Bigmouth

It’s crime fiction week! We talk to Mat Osman of Suede about his genuinely excellent debut novel The Ruins, and our old Smash Hits/Select colleague William Shaw about his spectacular new career as an author of superior crime fiction. Plus, does much-lauded new chase movie Queen And Slim deliver on its promise as the Black Lives Matter Bonnie & Clyde? New albums from day-glo ice queen of the rave La Roux and yacht techno space Jesus Tame Impala. And much more besides.  Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden, in the conservatory with the candlestick. Audio production by Alex Rees, with the lead piping in the ballroom. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production.  Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, presenter of radio, podcasts and Thronecast Jamie East and Lydon/Tricky biographer Andrew Perry descend into the BigmouthCave. On the menu…  THE ONCE AND FUTURE CRINGE: Curb Your Enthusiasm is back after three years. Does the comedy of squirm still work in a more censorious age? And how does Larry David stay away from caricaturing himself?  CARRY ON FOLLOW THAT CAMPBELL: Former desert bluesperson and Belle & Sebastianist Isobel Campbell embraces the Laurel Canyon sound on her first solo album in 14 years. Does she wear it well? THE DOILY EXPRESS: Sad-eyed ladies in Biba frocks, pots of Earl Grey, ginger cats, slathers of orchestra and woodwind, Honeybus, Mike Batt and Erasmus Chorum… Will Bob Stanley’s Tea And Symphony: The English Baroque Sound 1968-1974 rehabilitate this neglected sound? Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production.  Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you ba

This week, TV oracles Julia Raeside of The Guardian and Michael Hogan of the Telegraph join Andrew and Siân to read pop culture’s spiritual aura. Submitting to past-life analysis this week…  BLING ME THE HORIZON: Can phoner-in of broad and basic comedy roles Adam Sandler rediscover his hidden talents as an actual thesp for avant garde diamond business thriller Uncut Gems? And is this the tensest moviegoing experience around right now? ELECTRIC YOUTH: Rave spawn Georgia’s incandescent album Seeking Thrills and US anxiety-pop heroine Halsey’s new one, Manic: what are they telling us about the Young People? And does it matter that Georgia’s dad was in Leftfield? WHO MADE WOO?: It’s brand extension time as jade-eggs-for-female-nethers entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow expands into a roundly absurd and widely panned Netflix show, Goop Labs. Exploitation of simple-minded narcissists? Performance art project for our times? Hate-watch or something worse? Our panel channel the Other Side (e.g. BBC4).  Produced and present

Dance music guru Ralph Moore of Mixmag and well-dressed journo-about-town Justin Quirk join Andrew and Siân on the Pools Panel of pop culture. This week: BABYLON BERLIN: Recorded in the German capital, ‘Hotspot’ completes the Pet Shop Boys’ trilogy with superproducer Stuart Price. Are we in for sad bangers, what’s the laser quotient… and can you still rave in your seventh decade? (Spoiler: yes). CHEAP HOLIDAYS IN OTHER SPECIES’ MISERY: Armando Iannucci’s latest workplace satire is set on a space cruiseliner. Does Avenue 5 – starring Hugh Laurie and Rebecca Front and showing on Sky One and NOW TV from 22 Jan – have the spark and snark of The Thick Of It and Veep? THE ILLUSTRATED DAME: Does new graphic novel BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns And Moonage Daydreams capture the essence of dear, departed Davy Jones? And can Andrew and Ralph contain themselves re. the gorgeous Ditko/Kirby artwork of Mike Allred? Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmast

ROCK ON, TOMMY: Why there’s more to Sam Mendes’s nerve-shredding trench epic 1917 than total WW1 immersion horror.  TYPE AAARGH! POSITIVE: Was Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat’s Dracula update too kitsch, or not kitsch enough? BRING YOUR DAUGHTER TO THE CHART RETURNS SHOP: The lost art of the Stealth January Number One.  REN & SKIMPY: We gather the nerds for final judgment on Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.  For the first Bigmouth of the Twenties we’re joined by Strictly Kev AKA Ninja Tune artiste DJ Food and Luke Turner, co-founder of The Quietus and author of Out Of The Woods, to assess the pop culture arrivals of the New Year period. Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production.  Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch

Blackstar! Inside No.9! Arrival! St Vincent! Kill List! Robyn! Shame! Bicep! All these and more feature in our end-of-decade bloody assizes. As the Clanging Chimes of Doom bring us to the end not just of 2019 but the TwentyTeens™ themselves, what were our favourites of the decade that’s about to cash in its “chips”? Guests Jude Rogers of The Word and The Guardian and Eamonn Forde of The Final Days Of EMI fame join Andrew and Siân to sort it all out. As the late great Dame himself once sang, “Time will crawl/To the 21st century loos”. We prefer to say lavatory, David. We wish all Bigmouth persons a Happy Christmas and a delightful 2020. We’ll be back in the second week of the New Year. Until then… be excellent to one another.  Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production.  Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon.  See acast.com/privacy for priv

