Afleveringen
-
Paul McCartney is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer whose career spans more than six decades. As a member of The Beatles and later Wings and then with his own solo albums, heâs simply one of the most influential artists of all time. He has more accolades than I have time to list in this intro. But if youâre listening to this, you already know all that. In May 2026, he released his twentieth solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. He co-produced it with Andrew Watt, who won the 2021 Grammy for Producer of the Year, and whose credits include working with Lady Gaga, The Rolling Stones, Justin Bieber, and Elton John. For this episode, I spoke to Paul McCartney about how he wrote and recorded his song "Ripples in a Pond."
For more info, visit songexploder.net/paul-mccartney.
-
Hot Chip is a band from London made up of Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Al Doyle, Owen Clarke, and Felix Martin. Their second album, The Warning, came out in 2006. It was nominated for a Mercury Prize, and named one of the best albums of the year by NME and Pitchfork. And later, NME would include it in their list of best albums of all time. For this episode, I talked to them about one of the songs from The Warning called âBoy From School.â You might have heard it in the second season of the show Beef on Netflixâthe bandâs also in the showâor you might have heard it on The Simpsons. You could have also heard the song in my car all the time in 2006. So I was very excited to talk to Alexis and Joe from Hot Chip about how âBoy from Schoolâ was made.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/hot-chip.
-
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
-
My guest today is the bestselling author Emma Straub. Her books include 'This Time Tomorrow,' 'Modern Lovers,' 'The Vacationers,' and more. And with her husband, Michael Fusco, she co-owns the beautiful Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic.
I'm so thrilled to have her on because, not only is she a wonderful writer, but Key Change is a series about music fandom and identity. And Emma's newest novel 'American Fantasy' is also about music fandom and identity. That story is set on a cruise ship centered around a nineties boy band and their fans.
But today, Emma's going to tell me her story about her own relationship with the music of The Magnetic Fields. Stephin Merritt from the Magnetic Fields was just named one of the greatest living American songwriters by the New York Times, and Emmaâs introduction to their music was their 1999 triple album, '69 Love Songs.'
For more info, visit songexploder.net/emma-straub.
-
The xx formed in 2005, when they were still in high school. They signed to the UK label Young, and put out their first album in 2009. It won the prestigious Mercury Prize, and was named one of the best albums of the year by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and more. Since then, the Guardian has named it one of the best albums of the 21st century. This year, the three band members, Romy Croft, Oliver Sim, and Jamie xx played together as The xx for the first time in 8 years. I spoke to them in between the weekends at Coachella, where they were opening their sets with the song âCrystalised.â Itâs the first song they ever released, back in April 2009, when the lineup also included Baria Qureshi on guitar. I spoke to Romy, Jamie and Oliver, here at my studio, about how they first found each other, and how they made âCrystalised.â
For more info, visit songexploder.net/the-xx.
-
The legendary singer/songwriter Yusuf / Cat Stevens released his first album in 1967. Heâs a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and his albums have sold millions. In 2020, he released Tea for the TillermanÂČ, a re-imagining of his hit 1970 album Tea for the Tillerman. In the song âFather & Son,â he sings a duet between the two title characters, doing both voices. But in the 2020 version, he approached this song in a kind of astonishing wayâhe recorded the part of the father, but for the part of the son, he used a live recording of himself from 1970, taken from a show he played at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. So the two parts are still both sung in his voice, but 50 years apart. In this episode, the 200th episode of Song Exploder, Yusuf / Cat Stevens tells the story of how he created, and then re-created âFather & Son.â
For more, visit songexploder.net/yusuf-cat-stevens.
-
Today, we're sharing an episode of Nate DiMeo's wonderful podcast, The Memory Palace, which helped inspire both Song Exploder, and a song on my upcoming album. So today, I want to present a kind of two-part story. The first part: "The Thundering Herd, The Vanishing American," from The Memory Palace. And in the second half of the episode, Iâll tell you how it ended up unexpectedly unlocking a song that Iâd been trying to figure out.
For more episodes of The Memory Palace, visit thememorypalace.us.
To pre-order my album visit keeledscales.com. To get tickets to one of my shows on tour, visit hrishikesh.co.
-
Alynda Segarra is a singer songwriter from the Bronx. They formed Hurray for the Riff Raff in 2007, and since then, theyâve released 8 albums. Their most recent is The Past Is Still Alive, which came out in 2024. It was named one of the best albums of the year in the New York Times, the Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, and The Atlantic, and Pitchfork called it one of the best albums of the decade so far. For this episode, I spoke to Alynda about the first track on the album, âAlibi.â
For more info, visit songexploder.net/hurray-for-the-riff-raff.
