Bigmouth
286 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 8 ratingsClever talk about pop culture.
Bigmouth is pop culture talk for discerning grown-ups. Music, TV, movies, books or something else entirely – we’ll enthuse, argue, squabble and pick over the bones of what’s happening in the world of the stuff we love.
Presented by WORD magazine veterans Andrew Harrison (ex-editor of Q, Select and Mixmag) and Siân “Stan” Pattenden, a graduate of the Smash Hits and Select Mag Schools of Excellence.
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Episodes
Brave New World, Working Men’s Club, Miss Juneteenth, Sylvan Esso
September 26, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourSoma lovin’, had me a blast… Can NBC do justice to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, with Harry Lloyd and Jessica Brown Findlay free-lovin’ their way across futuristic New London? It starts on SKY next Friday. Can the debut album by Todmorden noiseniks Working Men’s Club superserve both the mature Fall/Cabaret Voltaire fan and today’s young ravers? Are US electro plinkers Sylvan Esso any good? And a really affecting movie about the beauty pageant battles of black mothers and daughters in Texas...
Public Enemy, David Tennant in Des, Róisín Murphy, The Duchess
September 19, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourHave Public Enemy really made a masterpiece with What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down, their first album for Def Jam in 22 years? A Pong From Under The Floorboards: David Tennant as Dennis Nilsen in Des. The discomatic return of Róisín Murphy with Róisín Machine. And is Katherine Ryan’s single mum comedy The Duchess just a bit too North London for its own good? Justin Quirk, author of Nothin' But a Good Time: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Glam Metal, and Craig McLean of The Times join...
Flaming Lips, I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, Two Weeks To Live on Sky
September 12, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourOn this week’s bloody assizes of pop culture… Does THE FLAMING LIPS’ new album American Head constitute the headstone of psychedelic culture or a state of the nation rallying cry to let your freak flag fly? Can Maisie ‘Game Of Thrones’ Williams cut it in revenge comedy TWO WEEKS TO LIVE, now on Sky? And what the hell is Charlie ‘Adaptation’ Kaufman’s I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS supposed to be about? Film critics Claire Biddles and Matt Glasby join Andrew and Siân to gaze in bafflement. Pro...
Guest NITIN SAWHNEY on Tenet, Disclosure, Nubya Garcia, BBC4’s Soul America
August 29, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourUltra-prolific gene-splicer of all musics Asian, Anglo and beyond Nitin Sawhney joins Will Hodgkinson of The Times plus Siân and Andrew for this week’s pop culture summit. WELCOME TO THE PALINDROME: Does Christopher Nolan’s mind-pretzeling Tenet make sense, and will it save Hollywood? MIND OVER PLATTER: New albums from leftfield jazz parper Nubya Garcia and house delinquents Disclosure. STAX AND VIOLENCE: Why BBC4’s new three-parter Soul America – covering the rise of black music through civ...
Lovecraft Country, Lemon Twigs, Erasure, Project Power
August 22, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourThe weekend starts early! Just! Under the pop culture microscope this week… H.P. SOURCE – Sky/HBO’s Lovecraft Country: here’s that “Jim Crow-era American racism meets extra dimensional elder gods” mash-up you were looking for. But is it any good? GLAM RACKET – Is The Lemon Twigs’ magpie mid-70s power pop a wild pastiche, a glorious rock’n’roll adventure… or both? SAVED BY THE BELL (AND THE CLARKE) – Erasure are back back back! POWER PILL – In Netflix super-action pic Project Power you ne...
Diane Morgan’s MANDY, Cut Copy, Yes God Yes
August 15, 2020 03:00 - 54 minutesThis week on pop culture’s premier inquisition… I’M MANDY, TRY ME: Does Diane Morgan’s new mini-series MANDY hit the highs of Philomena Cunk? CHILL BY SOUTH: Melbourne electro gadabouts Cut Copy go ambient on new sixth album Freeze, Melt. Will it assuage our panel’s heatstroke? DOING THE LORD'S JERK: It’s Catholic guilt vs teenage sexual “self-discovery” time in new comedy Yes God Yes. Will our panel experience holy ecstasy (followed by immediate shame)? William Shaw – Smash Hits and Deta...
