''Song Exploder'' is a

music podcast A music podcast is a genre of podcasts covering topics related to music and musicians, which often includes reviews, interpretations, new releases, musician interviews, music history, music creation, and music theory. History Music podcasts d ...

created by

Hrishikesh Hirway Hrishikesh Hirway (born February 1, 1979) is an American musician, producer, and podcast and television host. He has made four albums under the name The One AM Radio, and has a side project with Lakeith Stanfield called Moors. He is the creator a ...

, who hosted it from its 2014 inception until late 2018 and again from December 2019 onwards. In January 2019, Thao Nguyen became a guest host for the year, with Christian Koons serving as producer, and Hirway moving to executive producer. The

biweekly A weekly newspaper is a general-news or current affairs publication that is issued once or twice a week in a wide variety broadsheet, magazine, and digital formats. Similarly, a biweekly newspaper is published once every two weeks. Weekly newsp ...

show features musicians talking about the creative process behind an individual song while "deconstructing" the song into its component parts. As of 2021, the show's team is composed of host and producer Hirway, illustrator Carlos Lerma, and Music Clearance Director Kathleen Smith. The podcast launched on the

Maximum Fun Maximum Fun is an independent podcast and radio show production organization founded and run by Jesse Thorn. The organization originated with Thorn's college radio show '' The Sound of Young America'' which continued in an adapted format and wit ...

network, became independent in February 2015 and joined

Radiotopia Radiotopia is a podcast network founded by ''99% Invisible'' host Roman Mars and run by the Public Radio Exchange. The network is organized as a collective of some two dozen shows whose producers have complete artistic control over their work. P ...

in June 2015.

Format

Each episode begins with the host introducing the show's featured musician (or musicians) and giving a brief history of the musical act or television program with which they are associated. The artist then discusses the creative process used in the creation of a particular song. This may include anything from

songwriting A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. The ...

. The discussion is interspersed with short clips of separate tracks from the song isolated to illustrate the topics being discussed – for example, the drum track might be played to demonstrate how a particular beat was used in the song. The episode ends by playing a recording of the featured song in its entirety. Hirway edits his side of the conversation out of the recording with the purpose of condensing the contents of the podcast around the song's creation and how the artist brought it to life.

Subjects

''Song Exploder'' has explored the music of: U2,

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

Alicia Keys Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. A classically trained pianist, Keys started composing songs when she was 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Col ...

Norah Jones Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar; March 30, 1979) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. She has won several awards for her music and as of 2012, has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. ''Billboard'' named her the ...

Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes is an American indie folk band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 2006. The band consists of Robin Pecknold (vocals, guitar), Skyler Skjelset (guitar, mandolin, backing vocals), Casey Wescott (keyboards, mandolin, backing vocals), Ch ...

R.E.M. R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first alternati ...

Arcade Fire Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band, consisting of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, alongside Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara. The band's current touring line-up also includes former core member S ...

Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac are a British-American rock band, formed in London in 1967. Fleetwood Mac were founded by guitarist Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Jeremy Spencer, before bassist John McVie joined the line-up for their epony ...

Sheryl Crow Sheryl Suzanne Crow (born February 11, 1962) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actress. Her music incorporates elements of rock, pop, country, folk, and blues. She has released eleven studio albums, five compilations and three li ...

, and

Dua Lipa Dua Lipa ( , ; born ) is an English and Albanian singer and songwriter. Possessing a mezzo-soprano vocal range, she is known for her signature disco- pop sound. Lipa has received numerous accolades, including six Brit Awards, three Gramm ...

, among many more. The podcast has also deconstructed the

theme music Theme music is a musical composition that is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at so ...

of: ''

House of Cards A house of cards (also known as a card tower or card castle) is a structure created by stacking playing cards on top of each other, often in the shape of a pyramid. "House of cards" is also an expression that dates back to 1645 meaning a structu ...

'', ''

Downton Abbey ''Downton Abbey'' is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes. The series first aired in the United Kingdom on ITV on 26 September 2010 and in the United States on P ...

'', and ''

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the first ...

''. Furthermore, ''Song Exploder'' has analysed the ''

La La Land ''La La Land'' is a 2016 American romantic musical comedy-drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle. It stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a struggling jazz pianist and an aspiring actress, respectively, who meet and fall in love ...

'', ''

Moonlight Moonlight consists of mostly sunlight (with little earthlight) reflected from the parts of the Moon's surface where the Sun's light strikes. Illumination The intensity of moonlight varies greatly depending on the lunar phase, but even the ful ...

'', and ''

Black Panther A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been d ...

film scores A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

. In addition to theme music and film scores, the podcast has taken an in-depth look at the ''

Watch Dogs ''Watch Dogs'' (stylized as ''WATCH_DOGS'') is an action-adventure video game franchise published by Ubisoft, and developed primarily by its Montreal and Toronto studios using the Disrupt game engine. The series' eponymous first title was rel ...

video game music Video game music (or VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to ...

and '' The Daily'' podcast theme.

Reception

The show receives generally positive reception and has been featured at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

Noise Pop Festival Noise Pop Festival is an annual week-long music and arts festival that takes place throughout the San Francisco Bay Area produced by Noise Pop. From 1993 to 2020, and then resuming in 2022, Noise Pop Festival has provided exposure to some emer ...

, and

Moogfest Moogfest is a music and technology festival held annually or bi-annually in Durham, North Carolina that honors engineer Robert Moog and his musical inventions. This multi-day, multi-venue event hosts artists and audiences from throughout the w ...

.''

Vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...

'' said, "''Song Exploder'' is probably the best use of the podcast format ever," and named it one of the Top 10 Podcasts of 2015. It was also named Best of iTunes in 2015, and ''

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

'' named it the Best Podcast of 2015, saying, "It is possibly the most perfect podcast, really." Pete Naughton of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' called ''Song Exploder'' an "excellent podcast" and placed it on his list of top music podcasts in August 2014. ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' praised the podcast's "beautiful production and thoughtful editing" in June 2014. It has also received favorable reviews from ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

'', ''

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...

'', ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

'', and ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

''. Creator Hirway has mentioned ''Song Exploder'' at prestigious conferences like the Google Design Conference and AIGA Design Conference. In 2016, the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

hosted a ''Song Exploder'' Residency. The show won the 2016 and 2017 Academy of Podcasters award for best music podcast.

Awards

TV show

On September 17, 2020, a television series based on the podcast was announced, which premiered on October 2, 2020 on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

, with 4 episodes:

Volume 1 (2020)

Volume 2 (2020)

Episode list

References

External links

* {{Radiotopia 2014 podcast debuts Audio podcasts Maximum Fun Music podcasts Radiotopia Podcasts adapted into television shows

Format

Subjects

Reception

Awards

TV show

Volume 1 (2020)

Volume 2 (2020)

Episode list

See also

References

External links