Song Exploder

Hrishikesh Hirway made my favorite podcast of all time. If you are a wandering soul trying your best to put food on the table for your family by doing corporate America's grind, but secretly want to to be a rockstar-Song Exploder will keep you dreaming! The Netflix series adds an additional means of story telling through visuals and it's very well done. I love to get into the heads of artists and don't know of any interviews or articles that present the artist's vulnerability and creative process as well as Song Exploder does.

Giving this 10 for the REM episode alone. Such a fantastic format; some history on the band, how the song ('Losing My Religion' for the REM one) came together, the impact it had, then finally a full playing to beautifully crafted visuals. This episode is a really special piece of work as you see raw, unfiltered emotion from band members as they hear the song decomposed, sometimes for the first time ever. The interviewer is sublime as he cleverly sets the scene for the artist to open up on their craft to a level of authenticity I've never seen before. Completely compelling viewing about a great song from a great band.

I know amazingly little about the process of making music. Basically, it's just waaaaay over my head, which is kind of sad really. The cool thing about this Netflix series is that it gives what feels like a peek inside genius musicians. Regardless of where you fall on the music creativity scale, you should watch this series.

Please ignore the troll who got here before me. Song Exploder is a podcast that's been running for years, where Hrishi Hirway interviews an artist about the technical and emotional history of a single track - then takes himself out of the conversation, allowing the artist to tell the full story. Each episode is made with care and respect, and the podcast grew by word of mouth to become a real phenomenon. I'm so pleased Hrishi got the permission and budget to expand this onto Netflix, and the guests, song choices and graphics are seriously impressive. Glorious.