Snappy holidays, y’all!

Find out what your hosts would give Beyonce, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Bad Bunny, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Nickelback and more.

Feeling out of sorts?

Your hosts of the "How We Heard It" podcast usually have a general goal in mind when they pick a topic ... but when they came up with this idea, they had no clue what they were in for: "Hey, let's dig through our music collections and just see what we find."

Keep in mind that these guys have each amassed thousands of albums and compact discs (and even some 8-track tapes for Wayne), accumulated over decades thanks in great part to record companies sending the guys an avalanche of free music, hoping for reviews.

Amazingly, Wayne and John independently decided they wanted to start the podcast with the same artist. And Chuck quickly remembered he didn't like the smell of the cardboard in album covers and had never even listened to many of the artists in his collection.

On this week's episode, the guys talk about some of their initial findings, their random systems of filing and storing their collections, some hidden gems they turned up, and some unexpected, funny and baffling memories that surfaced with their research.

The guys came up with ample podcast material when they had barely made even a dent in their collections, so they decided they'll dig deeper for future podcasts.

Meanwhile, have you poked around in your music collection lately? You might be surprised by what you find.

Seems like every day another performer has said the wrong thing or done the wrong thing. And if we like them, that's just more spice in the sauce. And if we don't, we just hate them even more.

But the controversy wheel just keeps on spinning, regardless of how you feel. It could be a manufactured scandal, like a diss track, or something out of control, like an act of violence. Sometimes it's hard to know if it was planned or not - you know, like when one singer pulls the top off another singer during the Super Bowl halftime show.

On this week's episode of "How We Heard It," your hosts spin through some of the biggest and some of the strangest controversies ignited by musicians, either by design or by accident.

They poke through scandals from recent years and look back at some from decades ago to see how they hold up now. For example, most of Madonna's shenanigans from the 1980s seem rather tame by today's standards. But on the flipside, you might be surprised (and disappointed) to learn how many of your favorite singers from classic rock days were routinely sleeping with underage fans ... and how it generated relatively little concern back then.

Your hosts also look at the current social environment and how performers are forced into controversy against their will and how stars are no longer allowed to be neutral about issues. This is why Taylor Swift couldn't be another Dolly Parton, even if she tried. (Why is everybody always mad about everything all the time?) 

So join us and find out if your favorite singers have been naughty or nice ... and if it changes how you feel about them, for better or worse.

The United States may have an official day of gratitude every November with Thanksgiving, but for many of us, most every day could be a day of appreciation.

A sincere "thank you" is rewarding for everyone: It feels good to say it and it feels good to hear it.

However, appreciation can be complicated and "thank you" may come with a twist. Sometimes we're grateful (in hindsight, at least) for the lessons we've learned from difficult people. Sometimes we feel generalized happiness for family and/or friends. Sometimes we're just thankful to no one in particular that we're happy for no reason in particular.

And of course sometimes expressions of gratitude are just a cover for dark feelings.

In this episode of "How We Heard It" your hosts sift through an array of old and new songs that directly or indirectly express gratitude. Artists include Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, The Kinks, Sly and the Family Stone, The Beatles, Big Star, Natalie Merchant, Taylor Swift, Bob Hope, Elton John, Louis Armstrong, Rihanna, Gwen Stefani, The Beach Boys, Backstreet Boys, Alanis Morissette, James Taylor, Small Faces, Kool & the Gang, U2, Spice Girls, Boyz II Men and many more.

Thanks for listening!

When we're listening to music, most of us tend to focus on the singer. And why not? Singers spell it out for us. They give us a human voice, and the words, to understand the meaning of songs.

But we don't always need someone holding our hand and walking us through a song. Sometimes the lyrics are trite and the vocals are lame.

With instrumentals, you get to choose your own adventure. You can feel the music and define the meaning to suit yourself. Without all those words getting in the way, you can be absorbed into the sonic wonderland of a song and come up with feelings that you tailor for yourself.

This week your "How We Heard It" hosts explore the beauty of instrumental music and the freedom it gives its listeners, whether they just need background noise to clean house or they need to focus without distraction.

Instrumentals are more common in some genres - such as classical, jazz and bluegrass - but they exist in all forms, be it on soundtracks, in lounges or at nightclubs. And your hosts even drift into altered-state uses of instrumental music - like if you're trying to sink into a meditative sleep or even astral project.

So, buckle in and let them take you away.

Face it, everyone loves a good fight. And musicians and singers are always adding an extra layer to their entertainment value - intentionally or accidentally - by engaging in battles with their peers.

Some of these feuds are exaggerated and some are underplayed. Some have an obvious bad guy while in others it seems like both parties should share the blame. Some seem to be about nothing, and others seem to be about everything.

