Jessie Reyez - Goliath
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jessie Reyez is a singer and songwriter originally from Toronto. She's won two of Canada's Juno awar...
Key Change: Demi Adejuyigbe on The Strokes
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is Demi Adejuyigbe. One of the things that makes Demi so special is how hard it is to...
Clipse - The Birds Don't Sing
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Clipse was formed in 1994 by two brothers: Gene Thornton Jr, aka Malice, and his younger brother Ter...
Buckingham Nicks - Frozen Love
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On September 5, 1973, the first and only Buckingham Nicks album was released. It wasn’t a huge hit...
Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Next week, I’m going to be publishing an episode with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham about th...
A-ha - Take On Me
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Take On Me" by A-ha is an iconic hit of the 1980s. It came out in October 1985 with an equally icon...
Lady Gaga - Abracadabra
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lady Gaga is a singer, songwriter, producer, and actress from New York. She’s one of the biggest a...
Key Change: David Chang on "I See a Darkness"
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is Chef David Chang. He founded Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2004. That was just the start ...
Ethel Cain - Nettles
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hayden Anhedönia has been making music under the name Ethel Cain since 2019. But it’s not just a ...
Sam Fender - People Watching
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Fender is a singer and songwriter from the town of North Shields in England. He won the Brit Awa...
Key Change: Jia Tolentino on "I Love You Always Forever"
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is Jia Tolentino. Jia is the author of the essay collection Trick Mirror, which was n...
Jay Som - Tenderness
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Melina Duterte goes by the name Jay Som. She’s a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Sh...
Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin Down
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fall Out Boy is a band from Chicago that formed in 2001. Their first album, Take This To Your Grave,...
Gigi Perez - Sailor Song
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gigi Perez is a singer and songwriter from Florida, and at 25 years old, she’s already had so many...
Key Change: Jason Schwartzman on the ‘Rushmore’ soundtrack
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Schwartzman, actor, songwriter, and musician, talks about how the soundtrack to 'Rushmore'—...
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Goo Goo Dolls formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, and by the time 1998 rolled around, they’d alre...
Little Simz - Free
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Little Simz is a rapper from England who put out her first album in 2015. She’s won the Mercury Pr...
Key Change: Shirley Manson on Siouxsie and the Banshees
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is Shirley Manson. Since 1994, she’s been the lead singer of the band Garbage, and ...
Anohni - 4 Degrees
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anohni is a singer and songwriter originally from England, who started putting out music in 2000. Sh...
Jeff Tweedy - How to Write One Song
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2024, I got to go to the Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Massachusetts, which is organi...
Lorde - Sober
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lorde is a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and producer. Her second album, Melodrama, debut...
Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tears for Fears is a duo formed in 1981 in Bath, England by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. They’ve...
Lizzo - Still Bad
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lizzo is a Grammy- and Emmy-winning singer, rapper, songwriter, and actress. She’s been putting ou...
Key Change: Samin Nosrat on Ani DiFranco
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is my friend Samin Nosrat, the author of the bestselling, award-winning cookbook Salt...
MJ Lenderman - You Don't Know The Shape I'm In
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jake Lenderman plays and records under the name MJ Lenderman. He put out his first album in 2019. In...
Key Change: James Acaster on OutKast
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is James Acaster, a comedian, author, musician, and interviewer. He's filmed comedy s...
Lucy Dacus - Thumbs
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lucy Dacus is a singer and songwriter from Richmond, Virginia. She put out her first album in 2016, ...
Theodore Shapiro - Severance (Main Title Theme)
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The TV show Severance debuted on Apple TV+ in February 2022. It was created by writer Dan Erickson, ...
Key Change: Hanif Abdurraqib on The Clash
26 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is Hanif Abdurraqib, a poet, cultural critic, and New York Times bestselling author o...
Sasami - In Love With A Memory (feat. Clairo)
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sasami is a singer, songwriter and producer who grew up in Los Angeles. But now she’s based in Nor...
of Montreal - Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Barnes started of Montreal in 1996 in Athens, Georgia. The Sunlandic Twins came out in 2005; i...
Key Change: Sophie Thatcher on Elliott Smith
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Key Change is a new conversation series within Song Exploder, where I talk to fascinating people abo...
Yola - Symphony
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Yola is a singer/songwriter and actress. She released her solo debut album in 2019, which was nomina...
Adrianne Lenker - Sadness As a Gift
08 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adrianne Lenker is a singer and songwriter. She’s the lead singer of the critically acclaimed and ...
Sabrina Carpenter - Please Please Please
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sabrina Carpenter is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She had a huge year with her album Short N S...
Gracie Abrams - I Love You, I'm Sorry
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gracie Abrams is a singer and songwriter from Los Angeles. She started putting out music in 2020, an...
Waxahatchee - Fire
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Katie Crutchfield is a singer and songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama. She’s been making music und...
Le Tigre - Deceptacon
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Le Tigre originally formed in 1998. They released their self-titled debut album in October 1999. Spi...
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Our House
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1968, singer and songwriter Graham Nash joined David Crosby and Stephen Stills to form the superg...
Pharrell Williams - Piece By Piece
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pharrell Williams is—well, let me just say, he’s a big reason why Song Exploder exists. He’s a...
Jon Batiste - We Are
02 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Batiste is a pianist, songwriter, and composer from New Orleans. He’s been nominated for multi...
Troye Sivan - One of Your Girls
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Troye Sivan is a singer and songwriter from Australia. He’s been nominated for a Golden Globe, two...
Beabadoobee - Coming Home
04 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Beabadoobee is an award-winning singer and songwriter from England who’s been releasing music sinc...
Remi Wolf - Soup
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Remi Wolf is a singer and songwriter originally from Palo Alto, California. She’s been releasing m...
Sam Smith - Stay With Me
24 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Smith is a Grammy and Oscar-winning singer and songwriter from London, England. Their first albu...
Fenne Lily - Lights Light Up
10 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fenne Lily is a singer and songwriter from Dorset, England. She released her first album in 2018, bu...
Vagabon - Water Me Down
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, Vagabon released her third album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, which I’ve been listening t...
Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Crowded House formed in 1985 in Melbourne, Australia. They’ve released eight albums, including the...
Lizzy McAlpine - Staying
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lizzy McAlpine released her first album in 2020, and her second album in 2022. And between the two, ...
The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize??
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983. Over the last four decades, they’ve put out 16 a...
Arooj Aftab - Mohabbat
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
One of the songs I keep coming back to is “Mohabbat” by Arooj Aftab. It’s really special to me...
War - Low Rider
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The band War formed in 1969, in Long Beach, California. “Low Rider” is from their 1975 album Why...
Shania Twain - You're Still The One
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Shania Twain is a singer and songwriter from Ontario, Canada. She’s the only female artist to have...
Danny Brown - Y.B.P. (feat. Bruiser Wolf)
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Danny Brown started his career in 2007 by handing out mixtapes in Detroit, where he’s from. In 201...
Rhiannon Giddens - You Louisiana Man
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rhiannon Giddens has released five solo albums since 2015. Before that, she was a member of the Gram...
Arlo Parks - Black Dog
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I wanted to revisit an episode about one of my favorite songs from 2021, “Black Dog” by Arlo Par...
Green Day - Basket Case
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Green Day is a punk band from the East Bay in California. Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré ...
The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Deluxe Anniversary Edition)
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The first episode of Song Exploder, about The Postal Service song "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight...
Foo Fighters - The Teacher
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For the last episode of the year, I got the chance to drive up to Northridge, California, and have a...
Raye - Escapism (feat. 070 Shake)
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Raye is a singer, songwriter and producer from London. Besides being an artist in her own right, she...
Sampha - Spirit 2.0
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sampha is a singer, songwriter and producer from London. His first album, Process, won the Mercury P...
Paramore - Liar
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
I think one of the hardest things there is to do in music is to write a love song that expresses som...
Kesha - Eat The Acid
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kesha is a singer and songwriter from Los Angeles. She put out her first song in 2009, and it was a ...
Alvvays - Archie, Marry Me
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alvvays is from Toronto. Their first album came out in 2014, and they’ve put out two other albums ...
Laufey - From The Start
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Laufey is a singer and songwriter originally from Iceland. She studied piano and cello as a kid. Whe...
Janelle Monáe - So Afraid
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This summer, in June 2023, Janelle Monáe put out her fourth album, The Age of Pleasure. Listening t...
Siddhartha Khosla - Only Murders in the Building (Main Title Theme)
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The "Skip Intro" button first got introduced to us through Netflix in 2017, and, I know, a lot of pe...