Do we hear a middling mid-2000s rock track or is it time for the best, the best, the Best of 2019?  Joining Andrew and Siân to reveal their favourite films, albums, tracks, and other things are musician, yogi and Mojo writer Sophie Harris, and King of the Music Writer’s bingo board and Craig Finn fan Michael Hann. Among the top dogs are Booksmart, the screwball teen comedy turning the genre on its head, the HBO series Chernobyl and Succession.   Plus, the panel tries to avoid the waterworks - again - talking about Nick Cave’s heartbreaking album Ghosteen.  Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production.  Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when you back us on the crowdfunding platform Patreon.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s a bass-heavy podcast as we welcome dance music guru and Bigmouth regular Joe Muggs and photographer Brian David Stevens to talk about their book Bass, Mids, Tops: An Oral History of Sound System Culture. Pre-order it here and get free badges! Plus… CEMETARY GREATS: Mysterious dubstep person Burial compiles all his free-range experimental EPs under the name ‘Tunes 2011-2019’. How does this enhance our understanding of the Vangelis of the night bus queue? APOCALYPSE NEIN: A meteor is about to obliterate Europe and everyone is losing their scheisse in grim German drama Eight Days, now showing on Sky Atlantic. Will this Deutsche spin on Bowie’s ‘Five Years’ tempt you to binge-watch before the end of to the world? THE COSMIC TRIP PRESENTS: Balearic mind-massagers Psychemagik finally release the debut album that’s been held hostage by major label shenanigans for ten years. Will ‘I Feel How This Night Should Look’ fit the ‘Moon Safari’-shaped hole in your life?  Plus the usual tunes, digressions and Closing Tim

Devon is a place on Earth: West Country sons Coldplay release their new album Everyday Life - a concept album of two halves, Sunrise and Sunset. We discuss this disparate mix of stadium-bothering plus acoustic wibblings and why the hell Nietzsche is on the cover. I Beg Your Parton: Dolly Parton's new Netflix series Heartstrings brings to life eight of her songs and features Julianne Hough, Kathleen Turner and Dolly herself amongst many others. Is it at good as the tunes? The Big Tome: Suede singer Brett Anderson's first memoir Coal Black Mornings garnered heaps of praise. We chat about his second book, Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn, examining life in Suede: fame, drugs, sex and dry shampoo. Ken Burns Effect: Country Music on BBC4 is an eight-part history from Doc God Ken Burns. Is this enormo-doc the definitive account - and does it serve as a history of America also? On the Extra Bit - inspired by Dolly Parton's Heartstrings - we talk about pop stars in TV shows. Duncan from Blue! Boy George! Suzi Quatro!

Trawling through the muddy flats of pop culture this week…  HELLO, I MUST BE COHEN: Leonard Cohen's posthumous album Thanks for the Dance is released this week. Compiled by his son Adam, did Leonard have more to say after 2016's You Want it Darker? POP YOUR CHERRY: "You can't sing, you look awful, you'll go a long way..." Can Charli XCX's new girl band Nasty Cherry make it big in the Netflix show I'm With the Band, despite in-band rivalries and zero experience? OF COURSE THEY CAN. Reed United: The complete Lou Reed lyrics book I'll be Your Mirror numbers 670 pages. Is this the "autobiography" Laurie Anderson talks of in her introduction or does it offer less of a glimpse of the man (not The Man)? Beats Woking: BBC's War of the Worlds is a new adaption of the HG Wells novel, set in leafy Surrey. A lot of people run around in tweed as aliens arrive. What did the panel think? Joining Siân are this week’s special guests, Conde Nast Traveller and Times writer James Medd; plus actor and writer Dan Maier. Get every

Revealed in the tea leaves of pop culture this week…  LEST WE FUGGEDABOUDIT: Does Martin Scorsese’s elegiac epic The Irishman put the capstone on mob movies forever? And who’s best in it: Bobby de Niro, little Joey Pesci, Al ‘The Animal’ Pacino or Stephen ‘The Scousefather’ Graham? ME AND MY SHADOW: Trip hop originator DJ Shadow rails against the digitally-saturated present on ‘Our Pathetic Age’. Modern hip hop masterpiece or old man shouting at iCloud? THE SPECIAL FKA: The fragile, suspended, subliminal soul-poptronica of FKA Twigs – what’s her album ‘Magdalene’ saying about life as a woman in 2019 and does she need to say it a bit louder? AUTUMN ALMANACS: We choose our favourite albums for the season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and is it time to put the heating on yet? Joining Siân and Andrew are this week’s special guests, Guardian TV and podcasts writer Hannah Verdier and alternative rock journo Martin Aston, author of The Story Of 4AD.  Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audi

