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PODCAST

How We Heard It

Veteran entertainment journalists, music columnists and longtime friends Wayne Bledsoe and Chuck Campbell host ”How We Heard It,” a breezy and sometimes offbeat take on how music and movies got to where they are today and where it’s all going. They break down who are the most promising Generation Z singers one minute and the next they debate who are the most overrated acts from the past. Sexy songs, soundtracks, controversies and weird movies find their way into the discussion, and they also weigh

music music commentary

All Episodes

81:36

These songs about rain are flooded with emotion, from...

How We Heard It ·

2026/04/18

We have a complicated relationship with rain.We need it to grow our crops, to keep our bodies of water at the right level and to hydrate our own bodies. But just as it gives us life, it can take it away with devastating floods and catastrophic drought. Yet rain is associated with far more than our physical needs. It touches off almost every kind of emotional reaction, varying from one person to the next. A gentle rain may bring feelings of cleansing refreshment, relaxation or a gloomy malaise. By

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85:10

Awesome artists made these awful songs!

How We Heard It ·

2026/04/11

Even the best of us have bad days - including your favorite musicians.That explains how top-shelf artists can produce a clunker of a song. We try to forget these songs, explain them away as somebody else's fault, justify them as an important learning moment, and maybe even claim that they aren't so bad when we know they are simply terrible. In this week's episode of "How We Heard It," the hosts drill down to the worst of the worst by the best of the best - including terrible songs by the likes of

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84:02

Why we hate these popular movies!

How We Heard It ·

2026/04/04

Every popular movie has a dedicated group of haters, whether it's the Oscar winner that few people saw, the critical favorite that left everyone depressed or the box-office smash with the formulaic plot and predictable ending.Although the hosts of "How We Heard It" consider themselves big movie fans, they have their limits. So in this week's episode they reveal what movies disappointed them, made them angry or actually prompted them to walk out of the theater or turn off the TV. Some of these

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92:18

What would we do if the world had no music?

How We Heard It ·

2026/03/28

What would we do without music?It's a question the hosts of "How We Heard It" hated to even contemplate. Would this mean we wouldn't have songbirds? Would we not hear the wind in the trees or the waves in the ocean? What about the rhythm of a heartbeat? Would humans not hum or whistle? Even if those elements were in play, imagine no concerts, no music at games or bars, no music to accompany driving or workouts, no music at weddings, church services or funerals. Then the hosts decided to modify the

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87:30

Here's why young people don't like "classic" rock or pop

How We Heard It ·

2026/03/21

Last week the hosts of "How We Heard It" explored the many reasons people stop listening to new music as they get older.The bottom line: New music speaks to us less and less as we age, our friends stop listening to new music so we don't have anyone to share the experience, we have less time to absorb new music, and our aging brains find new music difficult to process. (Myth: New music was better in our youth than it is today.) This week your hosts look at another major (though not quite as

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79:57

Why do we give up on new music as we age? (It's not...

How We Heard It ·

2026/03/14

Many of us fall in love with music around puberty and it plays an important part in our lives as we transition into adulthood, get through school and break out on our own.Music helps us shape our identity and bonds us with our friends. It's there when we're lonely or feeling isolated. It's there when we experience infatuations and find love. It consoles us when we lose love or suffer other kinds of heartbreak. The artists we most admire feel like an unofficial part of our families. But somewhere

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94:11

How we met ... and other memories triggered by music

How We Heard It ·

2026/03/07

In 2025 the hosts of "How We Heard It" decided to dig through their individual music collections just to see what they would find, and they turned up music they had long forgotten as well as music they didn't even know they had and music they didn't even recognize. And with many of the discoveries came memories of their pasts and realizations about the evolution of music and the changes in their individual tastes in music. They funneled their discoveries into an episode of the podcast in November,

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85:51

These are some of the best hooks in music history!

How We Heard It ·

2026/02/28

Every song's got to have a hook - or at least it does if you want it to be popular.A song can have the best vocalists, the best instrumentalists and the best lyrics, but unless it has a great hook, it'll never be all that it can be. And unlike words, voices and music, it's hard to articulate how hooks even work; they hit us on a primal level that can't fully be explained. The most common hook in popular music comes with a punch - for instance, it's often in the chorus, where the song's title is

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75:12

What music would you want on a deserted island?

How We Heard It ·

2026/02/21

It's a question we like to ask but one we usually can't confidently answer: What one album would you want with you on a deserted island?Forget the fact you aren't going to have electricity on a deserted island or any equipment that plays music. Never mind you might spend the rest of your life alone on this mysterious island. Your task is to narrow down all of music to just one album to entertain you while you live out the last of your days. On this week's episode of "How We Heard It," your hosts

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82:35

Here's why we hate these terrible love songs!

