Song Exploder
Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Each episode features an artist discussing a song of theirs, breaking down the sounds and ideas that went into the writing and recording. Hosted and produced by Hrishikesh Hirway.
Episodes (51)
Sam Fender - People Watching
Sam Fender is a singer and songwriter from the town of North Shields in England. He won the Brit Award for Best Rock/Alternative Act twice. His most recent album is called People Watching, and just...
Key Change: Jia Tolentino on "I Love You Always Forever"
My guest today is Jia Tolentino. Jia is the author of the essay collection Trick Mirror, which was named one of the best books of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Paris Review, and...
Jay Som - Tenderness
Melina Duterte goes by the name Jay Som. She’s a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. She’s released three albums as Jay Som, and has produced, engineered, and mixed each one.Her third...
Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin Down
Fall Out Boy is a band from Chicago that formed in 2001. Their first album, Take This To Your Grave, was a hit, especially in the punk rock world. When they put out their second album, though, in...
Gigi Perez - Sailor Song
Gigi Perez is a singer and songwriter from Florida, and at 25 years old, she’s already had so many ups and downs in her music career. She started sharing her songs on TikTok, where they got enough...
Key Change: Jason Schwartzman on the ‘Rushmore’ soundtrack
Jason Schwartzman, actor, songwriter, and musician, talks about how the soundtrack to 'Rushmore'—his first film—changed his life. I met Jason briefly in 2017, as he was leaving the room where I was...
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, and by the time 1998 rolled around, they’d already had a pretty successful career. They’d released five albums, and one of their songs, “Name,” from...
Little Simz - Free
Little Simz is a rapper from England who put out her first album in 2015. She’s won the Mercury Prize, a Brit Award, and three MOBO awards. She also starred in the Netflix series Top Boy. Her most...
Key Change: Shirley Manson on Siouxsie and the Banshees
My guest today is Shirley Manson. Since 1994, she’s been the lead singer of the band Garbage, and she is a bona fide rock icon. The two of us worked together on a different podcast called The Jump,...
Anohni - 4 Degrees
Anohni is a singer and songwriter originally from England, who started putting out music in 2000. She’s released 6 albums, and won the Mercury Prize. She’s also been nominated for two Brit Awards, and...
Jeff Tweedy - How to Write One Song
In June 2024, I got to go to the Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Massachusetts, which is organized by the band Wilco. I performed some of my new songs, and I got to interview Jeff Tweedy, the...
Lorde - Sober
Lorde is a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and producer. Her second album, Melodrama, debuted at number one on the charts in June 2017 – five months before her 21st birthday. In this episode,...
Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Tears for Fears is a duo formed in 1981 in Bath, England by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. They’ve sold over 30 million albums, starting with their first, The Hurting, which went to number one in the...
Lizzo - Still Bad
Lizzo is a Grammy- and Emmy-winning singer, rapper, songwriter, and actress. She’s been putting out music since 2013, and her last two albums both went platinum. Her fifth album, Love In Real Life,...
Key Change: Samin Nosrat on Ani DiFranco
My guest today is my friend Samin Nosrat, the author of the bestselling, award-winning cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat, and the host and executive producer of the hit Netflix show that's based on it. Her...
MJ Lenderman - You Don't Know The Shape I'm In
Jake Lenderman plays and records under the name MJ Lenderman. He put out his first album in 2019. In addition to his solo work, he’s been a member of the band Wednesday, and he’s also featured on the...
Key Change: James Acaster on OutKast
My guest today is James Acaster, a comedian, author, musician, and interviewer. He's filmed comedy specials for HBO and Netflix, which are hilarious and high concept. His musical project, Temps, has...
Lucy Dacus - Thumbs
Lucy Dacus is a singer and songwriter from Richmond, Virginia. She put out her first album in 2016, and in 2018 she formed the band Boygenius with Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers. In June 2021, she...
Theodore Shapiro - Severance (Main Title Theme)
The TV show Severance debuted on Apple TV+ in February 2022. It was created by writer Dan Erickson, and developed into a series by director and executive producer Ben Stiller. He directed the pilot...
Key Change: Hanif Abdurraqib on The Clash
My guest today is Hanif Abdurraqib, a poet, cultural critic, and New York Times bestselling author of books like They Can't Kill us Until They Kill Us, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called...
Sasami - In Love With A Memory (feat. Clairo)
Sasami is a singer, songwriter and producer who grew up in Los Angeles. But now she’s based in Northern California, and as you’ll hear in this episode, that’s significant. Sasami went to school for...
of Montreal - Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games
Kevin Barnes started of Montreal in 1996 in Athens, Georgia. The Sunlandic Twins came out in 2005; it was their seventh album. And I remember when that album came out, how it felt like they were...
Key Change: Sophie Thatcher on Elliott Smith
Key Change is a new conversation series within Song Exploder, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that's transformed them.My first guest is Sophie Thatcher, an actor and musician whose...
Yola - Symphony
Yola is a singer/songwriter and actress. She released her solo debut album in 2019, which was nominated for 4 Grammys, including Best New Artist and Best Americana Album, and Rolling Stone named it...
Adrianne Lenker - Sadness As a Gift
Adrianne Lenker is a singer and songwriter. She’s the lead singer of the critically acclaimed and beloved band Big Thief, and her work as a solo artist is also critically acclaimed and beloved. Her...