It seemed like the stakes couldn't have been higher than they were in the recent Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar feud ... that is, until you remembered Tupac Shakur vs. The Notorious B.I.G. (both of whom died from drive-by shootings just months apart).

Internal wars chipped away at some of rock's best bands - from the Beatles and The Kinks to Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac. Meanwhile, some of the most iconic singers were locked in bitter rivalries, including Prince and Michael Jackson as well as Axl Rose and Kurt Cobain.

Then there were the entertaining battles of the divas - Cher vs. Madonna, Elton John vs. Madonna, Whitney Houston vs. Mariah Carey, Mariah Carey vs. Jennifer Lopez. ... And we'll never forget the most inexplicable feud that just seems to go on and on: Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift.

This week your hosts of "How We Heard It" recap all of these fights and many more - the ones that made them laugh, the ones that made them wince and the ones that made them scratch their heads.

They also take a look at the artist who seems to be fighting the entire world. Even if you've never heard of her.

Summer's done, and now we're hurtling toward the darkest, coldest days of the year. So forgive us if we aren't feeling ourselves.

It's as if an evil force has taken over our souls. ... Could this be what it feels like to be possessed?

In the spirit of the season, this episode of "How We Heard It" explores the phenomenon of possession as portrayed in the movies. Your hosts - veteran entertainment journalists and horror-movie aficionados Wayne Bledsoe and Chuck Campbell - compare notes on one of the most lucrative subgenres in the film industry. (John Baker's along for the ride, too, though he doesn't like scary movies.)

There are the old-school priest-and-holy-water possession movies popularized by "The Exorcist" franchise (well, at least the first and third installments), and subsequently everything from the "Conjuring/Annabelle/Nun" world to solo shots like "Late Night with the Devil," "Jennifer's Body" and "Immaculate."

Then there are location-oriented hauntings and possessions, from "The Amityville Horror" and "The Shining" to "Evil Dead" and "Paranormal Activity." And, of course, curse-oriented movies like "The Ring," "The Grudge" and "Drag Me to Hell."

And who can forget that creepy boy from "The Omen"?

We've all felt like that kid from time to time.

Cover songs often aren't what they should be. Many are pale and pointless facsimiles of the original songs, and others even take off into some new direction for no reason whatsoever.

Rude.

So this week the "How We Heard It" guys let their imaginations run wild, freewheeling through music history (from 60-odd years ago to today), mixing and matching some of the most popular songs of all time to an expansive variety of distinctive artists, old and new.

They make inspired choices as they spitball ideas, conjuring some songs you just know would be great, some you'd at least want to check out and some that would doubtless be terrible.

There are no rules to the game - artists who are long dead could be called upon to cover new songs just as easily as new artists could be called upon to cover old songs (with AI, anything is possible). As a result, Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, Karen Carpenter and Prince can be called upon just as easily as Lady Gaga, John Legend, Billie Eilish and Benson Boone.

Who would cover the Beatles? Who would the Beatles cover? You'll likely be surprised who the guys pick to cover Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off," John Lennon's "Imagine," Bette Midler's 'Wind Beneath My Wings," Blondie's "Call Me" and R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" - just to name a few.

Find out what very different songs they have in mind for Lana Del Rey to cover and the unthinkably bizarre (albeit tantalizing) pair they'd pick to remake "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus.

Free your mind and play along.

When "How We Heard It" was just a few weeks old in the summer of 2024, we posted an episode about guilty pleasures, featuring your veteran entertainment critics/hosts Wayne Bledsoe and Chuck Campbell confessing their love for art that other critics frown on - including Wayne's love of sunshine pop and westerns and Chuck's love of exotica and techno music.

Some 15 months and 65 shows later, the guilty-pleasures episode remains one of the three most-listened-to episodes of "How We Heard It." So Wayne and Chuck - plus their engineer, songwriter/musician John T. Baker - decided to revisit the topic and own up to more embarrassing affections about what they find entertaining, including artists who often get looked down on (from New Age acts on Windham Hill Records to Peter, Paul and Mary), as well as mainstream musicals and novelty bands.

Find out who likes Donna Summer, who likes the Pointer Sisters and who can't hide his love of high-voiced women. One of the guys loves the "bubblegum" rock of Three Dog Night, another loves the "yuppie rock" of  Counting Crows and one of them can't tear himself away from those social media video compilations where people scare their loved ones, friends and family.

These admissions may ding your hosts' credibility, but they aren't ashamed and don't think you should be ashamed of your guilty pleasures either.

Well ... maybe they're a little ashamed. And maybe you should be too. But whatever: Life's too short to worry about the opinions of snobs.