-
Jack Harlow is from Louisville, Kentucky, and started performing and releasing music in 2015, when he was in high school. In 2020, he released his first album, which went double platinum. He was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Performance. Heâs had multiple number one hits across his first three albums. For his fourth album, Monica, which just came out in March 2026, he switched things up dramatically. I was curious how and whyâhow did someone who had so much success as a rapper approach a new way of making music? So for this episode, I spoke to Jack Harlow about the song âSay Hello,â which is the closing track on Monica.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/jack-harlow.
-
My guest today is Baz Luhrmann, the award-winning director whose films include Moulin Rouge!, Strictly Ballroom, The Great Gatsby, Elvis, and Romeo + Juliet. His newest film is EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, a critically acclaimed documentary about Elvis thatâs playing right now in theaters and in IMAX. Before becoming a massively successful film director, Baz began his showbiz career as an actor, and as a ballroom dancer, in Australia. His first film was Strictly Ballroom, which came out in 1992, and became one of the highest-grossing Australian films of all time. It was originally a play, and thereâs a song in the film that was part of the story all the way back when it was first performed on stage. And thatâs what Baz and I talked about for this episode.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/baz-luhrmann.
-
Thompson Twins originally formed in 1977 in Sheffield, in the UK. âHold Me Now,â their iconic hit, came out as a single in November 1983, and eventually on their 1984 album, Into the Gap. That album went to number 1 in the UK and went platinum in the US. The song spent 21 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. So for this episode, I talked to the founding member of Thompson Twins, Tom Bailey, and he told me how he and his bandmates, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway, made âHold Me Now.â
For more info, visit songexploder.net/thompson-twins.
-
Silvana Estrada is a singer, songwriter, and producer from Veracruz, Mexico. She won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist in 2022, and sheâs been nominated for three others, including for her song âComo Un PĂĄjaro,â which is the song that we talked about for this episode. Itâs from her second album, which came out in 2025, but she started writing the song several years before that. So we talked about all the different versions of this song, and a couple of versions of Silvana herself, that emerged throughout the process.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/silvana-estrada.
-
This week, I wanted to go back and revisit the episode that I made with Iron & Wine in the fall of 2022 about the song "Flightless Bird, American Mouth." And there are a couple of reasons. One, thereâs a new Iron & Wine album thatâs coming out this month, called Henâs Teeth. And secondly, I actually have a song of my own thatâs coming out today, the same day as this episode, and it features Iron & Wine on the track. Itâs called âStray Dogs,â and itâs the first song from an album that Iâm releasing in April, called In The Last Hour of Light. And this Iron & Wine episode of the podcast is what actually led to our collaboration on the song.
Iâd been a huge fan of Iron & Wine for two decades, and this live taping, which happened in Wimberly, Texas, at the Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio, was the first time that I got to meet Sam Beam from Iron & Wine
So before we go back and listen to the episode itself, I thought it could be nice to talk to Sam about how this episode happened, and then how that led to the making of âStray Dogs.â
For more, visit songexploder.net/iron-and-wine.
-
The MarĂas is a band from Los Angeles, made up of MarĂa Zardoya, Josh Conway, Jesse Perlman, and Edward James. They released their first EPs in 2017 and 2018, and their first album in 2021. But then, as youâll hear, there was a period of a lot of uncertainty around the bandâs future. Eventually, their second album, Submarine, came out in 2024, and it was incredibly successful. Stereogum called it one of the best albums of the year, and the band was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist. But all of that almost didnât happen. I talked to MarĂa about the making of their hit song âNo One Noticed.â The storyâs beginning, middle, and end all took place during different eras of the bandâs existence. In the middle section, when maybe they werenât going to even be a band anymore, MarĂa enlisted the help of Grammy-nominated producer Gianluca Buccellati. And I spoke to Luca for this episode, as well.
For more, visit songexploder.net/the-marias.
-
Leon Thomas is a singer, songwriter, producer, and actor. Heâs nominated for six Grammys at this yearâs Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist, Best R&B Album, and Album of the Year for Mutt. Mutt is his second album, and I talked to Leon about the title track, which was a breakout hit. Heâd already won a Grammy for his work with SZA, but he reached a new level in his own career with this song and this album. I also spoke to David Phelps and Rob Gueringer, AKA D. Phelps and Freaky Rob, who produced the song.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/leon-thomas.
-
My guest today is John Green. John is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books including 'Looking for Alaska,' 'The Fault in Our Stars,' 'Turtles All the Way Down,' 'The Anthropocene Reviewed,' and 'Everything is Tuberculosis.' John and his brother Hank Green have co-created a lot of projects together, including their massive YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers, and their podcast, 'Dear Hank and John.' He also serves on the Board of Trustees for global health nonprofit Partners in Health. And when I asked John if there was a piece of music that changed his life, he knew the answer right away: "You'll Never Walk Alone" by Gerry and the Pacemakers.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/john-green.
