Buckle up, loders - spring has sprung and we have a pack of wildflower pop girlies all making their first moves on the Summer 2025 chess board. Alec is back for the quarterly unpack. We start by catching up on the life and times of the Albuquerque gay men's chorus, check-in on some of our 2024 main girlies Muni Long and Jade, and finally stretch out under spring 2025's Teletubby sun where the cabbage patch is all coming up alt pop white girls.

*** A BONUS ***

BEFORE we leave the early+mid 90s ... did you know Mariah wrote and recorded A GRUNGE album simultaneously to Daydream? AND it’s on YouTube? 

Before there was Hannah Montana, there was Chick, and Mariah. Elusive chanteuse indeed - at the pique of both her personal life frustrations, and her commercial and vocal prime, Mariah took solace in living a double life: secret grunge wailer, and pop songstress at the Tokyo Dome (often hailed as one of the greatest concerts of her career.)

The reason the Diva Dive was born - the elusive chanteuse, the woman with 19 #1s as an artist and 18 as a writer - the head Butterfly AND Lamb - and the former title holder for longest running #1 on the billboard charts: Long Island's own, Mariah Carey.

Before smartphones and the ubiquitous internet, before auto-tune and lip-syncing ran amuck, 1990-1996 Mariah defied all the rulebooks by writing and singing her way to the top. From Vision of Love to One Sweet Day, let's cover the diva's most Olympic of vocal seasons, bringing her into her prime as a global vocal talent. I explain the vocal mechanics and techniques that set her apart as well as explore how a voice like Mariah's reminds us all to connect to our throat chakra.

HAPPY 2025 LODERS! A new year, a new you, a new me. Or the same ones with more crows feet!

30m: Where I've been ((SKIP IF U JUST WANT MY TAKES ON BEY))
40m: Grammys 2025 reaction
10m: Where we're going
SEE YOU MORE OFTEN THIS YEAR!

@earloder - insta

It's Wicked Pt. 1 : The Reaction Pt. 2 ;) And, another new welcome to the pod: Michael! In our second Wicked Pt. 1 reaction installment: will Cynthia and/or Ariana do a brief run on Wicked Broadway? How do we rate Ariana as comedic + dramatic actress? Were the cameos too long? Which parts made us cry? What are we looking forward to in part 2? And, our pod segments: I WAS WRONG/PROVE ME WRONG , and USB-REAL. Highlights: Flo, Venus, Deja Vu, and Jessie J.

My pulse is rushing // My head is reeling // My face is flushing /// What is this feeling? Fervid as a flame .... does it have a name? 
WI-CKED!! WI-CKED!!! ....
WIIII - CKKED Yes folks. It's good to [hear] me, isn't it? What a time to be alive: the Wicked soundtrack and film have dropped, and we need to talk - as much as we need to hold space. Today, it's not just me: we have the EAR LODER DEBUT of friend-of-the-podcast, Wicked super-fan, Boston vocal idol, and one of my bffs, Joe Pratolongo. Join us in dissecting the lore, the adaptation, the updates, the opt-ups, the vocal producing + comping, the arranging, and the cinematographic choices in Wicked Pt. 1, in our own Pt. 1 of 2 (because no, 1 hour was not enough.)

Hey loders! It's the most (controversial) time of the year, and we're not even talking about the election. It's the 2024-25 grammy nominations. Luckily, this has been our superbowl for probably half our lives - so you're in good hands. Alec is back joining Alex on the mic, and we cover the majors, the best-of genres, the omissions, and the wtf's. Join us! 

While you're at it - check out the companion playlists to the Ear Loder podcast on spotify, just search Earloder and you'll find some of my (ever-expanding) tops from 2024, as well as earloder.fm1, my always-on shuffle-ready vibe mix.

Somehow, it's been 4 months since my last upload. Also - hey - Alex, here. Welcome back; and welcome anew, to Ear Lode. Ready for your first?

I wanted to take a different approach to this "comeback" moment and share, in addition to some music, some of my personal 2024. I have barely edited this ep; it's a raw take, scarcely outlined and delivered organically (still up to 40% GMO). I think some of this approach may, as they say, stick.

If you are here for the fun music vibes only, go right ahead and take a pass on this one. Your next ear lode always awaits.

Included music:
- Freedom: Jordan Rakei
- Bitter Melon: Cola
- Lately: Rufus Du Soul
- Coldstar.: Gallant

if Q1 2024 found us at the rodeo of pop-artists-gone-country, culminating in the magnum opus of beyonce's cowboy carter, then Q2 finds us on the dance floor, but not the glitter disco of post-pandemic yesteryear -- instead, we're underground, our boots are stuck to old beer on the floor, our tank is sweat through, the turntables are glitching, and we're kind of pissed off. frankly, we're acting a brat - cue Charli XCX's ostensible mainstream breakthrough by the same name. 2024's electronic pop and dance records have gotten heavier, synthier, bassier, bitchier, rawer, and saltier - perhaps 2 years of pink disco escapism has worn off and we're in desperate need of some eyeliner and some real talk. luckily, charli's gone and built a career off of it. from visuals, to videos, to personae, to attitude, brat has broken through - and, unlike charli's previous works, captured the zeitgeist right as it's simultaneously poised to realize it. she's finally found us mid-sentence, and we're finally ready to call her the it-girl. or at least that's what alex will explain to alec, who has long yearned for alex to wake up to charli's embodied genius. we'll probably keep talking about this record, but let's start here, and with some earlier notes from charli’s works - join us!

WHEW - are we already on month 6 of the year? With the amount of new music releases being packed into 2024, every week feels like a lifetime. Alec's back to jointly metabolize some of the new material by Dua, Becky Hill, and the recorded Chromatica Tour. And, because we haven't caught up in a while (and it's June!) we take a mid-month breather to recount pride festivities from Albuquerque to Los Angeles. This is a 2-parter, so get warmed up here for our next episode that's dedicated to the current critical darling of 2024, the brat herself, Charli XCX.