The Real Thing doc on BBC4, Fontaines DC, Peanut Butter Falcon
August 08, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourThis week on the premier pop-probing podcast… MERSEY, MERSEY ME: The Real Thing, the 4-piece Marvin Gaye of Liverpool 8, finally get their props on a new BBC4 documentary. What do we think? DUBLIN UP: Fontaines DC are this year’s Great New Guitar Band. Will they excite our mature panel as much as they do the ragin’ teens? GET IN THE RING: Leftfield dramady The Peanut Butter Falcon takes a Down’s Syndrome kid who dreams of being a wrestler on a Southern odyssey with Shia LaBoeuf. What’s th...
Mrs America, Sylvie Simmons, Laurel Canyon on SKY, Shirley Collins
August 01, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourMojo mag contributing editor SYLVIE SIMMONS dials in from San Francisco to tell us about her new ukulele-powered album Blue On Blue and talk over this week’s pop culture stuff with fellow guest, award-winning podcaster KATE HUTCHINSON: ISN’T SHE SCHLAFLY? Does Cate Blanchett convince as counter-feminist martinet Phyllis Schlafly in Mrs America? MOTHER FOLKER: Doyenne of traditional English music Shirley Collins deliver her second album after emerging from thirty years of silence. What do we...
Jarvis Cocker, 2000AD creator Pat Mills, Warrior Nun, Murdoch on BBC
July 25, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourAttention, earthlets! 2000AD comic creator Pat Mills joins us to talk about the romance of violence and anarchy for teenage delinquents plus his new comic Spacewarp. Plus… COCKER THE NORTH: Is Jarvis growing old gracefully with his new band Jarv Is… and its debut album Beyond The Pale? BLOOD WIMPLE: Holy terror in Netflix’s Warrior Nun. THE DIGGER YOU LOVE TO HATE: The Rise Of The Murdoch Dynasty on BBC2. Bigmouth regular Michael Moran joins Andrew and Siân for another rock’n’roll roundt...
The Plot Against America, The Streets, Herzog’s Family Romance
July 11, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourIt couldn’t happen here… right? Philip Roth’s counterfactual of a fascist USA The Plot Against America gets a TV treatment from the team behind The Wire. The Streets return with None Of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive – will a lachrymose dad-rave “mixtape” bake our collective cake? And Family Romance LLC, Werner Herzog’s multi-layered tale of illusion and familial longing. NME and Loaded veteran Iestyn George and comedy writer and journo Sarah Morgan join us as we get judgy. Produced a...
Keith Haring on BBC2, Nadine Shah, Arca, Nic Roeg’s Walkabout
July 04, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourApple Music’s Matt Wilkinson and Jude Rogers of The Guardian and New Statesman join us for this week’s bloody assizes of pop culture. Does the BBC’s Arena documentary Keith Haring: Street Art Boy finally do justice to the wild style graffiti artists of early 80s New York? New albums from Tyneside toughnut Nadine Shah and 9ft tall trans electronica artiste Arca. And we revisit Nicolas Roeg’s still-bewitching antipodean rite of passage Walkabout on the eve of a new Blu-Ray release. Produced an...
Paul Weller’s masterpiece, Wu Tang Clan documentary, The Vast Of Night
June 27, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourLockdown has given Paul Weller longer trog-hair than we’ve ever seen… but is 15th album On Sunset his actual prog-mod masterpiece? Wu Tang Clan documentary Of Mics And Men mesmerises our panel of ageing B-Boys and B-Girl. And we probe The Vast Of Night, the lo-fi sci-fi sleeper hit now on Amazon. Rob ‘Spotify’ Fitzpatrick and Michael ‘Guardian/Spectator/FT’ Hann are this week’s special guests Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmout...
