Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

To close out the year we’ve been revisiting some favorite conversations from over the years. We started a couple of weeks ago with Patti Smith and Raphael Saadiq. This week we’re revisiting a conversation with English pop singer/songwriter RAYE. RAYE just won the Mercury Prize over the weekend for her sophomore release, THIS ALBUM MAY CONTAIN HOPE. that featured the huge single Where Is My Husband?

But this conversation covers her debut album, MY 21ST CENTURY BLUES which won Album of the Year and a historic total six wins at the 2024 Brit Awards. In our chat we discuss how a quote from Nina Simone gave her the courage to take control of her career and she explains the inspiration behind her sprawling multi-part single, “Genesis.”

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite RAYE songs HERE.

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For more than 20 years, Rhiannon Giddens has explored the musical traditions that shaped American culture, often bringing overlooked Black musicians and their contributions into focus. On her new album, Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, she brings together collaborators from throughout her career for a collection of songs deeply rooted in her native North Carolina.

In this conversation with Bruce Headlam, Rhiannon talks about the making of the album, how Emily Dickinson’s poetry inspired the title track, and why preserving the human element of music is more important to her than ever. She also discusses her new book, Go Back and Fetch It, which explores the early history of Black music in America and the Caribbean, and the influence of musicians like Elizabeth Cotten and Ola Belle Reed. Along the way, Rhiannon reflects on the importance of making music with other people, the traditions we've lost along the way, and the creative process behind her Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, Omar.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Rhiannon Giddens HERE.

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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 for his work as a film composer.

Justin Richmond talks with Raphael Saadiq from his studio in Los Angeles about some of the incredible work he’s done recently. Raphael breaks down his collaboration with D’Angelo on the classic track “Lady,” and how Sly Stone bassist Larry Graham influenced a generation of musicians coming up in the Bay Area.

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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 deeply personal songs.

On today’s episode, Grace talks with Justin about making Bloodhorse!, her Irish heritage and the influence of traditional Irish folk music on her songwriting. She also treats us to two performances, playing “Judy’s Pool” and “John Lennon.”

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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 he passed away. Patti also talks about hanging out with and writing lyrics for Janis Joplin, and she recalls the fun she had during a failed attempt to cover Adele in concert.

Hear a playlist of all of our favorite Patti Smith songs HERE.

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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 Hoffs' unmistakable voice with the kind of timeless melodies that first made her famous.

On today's episode, Bruce Headlam talks with Susanna Hoffs and C.J. Camerieri about the making of The List, the musical influences that shaped her, and the stories behind the album's songs, including a chance encounter with the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir. They also discuss her approach to songwriting, what writing a novel taught her about storytelling, and how she's finding new ways to express herself more than four decades into her career.

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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 picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it. 

Here's a preview. Get the full audiobook at pushkin.fm/audiobooks or wherever you get audiobooks.

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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 today’s episode, Bruce Headlam talks with Elvis Costello about how he found his voice as a songwriter, the music that shaped him, and the stories behind some of the songs on My Aim Is True. They also talk about the “angry young man” persona that followed Costello through his early career, what he learned about music from his parents, and what he hears now when he looks back at the young songwriter he was nearly half a century ago.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Elvis Costello HERE.

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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 different world.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Lee Ranaldo HERE.

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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 legendary Nashville sessions; Bruce Bouton, who has played pedal steel with Garth Brooks from the very beginning of his career; and David Rawlings, Gillian Welch’s longtime collaborator.

On today’s episode, Brandon Flowers talks about making Thrasher, what it felt like to finally unlock the door that country music had been holding open for him his whole life, and the stories the album carries with it: the family members, the memories, and the particular texture of growing up Mormon and working-class in the American West.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Brandon Flowers HERE.

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