Kevin Barnes started of Montreal in 1996 in Athens, Georgia. The Sunlandic Twins came out in 2005; it was their seventh album. And I remember when that album came out, how it felt like they were suddenly everywhere. And the breakout song from that breakout album was “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games.” And so, for this episode, I spoke to Kevin Barnes about how that song came together, and what it meant to them then, and what it means to them now. For more info, visit songexploder.net/of...
Feb 05, 2025•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Key Change is a new conversation series within Song Exploder, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that's transformed them. My first guest is Sophie Thatcher , an actor and musician whose credits include starring in the TV show Yellowjackets , the film Heretic , and the new movie Companion . I met Sophie through Companion , because I composed the score to the film, and she contributes vocals to a few of the tracks I wrote. For this episode, we discussed how "Waltz #1" by Elliott Sm...
Jan 29, 2025•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yola is a singer/songwriter and actress. She released her solo debut album in 2019, which was nominated for 4 Grammys, including Best New Artist and Best Americana Album, and Rolling Stone named it one of the best country albums of the year. But the thing is, Yola’s music career wasn’t new, and her background wasn’t in country music. She’s from Bristol in the UK, and starting back in the early 2000s, she was a vocalist recording tracks for DJs and electronic music producers. In January 2025, Yol...
Jan 22, 2025•24 min•Ep 286•Transcript available on Metacast Adrianne Lenker is a singer and songwriter. She’s the lead singer of the critically acclaimed and beloved band Big Thief, and her work as a solo artist is also critically acclaimed and beloved. Her most recent solo album, Bright Future , was named one of the best albums of 2024 by the New Yorker, Stereogum, and more, and it was nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album. It was co-produced by Adrianne and longtime collaborator Phil Weinrobe. And I talked to the two of them about the making of on...
Jan 08, 2025•26 min•Ep 285•Transcript available on Metacast Sabrina Carpenter is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She had a huge year with her album Short N Sweet , which came out in August 2024. It debuted at #1, and went platinum within a month. At the upcoming Grammys, she’s nominated for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and more. One of her big hits is “Please Please Please,” which she wrote with Amy Allen and producer Jack Antonoff. He’s won Producer of the Year at the Grammys for the last three years in a row. For this epi...
Dec 18, 2024•32 min•Ep 284•Transcript available on Metacast Gracie Abrams is a singer and songwriter from Los Angeles. She started putting out music in 2020, and in June 2024, she put out her second album, The Secret of Us . She was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist, and this year she’s up for another Grammy, for Best Duo Performance, for her collaboration with Taylor Swift. But for this episode, I talked to Gracie about her song “I Love You, I’m Sorry.” It was produced by Aaron Dessner, at Long Pond Studio in upstate New York, and it was co-wri...
Dec 04, 2024•26 min•Ep 283•Transcript available on Metacast Katie Crutchfield is a singer and songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama. She’s been making music under the name Waxahatchee since 2010. Her fifth album, Saint Cloud , came out this past March. Pitchfork named it Best New Music, and The Guardian called it the best album of the year so far. In this episode, Katie breaks down how she made the song “Fire." This episode was originally published July 29, 2020. For more, visit songexploder.net/waxahatchee ....
Nov 27, 2024•18 min•Ep 189•Transcript available on Metacast Le Tigre originally formed in 1998. They released their self-titled debut album in October 1999. Spin Magazine called it one of the best albums of the past 30 years, and Pitchfork called it one of the best albums of the 90s. I listened to that album a lot when it came out, and 25 years later, I still hear songs from it everywhere, on TV and in movies, and just out in the world – especially the song “Deceptacon.” For this episode, I talked to Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman from Le Tigre about...
Nov 13, 2024•28 min•Ep 282•Transcript available on Metacast In 1968, singer and songwriter Graham Nash joined David Crosby and Stephen Stills to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. All of them had already been in successful bands: Graham Nash had been in The Hollies; David Crosby was in The Byrds; and Stephen Stills was in Buffalo Springfield. The next year, Neil Young joined them, to make Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The four of them released Deja Vu in 1970, and that album was a huge success. It sold over 8 million copies. It includes t...
Oct 30, 2024•26 min•Ep 281•Transcript available on Metacast Pharrell Williams is—well, let me just say, he’s a big reason why Song Exploder exists. He’s a singer, songwriter and producer, and in the 90s, when I first heard the work that he was doing with the Neptunes, which was his production duo with Chad Hugo, it blew my mind. It made me want to know where those sounds came from and where those ideas came from. Pharrell has won 13 Grammys. He’s been nominated for two Oscars. He’s produced iconic songs for Kendrick Lamar, Britney Spears, Clipse, Gwen St...
