Word In Your Ear
Detalls del Canal
Word In Your Ear
Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1.Over thirteen years ago, when working on the la...
Episodis Recents
929 episodis
Shaun & Bez and other Odd Couples we love
Pointing the scanner of inquiry at the baggage carousel of news to see what gets the lights flashing, which this week includes …
… we kn...
The Kinks’ chaotic ascent mapped out day-by-day is ‘a nirvana for any fan’
A gorgeous and lavish new publication tells the story of the Kinks in the ‘60s via the key events in their unsteady trajectory plus concert bills, let...
How A Hard Day’s Night ripped up the pop movie rulebook
Author and broadcaster Samira Ahmed used to watch A Hard Day’s Night once a week and she’s just written an enthralling account of the shoot and its im...
Bob Dylan and the Beatles, a tale of envy, affection and intense rivalry
Bob Dylan and the Beatles watched each other closely. Jim Windolf is fascinated by the parallels in their stories, the obvious moments they influenced...
Mark Lewisohn and why writing the real Beatles story just got harder
Mark Lewisohn began his Beatles’ trilogy in 2003, the first volume appearing ten years later. He’s hoping the second, Turn On, which covers 1963 to 19...
Albums we bought because we liked the title
Spinning sides at the conversational disco to see what fills the dancefloor, which this week includes …
… Jerry Garcia had seven fingers...
How Glenn Tilbrook transformed the life of Squeeze
Glenn Tilbrook wrote an album with Chris Difford about a futuristic nightclub when they were teenagers and, 52 years later, they’ve recorded it and ar...
The Skids, Big Country and the unsettling story of Stuart Adamson
Stuart Adamson co-founded the Skids and Big Country but was profoundly ill-suited to the spoils of his success. Author Scott Rowley unpacks his passag...
There are only three Rock National Treasures – and we name them!
Our ‘big air’ manoeuvres on the rock and roll ski jump this week land the following tricks …
… why don’t we re-use old protest songs ins...
Keith & Chuck, Bowie & Tina, Frank & Elvis and what we learnt from rock’s joint ventures
Some shared stages. Some made records and films together. Some had love affairs. Matt Thorne is fascinated by stars’ collaborations and what they reve...
Boston, Def Leppard, bad hair & the golden age of rock radio
Paul Rees fell in love with AOR when it began with Boston in 1976, the polished, ramped-up hits that were briefly the music of the American heartland....
Was Bad Bunny at the Superbowl the greatest show ever staged?
After 40 days of relentless rain, you need our little ray of sunshine. And here we all are! Sitting in the rock’n’roll rainbow this week you’ll find …...
Andy Bown remembers the Herd, Judas Jump and 47 years in Status Quo
Andy Bown found the 20 year-old recordings of “a deep-space love story” he’d written with the sci-fi author Russell Hoban and he’s just reworked and r...
How the album survived and why it satisfies the soul!
The album has had 25 years of being hammered by other formats – Napster, iTunes, Spotify, TikTok – and not only survived but thrived. For Keith Joplin...
Racy pulp paperbacks, teenage Joni and the BRIT School versus the age of the amateurs
Unredacted exchanges about the rock and roll underworld this week highlight the following …
… real or made-up stars’ kids’ names: Speck...
David Bowie and the triumph, mystery and struggle of his third act
Bowie’s early years have been scrutinised repeatedly but people tend to speed through the last act, from the early ‘90s to his death in 2016. Alexande...
Days with Bowie, Prince, the Stones, Hendrix & the Clash by David Sinclair
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 o...
The genius of Sly Dunbar & Catherine O’Hara plus Springsteen’s anthem and old New York
A bone-shaking ride on the weekly news cycle, stopping off here to pump up the tyres ….
… Springsteen’s Streets Of Minneapolis: it’s not...
Adele Bertei, New York’s art-rock explosion and Eno’s shopping list
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...
Steve Lillywhite produced the Stones, U2, Siouxsie, XTC - ‘the last leg of the relay’
Steve Lillywhite first got a foot in the studio door aged 17 making demos for Ultravox and became a producer with credits on over 500 records. He does...
Who’d be a nepo baby? plus the mystery album that outsold the Beatles
Scanning the baggage carousel of news to see what sets off the alarm, which this week involves …
… Springsteen: why is America’s most...
