Broken Record

Today we’re revisiting a conversation with R&B great Raphael Saadiq. Since this conversation aired, Raphael’s brother and bandmate in trio Tony! Toni! Toné!, D’Wayne Wiggins, passed away. In this episode we revisit some of the early days and recordings sessions of Tony! Toni! Toné!, their reunion tour and D’Wayne’s early involvement with Destiny’s Child.  We also dive deep into Raphael’s solo career which has seen him release five albums starting with 2002’s Instant Vintage. His most recent album, Jimmy Lee, is a collection of very personal songs about the real traumas he and his family experienced growing up in Oakland, CA. Raphael’s also done some amazing work behind the board. He’s produced and written for the likes of D’Angelo, TLC, Mary J. Blige, Solange, Earth Wind and Fire and just recently he worked on a handful of songs on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. He’s also earned an Academy Award nomination fo

Australian singer-songwriter Grace Cummings has one of those voices that’s hard to forget. It’s raw, powerful and deeply expressive, capable of moving from a delicate whisper to a full-throated roar. Broken Record host Justin Richmond first discovered Grace in 2019, when her debut album, Refuge Cove, was released on Flightless Records, the label founded by members of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. With its stripped-down arrangements, plaintive songwriting and commanding vocals, the album quickly became one of Justin’s favorites. Since then, Grace has expanded her sound considerably. For her two most recent albums, 2024’s Ramona and this year’s Bloodhorse!, she teamed up with Topanga Canyon-based producer Jonathan Wilson, who has worked with artists including Angel Olsen, Father John Misty and Margo Price. Together, they’ve moved beyond the spare acoustic sound of her early recordings, building lush, dramatic arrangements around Grace’s unmistakable voice and de

Broken Record re-wind: Today we’re throwing it back to a conversation Malcolm Gladwell had with the one and only Patti Smith. Patti is the consummate downtown NYC artist. Her 1975 debut album Horses is credited as one of the masterpieces of its time. It also cemented her as one of rock n roll’s great lyricists. But her writing extends far beyond music. Her 2010 memoir, Just Kids, won the National Book Award for its brilliant portrayal of the ‘70s bohemian art scene in New York, and Patti’s experience living in the Chelsea Hotel with the famed photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. Today Patti publishes near-daily offerings of poems, songs and serialized fiction on her Substack newsletter. It’s a journal of sorts that she started during the solitary days of the pandemic. On today’s episode, Malcolm Gladwell talks to Patti about her writing in the studio Jimi Hendrix built, Electric Lady. It was there, she tells Malcolm, that she met Hendrix in 1970—just weeks before h

Susanna Hoffs rose to fame in the 1980s as the lead singer and guitarist of the Bangles, the Los Angeles band behind hits like “Manic Monday,” “Walk Like an Egyptian” and “Eternal Flame.” Inspired by the Beatles, the Byrds and the melodic pop of the 1960s, the Bangles brought jangling guitars and rich vocal harmonies to a decade dominated by synthesizers. Hoffs' distinctive voice and gift for melody helped give the band its signature sound. Since the Bangles' heyday, Hoffs has continued to explore her musical influences through solo records and collaborations, while also branching out into fiction with her bestselling debut novel, This Bird Has Flown. Now she's returning with The List, a deeply personal collection of original songs that grew out of informal writing sessions with producer and multi-instrumentalist C.J. Camerieri and a group of collaborators. Drawing on stories from her own life, the album explores love, loneliness, memory and the passage of time, pairing Hof

The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why?  In his new audiobook book, The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American “peculiarity” — how the world’s wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world’s poorest countries.  Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy?  In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a p

Elvis Costello seemed to arrive fully formed with his 1977 debut, My Aim Is True. The look, the voice, the wordplay and the attitude were already there, along with songs like “Alison,” “Watching the Detectives” and “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” that helped establish him as one of the most distinctive songwriters of his generation. But behind that seemingly sudden arrival were years spent absorbing everything from Motown and country to Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman and the California folk-rock of the late ’60s and early ’70s, as Costello worked to find a musical language of his own. Now, nearly 50 years later, Costello is revisiting that evolution with an expansive new anniversary edition of My Aim Is True. The collection reaches back to songs and demos he recorded before the album, tracing his early experiments as a songwriter through the sessions with producer Nick Lowe and the American band Clover, and eventually to the formation of the Attractions. On

Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo helped transform the possibilities of the electric guitar at a time when its role in rock music could seem well established. He came of age in New York City’s downtown No Wave art scene in the late 1970s before co-founding Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon in 1981. Over the next three decades, the band became an artistically and critically important act in American rock, serving as a conduit between the underground and the mainstream. Since Sonic Youth’s dissolution in 2011, Ranaldo has continued to work prolifically as a solo artist and collaborator, moving freely between noise, folk, drone, and spoken word. His work reflects a restless curiosity that has made him a genuine musical polymath. On today’s episode, Justin Richmond talks with Lee Ranaldo about his life and work, including the recent release of The System, a soundtrack he composed for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s documentary about three climate activists working to imagine a d

