A brief history of terrible lyrics (with Sam Sanders)
Why do bad lyrics happen to good people? From "suckin' on a chili dog" to "making love to his tonic and gin," even the biggest hits from our favorite artists can feature lyrical turns that make us fee...
12 Aug 202543min
Summer Bummer (with Commotion’s Elamin Abdelmahmoud)
Every music critic seems to agree: 2025 has no true song of summer. Last August, Teddy Swims’s “Lose Control” dominated the charts. This year…Teddy Swims’s “Lose Control” dominates the charts. What’s ...
5 Aug 202537min
Justin Bieber's Lo-fi Bedroom Swag
Justin Bieber is back with his seventh studio album: the aptly-titled SWAG. The lo-fi, reverb-laden record is a remarkably candid look inside the world of Bieber, using the palette of both underground...
29 Juli 202543min
How podcasting got its sound ft. Breakmaster Cylinder
What if the entire sound of modern podcasting can be traced back to a single Grateful Dead song uploaded in 2001? We uncover the musical lineage that connects NPR's classical gravitas to dubstep wobbl...
22 Juli 202546min
Is that new song you like AI? Here’s how you can tell
The robots have arrived, and they're making protest songs about boots on the ground. When an AI band called The Velvet Sundown fooled over a million Spotify listeners with their psychedelic folk anthe...
15 Juli 202549min
The Benson Boone-Doggle
In which we explore the unlikely rise, and surprising backlash against, one Benson Boone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
8 Juli 202532min
Can Recession Pop predict the market?
Why does the economy look great on paper but feel terrible in your wallet? There might be a more revealing economic indicator hiding in your Spotify queue. "Recession Pop" first emerged during the Gre...
1 Juli 202532min
How Americana helped mainstream country find its soul
As we've been examining over the course of Country Week, country music has found a larger audience, in part by widening its sonic palette. For the final episode of this series, we take a look at a gen...
27 Juni 202535min
