we're gona tell the story of track our records through social media over the course of a year. And it's almost like how making the band was on M. T.

V. Back in the day. Can we do that through social media?

Didn't think you could one .

hundred percent in.

I watched making the band religiously back in the day when I was about creating the band o town. And I swear to you, that show with one hundred percent work today, a super intense competition show that also behind the scenes, look at what IT means to be a pop star is like social media gold. Actually, there was recently a netflix show about a kip hop group called cati.

IT was essentially that, but they also had this very public side of IT, where people were seeing the performances throughout the audition process. IT was wild. The show is awesome. I would watch IT a million more times, about a million more kinds of groups. There are other moves for track start itself, too, as IT grows and becomes more of a business. One thing I see in the comments of the videos all the time is people discovering new songs, things, tracks are the show does have an official spotify players with all the songs, but there's difficulty more IT could do there because being a reliable source of new music, or just a reliable way to make old songs cool again, makes you very powerful in the modern .

music world. It's like IT goes back to being a teenager and saying, like pass me the ox like i'm going to play a song that's like you guys you're going to love that. I think everyone has that like little piece there where they want to show their friends I checked song after a great song um so yeah huge part of why why I do this and how I like to choose someone.

I want to play good stuff in terms of becoming a takes maker like if that's happening, that's great um I just want people didn't know about good music, I guess and maybe there's a way to turn that into something that's a little bit more substantial or meaningful or focus specifically on that. I mean, we have playlist on on our spotify like a bunch of different playlist. So there's some stuff there.

Have you gotten labels or anything calling you being like hate? Can you play this song during tracks are yeah.

all the time people are also supply songs, but I can just the thing is, a lot of time this new songs, can you play this brand new song? And might how are people going to know this song that like, no, this artist came out doesn't make any sense. Like, like I, if you want to pay me to play the beatles, i'll going to pay play beals.

again.

Ah so yeah, IT doesn't. It's hard. You have to find things that like our university, recognize ten of things people aren't promoting.

Remember though, jack is not a music guy that's important to all of this. He is a creator. He likes telling stories.

Music is just a vehicle to get there. Track star was just an excuse to talk to people about something they liked and cared about and knew. Everything else they are working on is the same way.

And you know if that happens to also double as a really fun game show to watch, and a way for mega famous celebrities to be out about in the music, all the Better. IT really does feel to me like a throw back to the early two thousands, when shows like T, R, L were all about making music feel like a hang. And they understood before social media, before the internet, made everything about the individual people, they getting to know the artists and getting to know what they liked and what they cared about.

What inspired them was maybe even more important to making their music than the music. Another show that I loved from her on that time was pop up video, which was adding trivia and jokes to music to us way before anyone was posting memes on instagram. Pop up video, by the way, I was apparently a big inspiration for track star.

What was the cute beetle doing in a tokyo jail cell? Should George Harrison get his own T, R, L pop up video making the band? The music industry has changed in countless ways in twenty years, but maybe IT hasn't changed at all.

And maybe if IT has, we're going back to some things about the way that IT was that maybe we never should have left in the first place. People are buying records again. They're listening to full albums to get away from the infinite play listing of everything that think jack is talking about.

Resist, hear music and you sort of know the sounds, but you don't know the artist, you don't know the lyrics, that just feels bad. I had a friend who used to call IT spotify music, music that's designed to not bother you and you're not paying attention and to be just interesting enough when you are to keep you hooked. That's not good music.

That's spotify music. And I think people are pushing back toward looking for good music. They're also, you know, rocking wired headphones and they're looking for new ways to hang out with their favorite music and musicians and get to know them in new ways.

It's new platforms, new hosts, new musicians. But the more things change, the more they say the same. I think that lines from a song, actually, it's a good one.

All right. That is if for the first today, thank you to jack for being on the show with me today. And thank you, as always, for listening.

There's lots more on everything we talked about at the verge dot com. I'll put a bunch of links in the shown notes. You should go watch track star videos, their super fund. I see a lot of people who will find one video, and then just go back to the very beginning of tracks and watch them all the way through super fu N D. I actually highly recommend doing so.

As always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings or other early two thousands era T V shows that you think I should watch again, you can always invest at verge, cast at the verge shot com, or keep calling the hotline. We love hearing from you and all of your thoughts and questions. We have two more of these future of music episodes to do this month.

Uh, I would love to hear what you think about all of them and other things you think we should do. This is one of our favorite series we've done up before, will probably do IT again. I'd love to hear your ideas.

This shows produced by liam, James, willie and argo as the verge casts is verge production in part of the box media podcast network will be back with your regularly scheduled programing on tuesday and friday because, good lord, the news never stops. We've got like the stuff to talk about. We're going to do our best to avoid talking about the election.

We've got a lot of apple stuff going on, just a lot to do. Keep coming back. We will see you then rock.

Support for the verge cast is brought to you by non kicks. hey. The nisson kicks is undergone a complete transformation, emerging as the city size cross over redefined for urban adventures, with a striking new exterior and a fully revamped interior boasting premium peaches.

The kicks experience has been totally enhances to help you Better navigate city life, and the reimagine non kicks outfitted with intelligent all wheel drought so you can keep going rain or shine. Learn more A W W W that needs on USA that com slash twenty twenty five dash kicks. Intelligent wheel cannot prevent collision or provide enhances traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions.