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.

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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
Georgie Fame, Ben Sidran and the golden age of ‘60s Soho [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:16
Ben Sidran was in a teenage band with Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs, a session pianist with the Stones in 1969 and carved a brilliant career as a jazz musician, producer, author and broadcaster. He’s just written ‘Cool Cat…
Steve Hackett remembers batwings, blues clubs and Genesis on £15 a week [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:00
Steve Hackett’s seven years in Genesis get re-explored when he tours in October, along with ‘solo gems’ from the records he’s made since, the latest ‘the Roaring Waves’, a collaboration with old pal Steve Rothery. He loo…
Mari Wilson, our favourite girl about town, takes Neasden to Chelsea [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:53
Mari Wilson has drunk deep of all that London nightlife has to offer, from a London Transport social club in Wembley to a posh venue in Chelsea via the Cooks Ferry Inn in Edmonton, and she remembers it well. Here she mar…
All music is dance music! – and the best stage name ever [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:52
Another over-heated week put through the conversational air-conditioner, which involves … … the man who got rich writing words that could never be sung … Anna Bullock? Stefani Germanotta? People who’d never have made it…
Kevin Rowland, the new Dexys and what he's learnt from life [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:42
We first saw Kevin in ‘77 wearing jodhpurs onstage with his art-punk band the Killjoys! He’s formed a new version of Dexys, made an album, starts a tour in October, and looks back here at central moments in his life, som…