Word In Your Ear
Maelezo ya Kituo
Word In Your Ear
Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1.Over thirteen years ago, when working on the la...
Vipindi vya Hivi Karibuni
876 vipindi
Records that sound unique and why all bands need a backlash
Boarding this week’s giddy carousel of news, we ride the following ponies …
… the Sliding Doors moment that made a ‘50s star a f...
Paul Young – “Big in the ‘80s! What lucky bastards we were!’
Paul Young was the bassist in a pub band playing Led Zeppelin and Patto covers ‘til his solo soul and blues slot launched him as a singer. He’s still...
Billy Bragg – 40 years, 2,700 gigs and what he learnt from Taylor Swift
‘Billy Bragg: A People’s History’ is just out, a new and wholly original kind of memoir written by himself, friends, collaborators and fans, and packe...
Mark Kermode tells us stories about music in movies
The Graduate, Trainspotting, Jaws, Star Wars, Citizen Kane – films you can’t picture without thinking of the music. Mark Kermode has been gripped by t...
How many bands can you name every member of?
This week’s news put through the wringer and hung out to dry. On the line you’ll find …
… Taylor Swift and Ophelia and other things pop...
The Zombies’ Colin Blunstone – a psychedelic showpiece then ‘washed up’ aged 21
The Zombies formed before the Stones and had huge hits with She’s Not There and Time Of The Season. Their baroque masterpiece Odessey and Oracle now g...
Led Zeppelin’s fight for attention and how they fudged their backstory
This lavish, beautifully designed collection of late ‘60s news stories, reviews and press clippings sheds new light on the band’s roots and ascent fro...
Stones, Blondie, Iggy and songs that make a movie & why we loved Diane Keaton
Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here …
… will rock bands ge...
Ringo and why the Beatles wouldn’t have worked without him
The look, sound, story and dynamic of the Beatles can’t be imagined without him. Nor can their success. Tom Doyle, author and drummer, examines the un...
Rock stars we envy, Madonna as a sister-in-law & the British obsession with poshness
Steering the supercar of enquiry round the rock and roll racetrack with the occasional stop for a tyre change. Foot-to-floor moments this week include...
Bowie, Boy George and the rise of the riotous Blitz club with Robert Elms
London’s Blitz club in 1980 had a huge impact on the way the decade looked and sounded, the launchpad for Boy George, Spandau Ballet, a new age of ele...
The Prince story by 200 people who knew him - and John McKie
Prince’s commercial peak was Purple Rain but John McKie thinks Sign O’ The Times was his creative masterpiece and tracked down over 200 collaborators,...
The three London kids who invented rock style
Paul Gorman, biographer of Malcolm McLaren and friend of the pod, tells the extraordinary story of the three young hipsters behind Granny Takes A Trip...
Danny Thompson’s bass adventures, Dylan’s women, TV satire and great sleeve art.
News, rants, theories, stories and assorted old hokum which this week stumbles into …
… Kate Bush, Thunderbirds, Tim Buckley, the Blind...
Thea Gilmore on Joan Baez, Jake Thackray and Dave Pegg’s dog starting her career
We’ve always liked Thea Gilmore who once crossed America with Joan Baez in a pre-Election campaign tour and has released 21 albums (“I’ve got musical...
How pioneer tape-rat Roger Armstrong found vintage America a whole new audience
Roger Armstrong co-founded the legendary Rock On record shop and was running the Chiswick label long before the punk rock explosion of independents, a...
Why Van and Fairport make the perfect send-off, Robert Redford & the best-looking rock stars
On the menu at the rock and roll state banquet …
… Into the Mystic, Meet On The Ledge, In My Life, Tom Waits’ Take It With Me and other...
John Prine, Elvis Costello and a jukebox on fire
Novelist and journalist Tom Piazza struck up a friendship with the irreplaceable John Prine in the last years of his life. This relationship, which be...
Alex's star-studded week in Hollywood
Having disposed of the surprising history of pop stars who posed for Playboy, discussing whether the universe really needs another album called "Play"...
Peter Hammill on Bowie, other superfans & 47 albums of ‘self-sabotage and chaos’.
Peter Hammill, adored by Bowie, Mark E Smith and many others, co-founded Van Der Graaf Generator when he was 19. And he’s made 47 albums since, powere...
