Bigmouth

It’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 by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden, in the conservatory with the candlestick. Audio production by Alex Rees, with the lead piping in the ballroom. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

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This 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 solo album in 14 years. Does she wear it well?

THE DOILY EXPRESS: Sad-eyed ladies in Biba frocks, pots of Earl Grey, ginger cats, slathers of orchestra and woodwind, Honeybus, Mike Batt and Erasmus Chorum… Will Bob Stanley’s Tea And Symphony: The English Baroque Sound 1968-1974 rehabilitate this neglected sound?

Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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This 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 Seeking Thrills and US anxiety-pop heroine Halsey’s new one, Manic: what are they telling us about the Young People? And does it matter that Georgia’s dad was in Leftfield?

WHO MADE WOO?: It’s brand extension time as jade-eggs-for-female-nethers entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow expands into a roundly absurd and widely panned Netflix show, Goop Labs. Exploitation of simple-minded narcissists? Performance art project for our times? Hate-watch or something worse? Our panel channel the Other Side (e.g. BBC4). 

Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Dance 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 space cruiseliner. Does Avenue 5 – starring Hugh Laurie and Rebecca Front and showing on Sky One and NOW TV from 22 Jan – have the spark and snark of The Thick Of It and Veep?

THE ILLUSTRATED DAME: Does new graphic novel BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns And Moonage Daydreams capture the essence of dear, departed Davy Jones? And can Andrew and Ralph contain themselves re. the gorgeous Ditko/Kirby artwork of Mike Allred?

Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ROCK 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 artiste DJ Food and Luke Turner, co-founder of The Quietus and author of Out Of The Woods, to assess the pop culture arrivals of the New Year period.

Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Blackstar! 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, “Time will crawl/To the 21st century loos”. We prefer to say lavatory, David.

We wish all Bigmouth persons a Happy Christmas and a delightful 2020. We’ll be back in the second week of the New Year. Until then… be excellent to one another. 

Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do 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 - again - talking about Nick Cave’s heartbreaking album Ghosteen. 

Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’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 to obliterate Europe and everyone is losing their scheisse in grim German drama Eight Days, now showing on Sky Atlantic. Will this Deutsche spin on Bowie’s ‘Five Years’ tempt you to binge-watch before the end of to the world?

THE COSMIC TRIP PRESENTS: Balearic mind-massagers Psychemagik finally release the debut album that’s been held hostage by major label shenanigans for ten years. Will ‘I Feel How This Night Should Look’ fit the ‘Moon Safari’-shaped hole in your life? 

Plus the usual tunes, digressions and Closing Time Chatter. It’s what podcasts where made for. 

Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Devon 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 singer Brett Anderson's first memoir Coal Black Mornings garnered heaps of praise. We chat about his second book, Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn, examining life in Suede: fame, drugs, sex and dry shampoo.

Ken Burns Effect: Country Music on BBC4 is an eight-part history from Doc God Ken Burns. Is this enormo-doc the definitive account - and does it serve as a history of America also?

On the Extra Bit - inspired by Dolly Parton's Heartstrings - we talk about pop stars in TV shows. Duncan from Blue! Boy George! Suzi Quatro! Get it by backing us.

Joining Siân are this week’s special guests: The Times' chief music critic Will Hodgkinson; plus culture writer for the Evening Standard and Sunday Times Simon Mills.

Presented by Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production. 

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trawling 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: The complete Lou Reed lyrics book I'll be Your Mirror numbers 670 pages. Is this the "autobiography" Laurie Anderson talks of in her introduction or does it offer less of a glimpse of the man (not The Man)?

Beats Woking: BBC's War of the Worlds is a new adaption of the HG Wells novel, set in leafy Surrey. A lot of people run around in tweed as aliens arrive. What did the panel think?

Joining Siân are this week’s special guests, Conde Nast Traveller and Times writer James Medd; plus actor and writer Dan Maier.

Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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