Afleveringen
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Sabrina Carpenter is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She had a huge year with her album Short N Sweet, which came out in August 2024. It debuted at #1, and went platinum within a month. At the upcoming Grammys, sheâs nominated for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and more. One of her big hits is âPlease Please Please,â which she wrote with Amy Allen and producer Jack Antonoff. Heâs won Producer of the Year at the Grammys for the last three years in a row. For this episode, I talked to Sabrina and Jack about everything that went into making âPlease Please Please.â
For more, visit songexploder.net/sabrina-carpenter.
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Gracie Abrams is a singer and songwriter from Los Angeles. She started putting out music in 2020, and in June 2024, she put out her second album, The Secret of Us. She was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist, and this year sheâs up for another Grammy, for Best Duo Performance, for her collaboration with Taylor Swift. But for this episode, I talked to Gracie about her song âI Love You, Iâm Sorry.â It was produced by Aaron Dessner, at Long Pond Studio in upstate New York, and it was co-written with Audrey Hobert.
Coming up, youâll hear the isolated tracks from the studio recording, but youâll also get to hear a lot of the voice memos that Gracie recorded during the writing process. I think itâs so nice to have these raw moments documented because, as youâll hear, they give you an insight not just into the song, but into the relationship that Gracie and her co-writer Audrey have as friends.
For more, visit songexploder.net/gracie-abrams.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Katie Crutchfield is a singer and songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama. Sheâs been making music under the name Waxahatchee since 2010. Her fifth album, Saint Cloud, came out this past March. Pitchfork named it Best New Music, and The Guardian called it the best album of the year so far. In this episode, Katie breaks down how she made the song âFire."
This episode was originally published July 29, 2020.
For more, visit songexploder.net/waxahatchee.
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Le Tigre originally formed in 1998. They released their self-titled debut album in October 1999. Spin Magazine called it one of the best albums of the past 30 years, and Pitchfork called it one of the best albums of the 90s. I listened to that album a lot when it came out, and 25 years later, I still hear songs from it everywhere, on TV and in movies, and just out in the world â especially the song âDeceptacon.â For this episode, I talked to Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman from Le Tigre about how they wrote it, and how they put the track together.
For more, visit songexploder.net/le-tigre.
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In 1968, singer and songwriter Graham Nash joined David Crosby and Stephen Stills to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. All of them had already been in successful bands: Graham Nash had been in The Hollies; David Crosby was in The Byrds; and Stephen Stills was in Buffalo Springfield. The next year, Neil Young joined them, to make Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The four of them released Deja Vu in 1970, and that album was a huge success. It sold over 8 million copies. It includes the song âOur House,â and for this episode, I spoke to Graham Nash about the making of that song, and the relationship that led to the song.
For more, visit songexploder.net/crosby-stills-nash-and-young.
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Pharrell Williams isâwell, let me just say, heâs a big reason why Song Exploder exists. Heâs a singer, songwriter and producer, and in the 90s, when I first heard the work that he was doing with the Neptunes, which was his production duo with Chad Hugo, it blew my mind. It made me want to know where those sounds came from and where those ideas came from. Pharrell has won 13 Grammys. Heâs been nominated for two Oscars. Heâs produced iconic songs for Kendrick Lamar, Britney Spears, Clipse, Gwen Stefani, and so many others. And on his own, heâs made songs like âHappy,â the giant hit for Despicable Me that was the best-selling song of 2014. And now, thereâs a movie about his life called Piece by Piece. But itâs an animated Lego film. For this episode, I talked to Pharrell about the title song from Piece By Piece. So, coming up, you'll hear how Pharrell built that song, including a first draft that never saw the light of day. Youâll hear how he built âPiece by Pieceâ by programming it, on his own, with MIDI instruments, and then adding and replacing those parts with other musicians, including the high school marching band that he used to play in.
For more, visit songexploder.net/pharrell.
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For the last couple weeks, Iâve been getting ready for a trip Iâm going to make to Connecticut, to moderate a conversation between Jon Batiste and his wife, the author Suleika Jaouad. So Iâve been deep in my prep and research, and I thought about the first time I ever spoke to Jon Batiste, which was for a Song Exploder episode that came out back in March 2021. A lot has happened for Jon since then. At the time, his album We Are was brand new. The next year, he ended up getting 11 Grammy nominations, and winning 5 of them, including Album of the Year. Jon and Suleika were also the subjects of the award-winning documentary American Symphony. I really enjoyed our conversation, and I wanted to revisit it. So here it is:
Jon Batiste is a pianist, songwriter, and composer from New Orleans. Heâs been nominated for multiple Grammys, and just won the Golden Globe and got an Oscar nomination for the soundtrack to the Pixar film Soul, which he composed along with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Jon is also a recipient of the American Jazz Museumâs Lifetime Achievement Award, and on weeknights, you can see him as the bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In March 2021, he put out his new album, We Are. But the title track from it actually came out much earlier, in June 2020. In this episode, Jon talks about how he drew from his roots, both at a personal level and at a cultural level, and wove all of it into the song.