I May Destroy You, Jehnny Beth, Da 5 Bloods
June 20, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourIs BBC1’s all-encompassing comedy drama of race, class, cities and, yes, sexual assault I May Destroy You as good as everyone’s saying? A pulsating polysexual solo debut arrives from Jehnny Beth of Savages while another frontperson-without-portfolio, ex-Maccabee Orlando Weeks, delivers a much more subdued one about – ahem – fatherhood. Which one’s the best? And is Spike Lee’s “Black Vietnam” movie Da 5 Bloods worth your Netflix time? Assessing it all with Andrew and Siân are undisputed world...
McMillion$, Run The Jewels, Girlhood
June 13, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourThis week in the Inner Sanctum of pop culture: Will McDonalds heist documentary McMillion$ supersize your evenings in? And which of its cast of oddballs and nutcases deserve their own spin-off? Run The Jewels’ fourth album lands in a none-more-timely fashion, right in the middle of the BLM revolution. What do the panel think? And we revisit Céline Portrait Of A Lady On Fire Sciamma’s Parisian banlieu drama Girlhood in Old Film Club. Lords of lockdown James ‘GQ and The Word’ Medd and Simon ‘Su...
Madness’s autobiography, Space Force on Sky, Erland Cooper
June 06, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourThis week in the Cell Block 9 of pop culture: Madness’s hair-raisingly criminal and violent joint autobiography Before We Was We is out in paperback, which is as good a reason as any to revisit it. Was Steve Carell wise to base an entire big-bucks sitcom on Trump’s whim toof creating a Space Force for the US military? And the cosmic sound of Orkney with post-folk mind-massager Erland Cooper. Men about town Justin Quirk and Dan Maier are our guests for the affair. Produced and presented by An...
Tim Burgess, Snowpiercer on Netflix, cult movie Adam & Paul
May 30, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourThis week on the lockdown get-down of pop culture: Does Tim Burgess’s new LP I Love The New Sky cement his position as Captain Cheer-up of the COVID calamity? Netflix turn Bong Joon-Ho’s dystopian weird-out Snowpiercer into a series. Is this a good idea? And in Old Film Club we settle down with Adam And Paul, a heartwarming tale of two Dublin pals who share a dream, a deep personal bond, and a crippling addiction to heroin. Popcorn at the ready! Pop fiend and illustrator of amazing children’s...
White Lines on Netflix, Charli XCX, Idles, Scorsese’s After Hours
May 23, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourDoyen of US pop journalist David Keeps of Star Hits and Details magazines fame dials from faraway Phoenix, Arizona to join Mark “Arena/The Face” Hooper, Siân and Andrew for this week’s bloody assizes of entertainment. In the dock: Netflix’s uncommonly clever clubbin’n’druggin’-in-Ibiza series White Lines, Mark and David’s choices of great albums for the Great Shut-In, and we revisit Martin Scorsese’s yuppie terror odyssey of 1985, After Hours. Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Si...
Special guest BAXTER DURY plus Sparks, Jarvis, Idiocracy and more
May 16, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourWe loved his new album The Night Chancers and now we welcome Baxter Dury plus guest Hannah Verdier of The Guardian to this week’s conference call of pop. On the agenda: The new Sparks album A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip! Do they still have it in their *checks notes* SIXTH decade in rock and/or pop? Baxter and Hannah suggest great albums of the Lockdown Era, including Jarvis Cocker’s as-yet unreleased Jarv Is. And what will the panel make of Andrew’s Old Film Club selection, Mike Judge’s fable of ...
Magnetic Fields, Sidney Lumet’s Network, Fiona Apple, Hollywood on Netflix
May 09, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourWill Quickies, an album of VERY short songs by maudlin mandolin merchants The Magnetic Fields, have your knees a-tremble? What about that Fiona Apple album, eh? Is Ryan ‘Glee’ Murphy’s Netflix extravaganza Hollywood quite the turkey that everyone’s saying? And in the absence of interesting new stuff we institute Old Film Club with a look at Sidney Lumet’s media satire Network. Guests Sophie Harris of MOJO and Will Hodgkinson of The Times are mad as hell and they ain’t gonna take it no more. ...
