All Summaries for Song Exploder

This summer, in June 2023, Janelle Monáe put out her fourth album, The Age of Pleasure. Listening to it made me want to revisit her Song Exploder episode, from 2018. One thing on Song Exploder that I personally love is when we get to hear an artist’s raw voice memo, from the moment when they’re first coming up with a song idea. This episode has one of my all-time favorites. Janelle Monáe is an award-winning musician and actress who released her first record in 2007. She’s been nominated for multiple Grammys, and she starred in the Oscar films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. In April 2018, she released her third album, Dirty Computer, which includes this song, “So Afraid.” In this episode, Janelle Monáe takes “So Afraid” apart, to explain how she built it, step by step—beginning with a trip to the dentist. For more, visit songexploder.net/janelle-monae.

The "Skip Intro" button first got introduced to us through Netflix in 2017, and, I know, a lot of people use it – including me. But, if I can get into old-man, back-in-my-day mode for a second, I have so much fondness for the opening theme music for so many shows. It’s a chance to set the mood for everything that you’re about to see. One of the intros that I never skip is the animated opening title sequence for Only Murders in the Building, which is a Hulu show that debuted in August 2021, and now is in its third season. It was created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, and it stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. The three of them play neighbors who live in the same building in New York, and they’re all obsessed with the same true crime podcast. And then when someone in their building gets murdered, they decide to start their own true crime podcast, and try and solve the mystery of who the killer is. For this episode, I talked to the show’s composer, Siddhartha Khosla, about the show’s theme music. Coming up, you’ll hear a voice memo that Siddhartha recorded before he’d even heard about the show, which then led to a demo that you’ll hear, and eventually, the final theme. For more, visit songexploder.net/only-murders-in-the-building.

It can be hard to be in a band, or really, in any kind of group where there’s creative collaboration, and you’re supposed to act like it's a democracy. Because what do you do with an idea that you love, if nobody else believes in it? That question is a big part of this episode with Local Natives. Local Natives is a band from Southern California. Their first album came out in 2009, but the three vocalists and songwriters in the band, Taylor Rice, Kelcey Ayer, and Ryan Hahn – they’ve been playing together since they were in high school. The lineup also includes Matthew Frazier on drums and Nik Ewing on bass. They’ve put out five albums, including their most recent, Time Will Wait For No One, which came out in July 2023. But for this episode, I talked to Taylor, Kelcey, and Ryan about an older song of theirs: “Dark Days,” which came out in 2016. It’s their biggest song to date; it has over 100 million streams, and it's been certified gold.  It’s a duet with Swedish singer Nina Persson, from The Cardigans. In  2020, they put out a new version of the song, featuring Amelia Meath from the band Sylvan Esso. I talked to the guys here in the studio, and to Amelia Meath remotely. And together, they told me the seven-year story of how “Dark Days,” was first made and then eventually remade. For more, visit songexploder.net/local-natives.

This week, I wanted to go back and revisit an older episode. I recorded an interview with singer and songwriter Julien Baker in 2018. It was a few months after her second album came out. Since then, she’s put out another solo album, called Little Oblivions, which was critically acclaimed. And now she’s also a member of boygenius, which is the supergroup made up of Julien, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus. They’ve put out an EP and then, earlier this year, they put out their first full-length. Julien is a really interesting artist, and I think her songwriting is just heartbreaking, especially the song she takes apart for her episode. Here it is: Julien Baker is from Memphis, Tennessee. She released her second album, Turn Out The Lights, in October 2017, on Matador Records. The New York Times called her music "devastating" and Pitchfork gave the album Best New Music. In this episode, Julien tells the story of her song "Appointments," and how writing it helped her work through her thoughts around addiction, depression, and relationships. Julien also takes apart the track “Over,” which was written as part of “Appointments,” but then split off as a separate track. For more, visit songexploder.net/julien-baker.

Feist is a singer/songwriter from Canada. She put out her first solo album in 1999. She’s won 11 Juno awards, including two for Artist of the Year, and she has four Grammy nominations. She’s also been a member of the band Broken Social Scene since 2001. In April 2023, Feist put out her sixth album, Multitudes. And for this episode, I talked to her about how she made the opening song from that album, called “In Lightning.” For more, visit songexploder.net/feist.

Madison McFerrin is a singer, songwriter, and producer from New York. She’s sung with legends like Aretha Franklin, George Clinton, and De La Soul & The Roots. Madison’s first EP came out in 2016, and last week, she released her debut album, I Hope You Can Forgive Me. In the years between the EP and the album, Madison started producing her own music. It wasn’t really her plan, but something that developed over the course of the pandemic. For this episode, I talked to Madison about a song from her album called “Run." It was inspired by the discovery that she’s the descendant of a woman who escaped slavery, and features guest vocals from Madison’s father, Grammy-winner Bobby McFerrin. For more, visit songexploder.net/madison-mcferrin.

In May 1980, the band Joy Division was devastated by the death of lead singer Ian Curtis. The three remaining band members, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris, decided they would keep making music together, and a few months later, Gillian Gilbert joined them. They called the band New Order. New Order is one of the most influential bands of the last four decades. Their song “Blue Monday" came out in 1983, and it holds the record for being the best-selling 12-inch single of all time. Rolling Stone put “Blue Monday” on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and Pitchfork included it in its top 5 best songs of the 1980s. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of “Blue Monday,” in this episode, New Order discusses how they created the song. This episode was produced in collaboration with Transmissions, the official New Order and Joy Division podcast produced by Cup and Nuzzle. We’ve put together this story out of the hours and hours of interviews they’ve recorded, along with a new interview I did with Peter Hook. As you’ll hear the four of them explain, nothing about Blue Monday’s success, or really, even its existence, was something that they planned for. For more, visit songexploder.net/new-order.

It’s usually hard to pin down when a genre of music starts. But people point to this one party in August 1973 in the Bronx as the moment where hip-hop was born. That makes this year the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. In honor of that, I wanted to revisit an episode looking back at one of hip-hop’s classic tracks: Shook Ones, Part II, by Mobb Deep. Here’s the episode, originally recorded in June, 2020, when I spoke to Havoc from Mobb Deep: The rappers Prodigy and Havoc met when they were still in high school in New York. Havoc grew up in Queensbridge, the biggest public housing projects in the country, and as a teenager, Prodigy lived there for a while, too. The two of them formed Mobb Deep in 1991. In 1995, they put out their second album, The Infamous. It was a success when it came out, but in the 25 years since then, the influence of the album has only grown. Complex named it one of the 10 best rap albums of the 90s, and Pitchfork gave the album a rare perfect score, 10 out of 10. The Washington Post called it a “masterpiece” of hardcore rap, and in Slate, it was called one of the best albums of the ‘90s, and one of the best hip-hop albums ever made. Their biggest song from the album was “Shook Ones, Pt. II.” Havoc made the now-legendary beat that he and Prodigy rap over. To celebrate the 25th anniversary, Havoc told me the story of how the whole song came together. Prodigy passed away in 2017, from complications due to sickle-cell anemia, a debilitating disease he’d battled his entire life. But the legacy of Mobb Deep lives on. For more, visit songexploder.net/mobb-deep.