New Pod Recommendation: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs
New Pod Recommendation: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs
The college-level history course centering rock music in history, social and political movements, technology and ground-and-norm-breaking artists
What do your siblings chat about? My family trades podcast recommendations. We all listen to Andrew Huberman and “Myths and Legends” and “The Daily Beans/Jack/Cleanup on Aisle 45.”
This one comes from my mandolin-and-guitar-playing brother: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. Fantastic!
Remember Jack Black in School of Rock? Middle school stuff.
Podcaster Andrew Hickey, a densely-accented Liverpudlian, presents a PhD level history of rock music from 1938 to 1999, looking at five hundred songs that shaped the genre. His detailed lectures integrate music, social and political history, recording technology developments, music business practices, artistic influences, and stories of the musicians who changed the sound of what we listen to and our culture. This is heady stuff, as complete and rich as my Smith College art history courses.
Hickey is currently up to song 167, The Weight, by The Band.
In this nearly two-hour episode, Hickey tracks Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm through their early musical careers. Bob Dylan comes in and out as colleague and songwriter. The “Basement Tapes” get coverage. The Band’s songs are excerpted. It’s a complete analysis.
And this is just one episode. Episode 163: “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding covers the history of Stax and Atlantic records, Otis’ personal history, how he got his start, the singers he emulated, his evolution into the rock genre, and his heartbreaking and untimely death.