Beastie Boys Story, Pretenders, Vivarium
May 02, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourDoes Beastie Boys Story, MCA and Ad-Rock’s hip hop TED talk, expand our knowledge of their journey from frat pack to woke MCs? The new Pretenders album Hate For Sale – they’ve put the release back but we’re talking about it anyway. And SURREAL ESTATE: will Kafkesque homeowning horror mystery Vivarium put you off househunting forever? Guests William Shaw and Claire Biddles join Andrew and Siân for another pop culture plenary. Remember you can watch this discussion in all its riveting detail i...
Devs, Why Don’t You Just Die?, Plone, Mike Judge’s Tales from the Tour Bus
April 25, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourWho’s Zoomin’ who? Guests Joe ‘Mixmag’ Muggs and Jim ‘Jockey Slut’ Butler join Andrew and Siân for our first-ever LIVE ZOOM recording. On the agenda: Alex Garland’s paranoid tech fantasy Devs, the spectacularly bloody Russian comedy thriller Why Don’t You Just Die?, and foul and funky behaviour in Beavis & Butthead genius Mike Judge’s Tales From The Tour Bus. Want to actually SEE all this? Sign up to Patreon for a full video recording (coming soon) so you can mock our interior decor choices....
Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Run, Ed O’Brien, Quibi
April 18, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourIs Sky’s new Phoebe Waller-Bridge “screwball tragedy” Run up there with Fleabag and Killing Eve? How Radiohead-y is the first solo album by their guitarist Ed O’Brien? And would you watch US TV shows with titles like Murder House Flip in 8-minute bursts on your smartphone? New mobile media launch Quibi hopes so. Guests Adam Higginbotham – author of Midnight In Chernobyl – and Miranda Sawyer of the Observer dial into the COBRA meeting of pop’n’roll. Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison a...
John Niven on his new novel plus Kidding on Sky, The Platform and the worst albums ever
April 11, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourWith all the quality releases cancelled, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Duran Duran’s covers album ‘Thank You’, acclaimed as perhaps the worst album ever made. Plus slash’n’stab satirist John Niven on why his new book The F*ck It List might get him banned from America, and fellow guest Kate “Worldwide FM/Last Bohemians podcast” Hutchinson helps us to dismantle Jim Carrey’s dark comedy Kidding and The Platform, Netflix’s gastro-horror sleeper hit from Spain. Produced and presented by An...
The Strokes, Pen15, The Murder Of Nipsey Hussle
April 04, 2020 03:00 - 1 hourCombating isolation frustration across the nation… This week, The Strokes are back! Is this a good idea? Bravura and very near-the-knuckle middle school cringe comedy Pen15, in which two 31-year old actors play themselves as 13. And does BBC3’s Mysterious Murder Of Nipsey Hussle do justice to the assassinated hip hop star? Guests Jude “Guardian/New Statesman” Rogers and Ralph “Mixmag/Muzik” Moore help us sort it all out. Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio pro...
The Mandalorian, Tiger King, Ren Harvieu
March 28, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourRemotely-recorded for your safety and comfort… Disney+ is here just in time for the Lockdown. Will spaghetti Star Wars western The Mandalorian justify your hard-earned Imperial credits? Big cat murder mystery cult saga Tiger King on Netflix: has any true story this insane been seen on TV before? And Salford torch singer Ren Harvieu returns after years of hardship. Will she get a good revieu? Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly and Johnny Davis of Esquire magazine join us to sort it all out. ...
