Marley Marl is one of the most important people in hip-hop history. He's the one who figured out how to sample — how to get pieces of songs off vinyl records and into a drum machine. More than 30 year...Show More
All year Morning Edition and NPR Music have been running radio pieces about rap albums released 20 years ago, in 1993. For a special episode of Microphone Check we invited a group of people who were w...Show More
Last spring, way back in 2014, we sat down with Large Professor, partly on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Illmatic but mostly because he's the reason for much of the New York rap we both love...Show More
This is the second half of Microphone Check's interview last year with producer and rapper Large Professor. You can listen to and read part one here http://www.npr.org/sections/microphonecheck/2015/07...Show More
Back in October, Detroit's Black Milk released his sixth solo album, called If There's A Hell Below. He came to New York and spoke with Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Frannie Kelley about trying to impress ...Show More
Drummer Ahmir Thompson, also known as Questlove, and rapper Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, started The Roots when they were in high school in Philadelphia in 1987. Over the last thirty years, the b...Show More
You don't have to be beautiful, rich, OR cool to appreciate Prince - you just need a little extra time, a pair of ears, and a pulse. It's finally time to talk about the Purple One on Strong Songs, spe...Show More
Are you living in an empty room, with all the windows smashed? Then this is the podcast episode for you. It's time for a deep dive into Annie Lennox's 1992 pop banger "Walking on Broken Glass," with a...Show More
Ba de yah! Say that you remember! Ba de yah! Dancing in September!
You don't have to cry, pray, or beg - Kirk is happy to break down one of the 90s' most iconic pop hits without any further encouragement. Yes, it's time to take apart The Cardigans' 1996 hit "Lovefool...Show More
On the first episode of Strong Songs, Kirk breaks down Toto's hit song "Africa," a single so good that it still lights up the Internet today. Band/Artist: Toto Album: Toto IV, 1982 Composed by: David ...Show More
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell made Ain't No Mountain High Enough a hit for Motown in 1967. Diana Ross followed suit in 1970 as a solo artist with her version of the song. It has a place in people's he...Show More
"At first I was afraid, I was petrified"... From a breakup to a shipwreck, emotional true stories of what Gloria Gaynor's iconic disco anthem I Will Survive means to different people around the world....Show More
“I follow the Moskva, down to Gorky Park… listening to the wind of change.” The German rock band Scorpions’ lead singer Klaus Meine was inspired to write Wind of Change at a rock festival in Moscow i...Show More
Amy Winehouse died in July 2011 aged just 27. Back to Black the title track of her second and final album is a torch song to tragic love, addiction and loss. People who loved her and her music talk ab...Show More
A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum: Why has this surreal track remained enduringly popular for over 50 years? Soul Music hears the stories and memories of those who love it. Released in May 1967...Show More
Soul Music explores a song that has become synonymous with the American Civil Rights Movement, Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come released in December 1964 two weeks after he was shot dead in Los Ange...Show More
Few songs can claim to be - quite literally - as far reaching as the 1967 classic 'Can't Take My Eyes off You'. In this edition of Radio 4's 'Soul Music', we hear from former astronaut Christopher Fer...Show More
From the seat of a concert hall piano, Pascal Rogé, one of the world's greatest interpreters of French piano music, leads us through a personal and musical journey of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies. You may...Show More
Series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal. Written by Carole King and made famous by James Taylor, You've Got a Friend won a Grammy Award in 1971. In this programme people t...Show More
In part 2 of the story of mastering, we explore the consequences of the Loudness War and call out some of the worst offenders. We’ll also hear about the artists and mastering engineers who have been f...Show More
How a simple soundbite on America Online became one of the most recognizable sounds of the internet age, plus the creation of a whole new musical instrument. This episode features Elwood Edwards, the ...Show More
There’s a sample of music that’s been heard in over 2,000 songs. Odds are you’ve heard it many times and didn’t even realize you were listening to the same breakbeat. The amen break might be the most ...Show More
Join us on a musical journey from the Golden Age of analog mastering to the digital methods of today. We’ll find out why the music industry became obsessed with loudness, and learn how the digital era...Show More
We uncover how scary sound effects are created in horror films as well as dissect how sound triggers the fear mechanisms in humans. Featuring Formosa Group Senior Sound Editor/Sound Designer Trevor Ga...Show More
Over the years, Microsoft has made at least ten iconic startup sounds for Windows—from the triumphant “Ta-da!” of Windows 3.1, to the ambient chime that Brian Eno crafted for Windows 95, to the orches...Show More
Part 2 of our series on the Windows startup sounds picks up when Microsoft made the radical decision to kill the startup sound in Windows 8. In this episode, we explore the forces that led to that dec...Show More
The names of pop and rock stars are known by millions of people around the world, but the people who actually write their music often stay in the shadows. In this episode, we peel back the curtain on ...Show More