For more, visit songexploder.net/jon-batiste.
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Troye Sivan is a singer and songwriter from Australia. Heâs been nominated for a Golden Globe, two Grammys, and heâs won four of Australiaâs ARIA awards. His song âMy My My!â was a #1 hit on the Billboard Dance Chart, and his third album, Something to Give Each Other, was one of Billboardâs picks for the best albums of 2023. Troyeâs also an actor; he was in the HBO series The Idol, which figures into the story that he tells about this song. Troye came to the studio and we talked about how he made one of his big hits, the song âOne of Your Girls.â For that song, he worked with two of his longtime collaborators: his frequent songwriting partner, Leland, and producer Oscar Görres.
For more, visit songexploder.net/troye-sivan.
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Beabadoobee is an award-winning singer and songwriter from England whoâs been releasing music since 2017. Her third album is called This Is How Tomorrow Moves. It came out in August 2024 and went to #1 on the UK charts. She made the album with her bandmate Jacob Bugden and with producer Rick Rubin at his studio, Shangri-La, in Malibu. And for this episode, I talked to Bea about a song from that album called âComing Home.â
For more, visit songexploder.net/beabadoobee.
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Remi Wolf is a singer and songwriter originally from Palo Alto, California. Sheâs been releasing music since 2019. She performed at Coachella in 2023, and has toured with Olivia Rodrigo, Lorde, and Paramore. Her second album, Big Ideas, came out in July 2024. I talked to Remi about how she and her collaborators wrote and produced the song âSoup.â How they used 80s gear to make 80s sounds, and how a fun anthem quickly turned into something pretty vulnerable.
For more, visit songexploder.net/remi-wolf.
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Sam Smith is a Grammy and Oscar-winning singer and songwriter from London, England. Their first album, In the Lonely Hour, came out in 2014. It went quintuple platinum in the US, and the biggest hit from that album is the song âStay With Me,â which has over 2 billion streams on Spotify alone. For this episode, in honor of the songâs 10th anniversary, I talked to Sam about how âStay With Meâ was made. I also talked to Samâs frequent collaborator, Jimmy Napes, who is an award-winning producer and songwriter as well. The two of them tell the story of how the song began, and how it turned into the hit that it became. And then, years later, how it changed again.
For more, visit songexploder.net/sam-smith.
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Fenne Lily is a singer and songwriter from Dorset, England. She released her first album in 2018, but I didnât find her music until 2023, when she put out her third album, Big Picture. The album she released in between those two was one that got a little lost in the lockdown, when all her touring plans around it got canceled. All of that plays into the story she tells in this episode, about making her song âLights Light Upâ from that third album. I spoke to Fenne in front of a live audience at WBUR CitySpace in Boston. Coming up, youâll hear how the song evolved across different versions of demos and then in the studio, where she recorded it with Grammy-nominated producer Brad Cook.
For more, visit songexploder.net/fenne-lily.
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Last year, Vagabon released her third album, Sorry I Havenât Called, which Iâve been listening to a lot. So I wanted to revisit an episode that I recorded with her back in 2020, about her breakout song "Water Me Down." The episode also features the voice of Eric Littmann, who co-produced the track. He passed away in June 2021, way too young. Vagabonâs new album is dedicated to him. If you havenât heard this episode before, I hope you like it.
When Laetitia Tamko started making the second Vagabon album, she really wanted to produce the entire thing on her own. It would be a new sound, and producing was still a relatively new skill to her, but she wanted to tackle it head on, and do it all herself. On this song, though, "Water Me Down," Laetitia actually has a co-producer, Eric Littmann. Itâs the one exception to her otherwise entirely self-produced album. In this episode, she breaks down how she and Eric made the song, and why it was worth making that exception.
For more, visit songexploder.net/vagabon.
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Crowded House formed in 1985 in Melbourne, Australia. Theyâve released eight albums, including their most recent one, Gravity Stairs, which came out last month. But on their very first album, they had a big hit with "Donât Dream Itâs Over."