Lockdown hoedowns, Baxter Dury, Eel Pie Island doc
March 21, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourExcuse our sound quality… We’re all indoors for the foreseeable future, so you might as well enjoy the good stuff. In our first hygienic, remotely-recorded podcast guests Eamonn Forde (Guardian) and Martin Aston (MOJO) join Andrew and Siân to recommend what to watch, play and read in the self-isolation era. Plus Baxter Dury takes his urban dirty young man persona to “another level” and we assess next Friday’s BBC4 lock-in, the Eel Pie Island rock doc Rock’n’Roll Island. Do we learn anything n...
Ready Steady Go! on BBC4, Color Out Of Space, Nigel Godrich’s Ultraísta
March 14, 2020 04:00 - 49 minutesTHE WEEKEND STARTS HERE (even though it’s Saturday). As BBC4 dedicates a evening to The Story of Ready Steady Go! we ask just what it was that made the bob-haired Cathy McGowan modfest the platonic ideal of youth TV? Plus alien gross-out horror in a new movie adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s Color Out Of Space and Radiohead’s sonic masseur Nigel Godrich returns with his micro-supergroup Ultraísta, Frugging on the podium with Siân and Andrew this week are journo-about-town Michael Moran and Ian H...
Ready Steady Go! on BBC4, Color Out Of Space, Nigel Godrich’s Ultraísta
March 14, 2020 04:00 - 48 minutes - 44.1 MBTHE WEEKEND STARTS HERE (even though it’s Saturday). As BBC4 dedicates a evening to The Story of Ready Steady Go! we ask just what it was that made the bob-haired Cathy McGowan modfest the platonic ideal of youth TV? Plus alien gross-out horror in a new movie adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s Color Out Of Space and Radiohead’s sonic masseur Nigel Godrich returns with his micro-supergroup Ultraísta, Frugging on the podium with Siân and Andrew this week are journo-about-town Michael Moran and Ian...
Noughts + Crosses on BBC1, Soccer Mommy, U.S. Girls, I Am Not Okay With This
March 07, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourDON’T CALL ME BLANCA: Does BBC1’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s race-inversion counterfactual Noughts + Crosses work as drama as well as thought experiment? New albums from “queen of screwing up” Soccer Mommy and Toronto-based megapop torch singer U.S. Girls. And a lonely teen girl discovers her Hulk-like superpower is… incipient lesbianism? That’s I Am Not Okay With This on Netflix. Legendary presenter of THE WORD, 6Music DJ and “smellologist” Katie Puckrik and Michael Hann of The Guardi...
Steve Coogan in Greed and The Trip To Greece, Chic, Cornershop
February 29, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourBLAME IT ON THE COOGAN: Does Alan Partridge’s alter ego acquit himself better as a thinly-veiled pastiche of charmless retail plutocrat Sir Philip Green in Michael Winterbottom’s gaudy comedy Greed? Or as an even-thinner-veiled version of himself in the final series of The Trip with Rob Brydon? (Food notes: this time it’s Greece). We talk to guest Daryl Easlea – writer for Record Collector, Mojo, Uncut and more – about the new edition of his book Everybody Dance: Chic And The Politics Of Disc...
Andrew Weatherall tribute, Pete Paphides memoir, Best Coast, Intelligence on Sky
February 22, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourAfter the great ANDREW WEATHERALL’s untimely passing, we assemble Weatherall-watchers Anthony Teasdale and Peter Paphides to appreciate the life, legacy and inspirational madness of Lord Sabre, the polymathic Oscar Wilde of acid house. Plus… UNSUNG HEROES OF CHIP SHOP: Pete’s marvellous, hilarious and moving memoir Broken Greek, on how pop music changed – and saved – the life of a son of Greek immigrants who ran a Birmingham chippy in the 70s and 80s. YOU ARE WATCHING BIG BROTHER: Will GCHQ ...
