Lost Notes: Groupies - Podcast Rankings and reviews

Nevermind the haters and reactionary reviews- this was nuanced, well considered storytelling that didn’t reduce its subjects to victims but also didn’t totally gloss over the tragic aspects of the scene. Narrators felt rooted in LA history.

I just started listening. I love the stories. These stories were the background of my youth in the 1970s. David Bowie and Led Zeppelin were at rock god level. Our lives revolved around when the next album would come out or concert dates. The stories about the groupies gives you the background information that was barely mentioned, even in publications like The Rolling Stone. I had no idea how young and bold and creative these girls were. So interesting.
I liked the story about the ‘Louie Louie” song. Who knew about that crazy controversy of “the dirtiest song” 😂😂
Get this podcast! You’ll love it!

I started listening because of Joy Division. The host has a great voice, is very professional, and has scoured to world of music from this very special time. So many music genres were born in 1980 and he weaves a great story around each of them. Many are not my style, but its all fascinating.

Hooked immediately from the first episode I listened to. Excellent hosts and super interesting, educational material. I’ll be binging this ASAP.

I read “I’m with the band“ when it first came out as a memoir because I’m interested in pop memoir. I was troubled by the tone of this podcast making this particular moment “fun.“ I agree with the reviewers who take issue with the notion that the groupies self empowered young women. They fashioned themselves that way and the podcast bought into that delusion. Yes, there’s a layer of fun and self discovery, but I think the bigger story is much darker. I wanted to explore questions I had when I read the memoir, why was she so obsessively pursuing rock ‘n’ roll musicians? What role in general did young women/groupies play in rock ‘n’ roll culture? Why did they think their self presentation was innocent and playful when it clearly wasn’t to their male audience. In the 60s and 70s as in the decades that followed they were preyed upon and yet they did exploit their sexuality and fashioned themselves to attract the male gaze. Let’s explore those contradictions please.

I like all of the concepts for each episode but the stories are so poorly executed that it’s hard to follow. For the Stevie Wonder podcast, how do they end up spending 90% of the episode gassing Stevie up instead of discussing actual facts/ historic influences? Seems the host is obsessed with how others “ripped off” of these artists but gives little to no examples of how this actually occurred.