Sabrina Carpenter - Please Please Please
Sabrina Carpenter is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She had a huge year with her album Short N Sweet, which came out in August 2024. It debuted at #1, and went platinum within a month. At the...
Gracie Abrams - I Love You, I'm Sorry
Gracie Abrams is a singer and songwriter from Los Angeles. She started putting out music in 2020, and in June 2024, she put out her second album, The Secret of Us. She was nominated for a Grammy for...
Waxahatchee - Fire
Katie Crutchfield is a singer and songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama. She’s been making music under the name Waxahatchee since 2010. Her fifth album, Saint Cloud, came out this past March. Pitchfork...
Le Tigre - Deceptacon
Le Tigre originally formed in 1998. They released their self-titled debut album in October 1999. Spin Magazine called it one of the best albums of the past 30 years, and Pitchfork called it one of the...
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Our House
In 1968, singer and songwriter Graham Nash joined David Crosby and Stephen Stills to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. All of them had already been in successful bands: Graham Nash had...
Pharrell Williams - Piece By Piece
Pharrell Williams is—well, let me just say, he’s a big reason why Song Exploder exists. He’s a singer, songwriter and producer, and in the 90s, when I first heard the work that he was doing with the...
Jon Batiste - We Are
Jon Batiste is a pianist, songwriter, and composer from New Orleans. He’s been nominated for multiple Grammys, and just won the Golden Globe and got an Oscar nomination for the soundtrack to the Pixar...
Troye Sivan - One of Your Girls
Troye Sivan is a singer and songwriter from Australia. He’s been nominated for a Golden Globe, two Grammys, and he’s won four of Australia’s ARIA awards. His song “My My My!” was a #1 hit on the...
Beabadoobee - Coming Home
Beabadoobee is an award-winning singer and songwriter from England who’s been releasing music since 2017. Her third album is called This Is How Tomorrow Moves. It came out in August 2024 and went to...
Remi Wolf - Soup
Remi Wolf is a singer and songwriter originally from Palo Alto, California. She’s been releasing music since 2019. She performed at Coachella in 2023, and has toured with Olivia Rodrigo, Lorde, and...
Sam Smith - Stay With Me
Sam Smith is a Grammy and Oscar-winning singer and songwriter from London, England. Their first album, In the Lonely Hour, came out in 2014. It went quintuple platinum in the US, and the biggest hit...
Fenne Lily - Lights Light Up
Fenne Lily is a singer and songwriter from Dorset, England. She released her first album in 2018, but I didn’t find her music until 2023, when she put out her third album, Big Picture. The album she...
Vagabon - Water Me Down
Last year, Vagabon released her third album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, which I’ve been listening to a lot. So I wanted to revisit an episode that I recorded with her back in 2020, about her breakout...
Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
Crowded House formed in 1985 in Melbourne, Australia. They’ve released eight albums, including their most recent one, Gravity Stairs, which came out last month. But on their very first album, they had...
Lizzy McAlpine - Staying
Lizzy McAlpine released her first album in 2020, and her second album in 2022. And between the two, she’s had a lot of success. One of her songs, "Ceilings," was a viral TikTok hit, and has been...
The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize??
The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983. Over the last four decades, they’ve put out 16 albums. In 1999, they put out their album The Soft Bulletin, and that brought them a new level of...
Arooj Aftab - Mohabbat
One of the songs I keep coming back to is “Mohabbat” by Arooj Aftab. It’s really special to me. I listen to it all the time. I’ve been listening to it so often that I wanted to revisit Arooj's episode...
War - Low Rider
The band War formed in 1969, in Long Beach, California. “Low Rider” is from their 1975 album Why Can’t We Be Friends? The song was a hit as soon as it came out. It went to #1 on the Billboard R&B...
Shania Twain - You're Still The One
Shania Twain is a singer and songwriter from Ontario, Canada. She’s the only female artist to have had three consecutive Diamond albums — albums that have sold over ten million copies. Actually, her...
Danny Brown - Y.B.P. (feat. Bruiser Wolf)
Danny Brown started his career in 2007 by handing out mixtapes in Detroit, where he’s from. In 2011, he put out his acclaimed second album, XXX. Since then, he’s collaborated with rappers like...
Rhiannon Giddens - You Louisiana Man
Rhiannon Giddens has released five solo albums since 2015. Before that, she was a member of the Grammy-winning band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. She is now also the artistic director of the Silkroad...
Arlo Parks - Black Dog
I wanted to revisit an episode about one of my favorite songs from 2021, “Black Dog” by Arlo Parks. A few months after this episode originally came out, Arlo Parks won the Mercury Prize for Album of...
Green Day - Basket Case
Green Day is a punk band from the East Bay in California. Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool have been playing music together since 1987. They’ve sold over 90 million records. They’ve won...
The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Deluxe Anniversary Edition)
The first episode of Song Exploder, about The Postal Service song "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight," came out 10 years ago, in January 2014. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the podcast, we're...
Foo Fighters - The Teacher
For the last episode of the year, I got the chance to drive up to Northridge, California, and have a conversation with Dave Grohl. We talked about the Foo Fighters song “The Teacher,” which is an...
Raye - Escapism (feat. 070 Shake)
Raye is a singer, songwriter and producer from London. Besides being an artist in her own right, she’s also been a songwriter for other artists since she was a teenager. She’s co-written songs for...
About this Podcast
Copyright
© Translucence
Language
en
Categories
Music