Is Indie the new Good Old Days? And why are there no British country stars?

Is Indie the new Good Old Days? And why are there no British country stars?

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold July 13, 2026 Duration: 52:25

As this week’s news hurtles over the net, we sort the aces from the double-faults. The final score … 

 

… Madonna, Shakira, Chris Martin and World Cup 11-minute half-time overload!

 

… how many Stones albums were “the best since Exile On Main Street”?

 

… Kevin Rowland’s heart-breaking songs about Life’s Third Act

 

… 10 good reasons to miss the Nineties

 

… Country & Western is about travelling through the vast geography of America. “Go 200 miles in Britain and you fall off the edge”

 

… Florian Pilkington-Miksa, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond: rock’s real (or invented?) double-barrelled names

 

… how “travel and never arrive” is the new entertainment experience

 

… plus Sly Stone’s Babies Makin’ Babies, the comforting cry of “Gambo’s in the building!” and birthday guest Patrick Butler.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Word In Your Ear
Podcast Episodes
Blur’s thrilling early years in words and pictures by Dave Rowntree [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:31
Dave Rowntree had a camera with him as Blur took off in the early ‘90s and his book ‘No-One You Know’ distils the thrill of a band in ascent – backstage, in studios, with fans, on tour buses and their first trips to Amer…