Oct 16, 2024•15 min•Ep 280•Transcript available on Metacast For the last couple weeks, I’ve been getting ready for a trip I’m going to make to Connecticut, to moderate a conversation between Jon Batiste and his wife, the author Suleika Jaouad. So I’ve been deep in my prep and research, and I thought about the first time I ever spoke to Jon Batiste, which was for a Song Exploder episode that came out back in March 2021. A lot has happened for Jon since then. At the time, his album We Are was brand new. The next year, he ended up getting 11 Grammy nominati...
Oct 02, 2024•24 min•Ep 205•Transcript available on Metacast Troye Sivan is a singer and songwriter from Australia. He’s been nominated for a Golden Globe, two Grammys, and he’s won four of Australia’s ARIA awards. His song “My My My!” was a #1 hit on the Billboard Dance Chart, and his third album, Something to Give Each Other , was one of Billboard’s picks for the best albums of 2023. Troye’s also an actor; he was in the HBO series The Idol , which figures into the story that he tells about this song . Troye came to the studio and we talked about how he ...
Sep 18, 2024•24 min•Ep 279•Transcript available on Metacast Beabadoobee is an award-winning singer and songwriter from England who’s been releasing music since 2017. Her third album is called This Is How Tomorrow Moves . It came out in August 2024 and went to #1 on the UK charts. She made the album with her bandmate Jacob Bugden and with producer Rick Rubin at his studio, Shangri-La, in Malibu. And for this episode, I talked to Bea about a song from that album called “Coming Home.” For more, visit songexploder.net/beabadoobee ....
Sep 04, 2024•16 min•Ep 278•Transcript available on Metacast Remi Wolf is a singer and songwriter originally from Palo Alto, California. She’s been releasing music since 2019. She performed at Coachella in 2023, and has toured with Olivia Rodrigo, Lorde, and Paramore. Her second album, Big Ideas, came out in July 2024. I talked to Remi about how she and her collaborators wrote and produced the song “Soup.” How they used 80s gear to make 80s sounds, and how a fun anthem quickly turned into something pretty vulnerable. For more, visit songexploder.net/remi-...
Aug 21, 2024•19 min•Ep 277•Transcript available on Metacast Sam Smith is a Grammy and Oscar-winning singer and songwriter from London, England. Their first album, In the Lonely Hour, came out in 2014. It went quintuple platinum in the US, and the biggest hit from that album is the song “Stay With Me,” which has over 2 billion streams on Spotify alone. For this episode, in honor of the song’s 10th anniversary, I talked to Sam about how “Stay With Me” was made. I also talked to Sam’s frequent collaborator, Jimmy Napes, who is an award-winning producer and ...
Jul 24, 2024•23 min•Ep 276•Transcript available on Metacast Fenne Lily is a singer and songwriter from Dorset, England. She released her first album in 2018, but I didn’t find her music until 2023, when she put out her third album, Big Picture . The album she released in between those two was one that got a little lost in the lockdown, when all her touring plans around it got canceled. All of that plays into the story she tells in this episode, about making her song “Lights Light Up” from that third album. I spoke to Fenne in front of a live audience at ...
Jul 10, 2024•22 min•Ep 275•Transcript available on Metacast Last year, Vagabon released her third album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, which I’ve been listening to a lot. So I wanted to revisit an episode that I recorded with her back in 2020, about her breakout song "Water Me Down." The episode also features the voice of Eric Littmann, who co-produced the track. He passed away in June 2021, way too young. Vagabon’s new album is dedicated to him. If you haven’t heard this episode before, I hope you like it. When Laetitia Tamko started making the second Vagabon...
Jun 26, 2024•19 min•Ep 177•Transcript available on Metacast Crowded House formed in 1985 in Melbourne, Australia. They’ve released eight albums, including their most recent one, Gravity Stairs , which came out last month. But on their very first album, they had a big hit with "Don’t Dream It’s Over." Crowded House made “Don’t Dream It’s Over” with Grammy-nominated producer Mitchell Froom, who they went on to work with multiple times. For this episode, I talked to frontman Neil Finn about how the song was first written, and how it developed with his bandm...
Jun 12, 2024•22 min•Ep 274•Transcript available on Metacast Lizzy McAlpine released her first album in 2020, and her second album in 2022. And between the two, she’s had a lot of success. One of her songs, "Ceilings," was a viral TikTok hit, and has been streamed over half a billion times. So you might think, with all that success, you’d want to keep working in way that’s been working. But while Lizzy was making her third album, Older , after almost a year into the process of recording, she threw the whole thing out. She brought in a new band, and starte...
May 29, 2024•18 min•Ep 273•Transcript available on Metacast The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983. Over the last four decades, they’ve put out 16 albums. In 1999, they put out their album The Soft Bulletin, and that brought them a new level of success. And then, in 2002, they followed it up with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots , which was their biggest album to date. Pitchfork named it one of the top 5 albums of the year, Stereogum called it one of the best albums of the decade, and they won a Grammy. And the biggest song from the album was "D...
