The Sound of Success with Nic Harcourt

Singer-songwriter Chris Pierce joins Nic this week. His latest album, American Silence, is filled with soulful, stirring songs that stay stuck in your mind and your heart. His music has been praised by NPR Music, Rolling Stone and LA Weekly among other publications, and his songs have appeared on several episodes of the NBC hit, This Is Us . He's also collaborated or shared stages with a variety o...

Susan Orlean joins Nic to talk about her latest book, On Animals, a collection of essays on all creatures great and small originally published in the New Yorker, where she has been a staff writer for the past thirty years. Orlean is the author of seven books, including Rin Tin Tin, The Library Book, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Oscar-winning film Adaptation. Orlean describes her l...

They Might Be Giants' John Flansburgh joins the Sound of Success this week to discuss the band's 40-year-career and its 23rd studio album, BOOK, out now. He talks to Nic about how Flansburgh and bandmate John Linnell make it work four decades later, the glory of the Beatles and why 'Get Back' is so damn long, his unpleasant introduction to Frank Zappa live, his love for Missy Elliott, Tierra Whack...

Jason Flom is an influential figure in both the social justice and music worlds — he is a criminal justice reform advocate and has also served as the former chair and CEO of Atlantic Records and Virgin Records/Capitol Music Group, discovering Tori Amos and Stone Temple Pilots, before launching Lava Records and the careers of Lorde and Katy Perry. He is the founding board member of the Innocence Pr...

Bill McKibben is one of the world's foremost environmentalists and experts on climate change and is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and the Guardian. He is also the author of several books on the climate crisis, including his watershed work The End of Nature . Bill joins Nic on this episode to talk about his recent project, Third Act, an organization of people over the age of 60 dedicated...

When Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon isn't running Wall Street's biggest investment bank, he's scratching his itch to be an EDM DJ, spinning in clubs—and even appearing on the Billboard dance charts—as "DJ D-Sol." His hobby has inspired much head-turning from peers and the media, but as he tells Nic on this episode, it's simply a way for him to exercise the creative side of his brain. He also disc...

Emmy-winning actor, screenwriter, author, and musician Michael Imperioli joins Nic on the Sound of Success this week to discuss his time on the Sopranos as tortured wiseguy Christopher Moltosanti, the new book he's publishing about the show, and the upcoming music he's recording with his band Zopa. Michael also discusses the power of Freddie Mercury, David Cassidy, De La Soul, the Raincoats, Hole,...

Writer and video producer Carrie Courogen works for the seminal music website Pitchfork, and is also writing a much-anticipated book about the life of famously press-shy screenwriter and director Elaine May, due out in 2023 on St. Martin's Press. Carrie joins Nic to talk to him about the difficult art of writing a book about someone who makes it a point not to give interviews, the precision she pu...

L.A.-based singer songwriter Raye Zaragoza was named "one of the most politically relevant artists in her genre" by Paste magazine for good reason — her folk songs are powerful commentaries on feminism and race. As a Japanese-American, Mexican, and Indigenous woman, Zaragoza's lyrics and her songs like "The It Girl" lay bare the isolating realities of being a brown woman in a world rooted in white...

Sunita Kaur, senior vice president of APAC at Twitch, talks to Nic about how the massive live-streaming platform has changed the internet (especially during the pandemic) and how it's influencing the music industry. Kaur, a former Spotify executive, also talks about the incredible power of K-Pop, her love for Soul Coughing and Carly Rae Jepsen, and the only band she's ever pulled strings to see.

Pearl Charles' Magic Mirror came out last year to glowing press from NPR and Rolling Stone and just before she was out to go on tour....the pandemic struck. She talks to Nic about navigating quarantine, her big plans for an ABBA gym, the art of writing sad songs versus go F yourself songs, the Spice Girls and more.

Deeply influential Village Voice columnist and journalist Michael Musto joins Nic on the Sound of Success this week to talk about the recent return of his legendary Voice, column, his love for ABBA, Motown, and what it was actually like to stand in line at Studio 54.

TV and film writer Alex Scordelis ( Billy on the Street ; Difficult People) joins Nic this week to talk about ACDC's hilariously stupid "Jailbreak" video, the Pasadena-based "top-secret dad's music club" he's a member of, and the unxepectedly good music of children's musician Caspar Babypants (Chris Ballew, former frontman of The United States of America), who Scordelis finds himself listening to...

