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

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Society & Culture Music

What's Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond about?

From Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, and Bruce Headlam, liner notes for the digital age. Digressions, arguments, back-stories, and random things to disagree with about music.

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Barry Gibb's Wild Ride

04.06.2021

Few bands have experienced such extreme highs and lows as the Bee Gees. Throughout their decades-long career, the band of brothers managed to be both grossly underrated and one of the best-selling acts of all time. Barry Gibb and his ...

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

04.06.2021 Barry Gibb's Wild Ride Few bands have experienced such extreme highs and lows as the Bee Gees. Throughout their decades-long career, the band of brothers managed to be both grossly underrated and one of the best-selling acts of all time. Barry Gibb and his ...
03.30.2021 Merry Clayton's Redemption Merry Clayton is a legendary backup singer who has managed to consistently steal the spotlight. Merry’s journey from a renowned backup singer to a solo artist was documented in the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet From Stardom in 2013. Almost exactly ...
03.23.2021 Marianne Faithfull Fights Back Marianne Faithfull has been many things throughout her half a century in music—a close confidant of the Rolling Stones, a pop star, a homeless drug addict and a critically acclaimed comeback artist. Despite a career filled with personal and professional ...
03.16.2021 Valerie June Shines Bright Valerie June has helped widen the scope of contemporary Americana music. She’s one of few African American women in the category and her unique combination of gospel and Appalachian folk is a shimmering example of what's possible in the roots-music ...
03.09.2021 Ziggy Marley Reminisces About Jamaica and His Father Malcolm Gladwell recently spoke with Ziggy Marley as part of the Live Talks Los Angeles series. Their conversation centers around a book of photographs Ziggy curated called Bob Marley: Portrait of the Legend. Ziggy has gone on to become a ...
03.02.2021 Mike Shinoda on Beats, Rhymes and Linkin Park Since forming in 1996, Linkin Park has sold over 100 million records worldwide. Their enormous success mixing genres like hip-hop, metal and anthemic pop was spearheaded by the band’s ultra-talented founder, Mike Shinoda. In this episode Rick Rubin talks to ...
02.23.2021 Kenny Beats + Rick Rubin, Part 2 Since his first conversation with Rick, Kenny Beats’ star has continued to rise. In the past couple of years he has produced songs with Ed Sheeran, Da Baby and Vince Staples. He’s also taken several trips to the UK, and ...
02.16.2021 Kenny Beats on the Regional Sounds of Hip Hop There’s a reason Kenny Beats is one of the great young producers in Hip Hop. Because he has a vast understanding of the regional sounds and histories of cities to pull from when making beats for an artist. This allows ...
02.09.2021 Joan Baez Rick Rubin speaks with the great Joan Baez fresh off her birthday and the announcement that she'll be among this year's Kennedy Center honorees! Joan was known the world over as the Queen of Folk at the height of her ...
02.02.2021 Rivers Cuomo on Weezer's New Approach and a Wild Nirvana Conspiracy Most people know Rivers Cuomo as Weezer’s brilliant, quirky lead singer. But one thing people may not know, is that several years ago, a bizarre conspiracy theory made its way around the Web that Rivers was actually Kurt Cobain. To ...
01.26.2021 Earth, Wind & Fire's Verdine White with Rick Rubin Rick Rubin connected with Earth, Wind & Fire's Verdine White to talk about the early days of the band and about their producer, Charles Stepney, who Verdine calls their George Martin. Also Rick reads to Verdine a poignant note from ...
01.19.2021 Nas In Conversation with Rick Rubin Nas dropped one of the most universally loved rap albums of all time in 1994 with Illmatic. Few legends in Hip Hop have been able to maintain their relevance over several decades based on their skill alone. Nas has never ...
01.12.2021 Legendary Music Journalist Lisa Robinson Rick Rubin speaks with friend, pioneering rock journalist, Lisa Robinson about her over 40 year career that's seen her interview everyone from John Lennon to Lady Gaga, from Jay Z to Eminem, and even an 11 year old Michael Jackson. ...
01.08.2021 Ben Folds Singer/songwriter, pianist, alt-rocker Ben Folds has been releasing records since the 90s. Sometimes with his band Ben Folds Five, sometimes solo. In this episode of Broken Record, he connects with Bruce Headlam to discuss the origins of his biggest hit, ...
12.24.2020 Broken Record Presents: A Musical Episode of Solvable Mike Dickey is co-founder and chairman of the JackTrip Foundation and the creator of Virtual Studio. The awkward and disjointed experience of making music over the internet is a solvable problem. Virtual Studio is a device that works with the ...
