A new theme for the early risers

May 7, 2019 8:14 AM

If you're the kind of person that wakes up to a radio alarm clock, you may have noticed something a little different this week.

The New York Times goes in to detail about the changes to the theme song and the reaction from NPR employees.

Did you know the original theme has lyrics?

If you're really missing the old theme, you could just listen to it all day.

posted by backseatpilot (37 comments total)

I mean...I understand why something that's become a staple for so long suddenly changing would draw some notice. But why on earth is the New York Times doing a lengthy article about the event?

Sure, NPR doing a segment on it I get, but...why would anyone else cover this?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:19 AM on May 7, 2019 [5 favorites]

They know their audience.
posted by timdiggerm at 8:21 AM on May 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

Well, that's another piece of my childhood gone.

I remember getting a ride from my mom to school, and hearing this every morning as I tried to get whatever few last dregs of sleep I could in the car. Now that I know there's lyrics that basically say, "Don't wake me up", it's even more relevant, and I'm actually kinda bummed about this.
posted by fnerg at 8:37 AM on May 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

I like the new theme better than the old one, and I hope they also update the bombastic version of the old theme that they use for sports stories on the weekends.

(I also hope it will lead to a reduction in the number of long-past-their-sell-by-date B.J. Leiderman dad jokes Inskeep you goddamn hack)
posted by box at 8:45 AM on May 7, 2019

Not sure if this EDM beat and heavily filtered sound is going to be a really dated as an 2010s thing, or just the way music is going—like that 1962 record exec telling the Beatles that guitar music was on its way out.

Though the smooth jazz theme was a classic sound to some demographic when it came out, maybe they are trying to do the same to millennials as we age and the sound of our exciting youth is now reified as npr music.
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:45 AM on May 7, 2019

WOW! I no longer listen to Morning Edition (my apartment seems to be lined with lead, and listening to the Up First podcast has become more my speed), but that is SO DIFFERENT.

I don't know how I feel about it. BJ Leiderman's jingles have such an outsized place in my day - Morning Edition, Marketplace, Car Talk, and Wait Wait have been the soundtrack of my life since before I can remember. Thanks for sharing the Times story about how it was made!

Also, for any other unabashed NPR nerds out there - if you live near or visit Washington, DC, you can tour their headquarters on weekdays for free with advance reservation. Seeing the recording studios and Tiny Desk are super rad; highly recommended.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 8:47 AM on May 7, 2019 [6 favorites]

There really is something about morning radio theme music that gets its hooks into you. I didn't start listening to CBC's Metro Morning until about 10 years ago, but its theme music seems like something I've always been familiar with. When I hear it these days, I actually get sensory memories of the kind of work mornings I lived through in the 90s: getting up at ridiculous o'clock to take a shower in a cold house, standing on a street corner waiting for a bus, and so on. I work at home all but 5-10 days a year, but that damn theme (and the one for the other news/talk radio I listened to for a couple of years) somehow evokes false memories even though my morning commute is now a few steps from bedroom to office.
posted by maudlin at 8:56 AM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

The new theme sounds like "EDM law firm", so a good fit for NPR, I suppose.

The NYT's Daily podcast, I think, has the best theme music right now. There's a drama to it appropriate for the news, but it's not trendy.
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:11 AM on May 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

I'm still annoyed that they changed the Sunday Puzzle theme ten years ago. It didn't need snares & a bass line; the piano was nice on its own, dammit.
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:16 AM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

There are prominent piano chords too, and some mostly-harmless synth pads -- to my ears this is just 21st century smooth jazz, and isn't that far removed from Kraftwerk and Amiga MODs. Maybe in another 40 years they'll redo it with sample loops and breakbeats.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:21 AM on May 7, 2019

For the first half of eighth grade, my dad worked at a school an hour away. We hadn't been sure where we'd be living before the school-year started so I went to the school where he taught, bright and early every morning. In the evenings we sometimes did audiobooks, but every morning was NPR. Every time I hear that music, I feel like I'm sitting riding in the car, talking to my dad and eating a cold blueberry Pop Tart. I'll miss it.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:23 AM on May 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

They should just get 1788-l to rework the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me theme.
posted by poe at 9:27 AM on May 7, 2019

the smooth jazz theme

I wouldn't really call it that...."smooth jazz" usually has a crappy half-funk beat....70s/80s commercial news bumper music is kind of its own genre, to me

EDM law firm

Sample and Hold, Attorneys At Law
posted by thelonius at 9:35 AM on May 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

Was miraculously awake for the beginning of my radio alarm sequence yesterday, and could only respond, "What."
posted by asperity at 9:37 AM on May 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Sample and Hold, Attorneys At Law

(Off now to start my hardboiled detective novel about their private investigator, Ring Modulator)
posted by thelonius at 9:40 AM on May 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

For years I was tempted to write a cranky letter to NPR about how the theme song for a morning show, a time in which Very Sensitive People like me are even more sensitive, was WAY TOO JANGLY AND JARRING in the middle. It’s spiky and loud and caused me to feel pissed off on many mornings.