Parasite, Gil Scott-Heron, C90 indie rock
February 15, 2020 04:00 - 55 minutesHOME ALONE: Is Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-scarfing class-battle nerve-twister Parasite really as good as they say? POSTHUMOUS POETICS: There’s another version of Gil Scott-Heron’s final album I’m New Here out. Makaya McCraven jazzes it up into We’re New Again. What are the pros and cons of the collab beyond the grave? MEMOIRS OF SHOEGAZING GENTLEMEN (AND LADIES): What does the vast new compilation C90 tell us about the idyllic, bowlheaded world of pre-Oasis indie pop? Guardian TV and podcasts writ...
188: Writing thrillers with Mat Osman of Suede and William Shaw plus Queen & Slim, La Roux, Tame Impala
February 08, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourIt’s crime fiction week! We talk to Mat Osman of Suede about his genuinely excellent debut novel The Ruins, and our old Smash Hits/Select colleague William Shaw about his spectacular new career as an author of superior crime fiction. Plus, does much-lauded new chase movie Queen And Slim deliver on its promise as the Black Lives Matter Bonnie & Clyde? New albums from day-glo ice queen of the rave La Roux and yacht techno space Jesus Tame Impala. And much more besides. Produced and presented b...
187: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Isobel Campbell, England’s lost baroque pop
February 01, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourThis week, presenter of radio, podcasts and Thronecast Jamie East and Lydon/Tricky biographer Andrew Perry descend into the BigmouthCave. On the menu… THE ONCE AND FUTURE CRINGE: Curb Your Enthusiasm is back after three years. Does the comedy of squirm still work in a more censorious age? And how does Larry David stay away from caricaturing himself? CARRY ON FOLLOW THAT CAMPBELL: Former desert bluesperson and Belle & Sebastianist Isobel Campbell embraces the Laurel Canyon sound on her first...
186: Uncut Gems, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Lab, Halsey, Georgia
January 25, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourThis week, TV oracles Julia Raeside of The Guardian and Michael Hogan of the Telegraph join Andrew and Siân to read pop culture’s spiritual aura. Submitting to past-life analysis this week… BLING ME THE HORIZON: Can phoner-in of broad and basic comedy roles Adam Sandler rediscover his hidden talents as an actual thesp for avant garde diamond business thriller Uncut Gems? And is this the tensest moviegoing experience around right now? ELECTRIC YOUTH: Rave spawn Georgia’s incandescent album Se...
185: Pet Shop Boys, Bowie graphic novel, Armando Iannucci’s Avenue 5
January 18, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourDance music guru Ralph Moore of Mixmag and well-dressed journo-about-town Justin Quirk join Andrew and Siân on the Pools Panel of pop culture. This week: BABYLON BERLIN: Recorded in the German capital, ‘Hotspot’ completes the Pet Shop Boys’ trilogy with superproducer Stuart Price. Are we in for sad bangers, what’s the laser quotient… and can you still rave in your seventh decade? (Spoiler: yes). CHEAP HOLIDAYS IN OTHER SPECIES’ MISERY: Armando Iannucci’s latest workplace satire is set on a sp...
184: 1917 movie, Dracula, January No.1s, Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker
January 11, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourROCK ON, TOMMY: Why there’s more to Sam Mendes’s nerve-shredding trench epic 1917 than total WW1 immersion horror. TYPE AAARGH! POSITIVE: Was Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat’s Dracula update too kitsch, or not kitsch enough? BRING YOUR DAUGHTER TO THE CHART RETURNS SHOP: The lost art of the Stealth January Number One. REN & SKIMPY: We gather the nerds for final judgment on Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. For the first Bigmouth of the Twenties we’re joined by Strictly Kev AKA Ninja Tune art...
End of Decade Special feat Bowie, Fleabag, St Vincent, Janelle Monáe and more
December 21, 2019 04:00 - 1 hourBlackstar! Inside No.9! Arrival! St Vincent! Kill List! Robyn! Shame! Bicep! All these and more feature in our end-of-decade bloody assizes. As the Clanging Chimes of Doom bring us to the end not just of 2019 but the TwentyTeens™ themselves, what were our favourites of the decade that’s about to cash in its “chips”? Guests Jude Rogers of The Word and The Guardian and Eamonn Forde of The Final Days Of EMI fame join Andrew and Siân to sort it all out. As the late great Dame himself once sang, “...