How We Heard It ·

2026/02/14

A great love song will warm your heart with its magic, stirring an internal passion that's hard to explain.A bad love song will make you cringe, laugh and/or yawn. And frankly, there are more bad love songs than good ones floating around out there in the music universe. Last year, the hosts of "How We Heard It" celebrated Valentine's Day by shaking out some of the best love songs in modern history, performed by artists who articulated the power of emotion and cast a spell with sound. This year,

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82:35

Here's a soundtrack for when your life is changing

How We Heard It ·

2026/02/07

Change is inevitable, so embrace it.OK, maybe it's not always as positive as all that. But change presents opportunity, and even if you dread it, you can usually find a silver lining to the dark cloud. Music can help with any kind of change. Naturally there are songs about embracing a new relationship and songs about moving on from a bad one. Yet music addresses everything from adopting a positive attitude to escaping an oppressive environment to facing down the grieving process. In this

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83:10

Ranking the movies: History's "biggest" films haven't...

How We Heard It ·

2026/01/31

Last time on "How We Heard It," your hosts looked at the top-selling music artists from the 1960s to the 2020s and ranked them, decade by decade. They debated, argued and came to some consensus as they considered all of music's biggest acts from the Beatles to Taylor Swift.This time around, they decided to rank the best and worst movies that were tops at the box office from the 1960s to the 2020s, and let's just say they were taken by surprise at just how much the film industry has changed over

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80:48

These are the best, and worst, top-selling music acts...

How We Heard It ·

2026/01/24

Like all good music nerds, the hosts of "How We Heard It" frequently advocate for lesser-known acts they think deserve more attention.But Wayne, Chuck and John like to balance the podcast by also talking about the biggest names through the years, and in this episode they talk about the most popular of them all, ranking them against each other. The premise: The guys explore the top-10-selling music acts from each decade, from the 1960s to the 2020s, and they take turns picking their favorite act as

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85:19

Prediction: The Grammys are going to enrage a lot of...

How We Heard It ·

2026/01/17

It seems like forever ago that awards shows were a time to honor excellence. Now they've become an excuse to hate watch, an opportunity to tear apart artists for what they wear, what they say and even how they look at each other.Coming off a particularly contentious 2025 around the world, the upcoming Grammy Awards will certainly tick off a lot of viewers. For starters, these days we just get mad at everybody all the time for everything anyway. What's more, there are raw nerves out there about any

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79:22

Songs for the dead of winter! (It's more complicated...

How We Heard It ·

2026/01/10

Here we are again, the least popular time of year for the most of us.The year-end holidays have passed, and spring is still months away. Oh, and it's the darkest and coldest time of the year, too - because why wouldn't it be? Some of us go dormant like plants this time of year, insulating ourselves and enduring the season with introspection and maybe a touch of seasonal depression. Others go on a more positive spin, taking time to detox and find spiritual rebirth. And of course some people actually

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85:55

Will AI fix music ... or destroy it?

How We Heard It ·

2026/01/03

As Artificial Intelligence continues its relentless spread into so many parts of all of our lives, it seems like all we can do is sit back with a mix of hope and dread and wonder where this is all going.We know we can't trust anything on social media anymore - be it photos, audio or video - though we see that many of our friends are susceptible to just about anything. Meanwhile, we may be uncomfortable with how much the electronic devices around us know about us thanks to AI, and who hasn't felt

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79:11

Here's why 2025 didn't totally suck

How We Heard It ·

2025/12/27

2025 won't be remembered as the year for love, peace and harmony.War and military attacks were happening everywhere - from the Ukraine to the Middle East to Venezuela to Nigeria. Natural disasters like wildfires and floods swept the U.S. And not only did we lose beloved celebrities like Diane Keaton, Robert Redford and Ozzy Osbourne, other popular figures - from Rob and Michele Reiner to Charlie Kirk to Melissa and Mark Hortman - died in devastating ways that shocked the world. Political

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79:08

What does your music collection say about you?

How We Heard It ·

2025/12/20

Everyone with a physical music collection - you know, stuff you can hold in your hands like albums and compact discs - has had to decide how to store it all.Organized fans often arrange their collections alphabetically and/or chronologically and/or by popularity. Less organized fans find it harder to keep up with what they have and find what they want when they want it. For veteran music journalists like Wayne Bledsoe and Chuck Campbell, who have each amassed thousands of albums and CDs over the

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90:45

These strange songs came out of nowhere!

How We Heard It ·

2025/12/13

You never see them coming, and yet they never stop coming.From the beginning of popular music to today, offbeat songs just keep pushing into our consciousness. As much as we’re conditioned to respond to formula-based songs that fit into established genres, the outliers just keep catching our attention and burrowing into our brains. Over the decades, there’s been a singing nun and chanting monks, weird mini-musicals from the likes of Queen and Paul McCartney, unlikely foreign-language acts promoting

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82:00

Here’s our (satirical?) gift list for your favorite...

How We Heard It ·

2025/12/06

Snappy holidays, y’all!The snarky Santas of “How We Heard It” have been making a list of what the biggest names in modern music should get for their behavior this year. We’re not talking about golf clubs and spa days. Instead, these are intangible gifts the artists need, even if they don’t realize it. Your hosts bounce from sarcasm to sincerity as they distribute their tidings on naughty and nice performers from across genres and age groups, including young pop stars like Benson Boone and Olivia

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