Paper magazine has been capturing everything cool in mainstream pop culture and underground counter-culture since 1984, and joining Nic today is the publications' co-founder and former editor-in-chief David Hershkovits. David and Nic talk about how Paper was one of the first magazines to cover the breakdancing and hip-hop worlds exploding out of the Bronx in the early 80s, as well as post-punk, no...

Nic is switching things up with producer Elizabeth this week and letting her interview him. That's right, Nic is answering his own Sound of Success Proustian questionnaire about formative music moments in his life on this episode, and also reveals he was in a band in the early '80s in which he performed live wearing a billowy sheer top and skin-tight pleather pants. Listen as Nic talks about growi...

Sound of Success is welcoming its first international guest this week with Marco Caneva, joins us from Italy where he lives. After over a decade of working for Goldman Sachs in their London, Paris, and Milan offices, Caneva went on to serve as the chief investment officer from multi-billion dollar family office in Italy is now serving as a mergers and acquisitions consultant to American and UK pri...

The Sound of Success team is working on our tans this week, so we're bringing you a best-of episode featuring our favorite responses this season to the question: "What was the first album you bought with your own money?" From The Orchard VP and GigLife Pro CEO Priya Dewan buying a contraband Marilyn Manson album under the counter at a skate shop as a teenager to Barry Ritzholtz being thrifty as a...

Macroeconomist Elle Hawkins of Tematica Research spends her days figuring out what the economy is doing (or is not doing) and her nights dancing to everything from Dubstep to Tchaikovsky. Listen as Hawkins tells Nic about sneaking out to see bands on the Sunset Strip as a teenager and her belief that Mozart would have been a great dubstep DJ.

Jon Lukomnik was deemed "one of the pioneers of modern corporate governance” by Forbes, has overseen all five of the New York City pension funds, and is the author of the new book "Modern Portfolio Theory." Pretty impressive, right? He's also the first guest in Sound of Sucess history to add on questions to Nic's questionnaire. Find out what questions Jon wants to tack on, and hear him discuss his...

TikTok's influence on the music industry is undeniable. The addictive short-form video platform has bolstered the careers of reigning top 40 musicians like Olivia Rodrigo, Lil Nas X, Meghan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, SZA, and more. (It even made Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” return to the charts in 2020.) As head of label licensing and partnerships at TikTok, Tracy Gardner has since helped the app lean e...

Before GTS Principal Reggie Browne became known as the "Godfather of ETFs" and one of the most influential people in the exchange-traded funds space, he was listening to George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Prince in his room. And then there was the formative Public Enemy/Beastie Boys concert he went to wearing work clothes after a day on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and left drenched in beer. Fro...

We're on a break this weke and bringing you a greatest hits episode, featuring all of our favorite responses to a question Nic asks all of his guests: What was your first concert? Their answers are far-ranging, from Kendrick Lamar at Governor’s Ball, to David Bowie at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia to a Pearl Jam concert that Malaysian police kept interrupting. We’re hearing about first-time sh...

Priya Dewan made a name for herself as a label manager for the esteemed UK label Warp Records during the early aughts, working with bands like Grizzly Bear, Beach House, and Flying Lotus. Raised in Singapore, Dewan has returned to Asia where she is now a VP of South Korea & Southeast Asia at music distribution company the Orchard, and founder and CEO of Gig Life Pro, which helps the music industry...

Spark CEO and ETF.com founder Jim Wiandt (that's our boss) joins Nic this week to talk about a childhood spent listening to country music and the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, before graduating to E.L.O. and, later, the Grateful Dead. Listen as Wiandt talks about discovering music in Boston attending Tufts after a childhood in "bible-belt" Ohio and his scary experience with a serious case of Covid.

For Salesforce's Jon Fee, who also owns the record label Parks and Records, it all started with memorizing Van Halen's "Jump" as a kid. From there, it was California skate-punk bands, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Mike Watt's Firehose. Listen as Fee tells Nic about his first concert in Humboldt County, CA, his love for Yacht Rock, and what his guiltiest pleasures are.