Spelling themselves out on the ouija board of pop culture this week…  DÆMON DAYS: Does the prestige BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials do justice to one of the greatest and most philosophically challenging books in the young adult pantheon? Or what? MUSWELL HILL COMMUNICATION: We finally got that Michael Kiwanuka album. Does it deliver on the modern epic soul front? REDRUM HE WROTE: That sequel to The Shining that nobody ordered is here. Does all plot and no mystery make Doctor Sleep a dull sequel? THE IMPOSSIBLE STREAM: Apple think they can reinvent TV the way they did music, phones and, erm, not watches. Are the streaming shows on Apple TV+ enough to make you quit Netflix? Joining Siân and Andrew are this week’s special guests, film writer Linda Marric and Spotify’s top dog of original content, Rob Fitzpatrick.  Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production.  Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, p

Tumbling out of the pop culture piñata this week: THE BECH-DEATH TEST: Does the all-new all-female Terminator Dark Fate bring the much-rebooted “killer robots from the future” saga back online? Or is the story trapped in a repetitive subroutine? HOLY JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY: Kanye West has got God, but what will God think about that? And will Mr West’s holy-rolling gospel-powered album Jesus Is King save the souls of our heathen panel? BLACK COMEDY: Eddie Murphy’s magnificent starring turn as filthy cult comedian Rudy Ray Moore (the Benny Hill of blaxploitation) makes new biopic Dolemite Is My Name one of the most extraordinary things on Netflix right now. And Wesley Snipes isn’t bad either. Does it whitewash the world of pimps and hoes, or are we seeing a real story of American reinvention? Joining Siân and Andrew are this week’s special guests, comedy writer Sarah Morgan and Balearic-brained DJ and Bigmouth regular Anthony Teasdale. Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio productio

Bubbling out of the pop culture percolator this week…  NO SQUID PRO QUO: Has Damon “Lost” Lindelof done justice to Watchmen – the Citizen Kane of wearing your underpants outside your trousers – with his “remix” of the concept for HBO/Sky? And do we have any idea of what the hell is going on? KEEP IT DUSTY: What guest Lucy O’Brien discovered as she updated her definitive biography of Dusty Springfield.  STRIFE IN TOKYO: New high-end crime drama Giri/Haji on BBC2 – there’s a dead yakuza in London and detective Kelly Macdonald is having no luck on her dating apps. Will we keep watching? A PSYCH FOR SORE EYES: The complete works of Dukes Of Stratosphear, the exploding plastic psychedelic cosplay experiment by XTC, are re-released in psurround psound. CASH RUINS EVERYTHING AROUND ME: Does The Laundromat, Steven Soderbergh’s all-star comic dramatisation of the Panama Papers financial scandal, repay on its investment? And why are its principle subjects suing Netflix? Special guests Lucy O’Brien and Melody Maker vete

Inside the tumble dryer of pop culture this week…  REPENT, HARLEQUIN! Is there more to Joaquin Phoenix’s turn in the hit Joker origin movie than half Taxi Driver and half King of Comedy? The movie has divided critics – will it divide our panel? FIRE UP THE QUATRO: Does the biopic of original beleathered rock vixen Suzi Quatro convey the supercharged excitement of her doing Can The Can? And do we actually need biopics of every single pop star? NO MORE KILMISTER NICE GUY: A major reissue programme for rock’s most horrible band Motörhead commences with their two 1979 albums Overkill and Bomber. Special guest Justin Quirk explains their unique and deathless appeal to a blankly confused Andrew.  WHAT A WAYSTAR: In a unique, spoiler-sodden post-credits sequence Andrew and Siân discuss the nerve-shredding finale to Season 2 of Succession. Could we believe what we were seeing and is it officially the Best Thing on Telly Ever (for now)? Special guests Iestyn George of NME, GQ and Golf Punk fame and men’s mags man abou

