Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

Pete Townshend, the legendary guitarist and songwriter for The Who, is one of the most decorated rock stars alive. He’s been inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, received Kennedy Center Honors, and lifetime-achievement awards from both the Brit Awards and the Grammys. Pete's iconic power chord-guitar style and early use of synthesizers established him as a musical innovator in the '60s and...

Today we are sharing a very special project we've been working on at Pushkin, a new podcast with the one and only, Sir Paul McCartney. The show’s called McCartney: A Life in Lyrics and it's full of insightful conversations between Paul McCartney and his friend, the Irish poet Paul Muldoon. Together they taped years of conversations digging into Paul’s lyrics and songwriting process. And because it...

Amanda Shires is a Texas-born singer/songwriter who got her start at 15 when she joined Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys on fiddle. After starting her solo career in 2005, Shires continued to play with a number of other bands including her husband Jason Isbell's band, the 400 Unit. In 2019, she started the all-female country supergroup The Highwomen, which includes Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby...

Today we are sharing an episode of one of our favorite shows on the Pushkin network,  Talk Easy , hosted by Sam Fragoso. In this episode Sam talks to the renowned Swedish music producer and composer, Ludwig Göransson. Ludwig is a Grammy and Academy award winning producer and composer who scored Ryan Coogler’s  Black Panther ,  The Mandalorian , and most recently he scored Christopher Nolan's epic,...

DJ Drama is one of the most iconic mixtape DJs of all time. His legendary Gangsta Grillz tapes helped propel artists like T.I. and Young Jeezy to stardom. His classic  Dedication  series reinvigorated Lil’ Wayne’s career in the early and mid-2000s. By 2007, the underground mixtape market was booming. But in January of that year DJ Drama and his longtime business partner Don Cannon were arrested by...

Johnny Marr is an acclaimed British guitarist who’s played with a ton of bands including, most famously, The Smiths. Marr started playing guitar as a young teenager growing up in Manchester. When he turned 15 he dropped out of school and moved to London to join the band Sister Ray. A couple years later he would help form The Smiths with Morrissey, Mike Joyce, and Marr’s friend and bassist, Andy Ro...

Today we are sharing an episode from one of our favorite podcasts, Norah Jones is Playing Along. Norah is a multi-grammy winning artist who loves to collaborate with other musicians, so she started a podcast to do just that. Today's episode features the legendary Mavis Staples. You’ll hear stories from her time as a member of the iconic Staples Singers. We will also hear Mavis and Norah play a gos...

Since his major-label debut in 2011, James Blake's haunting vocals and brilliantly edited, collage-style tracks have helped usher in a new sound in popular music. James has both produced and contributed vocals to a ton of artists including Travis Scott, Jay-Z, and Spanish megastar, Rosalia. He even earned a Grammy for best rap performance alongside Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock and Future on the song “...

Of all the groundbreaking musicians to come out of the ‘60s, few were as engaged socially and politically as Joan Baez. A lifelong proponent of non-violent activism, Joan marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and has continued to advocate for non-violent, civil disobedience ever since. With the release of her debut album in 1960, Joan Baez became the preeminent female folkie. With just her exqui...

In honor of Robbie Robertson’s passing, we’re replaying an old episode of Broken Record featuring Robbie in conversation with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam. When Robbie Robertson turned a house perched above a Malibu beach into a home studio in the 1970's, he had no idea it'd remain a refuge for artists decades later. In this episode, Robbie returns to Shangri La—now the home of o...

Today we're sharing an episode from another Pushkin podcast we love called The Last Archive. The fourth season of The Last Archive just dropped and it's full of truly unexpected stories and big ideas. The episode you will hear today, "Player Piano," is an audio biography of one of the most famous composers of the 20th century who most people have never heard of: Raymond Scott. He wrote tons of hit...

Santigold is an artist who exists at the cross-section of punk, dub, new wave and indie pop. Long frustrated with attempts like these to classify her style, Santi has always been a proud outlier among the restrictive categories used to divide music. Santi’s anti-establishment bent was in part a reaction to working as an A&R for Epic Records’ black music department. Frustrated with what they ca...

