Three podcasts that made me want to create Song Exploder: Recent Episodes
Hrishikesh Hirway
Hrishikesh Hirway is the host of Song Exploder, a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Song Exploder is part of Radiotopia (www.radiotopia.fm), from PRX.
This is the podcast that made me fall in love with the medium. Nate’s episodes are beautifully made. They’re also very short. It didn’t quite dawn on me until hearing this show that the freedom of podcasts means you are unconstrained by length, and that opened up my imagination for what I could do, too.
Everyone loves TV & movies, but this show gives you a perspective on how and why things are being made. A fascinating look inside, including a weekly news round-up, and great interviews with producers, directors, and writers.
To me, what makes these interviews special is the shared vernacular that Marc Maron has with his guests by virtue of being a comedian himself. And even though I don’t share that, I appreciate that they have a shorthand, and that allows him to get deeper into the heart of the interviews immediately, and you hear things about comedy and emotion and process that you wouldn’t if he were just any interviewer. I wanted to try to do my version of that with the artists I share a vernacular with: musicians. Start with an episode with any guest you are remotely interested in – this is just one recent example.