Brandon Flowers’ new album, Thrasher, is a beautifully written ode to the Southwest where he grew up. It’s a deeply personal record, shining a light on the people close to him, the lives they’ve lived, and the difficulties they’ve navigated between his childhood in Henderson, Nevada, and Payson, Utah. It also explores some of the dead ends Brandon himself might have easily gone down had he not found another path. Of course, that path led to extraordinary success with the Killers and a sound Brandon describes as a mix of Britpop and British post-punk. But the music that surrounded him growing up was country. His dad and his neighbors played Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and other country greats. It was a sound Brandon never quite left behind, and one he developed a deeper connection to over the years. So for Thrasher, he went to Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio A, where he recorded with some of the great musicians in the genre: Charlie McCoy, who played on Bob Dylan’s legend

Tom Morello arrived in Los Angeles from Libertyville, Illinois, in the mid-1980s with a Harvard political science degree in his pocket and a guitar slung across his back, determined to become the next great guitarist on the scene. Instead, he found himself locked out of the glam-rock world that had taken over the Sunset Strip. By day, he worked as a secretary to a state senator; by night, he played clubs, searching for a way in. Then, in 1991, Morello co-founded Rage Against the Machine with Zack de la Rocha—and everything changed. The band fused hip-hop, punk, metal, and politics into something entirely new, becoming one of the biggest rock bands of the 1990s. Rage has been on and off over the past 25 years, but Morello has rarely stood still. He formed Audioslave, recorded folk protest songs as The Nightwatchman, toured as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and collaborated with artists ranging from Chuck D and B-Real to Johnny Cash. Now, for the first time in his decades-long career

David Porter's story goes well beyond writing songs and releasing albums for Stax Records. His recent memoir, The Soul Man, tells how he and his partner Isaac Hayes helped invent a sound rich and enduring enough to define American music from the 1960s to today. Together they wrote and produced hits for Sam & Dave, Johnnie Taylor, and dozens of other artists, and in the process built what became known as the Stax sound, a sound Porter still describes as the pursuit of pure emotional connection. Porter grew up on a dead-end street in Memphis that also produced Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire and members of the Bar-Kays. He started out singing in church before eventually singing and producing music for Stax. He never learned to read music. None of the great names at Stax did. Instead, they built songs by ear, in the room, together, a process Porter calls “head arrangements,” and it became the foundation for some of the greatest songs in the history of R&B. Today, Bruce Headlam sits do

Travis Barker grew up in Fontana, California, and was gifted his first drum kit at the age of four from his mother, who made him promise before she died that he would never stop playing. This was just before he started high school and though he spent his early years dabbling with skateboarding and other interests, he always came back to the drums. After graduating, he moved to Laguna Beach and spent his mornings collecting garbage and his nights playing gigs with punk bands until a touring slot with the Aquabats put him on the same bill as Blink-182, and through happenstance, in the band. What followed was one of the great runs in pop-punk history. Enema of the State and Take Off Your Pants and Jacket sold over 35 million copies worldwide, and Barker’s drumming redefined what a punk or alternative drummer could sound like in the mainstream. On today’s episode, Justin Richmond sits down with Travis Barker to discuss his dedication to his craft, his love of the Misfits and Ramones; and how nigh

Daniel Kessler grew up between London, Paris, and Washington, D.C., listening to his older brother’s early UK rock records. He picked up guitar as a teenager, the same day he quit skateboarding, and after moving to New York in the late ’90s, he set out to find musicians serious enough to start a band. In 1997, that band became Interpol and when their debut Turn on the Bright Lights came out in 2002, it helped define a new wave of New York indie bands, alongside the Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and topped Pitchfork’s year-end list. More than two decades later, Kessler remains the musical architect of Interpol, writing the foundation of the band’s songs, often alone on a classical guitar before bringing them to his bandmates. The band has now made eight albums together, and their latest, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, is their first record made in New York in more than a decade. Produced by Andrew Wyatt, it expands Interpol’s familiar sound with more experimental textures—and feat

