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PODCAST

Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

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 late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those

music music commentary

All Episodes

46:12

The Skids, Big Country and the unsettling story of...

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/02/24

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 passage from Dunfermline to Nashville and Hawaii to get a sense of his demons and what drove and inspired him. He talks to us here about his compelling new memoir ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ and touches on …… hints of troubled family life in his early lyrics and the shadows of his father and grandfather… that famous three-word review:

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49:25

There are only three Rock National Treasures – and we...

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/02/22

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 instead of writing new ones?… “a temple of music and gothic lust:” would YOU buy Jim Steinman’s unsellable home?… when Madness played on the Buck House roof… Ptolomaic Terrascope? Aquarium Drunkard? Real and made-up music magazines… “too complicated, not catchy, like a high-minded think-piece”: U2’s Days Of Ash EP… when the Ramones invaded the London library… Rod,

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32:20

Andy Bown remembers the Herd, Judas Jump and 47 years...

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/02/10

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 released them. He talks to us here about “Out There” and life in the Herd, Judas Jump and Status Quo, which involves …… playing the Three Tuns in Beckenham with Bowie… “Foot gun, gun foot. I always tell the truth.”… Peter Frampton when he was The Face of ‘68… “we were earning £225 a night and got £15 a week. Where did the money go?”… Quo’s Whatever You

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38:46

How the album survived and why it satisfies the soul!

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/02/10

The album has had 25 years of being hammered by other formats – Napster, iTunes, Spotify, TikTok – and not only survived but thrived. For Keith Jopling it’s the irreplaceable way to hear music and to measure the people who make it. His new book Body Of Work celebrates its battle-scarred trajectory from the beating heart of pop culture to 21st Century affordable luxury, and stops off at …… growing up in the age of cassettes… his lifelong devotion to a Police album left on his doorstep… Adele’s battle

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47:26

Racy pulp paperbacks, teenage Joni and the BRIT...

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/02/08

Unredacted exchanges about the rock and roll underworld this week highlight the following …… real or made-up stars’ kids’ names: Speck Wildhorse? Blue Ivy? Everly Bear? Motorhead Michelob?… man plays drum solo with his head!… Olivia Dean, Lola Young, FKA Twigs: what do today’s ‘professionals’ learn at the BRIT School and what happened to the age of the amateurs?… why Joni Mitchell’s life was even more extraordinary before she was famous… Three Dog Night, Kiss, Grand Funk Railroad, Linda Ronstadt:

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39:26

David Bowie and the triumph, mystery and struggle of...

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/02/03

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. Alexander Larman’s ‘Lazarus: The Second Coming Of David Bowie’ looks at his resurrection and the mystery of his final days in Manhattan in attractively honest detail, a book that’s as fondly critical of his artistic decisions as it’s celebratory. Under discussion here …… ‘David Bowie was a fictional invention and much of his life an act’… how wrong so many

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1:02:16

Days with Bowie, Prince, the Stones, Hendrix & the...

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/02/02

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 of the first bands he saw and the extraordinary people he interviewed, which touches on …… the day Bowie took him to the Hammersmith Odeon to stand on the spot where he announced his retirement… Keith Richards’ dark side (and what he said about Lady Di)… interviewing Prince “who seemed like a shadow”… seeing Free in 1970: “I still think about it. Some

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52:26

Pet Shop Boys at 40, missing folk star found! & rock...

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/01/11

‘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 up the heat, alighting as it does upon the following …… Guns N’Roses and the imperial age of the pop video: director Nigel Dick remembers the $750,000 budget… ‘lost elfin Scots superstar’: missing Incredible String Band member found after 40 years!… comparing the original West End Girls to the re-made worldwide hit: “like a Top Of The Pops album doing

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56:24

From Dylan to Chappell Roan, pop’s 60-year obsession...

Word In Your Ear ·

2026/01/04

Cartwheeling into 2026 with the usual cast of rock and roll heroes and pantomime villains. Behind you this week you’ll find …… Boy George? Rick Wakeman? Chas Smash? Vanilla Ice? Pop stars who’ve done panto… will there ever be another Rock Knighthood?… Dylan, Elton, Chrissie Hynde and Lil Wayne mention Brigitte Bardot in songs: but who’s seen any of her films?… “the Brigitte Bardot idea of beauty was conceived at the same time as the idea of rock and roll”… Chris Rea’s obsession with Miles Davis –

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33:45

Peter Hammill, Van Der Graaf Generator and what makes...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/12/29

Peter Hammill has spent nearly six decades building the most devoted following imaginable – Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Mark E Smith among them. ‘Rock And Role’ tells his invigorating story, beautifully illustrated with photos, cuttings, artwork and memorabilia. Author Joe Banks looks back at his life, impact and captivating way with words, and stops off at …… the value of looks and charisma in the days when labels hadn’t the faintest idea of the future… how Hammill “created a world to live inside and

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59:09

Legendary duos who met by chance, RIP Mani & ironing...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/11/23