Talking Heads, where they came from and where they went - with Jonathan Gould
Has there ever been a group like Talking Heads? Jonathan Gould’s Burning Down The House explores their affluent background, the root of their ambition...
Freddie Mercury has a daughter’ – and Lesley-Ann Jones can prove it
Freddie Mercury had an affair with a close friend’s wife and, in 1977, became a father. He’s now a grandfather. That’s the foundation of a new book ‘L...
Oasis in 2026, the Troggs and what Morrissey’s only gone and done now!
All the leaves are brown and the sky’s a bit unruly but mellow fruitfulness abounds in this week’s pick of the rock and roll news. Add to basket …
‘Hey Joe’, its miracle birth & why violent songs are like True Crime - by Jason Schneider
Immortalised by Hendrix, ‘Hey Joe’ had its roots in 18th century murder ballads, ‘60s folk and rock clubs before the world got to hear it. Jason Schne...
Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span drove Rev Gary Davis round Britain in a Triumph Herald
Maddy Prior – folk royalty, an absolute hero of ours – is touring with Steeleye Span again this autumn 66 years after they started, a life someone sho...
Why reviews lost their sting - and what matters more, the song or the record?
Our pencil-chewing, critical assessment of this week’s news gets mainly * and *** reviews, among them …
…. Sting v Summers & Copeland ov...
Debsey Wykes of Dolly Mixture wants you to read her teenage diary
Debsey Wykes was in Dolly Mixture, one of the very few all-girl groups in post-punk London, a time when bands with charisma won the battle for attenti...
Singers’ vast egos explained and what’s the real definition of ‘a fan’?
A tub-thumping, snare-cracking, cymbal-simmering, two-way backbeat to this week’s rock and roll news, the on-beats including …
… “Trauma...
Neil Hannon - the Divine Comedy, the Father Ted saga & nights at the Indie Disco
How can you not love the Divine Comedy whose inspirations include Tom Lehrer and “Landfill Indie”? And Neil Hannon wrote music for Wonka, Father Ted a...
Tanita Tikaram - from ‘girl with guitar in bedroom’ to Hammersmith Odeon in six months
Tanita Tikaram’s second gig had an audience of three – one paying customer and two concert promoters. When one of them wanted to talk to her afterward...
Bob Mould remembers Hüsker Dü, Sugar & that guy with the hipster moustache
Bob Mould, whose records with Hüsker Dü had such impact on Nirvana and Pixies, is back on tour again, both solo and with a band. “I’ve built this tiny...
Comedy records, TV gold & have Oasis and Coldplay hoovered up all the cash?
Damping down the wildfires of rock and roll news this week we focus on the following …
… Oasis, Taylor Swift and Coldplay and the new ag...
Brian Protheroe on the eternal life of his 1974 hit “Pinball”
Paul Weller has just covered it on his new album. Morrissey played it to Noel Gallagher who took the idea and ran with it. What explains the enduring...
Terry Reid, the man who really invented Led Zeppelin, & guitar fetishism
Other, weaker podcasts may take the summer off. Not this one.
…the story of Jerry Garcia’s alligator strat, Paul McCartney’s violin bass and the...
Peter Ames Carlin on the record that made Bruce Springsteen
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Friend of the pod and chronicler of the careers of Springsteen, Paul Simon and REM, Peter Ames Carlin has hea...
Jah Wobble - 40 hilarious unedited minutes interrupted by a pest control officer
Jah Wobble - touring in October - is outstanding company and rattles on here like a steam train, sparking off at tangents in a brilliant, barely steer...
Elvis, the Colonel & how unseen letters changed Peter Guralnick’s view of their partnership
There’s a widely accepted view of the relationship between Elvis and his manager Tom Parker, the one sustained by the recent Baz Luhrmann movie, but a...
Are the Nineties the new Classic Rock? And whatever happened to comedy records?
Lowering the magnet of curiosity into the scrapyard of news and seeing what’s attracted, which includes …
… does anyone still write sati...
The Wedding Present turns 40, memories of John Peel & ‘the only time I ever pogo-ed’
The Wedding Present formed 40 years ago – why does that seem astonishing? - and have a new box set and tour to celebrate. David Gedge digs out his old...
Bret McKenzie on Flight of the Conchords, Hollywood and writing songs for frogs and unicorns
Bret McKenzie now mainly works on movie soundtracks, the Simpsons, Minecraft and the Muppets among them, which brings the pure delight of hearing his...