Brittany Howard has never been the type to do things quietly. Whether it was fronting Alabama Shakes with a voice that could fill a room and level it in the same breath, or striking out on her own with two solo records that pulled her sound in wilder and more personal directions, she's spent the last decade refusing to stay in one place for long. Now she's back with her bandmates—Zac Cockrell and Heath Fogg— for a new Alabama Shakes album, I Must Be Dreaming, their first in 11 years. And on today's episode, Brittany sits down with Justin Richmond to talk about what it took to get the band back together after a long break and what the new album sounds like on the other side of it. You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Brittany Howard and The Alabama Shakes HERE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Revisionist History's new season The Staten Island Problem, senior producer Ben Naddaff-Hafrey investigates the story of what was, at the time, the biggest secession movement in the U.S. since the Civil War. The Staten Island Problem reconstructs the battle for New York City amidst the turbulent early 1990s—the rise of Rudy Giuliani, the peak of the homicide rate, young Donald Trump, and the first Black mayor of New York—all through the prism of the city’s Forgotten Borough. At the height of the secession movement, the Wu-Tang Clan formed on Staten Island. Here’s a tour of early 1990s hip-hop and the hidden history of the group. Find more episodes of Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem wherever you get podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Harvey Mason Jr. grew up steeped in music. His father, Harvey Mason Sr., was half of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters rhythm section and played on countless sessions through the '70s and '80s. After a brief detour through college basketball, Harvey Mason Jr. built his own life in music, starting where a lot of careers do: writing jingles. From there he assembled a production and songwriting résumé that includes Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, and Beyoncé, along with film work spanning Dreamgirls, Straight Outta Compton, Pitch Perfect, and the recent Michael Jackson biopic. Then, in January 2020, his path took an unexpected turn. The Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammy Awards, installed him as interim and eventually full-time CEO. He stepped into the job at a moment of institutional crisis and set about remaking it from the inside: expanding membership, eliminating secret voting committees, and pushing the organization to be more diverse, transparent, and ref

My friend W. Kamau Bell has a new show out, Who's With Me?. Known for having conversations about the issues that divide, enrage, and confuse us, Kamau sits down with someone he admires to give them their flowers, ask his most burning questions, and invite his guest to give him and his audience homework on how to make the world a better place. Daveed Diggs joins Kamau to discuss his hip-hop career, parenthood, breaking out with Hamilton, and pursuing creative projects with friends. Kamau gives Daveed his flowers for being intentional with the work he selects. From his rap group to his role in the final season of The Boys, to his new film Magic Hour, Daveed busts his ass with projects he believes in. Donate to Cool Hand Series at coolhandseries.org to support bringing the arts into the prison systems. Find new episodes of Who's With Me? with W. Kamau Bell on YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melissa Auf der Maur came of age in Montreal's bohemian art scene in the '80s and early '90s, at the very moment that alternative rock was becoming the defining sound of a generation. Through an unlikely chain of events, her band Tinker landed an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins, and Billy Corgan, sensing her natural talent on bass, recommended her to Courtney Love. What followed was a turbulent apprenticeship. Auf der Maur joined Hole for the Live Through This tour in 1994, just weeks after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Hole's prior bassist, Kristen Pfaff. She later toured with the Smashing Pumpkins, released two solo albums, and has since built a life as a musician, photographer, and cultural curator, co-founding Basilica Hudson, a multidisciplinary arts center in New York's Hudson Valley. Melissa Auf der Maur's book, "Even the Good Girls Will Cry" is a bestseller, part rock memoir, part travel diary, and part psychedelic scrapbook. It's a vivid dispatch from the last analog decade that captures that

Today we're revisiting a conversation with acclaimed British guitarist Johny Marr. 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 Rourke. After The Smiths broke up in 1987, Marr went on to collaborate with an array of different musicians and play in bands like The Pretenders, The The, and Modest Mouse. On today’s episode Justin Richmond talks to Johnny Marr about his exciting work scoring movies with Pharrell and Hans Zimmer. Marr also recalls the terror he felt performing live in front of stadiums full of fans with The Pretenders on U2’s Joshua Tree tour. And he talks about the time he bought a Fender Stratocaster while hanging out with Oasis’ Noel Gallager. That Strat has nine pickups and it eventually led to him writing one the best songs of his solo ca

Joe Jackson showed up in the late '70s UK New Wave scene, all nervous energy and biting wit, with hits like "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" putting him in the same conversation as Elvis Costello and Squeeze. But where a lot of his peers stayed in their lane musically, Jackson kept moving: into the jump-blues swing of "Jumpin' Jive," into the sophisticated, Latin-tinged jazz of Night and Day, and then into classical composition, into a music-hall concept album framed around a fictional Edwardian performer named Max Champion. He's rarely made the same record twice, and that restlessness has probably cost him the kind of mainstream consistency that turns an artist into a household name. On today's episode, Justin Richmond sits down with Joe to talk about his new studio album Hope and Fury, digging into the songwriting on it and on older records, Joe's collaboration with his longtime and criminally underrated bassist Graham Maby, and why comedy is such an important part of Joe's artistic sensibility. You can

Ed O'Brien has spent decades crafting some of the most textured, expansive guitar in modern rock. From the fragmented beauty of Kid A and Amnesiac to the experimental layers of The King of Limbs, with the more straightforward muscle of OK Computer somewhere in between, few players have done more to expand what the instrument can do in a rock context. In recent years, Ed has been building a parallel universe, one where he's at the center. It started with Earth in 2020, released under the moniker EOB. Now comes Blue Morpho, out under his full birth name, Ed O'Brien. The title isn't incidental: like the striking butterfly it references, Ed went through a genuine transformation over the six years it took to make this record, and the album reflects it. On today's Broken Record, Ed walks us through the journey, beginning in solitude, playing guitar figures purely for himself, then gradually moving toward collaboration, eventually pulling in a crew of talented friends to help bring the songs to life. He also talks a