The Obamas Announce New Spotify Podcast 'The Big Hit Show'

Higher Ground, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's media company, and Spotify, the world's most popular audio streaming subscription, TODAY announced a new podcast, The Big Hit Show, a series of audio documentaries hosted by Alex Pappademas that focus on the pieces of popular culture that have defined and changed our culture.

With five episodes per chapter, The Big Hit Show unpacks the genesis and impact of a "new classic" in film, music, TV, internet culture, and videogames through in-depth conversations with the visionaries who created them and the people who were impacted. Those legacies are varied, but unified by their outsized importance. The first chapters of The Big Hit Show will cover Twilight and To Pimp a Butterfly. Future installments-due later in the year-will delve into video games and movies.

"The shows and films and albums we explore have all been chosen not just because they're massive pieces of popular culture. We've picked them because each has had a profound butterfly effect on our culture," said The Big Hit Show host Alex Pappademas.

"Whether we're tracing how an author's vivid dream about a sparkly vampire led to an entirely new fan culture or how a megastar reckoning with success, expectation and survivor's guilt crafted a masterpiece that became the soundtrack to the biggest protest movement in a generation, listeners will know from chapter to chapter they're getting a high stakes narrative that explains how our culture has been influenced and shaped by these creations."

"Alex is a seasoned journalist who thrives at investigating the intersection of pop culture and changing social attitudes," said Dan Fierman, Higher Ground's Head of Audio. "While delivering the proper social and historical context, he speaks directly to the creators of these pop culture behemoths to understand the thinking behind their work. He has chosen an incredible initial selection for The Big Hit Show and the contrast between a romantic vampire novel for teenage girls and a funk-drenched jazz-rap odyssey illustrates the potentially infinite remit of this series."

"The Big Hit Show is a thought provoking exploration of fandom that analyzes some of cultures' biggest movements that have never been dissected before," says Julie McNamara, Spotify Head of US Studios and Video. "As the podcasting format continues its ascension to the heights of mainstream media, we feel there is no better format to revisit these stories and their lasting cultural impact that have been timeless artifacts of entertainment today. We're so excited to bring The Big Hit Show, the next monumental series from our Higher Ground partnership, to millions of global listeners on Spotify."

The Big Hit Show host Alex Pappademas is a writer, editor, and podcast host who lives in Los Angeles. He is a regular contributor of reported features and critical essays to The New York Times, The New Yorker, GQ, and many other publications. From 2015 through 2017 he was the executive editor of MTV News; prior to that he was a staff writer at Grantland and the co-host, with Wesley Morris, of the acclaimed Grantland podcast Do You Like Prince Movies?. MGM and Smokehouse Pictures are currently developing a film adaptation of his story, "Saint John," an account of the rise and fall of car designer John DeLorean, with George Clooney attached to direct and star. Abrams Image will publish his first book, Keanu Reeves--Most Triumphant: THE MOVIES and Meaning of an Irrepressible Icon, in April 2022. Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, WILD Gamblers, Babylon Sisters, and Other Soul Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, a collaboration with the painter Joan LeMay, will be published in late 2022 by the University of Texas Press.

Listen to the podcast's trailer here:

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