EAR LODER

It's Wicked Pt. 1 : The Reaction Pt. 2 ;)

Another welcome to the pod: Michael!

In our second Wicked Pt. 1 reaction installment: will Cynthia and/or Ariana do a brief run on Wicked Broadway? How do we rate Ariana as comedic + dramatic actress? Were the cameos too long? Which parts made us cry? What are we looking forward to in part 2?

And, our pod segments: I WAS WRONG/PROVE ME WRONG , and USB-REAL. Highlights: Flo, Venus, Deja Vu, and Jessie J.

My pulse is rushing // My head is reeling // My face is flushing /// What is this feeling? Fervid as a flame .... does it have a name? 
WI-CKED!! WI-CKED!!! ....
WIIII - CKKED Yes folks. It's good to [hear] me, isn't it? What a time to be alive: the Wicked soundtrack and film have dropped, and we need to talk - as much as we need to hold space. Today, it's not just me: we have the EAR LODER DEBUT of friend-of-the-podcast, Wicked super-fan, Boston vocal idol, and one of my bffs, Joe Pratolongo. Join us in dissecting the lore, t...

Hey loders! It's the most (controversial) time of the year, and we're not even talking about the election. It's the 2024-25 grammy nominations. Luckily, this has been our superbowl for probably half our lives - so you're in good hands. Alec is back joining Alex on the mic, and we cover the majors, the best-of genres, the omissions, and the wtf's. Join us! 

While you're at it - check out the companion playlists to the Ear Loder podcast on spotify, just search Earloder and you'll find some of my (ever-expanding) tops from 2024, as well as earloder.fm1, m...

Somehow, it's been 4 months since my last upload. Also - hey - Alex, here. Welcome back; and welcome anew, to Ear Lode. Ready for your first?

I wanted to take a different approach to this "comeback" moment and share, in addition to some music, some of my personal 2024. I have barely edited this ep; it's a raw take, scarcely outlined and delivered organically (still up to 40% GMO). I think some of this approach may, as they say, stick.

If you are here for the fun music vibes only, go right ahead and take a pass...

if Q1 2024 found us at the rodeo of pop-artists-gone-country, culminating in the magnum opus of beyonce's cowboy carter, then Q2 finds us on the dance floor, but not the glitter disco of post-pandemic yesteryear -- instead, we're underground, our boots are stuck to old beer on the floor, our tank is sweat through, the turntables are glitching, and we're kind of pissed off. frankly, we're acting a brat - cue Charli XCX's ostensible mainstream breakthrough by the same name. 2024's electronic pop and dance records have gotten heavier, synthier, bassier, bitchier, rawer, and saltier - perhaps 2 years of pink...

WHEW - are we already on month 6 of the year? With the amount of new music releases being packed into 2024, every week feels like a lifetime. Alec's back to jointly metabolize some of the new material by Dua, Becky Hill, and the recorded Chromatica Tour. And, because we haven't caught up in a while (and it's June!) we take a mid-month breather to recount pride festivities from Albuquerque to Los Angeles. This is a 2-parter, so get warmed up here for our next episode that's dedicated to the current critical darling of 2024, the brat herself, Charli XCX.

On this MOST commemorative of days, the day of Normani's debut album release "Dopamine" - galt presents the second of our 2-part, 2-year-old series tracking her early career. In today's vintage episode, we chart(ed) the course from Normani's first solo single, Love Lies, through her then-latest, Wild Side, and explicate the growing pattern of false starts, fumbles, and questionably burned bridges seeming to build in Normani's wake. What we know today, we didn't then - that at least she'd get the album out!!!!

Well hey y'all. Galt took most of May off while traveling to visit and support family and friends. While we reboot over here for a bigger and better next chapter of Galt's Radio, I REALIZED that a long ... long ... LONG awaited landmark is, somehow, finally upon us: Normani's debut album release. Any Normani fan thought this day would come 4-5 years ago, and yet ... here we are. Back in the infancy of this pod, Alex and Alec recorded some trial episodes, and this very one was surfaced today from the dust of early 2022 - one of the MANY times...

Alec Mac is back!!!! and, apparently, so is Jess Glynne! It's ok to admit, you didn't know she was, or wasn't, or wasn't-but-now-is-again releasing music. But let's take a dive, because the pop world (at least our 2020 + 2021) may well not have been, or be, Dua Lipa's disco kingdom without her. WHAT IS JESS' ORIGIN STORY? From where did she come? Who are Alex Newell, Louisa Johnson, Becky Hill, Ella Henderson, Clean Bandit, and did Jess G kick down the door for all of them (especially the queers??) to bring disco back to pop? AND.... IS TRACK 11 ON HER NEW...

Music is always better metabolized. You've heard my predictions, you've heard (and watched) my initial reactions, now here are the takes on Ariana Grande's Eternal Sunshine that took a week+ of listening to brew, stew, chew and now spew ;) 

How a piece of music hits isn't always how it lands. Did the sun shine all the more through the cracks after a week of living with this record? Have I told strangers 'we can't be friends, but I'd like to just pretend?' Is AG7 giving wheat, or is it giving chaff? And does Pitchfork agree? Join m...