Albert Hammond Jr. first rose to prominence as the lead guitarist of The Strokes—a band at the forefront of New York City’s indie rock renaissance in the early aughts. In 2007 Albert Hammond Jr. launched his solo career, putting his songwriting and abilities as a frontman to the test. He’s now released five albums, including,  Melodies On Hiatus,  which came out just a couple months ago. It’s a do...

Paul Simon is one of the greatest living songwriters. Since debuting with Art Garfunkel in 1957, Paul Simon has written countless songs quintessential to the American psyche. This year, at 81 years old, he’s released the latest addition to his beloved catalog,  Seven Psalms , to an outpouring of critical acclaim. In 2021, Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam released the audiobook,  Miracle And Wond...

Over the course of his 35-year career, Damon Albarn has reached international fame with two very different bands. In 1988, Damon created the rock band Blur with three friends in his native London.   Blur started out as what Damon calls a “classic art school band.” They quickly moved to the forefront of the ‘90s Britpop explosion along with their formal rivals, Oasis. After a series of successful a...

In September, Ben Gibbard, the founder of Death Cab For Cutie, will set out on a nationwide tour to celebrate the two very different albums that have come to define his career. Both albums came out in 2003. The first was called  Give Up , and it was a collaboration with his friend and producer Jimmy Tamborello. They’d made it while Gibbard was taking a break from the relentless cycle of touring an...

Long regarded as pop music’s resident party animal, Kesha is now dead-set on slowing down and speaking up. Since debuting on the hook of Flo-Rida’s mega smash “Right Round” in 2009, Kesha has released five albums—two of which debuted at number one. And until very recently, she was involved in a decade-long court case with her former producer and label head. Somehow despite the bitter legal battle...

Rickie Lee Jones hit it big with her debut album in 1979. The following year she won the Grammy for Best New Artist, and over the course of the next four decades, she released numerous albums that pulled inspiration from jazz, rock, electronic music, and even musical-theater. In late April, Rickie released her latest album, Pieces Of Treasure , where she sings songs from the American songbook with...

Singer/songwriter Caroline Rose has always been a character. Her music videos often feature Caroline as the screwball lead, navigating ambition, desire and super stardom. Now, on her latest album,  The Art of Forgetting,  Caroline is shedding all of the past pretense and offering up an unflinching look into her inner life in the midst of personal turmoil. The result is an album packed with clever...

Hip-hop super producer Hit-Boy has helped create some of the biggest hits of the last decade. His discography includes classic songs with Jay-Z and Kanye West, Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, and Rihanna. His crowning achievement however are the series of albums he's produced for Nas including  King's Disease  and  Magic . On today's episode Justin Richmond talks to Hit-Boy about how he rec...

Moby never stops working. His first taste of mega-success came in the early aughts after the release of his multi-platinum album,  Play . In the years since, he's released 19 more studio albums including his latest,  Resound, NYC,  where he re-orchestrates songs he recorded between 1994-2010. Moby has also spent a good deal of the last two decades unpacking his own unconventional upbringing and hi...

Arlo Parks is one of the most compelling voices of her generation. Born in London, the 22-year-old snagged the Best New Artist trophy at the Brit Awards in 2021 in part because of her breakout single “Eugene,” about an unrequited crush. Arlo’s songwriting is a vivid exploration of the euphoria and heartbreak that comes with being young and in love. This month, Arlo Parks will release her sophomore...

Canadian-born singer/songwriter Feist has been one of the most dynamic indie voices of the last two decades. Last month she released her sixth album,  Multitudes . She recorded it in the aftermath of tremendous personal loss and change. In late 2019 Feist adopted a baby just months before the pandemic started. About a year later, her father died suddenly.  Multitudes  is a raw, intimate look at ho...

Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds is a pillar of contemporary R&B. As a producer and songwriter, Babyface’s discography includes hits for powerhouse vocalists like Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Ariana Grande, and Stevie Wonder. Although Babyface’s career is most often associated with pop hits, he started writing songs in the singer/songwriter tradition, pulling influence from James Taylor...

Today, we’re bringing you a preview of a new audiobook, So Many Steves. Steve Martin is more candid than he’s ever been about his creative life in this engrossing audio-biography centered around a series of conversations recorded over many afternoons at home with his friend and neighbor, writer Adam Gopnik. You can get So Many Steves, exclusively on audio, now at  https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobooks...