The world’s greatest radio station! & things we loved about Dolly Parton

The world’s greatest radio station! & things we loved about Dolly Parton

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold September 7, 2026 Duration: 1:00:01

Passing the conversational Dutchie 'pon the left hand side, we fire up the following …

 

… “speech, not music, brings people together”

 

… if music gets ever broader, why’s radio getting more niche?

 

… can YOU guess the NME’s 10 most influential bands in 2002?

 

… a doomed Dolly Parton kidnap attempt at the Hammersmith Odeon: we were there!

 

… ‘Voice-tracking’, ‘auditorium testing’ and other network radio secrets

 

... 61 year-old listener hears the Beatles for the first time and reports back. (Chapeau, Jelltex!)


 … short-lived TV spin-offs from Fawlty Towers and Dad’s Army

 

… Madonna, 50 Cent and Courtney Love wrote children’s books? Anyone read Marcus Mumford’s ‘Barnaby and the Drumming Bear’?

 

… familiar acts doing unfamiliar songs and well-known tracks by obscure people

 

… and why Boom Radio is booming.

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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
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