182: Best of 2019 feat. Booksmart, Chernobyl, Nick Cave, Lana Del Rey and more!
December 14, 2019 06:00 - 1 hourDo we hear a middling mid-2000s rock track or is it time for the best, the best, the Best of 2019? Joining Andrew and Siân to reveal their favourite films, albums, tracks, and other things are musician, yogi and Mojo writer Sophie Harris, and King of the Music Writer’s bingo board and Craig Finn fan Michael Hann. Among the top dogs are Booksmart, the screwball teen comedy turning the genre on its head, the HBO series Chernobyl and Succession. Plus, the panel tries to avoid the waterworks -...
182: Best of 2019 feat. Booksmart, Chernobyl, Nick Cave, Lana Del Rey and more!
December 14, 2019 06:00 - 1 hour - 64.4 MBDo we hear a middling mid-2000s rock track or is it time for the best, the best, the Best of 2019? Joining Andrew and Siân to reveal their favourite films, albums, tracks, and other things are musician, yogi and Mojo writer Sophie Harris, and King of the Music Writer’s bingo board and Craig Finn fan Michael Hann. Among the top dogs are Booksmart, the screwball teen comedy turning the genre on its head, the HBO series Chernobyl and Succession. Plus, the panel tries to avoid the waterwor...
181. Sound systems book, Burial, Psychemagik, 8 Days on Sky
December 07, 2019 06:00 - 1 hourIt’s a bass-heavy podcast as we welcome dance music guru and Bigmouth regular Joe Muggs and photographer Brian David Stevens to talk about their book Bass, Mids, Tops: An Oral History of Sound System Culture. Pre-order it here and get free badges! Plus… CEMETARY GREATS: Mysterious dubstep person Burial compiles all his free-range experimental EPs under the name ‘Tunes 2011-2019’. How does this enhance our understanding of the Vangelis of the night bus queue? APOCALYPSE NEIN: A meteor is about...
180: Coldplay album, Dolly Parton's Heartstrings, Country Music and Brett Anderson's new memoir
November 30, 2019 06:00 - 1 hourDevon is a place on Earth: West Country sons Coldplay release their new album Everyday Life - a concept album of two halves, Sunrise and Sunset. We discuss this disparate mix of stadium-bothering plus acoustic wibblings and why the hell Nietzsche is on the cover. I Beg Your Parton: Dolly Parton's new Netflix series Heartstrings brings to life eight of her songs and features Julianne Hough, Kathleen Turner and Dolly herself amongst many others. Is it at good as the tunes? The Big Tome: Suede s...
179: Leonard Cohen, Nasty Cherry, Lou Reed's lyrics, War of the Worlds
November 23, 2019 06:00 - 54 minutesTrawling through the muddy flats of pop culture this week… HELLO, I MUST BE COHEN: Leonard Cohen's posthumous album Thanks for the Dance is released this week. Compiled by his son Adam, did Leonard have more to say after 2016's You Want it Darker? POP YOUR CHERRY: "You can't sing, you look awful, you'll go a long way..." Can Charli XCX's new girl band Nasty Cherry make it big in the Netflix show I'm With the Band, despite in-band rivalries and zero experience? OF COURSE THEY CAN. Reed United...
178: The Irishman, DJ Shadow, FKA Twigs, winter pop warmers Episode
November 16, 2019 04:00 - 1 hourRevealed in the tea leaves of pop culture this week… LEST WE FUGGEDABOUDIT: Does Martin Scorsese’s elegiac epic The Irishman put the capstone on mob movies forever? And who’s best in it: Bobby de Niro, little Joey Pesci, Al ‘The Animal’ Pacino or Stephen ‘The Scousefather’ Graham? ME AND MY SHADOW: Trip hop originator DJ Shadow rails against the digitally-saturated present on ‘Our Pathetic Age’. Modern hip hop masterpiece or old man shouting at iCloud? THE SPECIAL FKA: The fragile, suspended...
177: His Dark Materials, Michael Kiwanunka, Doctor Sleep, Apple TV+
November 09, 2019 04:00 - 1 hourSpelling themselves out on the ouija board of pop culture this week… DÆMON DAYS: Does the prestige BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials do justice to one of the greatest and most philosophically challenging books in the young adult pantheon? Or what? MUSWELL HILL COMMUNICATION: We finally got that Michael Kiwanuka album. Does it deliver on the modern epic soul front? REDRUM HE WROTE: That sequel to The Shining that nobody ordered is here. Does all plot and no mystery mak...
177: His Dark Materials, Michael Kiwanunka, Doctor Sleep, Apple TV+
November 09, 2019 04:00 - 1 hour - 62.5 MBSpelling themselves out on the ouija board of pop culture this week… DÆMON DAYS: Does the prestige BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials do justice to one of the greatest and most philosophically challenging books in the young adult pantheon? Or what? MUSWELL HILL COMMUNICATION: We finally got that Michael Kiwanuka album. Does it deliver on the modern epic soul front? REDRUM HE WROTE: That sequel to The Shining that nobody ordered is here. Does all plot and no mystery...
Terminator Dark Fate, Kanye’s Jesus album, Eddie Murphy as Dolemite
November 02, 2019 04:00 - 1 hourTumbling out of the pop culture piñata this week: THE BECH-DEATH TEST: Does the all-new all-female Terminator Dark Fate bring the much-rebooted “killer robots from the future” saga back online? Or is the story trapped in a repetitive subroutine? HOLY JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY: Kanye West has got God, but what will God think about that? And will Mr West’s holy-rolling gospel-powered album Jesus Is King save the souls of our heathen panel? BLACK COMEDY: Eddie Murphy’s magnificent starring turn as f...
175: Watchmen, Dusty Springfield, Giri/Haji, Dukes Of Stratosphear, The Laundromat
October 26, 2019 03:00 - 1 hourBubbling out of the pop culture percolator this week… NO SQUID PRO QUO: Has Damon “Lost” Lindelof done justice to Watchmen – the Citizen Kane of wearing your underpants outside your trousers – with his “remix” of the concept for HBO/Sky? And do we have any idea of what the hell is going on? KEEP IT DUSTY: What guest Lucy O’Brien discovered as she updated her definitive biography of Dusty Springfield. STRIFE IN TOKYO: New high-end crime drama Giri/Haji on BBC2 – there’s a dead yakuza in Lond...
175: Watchmen, Dusty Springfield, Giri/Haji, Dukes Of Stratosphear, The Laundromat
October 26, 2019 03:00 - 1 hour - 60.3 MBBubbling out of the pop culture percolator this week… NO SQUID PRO QUO: Has Damon “Lost” Lindelof done justice to Watchmen – the Citizen Kane of wearing your underpants outside your trousers – with his “remix” of the concept for HBO/Sky? And do we have any idea of what the hell is going on? KEEP IT DUSTY: What guest Lucy O’Brien discovered as she updated her definitive biography of Dusty Springfield. STRIFE IN TOKYO: New high-end crime drama Giri/Haji on BBC2 – there’s a dead yakuza in ...
174: Joker, Suzi Quatro movie, Motörhead, Succession finale spoilerama
October 19, 2019 03:00 - 1 hourInside the tumble dryer of pop culture this week… REPENT, HARLEQUIN! Is there more to Joaquin Phoenix’s turn in the hit Joker origin movie than half Taxi Driver and half King of Comedy? The movie has divided critics – will it divide our panel? FIRE UP THE QUATRO: Does the biopic of original beleathered rock vixen Suzi Quatro convey the supercharged excitement of her doing Can The Can? And do we actually need biopics of every single pop star? NO MORE KILMISTER NICE GUY: A major reissue progra...