Simon Nicol of Fairport Convention, back in the van with a bag of toffees
Fairport tour again in 2026 and are playing their annual Cropredy Convention in August, its 50th year. The rolling Kent landscape behind him, co-found...
Miles Hunt of the Wonder Stuff - ‘I’d rather make people laugh than applaud’
Miles Hunt is on tour in 2026 – solo, with Vent 414 and the Wonder Stuff - and looks back here at his 40 years on stage, which involves …
Kenney Jones remembers the Small Faces’ masterpiece
Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake is being reissued on Kenney Jones’ Nice Records, along with unheard outtakes discovered when the original master was found in o...
The fabulous Bob Weir and how the Grateful Dead invented the internet
A tie-dyed-in-the-wool rock & roll space odyssey to infinity and beyond which stops off this week at …
… why the Dead’s music was “like...
Steve Cradock on Ocean Colour Scene, Mod hair & the ghost of Ronnie Lane
Steve Cradock’s touring with Ocean Colour Scene in 2026 and in his own show, Travellers Tunes, with his wife and son Steve – “we’re like the Von Trapp...
Mary Coughlan, onstage from the age of five - ‘Applause and lemonade!’
Mary Coughlan – aka “Ireland’s Billie Holiday”, adored by Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan and Elvis Costello - is on tour again in 2026. This warm, funny an...
Pet Shop Boys at 40, missing folk star found! & rock stars’ childhood bedrooms
‘January,’ a revered pop lyricist once wrote, ‘sick and tired you've been hanging on me.’ And if that’s the mood down your way, this might help crank...
From Dylan to Chappell Roan, pop’s 60-year obsession with Brigitte Bardot
Cartwheeling into 2026 with the usual cast of rock and roll heroes and pantomime villains. Behind you this week you’ll find …
… Boy Geor...
Peter Hammill, Van Der Graaf Generator and what makes them unique
Peter Hammill has spent nearly six decades building the most devoted following imaginable – Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Mark E Smith among them. ‘Rock An...
Do all panned albums end up loved? And what’s the most significant record sleeve?
Deck the halls with cheese and Bolly! … and a dish of the usual rock and roll distraction which this week throws the following logs on the fire …
Paul Kelly – ‘national treasure!’ - and the song that took 30 years
Beloved Australian songwriter Paul Kelly has just turned 70 – “it sounds Biblical, threescore years and ten.” He looks back here at the road he took t...
Lucinda Williams is fighting on every front
Lucinda Williams was a teenage activist singing We Shall Overcome at protest marches and she’s taken up the cudgels again on her new album World’s Gon...
Beastie Boys, Frankie, teds, punks, raves - ‘moral panics’ remembered!
Shock, horror, public outcry and moments of moral turpitude plus with the usual news, rants and old hokum, which this week alights upon …
Punk Rock recalled by Chris Sullivan - can music STILL be outrageous?
What’s the word ‘punk’ come to mean 50 years later? It’s been adopted by the very people it sought to unsettle. Chris Sullivan – DJ, club runner, lect...
UK Subs’ Charlie Harper (81) has served 50 years in the punk wars. Give this man a medal!
UK Subs formed in 1976 when Charlie Harper was 32. They’ve had over 80 members, some of whom he can’t remember. They never split up and are touring in...
Fairytale of New York's full story & the imperishable genius of Steve Cropper
The boys of the NYPD choir are still singing Galway Bay, so pour yourself a measure of the Rare Old Mountain Dew and warm your toes on the following …...
The Beatles versus Capitol Records and ‘the greatest marketing hype in history’
In 1963, Capitol Records considered the Beatles “a band who looked and sounded weird with an odd name and no leader” and refused to release their reco...
The Undertones are 50! And no-one’s more amazed than Damian O’Neill
Glorious news! The Undertones, dependable symbols of eternal youth, are setting out on a 50th anniversary tour in 2026, still playing Teenage Kicks an...
Jimmy Cliff, unseen Beatles and the greatest bassline on record!
Twenty pounds of headlines plus rants, theories and the odd slice of old hokum: served hot. Which this week involves …
… Jimmy Cliff and...