The secret soundtrack to your life

你生命中的秘密乐章

Today, Explained

2026-04-18

25 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

It's in your TV shows. It's in the ads you watch. It's in your TikToks. Sync music is everywhere, and it's changing the music industry. This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tatasciore, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Zara Larsson performing during the Grammy Awards this year. Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • You know this piece of music, right?

  • You know from where it originates?

  • Except I'm 99.999% sure you don't.

  • It's called Frolic, and it's composed by Luciano Michelini.

  • Luciano wrote Frolic in the 1970s for an Italian film called La Bellissima Estate, or The Beautiful Summer.

  • From there, it was added to various music libraries and ended up being used in lots of commercials here in the U.S.

  • One day, Larry David saw one such commercial for a bank.

  • He liked the music, filed it away, and when it came time to pick a theme song for his HBO comedy,

  • Curb Your Enthusiasm, he chose Frolic.

  • And from there, it became the soundtrack to A Million Memes,

  • shorthand for walking yourself into an especially awkward or embarrassing situation.

  • Frolic might be the most famous piece of what is sometimes called library music,

  • background music, sync music, or just sync.

  • And on Today Explained, we are living in peak sync.

  • What is your pre-performance ritual?

  • What are you doing 24 hours before that big meeting, an hour before your race?

  • I'm Rabinard Sun, VP and head instructor at Peloton and host of Project Swagger.

  • And this week, every step I take to lock in ahead of high stakes, high stress events.

  • This is your performance toolkit.

  • Follow Project Swagger now wherever you get your podcasts.