Word In Your Ear
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 podcasts alive in regular Word In Your Ear evenings in which they spoke to musicians and authors in front of an audience.
Over these years they've produced hundreds of hours of material. As of the Current Unpleasantness of 2020, they've produced yet hundreds of hours more with a little help from guests kind enough to digitally show them around their attics such as Danny Baker, Andy Partridge, Sir Tim Rice and Mark Lewisohn. For the full span of the Word In Your Ear world, visit wiyelondon.com.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Update frequency
- every 2 days
- Average duration
- 43 minutes
- Episodes
- 858
- Years Active
- 2007 - 2025
Has any actor played a rock star convincingly?
Framed in the piercing super-trouper of perusal this week …
The highs and lows of Danny Boyle’s new Sex Pistols biopic.
The best in-car music for road trips (Paul Simon, Steely Dan, Rufus Wainwright …
You spent HOW MUCH on speakers?
This week we've been mainly talking about....
Could The Smile be the first side-project to eclipse the mothership?
Is the kitchen the place we mainly listen to music these days?
Bob Neuwirth - the man w…
Can bands still “sell out”? - plus 50 years of Exile On Main Street and RIP the iPod
Entertainments, thrills and diversions at the end of the rock and roll seaside pier this week include …
Things we want to see in a Bob Dylan museum.
Why the upcoming Spinal Tap sequel fills us with e…
The world’s rarest records and the sartorial splendour of the satin tour jacket
The dazzling super trouper of gentle enquiry is trained this week upon:-
Our recent encounter with John Lydon – his high viz shirt, his smoking habit and his usefully commercial righteous indignation…
Kate Rusby (12) bought Bon Jovi tapes on hire purchase from Casa Disco in Barnsley
Folk deity, songwriter and festival figurehead, Kate Rusby was raised on Planxty and De Dannan but staged a rebellion with Smash Hits and “storytelling songs” by A-ha. High in the mix in this splendi…
It’s our fantasy seven-decade Queen’s Jubilee line -up!
… which may or may not feature Noel Coward, Slade, the KLF and the Spice Girls.
Other key items in pursuit of entertainment this week include:-
When did British pop turn female?
The glorious notion t…
You’re either a t-shirt act or a non t-shirt act: discuss
White-hot topics examined this week include:-
The sweeping return of Britpop (Shed Seven, Reverend and the Makers, how did they get so huge?)
Has Nick Mason won Pink Floyd? Has Liam Gallagher won Oas…
Which band played the Old Grey Whistle Test and was then completely forgotten?
Among the key questions being booted round the block this week in hot pursuit of entertainment:-
Why is the billing of the Rolling Stones as just “Stones” on the current tour posters a monstrous affr…
‘Streaming Killed the Skit Track’ plus Toastface Grillah and the Sgt Peppermill
Among the delights this week:-
Pink Floyd’s single for Ukraine (the best peace anthem ever?) and the song Bruce Springsteen played the night Saddam Hussein’s statue came down in Baghdad.
A man who ha…
We spot Will “Slapper” Smith’s biggest mistake at the Oscars and salute Ben Sidran’s foot
Will Smith did something at the Academy Awards which showed what he cared about most - did you notice it too? Our blow-by-blow account of the moment everyone missed.
* Plus … a man who has 25 Big Cou…
No Top Of The Pops. No NME or Smash Hits covers. What do bands dream of now?
In which we salute the charismatic Taylor Hawkins – and the magnetic appeal of brothers in arms (Taylor & Dave, Pete and Carl, Bruce and Clarence, John and Paul) - invent some rock and roll retiremen…
How did ‘New Boots And Panties!!’ get released without a parental advisory sticker?
Entertaining things subjected to wry and rigorous scrutiny this week include:-
* The most bizarre and tenuous rock autobiographies – eg the tell-all revelations of Elvis Presley’s nurse, Primal Screa…
There’s only been one truly original group and we know who they are
Have you ever heard a band but couldn’t work out where their sound came from? We’re saying: only once. What connects the Sweet’s Blockbuster! to Willie Dixon’s Hoochie Coochie Man? How can Noel Galla…
Which bands were ALL good–looking? 15 contenders considered...
There’s “pop star good looks” - as opposed to “film star good looks” - and there’s “indie good looks” ... but which acts were a hundred per cent hot? Plus … is there any such thing as an original pop…
Why $15m for Britney Spears’ memoir is “a bargain” and the curious tale of A Whiter Shade Of Pale
In which we skip the light fandango through live recordings full of extraneous noise – hecklers on a Lou Reed track, barking dogs on a Joe Henry album, the audience chatter on Bill Evans at the Villa…
Why do all bands seem ludicrous apart from the ones you personally like?
Piping hot topics fondly booted round the park this week include … are any actors ever convincing when playing a famous rock star? Does it matter if movies “based on a true story” are largely fiction…
Does anyone capture the spirit of a place better than Van Morrison’s Belfast? – plus some underrated ‘70s tracks
Among the items for your distraction and entertainment this week … Do people still form bands? The tangled story of the Aqualung artwork. The skull-cracking number of albums released every day. Instr…
The story of Don Henley’s the Boys of Summer, £10k headphones and ‘I’m Getting Buried In The Morning’ …
In the crosshairs this week … how Mike Campbell’s masterpiece was almost eaten by machinery, who made five great albums in five years?, “a mix is never finished it’s merely abandoned”, Robert Plant a…
Morrissey v Marr, Neil Young v Spotify, Albarn v Swift – it’s a Pop Tiffs special!
Who invented the rock spectacle? Has Adele got a touch of Imposter Syndrome? What was Barry Cryer’s gag about the Pretenders? Which bands devised their own mottos? Who’s Floating Points? How did they…
The pleasing eccentricities of Jonathan Richman plus Natalie Umbrella-Stand, Christina Aqualibra and “Neil Aspinall: The Movie”
A candlelit episode boldly addressing the burning issues du jour, among which you’ll find … Is old music killing new music?; actors that should play rock stars (Keeley Hawes IS Kirsty MacColl, Martin…