I have a ton of nostalgia for it nonetheless but I am pretty into the new music. Haven’t listened to it while taking a shower in the dark like I have a thousand times to the old music but I’m cautiously optimistic it won’t jar me awake the next time I do.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 9:49 AM on May 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Wait, it's not five minutes of bird song segueing into The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba anymore?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:52 AM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

"smooth jazz" usually has a crappy half-funk beat

sorry for the minor derail but if anyone in NYC ever has the urge to hear the smoothest of jazzes, just call any dr's office affiliated with mt sinai and wait to be put on hold.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:05 AM on May 7, 2019 [5 favorites]

It sounds like the opening credits for The Newsroom to me. Which makes sense given that they enlisted the help of the same music studio who has done work for HBO in the past.
posted by msbutah at 10:25 AM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

its an insipid, inferior version of the original, so a perfect fit for morning edition

i hate you steve inskeep. i hate you so very, very much
posted by entropicamericana at 10:31 AM on May 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

I wouldn't really call it [smooth jazz]

I guess I take it back.....when the pseudo-Wes Montgomery guitar comes in with the melody, I don't know what else to call that
posted by thelonius at 10:41 AM on May 7, 2019

Bah humbug. I can remember when NPR played nothing but bits of classical music between stories and adding a little bit of jazz or steel-string guitar here and there was a shocking innovation.

[monocle pops out]

"I say, Percival, was that a drum?!"
posted by straight at 11:10 AM on May 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

The BBC World Service changed their theme to something similarly nondescript

Yeah, I was going to say - this sounds just like all of the stuff that the BBC uses for themes/bumps during the World Service and Newshour.

If this goes anything like the Morning Edition clock change, they'll use it for a few years, insisting that it's perfect the entire time, and then change it suddenly to something that's nearly identical to the old one.
posted by god hates math at 11:55 AM on May 7, 2019

That theme is my cue to quit screwing around and drinking coffee and get my ass in gear for the day. Needless to say, the last couple of days have had a few 'oh shit' moments.
posted by eclectist at 12:05 PM on May 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

Wait, it's not five minutes of bird song segueing into The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba anymore?

No, now it's the sound of blood dripping into a shallow pan for three minutes followed by a low, gurgling moan, and then the local school lunch menu.
posted by phooky at 12:28 PM on May 7, 2019

I work hard, I wish I could work as hard as Scott Simon does to fit BJ Leiderman's name into a random Weekend Edition segment.
posted by Nekosoft at 12:29 PM on May 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

Have given up on Nice Polite Republican radio, after Steve Inskeep referred to Michael Brown as a "thug". But remember fondly when ATC had Mannheim Steamroller's Tocatta as their theme...
posted by Windopaene at 1:12 PM on May 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

So my NPR-affiliate public radio station produces tons of excellent original local news content that airs both during its own shows and interspersed during NPR show broadcasts. Immediately after NPR's intro of the new theme and explanation, the local host broke in with "Well, that happened. If you like the new theme, you're welcome, and if you don't, it wasn't us." (Paraphrased because I was extremely groggy).
posted by asperity at 1:35 PM on May 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

I guess people feel the need to mess with success. The new theme sucks though.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:27 PM on May 7, 2019

It sounds fine to me, but I’m really more into what Breakmaster Cylinder is doing these days.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:42 PM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Of course, everybody knows the lyrics to their evening news show:

All Things Considered,
All Things Considered,
All Things Considered,
     well, almost!

posted by cheshyre at 6:13 PM on May 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Thanks I hate it.

Joking aside my biggest problem is that it already sounds dated. It sounds like the theme to Good Morning Toledo from 1992. I'm not an expert on this stuff but it does seem like theme songs and interstitial music have... evolved?*

If you really think you need a new theme song then make one that sounds like it was written this year. Don't just come up with a new song that sounds like a b-side to your old song.

*anyone know any good articles about the history of interstitial music in media? I would really like to learn more now that this post made me think about it.
posted by mcmile at 6:31 PM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

I don't have strong feelings about the old vs. new theme music, but I actually wrote an outraged email to Morning Edition years ago when they debuted the current announcer background music that runs at at :09 after the hour. That "endless loop" still drives me crazy.
posted by PhineasGage at 6:51 PM on May 7, 2019

This looped track demands a Nyan Cat mashup.
posted by unknowncommand at 7:17 PM on May 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Like a couple of others above, for me it's a little too much like the BBC world service. Besides reminding me of BBC, I think they both (BBC and new NPR) have more of a news-feedy, dateline/headline kind of feel, whereas the older theme felt more personal and connected... let's explore.

(PS. listening closely to the old one, holy cow, what a rich and awesome arrangement, BJ. Some very cool details. Maybe unfair to put the new folks against that.)
posted by spbmp at 7:18 PM on May 7, 2019

(The new one sounds like a cheerful version of Massive Attack's "Teardrop" AKA the "House, M.D." theme song.)
posted by unknowncommand at 7:20 PM on May 7, 2019

Man, there were a couple points in there where my brain went Okay, here comes the drop! Disappointed.
posted by xedrik at 6:53 AM on May 8, 2019 [3 favorites]