May 15, 2024•20 min•Ep 272•Transcript available on Metacast One of the songs I keep coming back to is “Mohabbat” by Arooj Aftab. It’s really special to me. I listen to it all the time. I’ve been listening to it so often that I wanted to revisit Arooj's episode about it. In the time since the episode has come out, she has released a collaborative album with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily called Love In Exile, which got two Grammy nominations. And she has a new album that’s about to come out on May 31st, called Night Reign . Here’s her episode: Arooj Aftab...
May 01, 2024•25 min•Ep 231•Transcript available on Metacast The band War formed in 1969, in Long Beach, California. “Low Rider” is from their 1975 album Why Can’t We Be Friends? The song was a hit as soon as it came out. It went to #1 on the Billboard R&B charts. And it’s just had tremendous lasting power ever since. Besides being in Dazed and Confused , where I heard it, it’s been sampled by The Beastie Boys, it was covered by Korn, and it was the theme song for all six seasons of The George Lopez Show . For this episode, I talked to War’s bandleade...
Apr 17, 2024•18 min•Ep 271•Transcript available on Metacast Shania Twain is a singer and songwriter from Ontario, Canada. She’s the only female artist to have had three consecutive Diamond albums — albums that have sold over ten million copies. Actually, her 1997 album Come On Over is the best-selling album by a female solo artist of all time. One of the most iconic songs from that iconic album is "You’re Still The One." It was co-written and produced by Mutt Lange, who had previously produced some other classic albums, like Back in Black by AC/DC and Py...
Apr 03, 2024•18 min•Ep 270•Transcript available on Metacast Danny Brown started his career in 2007 by handing out mixtapes in Detroit, where he’s from. In 2011, he put out his acclaimed second album, XXX . Since then, he’s collaborated with rappers like Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky and JPEGMafia, but he’s also worked with electronic bands like Purity Ring and The Avalanches, and he did a verse on a remix for Korn. When I first heard him, around when XXX came out, I was really drawn to his voice. And I also appreciated that, given how young so many artists ...
Mar 20, 2024•18 min•Ep 269•Transcript available on Metacast Rhiannon Giddens has released five solo albums since 2015. Before that, she was a member of the Grammy-winning band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. She is now also the artistic director of the Silkroad Ensemble, the musical supergroup that Yo-Yo Ma founded. Rhiannon Giddens is one of those people where I feel like they have to start inventing new awards, because she’s already won all of them. She’s got multiple Grammys, she won the Pulitzer Prize for an opera she co-wrote called Omar , she’s a Ma...
Mar 06, 2024•20 min•Ep 268•Transcript available on Metacast I wanted to revisit an episode about one of my favorite songs from 2021, “Black Dog” by Arlo Parks. A few months after this episode originally came out, Arlo Parks won the Mercury Prize for Album of the Year. She was also nominated for two Grammys: Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album. Since then, she released a new album called My Soft Machine , and she’s going to be on tour this spring. Arlo Parks is a singer and songwriter from London. In January 2021, she released her debut album, Coll...
Feb 21, 2024•20 min•Ep 210•Transcript available on Metacast Green Day is a punk band from the East Bay in California. Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool have been playing music together since 1987. They’ve sold over 90 million records. They’ve won four Grammys, including twice for Best Rock Album. They put out their first album in 1990, and their second album, Kerplunk! , in 1991. And then, they moved to a major label and in 1994 they put out their third album, Dookie , which was huge. It helped bring punk into the mainstream. And this month i...
Feb 07, 2024•21 min•Ep 267•Transcript available on Metacast The first episode of Song Exploder, about The Postal Service song "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight," came out 10 years ago, in January 2014. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the podcast, we're doing what bands do, and putting out a deluxe, expanded edition of our very first release: this version features a new interview, new insights, and new pieces of the song and demo. The Postal Service formed in 2001. Their debut album came out in 2003, and it was a game changer. Their combination of e...
Jan 24, 2024•27 min•Ep 266•Transcript available on Metacast For the last episode of the year, I got the chance to drive up to Northridge, California, and have a conversation with Dave Grohl. We talked about the Foo Fighters song “The Teacher,” which is an epic, 10-minute-long song. Dave told me it’s the most important piece of music he’s ever written, because it’s dedicated to his mother, Virginia, who passed away in 2022. Dave Grohl started Foo Fighters in 1994, after Nirvana ended. This year, Foo Fighters set a record for having the most Top 10 hits on...
Dec 20, 2023•33 min•Ep 265•Transcript available on Metacast Raye is a singer, songwriter and producer from London. Besides being an artist in her own right, she’s also been a songwriter for other artists since she was a teenager. She’s co-written songs for Beyoncé, Charli XCX, and Ellie Goulding. In 2023, she released her debut album, My 21st Century Blues . The first single, “Escapism," became her first song to hit #1 in the UK. It’s gone platinum in the US, the UK, and seven other countries. It features guest vocals from 070 Shake. When she was here in...
Dec 06, 2023•21 min•Ep 264•Transcript available on Metacast 