On this week’s pop culture perusal fest…  THE GREAT BARRIER, GRIEF: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ extraordinary new album Ghosteen leaves our panel floored and yet somehow elated. How did he turn unimaginable personal pain into something so beautiful? THE ROAD OF XS: Many saw Michael Hutchence as just a likeable accumulation of rock star clichés – but was there more to him and to his personal tragedy? And can new biopic Mystify open up the story? I WAS A TEENAGE TRUMP: Does the camp-meets-social-comment extravaganza The Politician – first fruit of Ryan “Glee/Pose” Murphy’s multimillion dollar Netflix deal – bring us closer to the tormented world of feverishly ambitious rich kids? And do we want it it? BURY, MY HEART: As Elbow pile into the vicissitudes of Brexit Britain on their eighth album Giants Of All Sizes, we ask where spiritual unifier Guy Garvey fits into our divided nation.  Esquire magazine deputy editor Johnny Davis and Mojo/Times writer Sophie Harris join Andrew and Siân to sort it all out.  Produced

It’s a special Bigmouth this week as we’re joined by Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys AKA Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark as they mark their 40th anniversary with their ‘Souvenir’ box set – half greatest hits, half Pharaonic treasure trove of all the things they’ve made (including the really weird stuff). ARCHITECTURE AND MORALITY AND SIÂN AND ANDREW: Dive in for a fascinating conversation that takes in the ups and downs of an “accidental” pop career, how Kraftwerk changed their lives, how Paul’s mum nearly derailed OMD entirely, the love/hate relationship between Liverpool and Manchester (and why Joy Division were so amazing), the critical reappraisal that means their ‘difficult’ art statement ‘Dazzle Ships’ is now among their best-loved albums… and how Kraftwerk (them again) invented Atomic Kitten.  Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Alex Rees. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production.  Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day early, plus the famous EXTRA BIT, when yo

We’re joined by Guardian telly and podcasts queen HANNAH VERDIER and Telegraph/Guardian TV writer MICHAEL HOGAN to read the tea leaves of pop culture. On the agenda…  FROM A VESPA TO A SCREAM: What it is with men and mod? Sky Arts’s Mod Weekend opens a window into the world of Weller worshippers and digs into the history of the thin-lapelled cult that won’t die. Is the world ready for Bradley Wiggins on Mod? OUT OF PSYCH, OUT OF MIND: Cosmic inner-spacemen of Kettering Temples return with their third album Hot Motion. Will the panel turn on, tune in or drop out?  DECREE NASTY: Does Nick Hornby’s bite-sized marital counselling comedy State Of The Union (now on BBC2 and iPlayer) convince us that Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd could really be a couple? Is it funny? And what’s with the outrageous anti-middle-aged-music-journalism propaganda? Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Audio production by Sophie Black. Bigmouth is a Podmasters production.  Get every episode of BIGMOUTH a day earl

This week Mojo mag news editor IAN HARRISON and Empire/ScreenWords/Jewish Chronicle film writer LINDA MARRIC join us to feel the bumps on the skull of pop culture. On the agenda…  CRISPY AMBULANCE CHASERS: Early Factory Records relics go on show in London as the Chelsea Space’s Use Hearing Protection exhibition displays the artefacts bestowed with the first 50 FAC numbers. What set Tony Wilson’s empire apart from the post-punk pack?  RUDE AWAKENINGS: It’s 40 years since the dawn of 2 Tone and celebrations are afoot. What were the best of the rankin’, skankin’ Midlands Motown’s output and can Ian still draw a Walt Jabsco on his schoolbook? ONE GIANT STEP FOR BRAD: Does spaceborne dad-and-lad intriguefest Ad Astra confirm Brad Pitt as the modern James Coburn? POLLUTING THE STREAMS: Why on earth did Netflix greenlight the putrid Lost-with-millennials miniseries The I-Land and how much more of this crap can we expect as the streaming wars escalate? Produced and presented by Andrew Harrison and Siân Pattenden. Aud

This week we have special guests Miranda Sawyer - author of Out of Time, she writes for the Observer, appears on Radio 4 and much much more – plus ex-Word magazine writer and Bob Dylan boffin James Medd to discuss the pop culture issues of the day. PALE AILES: Will Sky's The Loudest Voice plump Succession as the latest Citizen-Kane-for-our-times? Starring Russell Crowe as Fox News founder Roger Ailes and Sienna Miller as his wife, this aims to lift the lid on the controversial figure pre Fake News and #MeToo. But do heavy prosthetics simply... get in the way of a good story? BOOM-CHAQUE: New French movie Shock of the Future stars Alma Jodorowsky as proto-electronica pioneer Ana, a frustrated jingle-writer intent on making her own way in the music business. Huge racks of 1970s audio equipment! The Roland CR-78! Loads of cigs! What's not to like? AINT NO MOUNT HIGH ENOUGH: Metronomy Forever is the new album from indie emo dance-crew Metronomy - hence the name. On the heels of the Hot Chip album, are we expectin