Making Real Music for a Fake Band

McGruff the Crime Dog arrived on the scene at the dawn of the 1980s, just as a firehose of anti-drug PSAs was inundating the youth of America. These messages didn’t always work as intended—but they did work their way into the long term memories of the kids who heard them.In the f ...  Show more

The sun has always been a hot topic. For centuries, we’ve flip-flopped over whether our health depends on soaking up its rays—or shielding ourselves from them. The current conventional wisdom is clear: Avoid sunburns at all costs, using shade, hats, long sleeves, and the highest ...  Show more

Pop culture is full of fictional bands singing songs purpose-made to capture a moment, a sound. This music doesn’t organically emerge from a scene or genre, hoping to find an audience. Instead it fulfills an assignment: it needs to be 1960s folk music, 1970s guitar rock, 80s hair ...  Show more

Stereophonic is a play about the creative process, power dynamics and fraught personal relationships of a 1970s rock band. It won a Tony and many other awards on Broadway. Now Stereophonic has come to the West End. Playwright David Adjmi and Will Butler, sometime of Arcade Fire, ...  Show more

From Daisy Jones and the Six to the Oneders, we look at the best songs by fictional artists, with Alan Sepinwall joining host Brian Hiatt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 

To kick off the first half of our final series for this season, we're taking a deep dive into the worlds of performative and synth punk with the formation of one of the most influential yet unusual bands to grace the LA Punk scene, The Screamers.Taking us out: The Freakees - Sell ...  Show more