Crowded House made âDonât Dream Itâs Overâ with Grammy-nominated producer Mitchell Froom, who they went on to work with multiple times. For this episode, I talked to frontman Neil Finn about how the song was first written, and how it developed with his bandmates and collaborators in the studio. And we talked about the profound connection people have had with the song over the years.
For more, visit songexploder.net/crowded-house.
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Lizzy McAlpine released her first album in 2020, and her second album in 2022. And between the two, sheâs had a lot of success. One of her songs, "Ceilings," was a viral TikTok hit, and has been streamed over half a billion times. So you might think, with all that success, youâd want to keep working in way thatâs been working. But while Lizzy was making her third album, Older, after almost a year into the process of recording, she threw the whole thing out. She brought in a new band, and started over with a totally different approach. I talked to her about the song "Staying," from her new album. Youâll hear her original voice memos, as well as the first version she made in the studio, and then how it really came to life once she reimagined it.
For more, visit songexploder.net/lizzy-mcalpine.
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The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983. Over the last four decades, theyâve put out 16 albums. In 1999, they put out their album The Soft Bulletin, and that brought them a new level of success. And then, in 2002, they followed it up with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which was their biggest album to date. Pitchfork named it one of the top 5 albums of the year, Stereogum called it one of the best albums of the decade, and they won a Grammy. And the biggest song from the album was "Do You Realize??" So, for this episode, I talked to Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd about how that song was first imagined. Youâll hear the very first demo Wayne recorded for the song, and the demo he and Steven put together later, on their way to making the final version with producer Dave Fridmann.
For more, visit songexploder.net/the-flaming-lips.
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One of the songs I keep coming back to is âMohabbatâ by Arooj Aftab. Itâs really special to me. I listen to it all the time. Iâve been listening to it so often that I wanted to revisit Arooj's episode about it. In the time since the episode has come out, she has released a collaborative album with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily called Love In Exile, which got two Grammy nominations. And she has a new album thatâs about to come out on May 31st, called Night Reign. Hereâs her episode:
Arooj Aftab is a singer and composer based in Brooklyn. She grew up in Saudi Arabia, but her family is from Pakistan. And earlier this year, she made history by becoming the first Pakistani artist to win a Grammy. Her song, âMohabbat" won the Best Global Music Performance Grammy, and she was nominated for Best New Artist. "Mohabbat" was first released on her 2021 album, Vulture Prince, but itâs been a part of Aroojâs life for a long time . In this episode, she tells the story of how the song was first born, and how it lived with her and evolved over the years before she finally recorded it.
For more, visit songexploder.net/arooj-aftab.
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The band War formed in 1969, in Long Beach, California. âLow Riderâ is from their 1975 album Why Canât We Be Friends? The song was a hit as soon as it came out. It went to #1 on the Billboard R&B charts. And itâs just had tremendous lasting power ever since. Besides being in Dazed and Confused, where I heard it, itâs been sampled by The Beastie Boys, it was covered by Korn, and it was the theme song for all six seasons of The George Lopez Show.
For this episode, I talked to Warâs bandleader Lonnie Jordan, and their producer Jerry Goldstein. The two of them told me how âLow Riderâ was made in the studio, through a combination of improvisation and meticulous editing.
For more, visit songexploder.net/war.
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Shania Twain is a singer and songwriter from Ontario, Canada. Sheâs the only female artist to have had three consecutive Diamond albums â albums that have sold over ten million copies. Actually, her 1997 album Come On Over is the best-selling album by a female solo artist of all time. One of the most iconic songs from that iconic album is "Youâre Still The One." It was co-written and produced by Mutt Lange, who had previously produced some other classic albums, like Back in Black by AC/DC and Pyromania by Def Leppard. He had also produced Shania Twainâs previous album, The Woman in Me. For this episode, Shania told me the story of writing âYouâre Still The One.â She told me about what the song meant to her when she was making it, over 25 years ago, and what it means to her now.
For more, visit songexploder.net/shania-twain.
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Danny Brown started his career in 2007 by handing out mixtapes in Detroit, where heâs from. In 2011, he put out his acclaimed second album, XXX. Since then, heâs collaborated with rappers like Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky and JPEGMafia, but heâs also worked with electronic bands like Purity Ring and The Avalanches, and he did a verse on a remix for Korn.
When I first heard him, around when XXX came out, I was really drawn to his voice. And I also appreciated that, given how young so many artists are now when they get really famous, Danny Brownâs career really started taking off in his 30s. He put out his sixth album, Quaranta, in 2023. And for this episode, I talked to him about one of the songs from that album, called âY.B.P.," which features guest vocals from Bruiser Wolf.
For more, visit songexploder.net/danny-brown.
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