-
Hit-Boy is an award-winning producer and rapper from LA. Heâs one of my all-time favorite producers, from âBackseat Freestyleâ by Kendrick Lamar, to âSicko Modeâ by Travis Scott, to tracks heâs made for Beyonce, Nas, and the Jay-Z & Kanye album Watch the Throne. So I was really excited to talk to him, and when I asked him which song from his incredible catalog he wanted to talk about, I was really moved by his choice. He picked âRacks in the Middleâ by Nipsey Hussle, featuring Roddy Ricch. Nipsey Hussle was a rapper and community activist from LA whose career was cut short, tragically, when he was murdered in 2019. Heâd released just one album, Victory Lap. âRacks in the Middleâ was the last song released in Nipseyâs lifetime. It went platinum, and a year after his death, it won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance, in 2020. This episode features a few short clips from a video that Nipsey Hussle made for the website Genius, back in 2019. Thereâs a link to the full video that he made in the shownotes. But here in the studio, to tell the story, I spoke to Hit-Boy about how âRacks in the Middleâ came together.
To learn more, visit songexploder.net/hit-boy.
-
The band Air is a duo from Versailles, France. Their first EP came out in 1995, followed by their critically acclaimed debut album, âMoon Safari,' which was an international hit. Then they made the music for the film âThe Virgin Suicides,â which was written and directed by Oscar-winner Sofia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. The movie came out in 1999, and it was Sofia Coppolaâs first film. An album version of Airâs score came out in 2000, and it was nominated for a Brit award. Pitchfork put it at number four on their list of the best film scores of all time. In addition to the instrumental music that appears in the movie, Air also wrote a song for the end credits called âPlayground Love.â That song featured Sofia Coppolaâs future husband, Thomas Mars, from the French band Phoenix, on vocals. Phoenix was still a very new band, and he and Sofia hadnât even met yet. Thomas appears on the song under the name Gordon Tracks. So for this episode, I spoke to all of them: Nicolas and JB from Air; Sofia Coppola; Thomas Mars; as well as Brian Reitzell, the music supervisor of the film.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/air.
-
My guest today is director Rian Johnson, which is exciting for me, because Iâve been a huge fan of his ever since seeing his first feature film, âBrick,' in 2006. Since then, heâs made six more feature films, including âLooperâ in 2012; âStar Wars: The Last Jediâ in 2017; the murder mystery âKnives Outâ in 2019; and his most recent movie, another in the 'Knives Out' series, âWake Up Dead Man,â which is already out in theaters, and comes to Netflix on December 12. I talked to Rian about a piece of music that had a profound impact on him, which was the overture to âDas Rheingoldâ by Richard Wagner.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/rian-johnson.
-
Jessie Reyez is a singer and songwriter originally from Toronto. She's won two of Canada's Juno awards, and she's been nominated for a Grammy. In addition to writing her own music, Jessie's been a songwriter on tracks by Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith, Eminem, and many others. You're probably aware that there are songwriters and producers whose names you'll find over and over again in the credits for big hits; Jessie is one of them.
But for this episode, I talked to her about her own song "Goliath." And the day that she wrote that song, she happened to be in the studio with a bunch of other songwriters and producers. So I also talked to Jordan and Stefan Johnson, from the production team Monsters & Strangerz, and Jeff Gitelman, AKA Gitty. Between the three of them, their credits also include songs by Selena Gomez, Maroon 5, Alicia Keys, Mac Miller, and again, tons more.
When a group like this gets together to write music, they don't always know if they're going to be making a song that's going to get recorded and released by an artist somewhere down the line, or if the song's going to get recorded at all. But in the case of "Goliath," what came out was a song that was very personal to Jessie Reyez.For more info, visit songexploder.net/jessie-reyez.
-
My guest today is Demi Adejuyigbe. One of the things that makes Demi so special is how hard it is to summarize him in an intro like this, because he has so many talents and applies them in so many different ways. He is a standup comedian, with a brand new one-hour special out on Dropout TV. He co-hosted the podcasts Gilmore Guys and Punch Up the Jam. Heâs a screenwriter, who wrote on TV shows like The Good Place. Heâs famous on the internet for his parody songs, spoofing artists like Will Smith and Lana Del Rey; and for his September videos, where, for years, he made increasingly elaborate videos of himself, dancing to the Earth, Wind & Fire song. And he used the popularity of those videos to raise over a million dollars for charity. Heâs also directed several music videos, including one that he made for one of my songs, back in 2022. And for this episode, weâre talking as much about a music video as the song within it. And that song is "You Only Live Once" by The Strokes.
Demi's new special, Demi Adejuyigbe is Going to do One (1) Backflip, is on Dropout TV.
For more info, visit songexploder.net/demi-adejuyigbe.
- Laat meer zien
