This week’s theories, rants, ruminations, recollections, weak gags and free and frank exchanges of view alight upon the following …
… is pop music now all about identity?
…. the recording of the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun and other apocryphal tales.
… has any act been as ubiquitous since Frankie Goes to Hollywood in 1984?
… or has anyone inspired a greater level of personal devotion than Taylor Swift?
… Peter Green, a shotgun and his accountant.
… books bought but never read.
.. re-reading Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity and the changing benchmarks for good and bad musical taste.
… intriguing parallels between the book and record industries.
… and Neil Tennant braves the digital lynch-mob.
Plus Adam Clayton’s garden, Konstantin Chernenko, Richard Burton, Rebel Wilson, Dark Academia, creepy weepies and birthday guest John Montagna looks at singles by the same act that are ‘descendants’ – ie pretty much identical – eg the Monkees’ Teardrop City and Last Train To Clarksville, the Kinks’ You Really Got Me and All Day And All of the Night and Mark Knopfler’s Cannibals and Walk Of Life. Or just try the first few seconds of these four by the Inkspots – Maybe, I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire, If I Didn’t Care and Whispering Grass.
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Get bonus content on PatreonHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Guy Chambers - writing with Robbie, a tangle with Bowie & half a bagel with Paul McCartney
Alan Edwards, pop PR – ‘Bowie was like King Arthur and the Spice Girls like the Pistols’
Rock’s image-makers, men on dancefloors and why bands can’t act like bands anymore
Paul Carrack has seen it all – beat, soul, prog, pub rock, pop & the perfect ‘slow burn’ career.
Nige Tassell was so obsessed with Dexys he’s tracked down all 24 ex-members
Why Nick Mason’s “cottage industry” band plays just early Pink Floyd
Let It Be revisited, the wisdom of Steve Albini and a woeful tale about Steve Marriott
The genius of Little Feat, the Man with the Twang & pop’s greatest scandal in the making
Steve Diggle of the Buzzcocks remembers the day “a terrible beauty was born”
Harold Bronson of Rhino Records kept a 40-year rock and roll diary…
The “amniotic throb” of modern pop, the eternal life of the Top Gear theme and the Blue Nile’s lucky break
Hollywood Babylon, the inspired gimmickry of Catch A Fire and the luck of Ron Wood
Neil Tennant remembers life “with dyed red Bowie hair and clattering platforms”
Richard Thompson – “you know it’s time to go when the audience starts throwing chairs”
Neil Tennant remembers the pop press and “the last great era of forward-looking songs"
The Stones’ clothes, our love affair with Abba & rock’s most appalling spectacle
Big Characters we have loved and why the Clash wouldn’t last ten minutes in 2024
How Paul Cook broke into Hammersmith Odeon to see the Who, Slade, Queen & Alex Harvey
Sharleen Spiteri saw Joe Strummer onstage and thought “that’s what I want to be”
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Superfancast
Derringer Discoveries - A Music Adventure Podcast
One Song
R&B Money
Bandsplain