Local Natives - Dark Days
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It can be hard to be in a band, or really, in any kind of group where there’s creative collaborati...
Bakar - Hell N Back
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bakar is a singer and songwriter from London. In 2018 he put out his first release, Badkid. A year l...
Natalie Merchant - Sister Tilly
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Natalie Merchant is an award-winning singer and songwriter from upstate New York. She was the lead s...
Julien Baker - Appointments
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Julien Baker is from Memphis, Tennessee. She released her second album, Turn Out The Lights, in Octo...
Feist - In Lightning
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Feist is a singer/songwriter from Canada. She put out her first solo album in 1999. She’s won 11 J...
Madison McFerrin - Run (feat. Bobby McFerrin)
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Madison McFerrin is a singer, songwriter, and producer from New York. She’s sung with legends like...
New Order - Blue Monday
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In May 1980, the band Joy Division was devastated by the death of lead singer Ian Curtis. The three ...
Mobb Deep - Shook Ones, Pt. II
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s usually hard to pin down when a genre of music starts. But people point to this one party in ...
Yaeji - Passed Me By
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yaeji is a singer, songwriter, and producer from New York. During her childhood she moved between Qu...
Seal - Kiss from a Rose
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Seal is a multi-Grammy-winning singer and songwriter from England. His song “Kiss from a Rose” w...
Kenny Beats - Still
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kenny Beats is a hip-hop producer who’s been making beats and producing songs for other artists si...
Kimbra - Top of the World
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kimbra is an artist from New Zealand. Her first album came out in 2011, and in 2013 she won two Gram...
MUNA - What I Want
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
MUNA is a trio from Los Angeles, made up of Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson. They’...
Noah Kahan - Stick Season
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Noah Kahan is a singer and songwriter from Strafford, Vermont. Last year, in 2022, he released Stick...
Sampa the Great - Let Me Be Great (feat. Angélique Kidjo)
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sampa The Great is a songwriter, rapper, and singer from Zambia. She was based in Australia for year...
Son Lux - This is a Life (from 'Everything Everywhere All at Once')
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Everything Everywhere All at Once is a sci-fi comedy independent film that came out in the spring of...
Omah Lay - Never Forget
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Omah Lay is a Nigerian singer, songwriter, and producer. He’s one of the young stars of Afrobeats,...
Book Exploder: James McBride - Deacon King Kong
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The final episode of Book Exploder is with author James McBride. He was born in New York City and ra...
Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2002, Sam Beam’s first album as Iron & Wine was released on Sub Pop Records. He’d given t...
Book Exploder: George Saunders - Victory Lap
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
George Saunders has won the Booker Prize, and he’s the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant. He w...
Santigold - Ushers of the New World
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Santigold is a singer, songwriter, and producer. She’s put out 4 albums since 2008, and she’s be...
Book Exploder: Celeste Ng - Little Fires Everywhere
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Celeste Ng is an American writer and author of three novels. Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhe...
King Princess - Let Us Die
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
King Princess is the project of Mikaela Straus, a singer, songwriter, and producer from Brooklyn. Sh...
Book Exploder: Tayari Jones - An American Marriage
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tayari Jones is the author of four novels. She won the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction, and received ...
Panic! At the Disco - Viva Las Vengeance
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Panic! At the Disco is the Grammy-nominated project of Brendon Urie, who originally started it as a ...
Book Exploder: Carmen Maria Machado - In the Dream House
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Carmen Maria Machado is the award-winning author of In the Dream House, a memoir where each chapter ...
Björk - Stonemilker
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In January 2015, Björk released Vulnicura. She described it as "a complete heartbreak album." And i...
Book Exploder: Michael Cunningham - The Hours
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Cunningham is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours. He’s the recipient of a Nati...
Madonna - Hung Up
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Madonna is the best-selling female recording artist of all time. She has twelve albums that have gon...
Book Exploder: Min Jin Lee - Pachinko
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Min Jin Lee is the author of the best-selling novel Pachinko. She’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and the r...
Kae Tempest - Move
10 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kae Tempest is a songwriter, rapper, an award-winning poet, and best-selling novelist. They’ve bee...
Book Exploder: Susan Orlean - The Library Book
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing a new miniseries: Book Exploder, where authors break down a passage from one of their bo...
Sudan Archives - Selfish Soul
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sudan Archives is a singer, songwriter, producer, and violinist. She grew up in Cincinnati before mo...