Word In Your Ear

Paul Rees, author and music journalist who chronicled AOR and rock history, reminisces about the rise of polished FM radio rock. He explores Boston’s breakthrough sound, AOR hallmarks like power ballads and high-tenor vocals, producers’ perfectionism, Def Leppard’s American vision, and the era’s excess, image play and strange studio stories.

Paul Monaghan, birthday quiz champion and TV theme aficionado, drops a conversational icebreaker and leads a lively pub-style TV theme tune contest. Conversation darts from Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl spectacle and its logistics to bizarre duets, odd cover versions, licensing of legacy bands, Wuthering Heights reactions, and cinematic takes on music biopics.

Andy Bown, veteran English musician from The Herd, Judas Jump and 47 years in Status Quo. He recalls playing with Bowie, Hendrix and Jerry Lee Lewis, the wild rise and money realities of 60s bands, co-writing “Whatever You Want,” and rediscovering a sci-fi song cycle he wrote with Russell Hoban. Short, vivid stories about life on stage and studio oddities.

The album has had 25 years of being hammered by other formats – Napster, iTunes, Spotify, TikTok – and not only survived but thrived. For Keith Jopling it’s the irreplaceable way to hear music and to measure the people who make it. His new book Body Of Work celebrates its battle-scarred trajectory from the beating heart of pop culture to 21st Century affordable luxury, and stops off at … … growing up in the age of cassettes … his lifelong devotion to a Police album left on his doorstep … Adele’s battle with Spotify to get records played in sequence … how albums are how you calibrate a career, from the Beatles to Taylor Swift … has anyone ever loved a CD the way they love an album? … how parents used to despair of their kids loafing in bedrooms listening to records but now try and persuade them to do it … pictures of equipment: rock porn! … the swingback to Listening Parties and analogue recording … records as shining examples of the packaged goods business … “we need to regain control of our attention” … and the iTunes launch party and why Smashing Pumpkins thought they’d seen the future. Order Body Of Work in the UK here: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/keith-jopling/body-of-work-how-the-album-outplayed-the-algorithm-and-survived-playlist-culture And in the USA here: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/body-of-work-how-the-album-outplayed-the-algorithm-and-survived-playlist-culture/Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unredacted exchanges about the rock and roll underworld this week highlight the following … … real or made-up stars’ kids’ names: Speck Wildhorse? Blue Ivy? Everly Bear? Motorhead Michelob? … man plays drum solo with his head! … Olivia Dean, Lola Young, FKA Twigs: what do today’s ‘professionals’ learn at the BRIT School and what happened to the age of the amateurs? … why Joni Mitchell’s life was even more extraordinary before she was famous … Three Dog Night, Kiss, Grand Funk Railroad, Linda Ronstadt: American acts that never broke Britain … rude, racy, naughty, delightful: our love of old pulp paperbacks   … “Go to your room, young lady, and play a Nick Drake album in its entirety!” … and when Dandelion became Angela. Plus birthday guest Paul Higham and why most stars’ stories need a lively biographer.Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alexander Larman, author and critic who wrote 'Lazarus: The Second Coming Of David Bowie', unpacks Bowie’s late-career resurrection and mysterious final years. Conversation jumps from Tin Machine’s misunderstood reinvention to his collaborators like Eno and Visconti. They probe staged public moments, the 2004 heart attack’s impact and the gap between Bowie’s public persona and private life.

David Sinclair was a long-running rock critic for the Times, Rolling Stone and many others and now makes records himself. He looks back here at some of the first bands he saw and the extraordinary people he interviewed, which touches on … … the day Bowie took him to the Hammersmith Odeon to stand on the spot where he announced his retirement … Keith Richards’ dark side (and what he said about Lady Di) … interviewing Prince “who seemed like a shadow” … seeing Free in 1970: “I still think about it. Some bands are like footprints in fresh snow” … Hendrix on a bill with Cat Stevens and the Walker Brothers when he was 14 … singles he wore out in the days when you had to change the needle … his theory about the lyrics of Crossroads … “the Simon Templar of rock journalism” … the purgatory of being a serious musician when Spotify adds 100,000 new tracks a day … and the Shadows, the Scorpions, Sting, ZZ Top, David Coverdale and … Millstone Grit. David Sinclair’s music here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4oMczlXHj1pt6M4ZNGR14E?si=_9Dx_G_UQ3GifCFGFra07A To buy here: https://www.davidsinclairfour.com/shop Tickets to the 100 Club, May19: https://www.solidentertainments.com/100club/index.htmlHelp us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A lively ride through Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare’s studio dominance and why their rhythms reshaped records. A celebration of Catherine O’Hara’s comic humanity across films and TV. A chat about Springsteen speaking out with a new protest song. Tales of four-walling, stadium ticket madness, 1970s New York nostalgia, fandom’s resistance to artists’ new directions, and a surprise rap singalong.

Adele Bertei got a Greyhound to New York in 1977 intent on joining a band. James Chance thought she “looked like a pimp” and hired her as the organist in the Contortions, an instrument she couldn’t play. Her memoir No New York captures the most intoxicating times imaginable, the rise of Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Madonna and her fellow raft of No Wave cheerleaders in pursuit of dismantling music. Highlights include … … the local priest recommending the Velvet Underground when she was 11 … “imbibe and dream”: her weekend with Lester Bangs … the rubble-filled New York wasteland of 1977, landlords setting fire to property just to claim the insurance … the No Wave circuit: crowd violence and singers who either talked or screamed   .. her rivalry with Madonna: “our labels didn’t want people to know we were white” … the local Cleveland “Rust Belt” - Pere Ubu, Chrissie Hynde, Devo … why Warhol, Ginsberg and Burroughs seemed laughably outmoded … Brian Eno’s shopping list … the power of Tina Weymouth, Patti Smith and Debbie Harry (“sexy but with a snarl”) and why New York’s venues are internationally mythical. Order Adele Bertei’s ‘No New York’ here: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571386154-no-new-york/?srsltid=AfmBOor2IKVLRyzzZDisLz_8cTGDYIjDXphZVU9Lw5drAd4CdKR1KVhs Adele with Thomas Dolby on Whistle Test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ3bGioFCXUHelp us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steve Lillywhite, legendary record producer behind U2, The Rolling Stones and Siouxsie, reflects from his Bali ‘Lillypad’. He recounts starting as a tape-op at 17, early breakthroughs with Johnny Thunders and Siouxsie, his echo-heavy drum approach, fast live-tracking workflows, studio diplomacy tales, and why modern production feels more solitary and less dated by era.