12.22.2020 Dave Cobb: Nashville's Super Producer Nashville producer Dave Cobb has earned six Grammys for his standout work with artists like Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile and Chris Stapleton. Over the past 15 years Dave's managed to inject some much-needed soul into country music. In this interview ...
12.17.2020 My Morning Jacket's Jim James Jim James talks about and performs some songs off My Morning Jacket's The Waterfall 2. The album of holdovers from the band's 2015 album came out in July. Jim explains to Bruce Headlam why these songs finally came out five ...
12.15.2020 James Blake James Blake speaks with Rick Rubin about his new Covers EP. Since his debut album in 2011, the British-born James Blake has gone on to win England's top musical honor, the Mercury Prize, and a Grammy. He’s also produced and ...
12.10.2020 Pharrell Williams Rick Rubin connected with Pharrell Williams over Zoom recently to talk through and listen to some of the biggest hits from Pharrell’s illustrious career. They chat about what Pharrell is currently working on (Rihanna!), the French powdered drink mix that ...
12.08.2020 Andrew Watt: Producer on the Rise It’s hard to believe Andrew Watt is only 30 years old. He's built up an impressive and diverse roster of collaborators over the last five years including Ozzy Osbourne, Miley Cyrus, Sam Smith, and Justin Bieber. He’s quietly become one ...
12.03.2020 Black Pumas The runway to success was short for Black Pumas. Five months after releasing their debut album in 2019, the Austin-based band was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys. And now, one year later, Black Pumas are up for ...
12.01.2020 Jeff Tweedy's Songwriting Master Class Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy is a prolific songwriter and he's ready to share his secrets. They're all in his new book, How to Write One Song. On today's episode, Tweedy shares some of his techniques with Malcolm Gladwell and explains why ...
11.24.2020 Leslie Odom Jr. of Hamilton Leslie Odom Jr., best known for playing Aaron Burr in Hamilton, speaks to Bruce Headlam about his career on stage and in music and also his new Christmas album. The Christmas Album is Leslie's second crack at a holiday album ...
11.19.2020 Mike Campbell On First Album Post Heartbreakers Mike Campbell, guitarist, co-writer and original Heartbreaker talks to Rick Rubin about growing up with Tom Petty, working on Wildflowers and about his new album, Wreckless Abandon, with band The Dirty Knobs. It’s the first band Mike’s ever been a ...
11.17.2020 Deep Sea Diver There’s no playbook for successfully releasing music during a pandemic. Especially if you’re an indie artist, the stakes really couldn’t be higher. But Deep Sea Diver has managed to put all that aside to drop a thrilling and relevant new ...
11.12.2020 Sturgill Simpson Kentucky singer/songwriter Sturgill Simpson was in his mid-30s when he found fame as a country artist in Nashville. He had already lived a full life including a stint in the Navy, and years spent working in Salt Lake City rail ...
11.10.2020 Lenny Kravitz In the opening lines of his New York Times bestselling memoir, Let Love Rule, Lenny Kravitz writes that he is deeply two-sided. His young life was all about opposites and extremes—black and white. He grew up between his West Indian ...
11.05.2020 S.G. Goodman S.G. Goodman turns traditional Southern storytelling on its head with songs that present a deeper, more complex look at life below the Mason-Dixon line. As a queer person who lives with mental illness, she often sings about the social and ...
11.03.2020 Maya Hawke Maya Hawke has managed to escape the long shadow of her very famous parents, Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. She’s made a name for herself, first as an actor in Stranger Things, Little Women, and Tarantino’s latest, Once Upon a ...
10.29.2020 Carlos Santana & Cindy Blackman Carlos Santana, along with his wife and drummer, Cindy Blackman got together with Rick Rubin to discuss the 2019 album they recorded together, Africa Speaks, and also to talk about Santana's early days in San Francisco. They discuss how Santana ...
10.27.2020 Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen is a national treasure. Since his debut album nearly 50 years ago, Springsteen has helped define the American working-class psyche through a collection of world-renowned hit songs. In this interview with Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin, Bruce talks ...
10.20.2020 Win Butler Rick Rubin talks to Arcade Fire's Win Butler on the occasion of the The Suburb's tenth anniversary. The band's third record was their first number one album in the US. Subscribe to Broken Record's YouTube channel to hear old and ...
