Music Is A Racket Podcast

Peter Rafelson's music career spans four decades of being a songwriter, producer, studio owner and more. Penning Madonna's "Open Your Heart" served as the entrypoint to mainstream success, and he's since gone on to host recording sessions for the likes of Taylor Swift and Beyonce. I had a chat with Peter about his career, how his biggest hit was made, and the challenges he faced in the aftermath o...

Though hiphop went mainstream in the 90s, it wasn't until the early 2000s that gangsta rap dominated all other sub-genres and effectively monopolized the landscape. This was in no small part due to support from radio stations like  Power 106 in  LA and  Hot97  in New York.  Damion "Damizza" Young  had influence over both and was the Senior Director of Programming at t...

As the son of a famed music executive who signed KISS and Donna Summer in the 70s, Evan Bogart was set on his own music path in his teens. He got an internship at Interscope and helped bring Eminem to the label after seeing him at the Rap Olympics in 1997. Until now, it's unclear why credit for Em's signing went to Evan's former colleague Dean Geistlinger, so I sat down for a chat to learn about w...

In the late 90s, hardly any bands were more ubiquitous than Semisonic. Thanks to their breakout hit "Closing Time", they shot to the top of the charts and cemented themselves as rock stars of that era. As the band's drummer, Jacob Slichter enjoyed the upsides of that period, from limousine rides to arena shows and TV appearances. However, what he didn't know was the vast amounts of payola needed t...

The second episode of the MIAR podcast explores the world of digital service providers who specialize in advertising, botting, and paid marketing in the music space. One of the most notable names in that world is Chad Focus, who gained nationwide notoriety for manufacturing his rap career by way of social media ads, paid billboards, ticket scalping and botting his streams. All this came to a halt...

The MIAR podcast kicks off its first episode with the producer behind much of Eminem's early work. Jeff and his brother Mark discovered and produced most of the music on Eminem's first albums, but as the years went by they found themselves increasingly at odds with his label, Interscope/Universal, and were gradually written out of the story. Other than being mentioned on Wikipedia, the current Emi...