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.


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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: 100

Word In Your Ear
Podcast Episodes
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