10.16.2020 Benmont Tench on life with Tom Petty To celebrate the release of Tom Petty's Wildflowers & All The Rest box set, Rick Rubin connected with Heartbreakers keyboardist, Benmont Tench for a conversation. Benmont started playing with Tom back in Florida with a band called Mudcrutch. He stayed ...
10.15.2020 Tom Petty's Wildflowers II with Adria Petty Tom Petty crafted another of his many perfect albums back in 1994, this time with Rick Rubin producing. Wildflowers was released as a single disc, Petty's first for Warner Brothers. But Petty had always intended for it to be a ...
10.13.2020 Joe Henry Joe Henry is likely one of the best living singer-songwriters that you've never heard of. But even if you don't recognize his name, you've probably heard his work. He's been at it for 34 years: having released 15 solo albums, ...
10.06.2020 Khruangbin Khruangbin will tell you they did everything wrong. Gave their band a Thai name, play mostly instrumental music, two members wear wigs, they record in barn ... and yet, they've had a charmed existence since they released their first record ...
09.29.2020 Burt Bacharach & Daniel Tashian Burt Bacharach is a living legend. He's written hits sung by Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Elvis Costello, Dusty Springfield and so many more. With that kind of a resume, he doesn't need to still be working at 92. But he ...
09.22.2020 Buffy Sainte-Marie Buffy Sainte-Marie tells Rick Rubin there's a reason she isn’t a household name in the U.S. A pioneering artist in the Greenwich Village folk scene, she could've been Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell or Paul Simon. But in the early days ...
09.15.2020 Don Was Rick Rubin talk to Don was about his early days in Detroit, his time in Was Not Was and his wide ranging career producing defining-albums for the B-52's, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. He also talks about ...
09.08.2020 Flying Lotus Flying Lotus is one of those producers who creates an entire aesthetic world with the music he makes. Over the past 13 years he’s released four solo albums, and produced tracks for a ton of artists including Kendrick Lamar, Thom ...
09.05.2020 Broken Record Presents: Into the Zone Into the Zone is a podcast about opposites, and how borders are never as clear as we think. Country? Rap? Lil Nas X’s chart-topping “Old Town Road” revived a long debate about borders and boundaries in American popular music. To ...
09.04.2020 Emma Louise: Fresh Find In a bonus Fresh Find episode, Bruce Headlam interviews Australian singer-songwriter Emma Louise about having an accidental overseas hit and pitching her voice down so that it's unrecognizable on her latest album. Subscribe to Broken Record's YouTube channel to hear ...
09.01.2020 Brandi Carlile Brandi Carlile came by Shangri La last year to talk to Rick Rubin with Tanya Tucker about the album they made together, While I'm Livin'. After Tanya left, Brandi stayed behind to talk about her love of Joni Mitchell's music, ...
08.25.2020 Justin Townes Earle: In Memoriam Our episode with Justin Townes Earle was scheduled to run next month. But after we heard about Earle's passing over the weekend, we decided to put it out sooner. It's a deeply sad conversation in some places. Especially given his ...
08.18.2020 Vagabon: Fresh Find This week’s Fresh Find, Vagabon, is a self taught, Cameroonian-born musician whose haunting voice and genre defying style has won over critics at both The New Yorker and Pitchfork. In this episode she talks about emigrating from West Africa to ...
07.28.2020 Run The Jewels Return! *Run the Jewels are raw and so is the language in this episode* Killer Mike and El-P return to Broken Record to discuss the creation of their fourth album, RTJ4, and the tumultuous world it was released into. Rick Rubin, ...
07.21.2020 Berhana: Fresh Find Broken Record is bringing you a Fresh Find this week. We discovered Berhana after a key placement in Donald Glover’s show Atlanta. In this episode, Berhana talks about growing up in the real Atlanta, being first generation American born to ...
07.14.2020 Margo Price A tornado raged through Margo Price's home-base of Nashville right as she was preparing to release her third album in March. A month later Margo’s husband and longtime collaborator, Jeremy Ivey, tested positive for coronavirus. While taking care of her ...
07.09.2020 Broken Record Presents: Questlove Supreme with Rick Rubin Rick Rubin joins Questlove and crew on their Questlove Supreme podcast. They discuss Rick's early Def Jam days, working with the Geto Boys, his process for taking on production work and so much more! Learn more about your ad-choices at ...
07.02.2020 Broken Record Presents: Aim Higher Broken Record Presents: Aim Higher — the last episode of Against the Rules Season 2. Can everyone be coached — or are some people beyond help? The transformative power of coaching is put to the test as Michael enlists a ...

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