Word In Your Ear

Jon Savage loathed the 1976 singles chart so he’s made an album of should-have-been hits

Jon Savage detested the UK’s mid-‘70s hits with a vengeance, “records so bad they made you want to strangle every deejay on Radio One, especially Dave Lee Travis”. Which

Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece and the daft, chequered history of Ties In Rock!

The two-man conversational canoe paddles the rock and roll tideway, stopping off this week at … … Van Morrison’s set-opener is Kidney Stew Blues by Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vin

Why can’t brothers in bands ever get along?

While Mark Ellen visits his Scottish estates, David Hepworth and Alex Gold keep the home fires burning with a wide-ranging conversation, taking in: •⁠ ⁠why every band co

Sid Griffin: the Long Ryders leader laughs at the absurdity of teenage life!

A whole new format we’ve invented for people who’ve been guests before and were so entertaining we wanted them back. So we’ve devised some random questions to spark a few

An Indie Sleaze special! – up and down with the Strokes, Libertines and Arctic Monkeys

“Good hair, good shoes, something to say” were the requirements of Indie Sleaze whose vanguard lit up the fading music press in the first decade of the 21st Century – act

Nicky Hopkins’ hidden genius, the Oasis film and the best songs about rain

This week’s news in three separate files - the Good, the Bad and the Befuddling. Which involves …   … have Oasis created their own economy?   … are stadium gigs now l

Clint Boon saw Manchester lift off twice and auditioned the young Noel Gallagher

Clint Boon was at the heart of “the two biggest musical revolutions of my lifetime” – as a teenager for Joy Division and Buzzcocks, and later the Stone Roses, Happy Monda

The Slits, a movie in waiting - “Marvel superheroes with their pants on the outside!”

The Slits burned very brightly – but briefly - and were gone, their bumpy and courageous tale crisply told in Zoë Howe’s updated ‘Typical Girls?’. She looks back here at

Shawn Colvin – songwriter, storyteller, urban cowgirl, singing waitress

Shawn Colvin was in the spotlight from the age of 10 playing her parents’ parties, singing in bars at college, acting off-Broadway and joining country swing bands before

The world’s greatest radio station! & things we loved about Dolly Parton

Passing the conversational Dutchie 'pon the left hand side, we fire up the following …   … “speech, not music, brings people together”   … if music gets ever broader,

Blur’s thrilling early years in words and pictures by Dave Rowntree

Dave Rowntree had a camera with him as Blur took off in the early ‘90s and his book ‘No-One You Know’ distils the thrill of a band in ascent – backstage, in studios, with

Natalie Merchant returns playing ‘Mother Goose as an 18th Century feminist’

Natalie Merchant joined 10,000 Maniacs when she was 17, had a long and successful solo career and then began teaching children in New York State. Realising the value of r

The Proclaimers know the exquisite delight of your songs being sung in football stadiums

The Proclaimers have only had a handful of hits but they’re songs that have kept expanding for nearly 40 years. And the World Cup was a reminder of how far they’ve reache

What are the great singles that have entered our bloodstream? “Nobody hums an album!”

The original rock podcast - now in its 20th year! – knocks the week’s news across the conversational net. Amid the top-spin, rallies and double-faults, you’ll find …  

Martin Simpson’s 60 years on the folk circuit ‘making people cry for a living’

Martin Simpson got backstage when he was 15 and met Jimmy Reed and Big Joe Williams and it changed his life forever. He’s been on the folk circuit ever since, still at th

The Shadows and the chequered tale of the first British rock’n’roll band

The Shadows were the strongest brand in British pop, adored and widely imitated. When they went out of fashion, no-one wanted them to change. Bob Stanley salutes their en

Stiff Records’ 50th birthday! – the farcical magnificent record label and why we adored it

Stuff, nonsense, the white heat of debate and yesterday’s news today! Which this week involves …   … which of these didn’t host a TV chat show – Ian Botham, Charlotte C

Elliott Smith, his life, his afterlife and the friends who believed in him

A sense of melancholy hangs over the music of songwriters whose lives were tragically short – Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Eva Cassidy, Judee Sill - and we’re left knowing v

How Kylie became the whole world’s sweetheart

Michael Cragg’s devotion to all things Kylie once led him to Melbourne in search of the actual carousel horse she rode in a pop video. He got a tattoo a day later. Can’t

Sandy Denny’s life and luminous talent celebrated by Linda Thompson

‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ has just been published, memories from fellow musicians, old friends, producers, writers, fans and admirers. Linda Thompson met her when