Was Bad Bunny at the Superbowl the greatest show ever staged?

Was Bad Bunny at the Superbowl the greatest show ever staged?

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold February 16, 2026 Duration: 1:03:58

After 40 days of relentless rain, you need our little ray of sunshine. And here we all are! Sitting in the rock’n’roll rainbow this week you’ll find …

 

... the Wuthering Heights instagram gold-rush

 

… licensing Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd: when is a band not a band?

 

.. what Michael Jackson asked the Superbowl promoter

 

… one long video for Charli XCX: “if that film was playing in my back garden I’d draw the curtains”

 

… Bob Dylan & Kurtis Blow, Kate Winslet & ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic: a brief history of weird duets

 

… a walk-on forest, 300 extras, 29 hidden messages: how can you top Bad Bunny? (“Disgusting!” – D Trump)

 

… what a 1969 Rock Encylopedia said about “the poets and minstrels of our time”

 

… “biopics are designed for people who don’t know the subject”

 

... Paul Anka did Smells Like Teen Spirit? The Flaming Lips did Kylie Minogue?

 

… whippets, flat caps, bottles of stout: begone hoary old Yorkshire clichés!

 

… “that’s the biggest power station in Western Europe – and I know the manager!”: our love for Alan Bennett

 

 … plus Top Gear, M*A*S*H, Twins Peaks, Arena (by Brian Eno) and birthday guest Paul Monaghan on great TV theme tunes.


Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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: 100

Word In Your Ear
Podcast Episodes
The glorious story of Funk from James Brown to Off The Wall [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:54
Old friend of the podcast Lloyd Bradley wrote Bass Culture, the defining account of reggae, and he’s now turned his attention to funk, from its deepest roots and via the jazz, arts, TV, radio and pop culture that flavour…
Nick Lowe’s miracle payday, Rock feuds and a giant inflatable Jarvis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:35
Panning for gold in the murky waters of this week’s news, we found the following … … is Sabrina Carpenter’s aunt the voice of Bart Simpson? … is punk now just a small room in the giant apartment block of Goth? … why band…
The Damned at 50 and the memories (and regrets) of Rat Scabies [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:42
The Damned are – yes! - 50 years old with three of the originals still onboard. And just starting a world tour. In this immensely funny and touching podcast, Rat Scabies (who’s smoking!) points up the repercussions of li…