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Hot Chip is a band from London made up of Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Al Doyle, Owen Clarke, and Felix Martin. Their second album, The Warning, came out in 2006. It was nominated for a Mercury Prize, and named one of the best albums of the year by NME and Pitchfork. And later, NME would include it in their list of best albums of all time. For this episode, I talked to them about one of the songs from The Warning called “Boy From School.” You might have heard it in the second season of the show Beef on Netflix—the band’s also in the show—or you might have heard it on The Simpsons. You could…

Song Exploder

by Hrishikesh Hirway · English · Music

Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Each episode features an artist discussing a song of theirs, breaking down the sounds and ideas that went into the writing and recording. Hosted and produced by Hrishikesh Hir

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  1. E316 · 24 Jun 2026 · 27 min

    Hayley Kiyoko - Girls Like Girls

    Hayley Kiyoko is a singer, songwriter, author, and director from Los Angeles. She was a child actor on Disney and Nickelodeon, and briefly in a girl group called The Stunners. But then, she started her career as a solo artist. In 2015, she put out the EP This Side of Paradise, and one of the songs on it was “Girls Like Girls.” She co-wrote it with Lily May-Young and Owen Thomas, and it was produced by James Flannigan. Hayley co-directed the music video for it, and when the song and the video came out, it was an absolute phenomenon. It became a lesbian anthem; Rolling Stone named it one of…

  2. E14 · 17 Jun 2026 · 20 min

    Key Change: Tatiana Maslany on "Faceshopping" by Sophie

    My guest today is the actor Tatiana Maslany. One of the things I find so compelling about Tatiana and her career is that the roles that she plays often contain multitudes—literally. She played over 10 different characters–clones, but with distinct personalities–in the TV show Orphan Black. And in the Marvel Universe, she played She-Hulk, who also had the very different alter ego of Jennifer Walters, a lawyer. And right now, she’s starring in the show Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed on AppleTV. When Tatiana prepares for her roles—and the roles within the roles—she often uses music to inspire and…

  3. E315 · 10 Jun 2026 · 24 min

    Paul McCartney - Ripples in a Pond

    Paul McCartney is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer whose career spans more than six decades. As a member of The Beatles and later Wings and then with his own solo albums, he’s simply one of the most influential artists of all time. He has more accolades than I have time to list in this intro. But if you’re listening to this, you already know all that. In May 2026, he released his twentieth solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. He co-produced it with Andrew Watt, who won the 2021 Grammy for Producer of the Year, and whose credits include working with Lady Gaga, The…

  4. 13 May 2026 · 23 min

    Key Change: Emma Straub on ‘69 Love Songs’ by The Magnetic Fields

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  5. E313 · 6 May 2026 · 26 min

    The xx - Crystalised

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  6. E200 · 22 Apr 2026 · 19 min

    Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Father and Son

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  7. E322 · 7 Oct 2026 · 27 minNew

    Elvis Costello - Alison

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  8. E321 · 23 Sep 2026 · 26 min

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  9. 16 Sep 2026 · 25 min

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  10. E320 · 9 Sep 2026 · 29 min

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