News, rants, theories and curios which this week includes ….… how Mani made the Stone Roses swing… Mick & Keith, Meg & Jack, Hall & Oates, Neil & Chris … ‘Sliding Doors’ encounters that changed the landscape… the glorious sound of profanity on records!… what makes you a legend in county music?… the subtle genius of Nicky Hopkins’ session work.. would Elvis have happened without Marion Keisker?… Willie Nelson – “a face like Mount Rushmore, a voice like the whole hinterland of

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35:59

Rock’s fascination with the Third Reich exposed by...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/11/14

Musicians have flirted with Nazi imagery since the ‘60s, lampooning its theatre, absorbing its style, exploiting its shock value, even promoting its ideology. Daniel Rachel’s new book ‘This Ain’t Rock ‘N’ Roll’ points up extraordinary examples – “from Tommy Steele to Kanye West” - and how our reaction intensified over the years. Which leads us to …… parallels between stadium rock and the Nuremberg rallies… hearing the Sex Pistols’ Belsen Was A Gas and seeing their Nazi insignia at the age of 12…

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34:45

Paul Weller – ‘gloriously chippy’ – as seen by...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/11/13

Dan Jennings’ podcast ‘Desperately Seeking Paul’ is so successful he’s used 250 of the interviews in a best-selling oral history. ‘Dancing Through The Fire’ has voices from right across the spectrum – family members, band members, writers, pluggers, label bosses, collaborators and famous fans. He talks to us here about …… Weller’s real name and when he changed it by deed poll… a theory about bands formed in towns not cities… the handbrake turn from the Jam to the Style Council – one minute the

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41:56

The Smiths’ Mike Joyce on triumph, gladioli &...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/11/02

Morrissey and Marr both wrote memoirs but Mike Joyce hasn’t read either, preferring to publish ‘The Drums’, his version of one of the great success stories of the ‘80s, a book about “the beauty we’d given to people – and to ourselves”. At one point he and Andy Rourke shout, ‘Where did it all go right?”. He looks back here at …… the fateful meeting in Geales fish bar when Johnny told them he was leaving – “none of us, not even Morrissey, saw it coming”… the first Smiths rehearsal and impressions of

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47:11

Records that sound unique and why all bands need a...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/26

Boarding this week’s giddy carousel of news, we ride the following ponies …… the Sliding Doors moment that made a ‘50s star a fortune… Soft Cell’s Dave Ball and the art of being the Other One in a pop duo… Bohemian Rhapsody, O Superman, I Feel Fine: records that sounded like nothing before them… what links the Prodigy, Wet Leg, Daft Punk and Donna Summer?… how all bands need a bad patch to make you appreciate the good ones… “the concept album is a good servant but a bad master”… Expensive =

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34:38

Billy Bragg – 40 years, 2,700 gigs and what he learnt...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/22

‘Billy Bragg: A People’s History’ is just out, a new and wholly original kind of memoir written by himself, friends, collaborators and fans, and packed with old snapshots, concert bills, reviews and ephemera. It’s very good indeed. He looks back here with us at …… meeting Taylor Swift – “and we both knew who the other was!”… a total of 2,700 gigs – “not counting prisons, In-Stores, Port-A-Stacks and picket lines”… old blokes trying to take selfies… finding old diaries in his archives and sensing how

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40:41

Mark Kermode tells us stories about music in movies

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/21

The Graduate, Trainspotting, Jaws, Star Wars, Citizen Kane – films you can’t picture without thinking of the music. Mark Kermode has been gripped by the marriage of movie and soundtrack since Dougal and the Blue Cat (aged 6) and, with Jenny Nelson, has just published ‘Surround Sound: the Stories of Movie Music’. We talk to him here about…… Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, Sofia Coppola, Edgar Wright: the new generation “who grew up with a headful of not just music, but records”… how John Williams is “the

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48:30

How many bands can you name every member of?

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/19

This week’s news put through the wringer and hung out to dry. On the line you’ll find …… Taylor Swift and Ophelia and other things pop videos turned into tourist attractions… the appeal of D’Angelo’s Voodoo: “he made albums with no disdain for the listener”…. David Hepworth and “the single most exciting thing that ever happened to me in my entire life”… bands whose story means more than their music… Nick Drake, Hendrix, Portishead, Nirvana: why three albums is the perfect back catalogue… when

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36:59

The Zombies’ Colin Blunstone – a psychedelic...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/17

The Zombies formed before the Stones and had huge hits with She’s Not There and Time Of The Season. Their baroque masterpiece Odessey and Oracle now gets ranked beside Revolver and Pet Sounds. Colin Blunstone has a solo tour in 2026 and looks back here in his wood-panelled den at the first shows he played, the people he met and being No 1 in America aged 19. This too …… when your career starts at 16 “and you think it’s over at 21”… seeing the Beatles at Luton Odeon and the Stones at Studio 51

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39:42

Led Zeppelin’s fight for attention and how they...

Word In Your Ear ·

2025/10/14

This lavish, beautifully designed collection of late ‘60s news stories, reviews and press clippings sheds new light on the band’s roots and ascent from the days when the Kidderminster Shuttle would spell their name wrong and print their parents’ address. Richard Morton Jack, author and compiler of ‘Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly’, looks back here at ….… the fact that there was already a group called ‘Lead Zeppelin’ in 1967… the way Page has fudged early details of his and the band’s career… why

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122 results

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