Who hasn’t had ‘work done’, how to spot AI and the stupidest thing we ever did

Who hasn’t had ‘work done’, how to spot AI and the stupidest thing we ever did

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold April 6, 2026 Duration: 48:30

A seasonal egg-hunt in the rock and roll backyard finds the following conversational confectionary …

 

.. Wild Bill Hickok? Valentino? Bob Dylan’s bizarre new media manoeuvre

 

… Liza Minnelli, Peter Sellers, Harrison Ford, Aaron Paul: people born to play one part

 

… how to spot writers using AI

 

… “dried-up old prune”? Trump’s pot-kettle war against Springsteen

 

… what BBC DJs must think when they see ‘Woo’ Gary Davies in reception

 

… “Neil Young looks like an unmade bed”

 

… when invincible ignorance meets invincible confidence: the stupidest thing we’ve ever done

 

… do most rock stars eventually get ‘work’ done?

 

… plus the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, the Roots, Daisy Age hip-hop and our link with the Hatton Garden heist.


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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
Andy Kershaw & Dylan’s jar of jam plus the things people do to get gigs [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:28
Be glad for the pod has no ending! Now in our 20th year and, this week, ruminating fondly on the following … … the “underhand” selling of Geese … Morrissey’s absurd whinge about the Salford Lads Club photo … Jay Leno’s $…
The story of Wild Thing and whatever happened to World Cup songs? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:56
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on as we voyage to the far side this week to take a picture of … … the Kanye West & Wireless ding-dong … Springsteen with Tom Morello, Pet Shop Boys with Johnny Marr: the fine…
The Keith Moon story is a movie in waiting, both a comedy and a tragedy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:09
The life of Keith Moon can be seen as Animal from the Muppets or as a dark, psychological odyssey. And the two co-exist in Tony Fletcher’s magnificent ‘Dear Boy’, first published in 1998, never out of print and now ‘rema…
The shameless age of Britpop in ‘the wildest year of the 90s’ [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:31
Dominic Mohan saw Britpop on the inside from the showbiz desk of the Sun in the days when it sold 4.5m copies, a series of heated memories recorded in ‘1996: My Backstage Pass to the Wildest Year of Britain’s Wildest Dec…
How Tony Visconti keeps the Bowie flag flying [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:01
Tony Visconti left Brooklyn for London in 1967, began working with the Move and Marc Bolan and formed a life-long friendship with the teenage David Bowie, playing on his first two albums and producing 10 of ones that fol…
The Jarrett movie, Macca’s secret & when did standing at gigs start? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:24
Whooping, whistling, punching the air, standing on the arm-rests and generally adding our voice to the sound of the crowd this week involves … … the creepy way Google eavesdrops our conversations … the cleverly positione…