Sam Fender is a singer and songwriter from the town of North Shields in England. He won the Brit Award for Best Rock/Alternative Act twice. His most recent album is called People Watching, and just like his first two albums, it went to #1 on the UK album charts. To help produce the album, Sam enlisted Adam Granduciel, the singer and frontman of the band The War on Drugs. For this episode, I talked to Sam, and his bandmate Joe Atkinson, about the title track from People Watching, and the long journey that it took to get made, from Samās kitchen, to the Hollywood Hills, to Abbey Road.
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Key Change: Jia Tolentino on "I Love You Always Forever"
My guest today is Jia Tolentino. Jia is the author of the essay collection Trick Mirror, which was named one of the best books of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Paris Review, and more. She won a National Magazine Award for her work at the New Yorker, where sheās been a staff writer since 2016. Her writing covers so many different topics, from Roe V. Wade to the internet to pop culture and music. And today, weāre going to talk about the 1996 pop hit āI Love You Always Foreverā by Donna Lewis.Ā For more, visit songexploder.net/jia-tolentino.
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Jay Som - Tenderness
Melina Duterte goes by the name Jay Som. Sheās a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Sheās released three albums as Jay Som, and has produced, engineered, and mixed each one.Her third album, Anak Ko, came out in August 2019. And in this episode, Melina breaks down a song from it called āTenderness.āTo learn more, visit songexploder.net/jay-som.
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Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin Down
Fall Out Boy is a band from Chicago that formed in 2001. Their first album, Take This To Your Grave, was a hit, especially in the punk rock world. When they put out their second album, though, in 2005, that was on a whole other scale. That album is called From Under the Cork Tree, and it went double platinum, and they were nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist. For this episode, I talked to the bandās singer, Patrick Stump, about how they made their breakout hit from that album, the song āSugar, Weāre Goin Down.āĀ For more info, visit songexploder.net/fall-out-boy.
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Gigi Perez - Sailor Song
Gigi Perez is a singer and songwriter from Florida, and at 25 years old, sheās already had so many ups and downs in her music career. She started sharing her songs on TikTok, where they got enough attention that she got signed to a major label deal, but that ultimately didnāt pan out. Soon after that, as an independent artist again, she had her biggest breakout hit, with āSailor Song.ā She released it in July 2024, and it went viral on TikTok. Now, it has over a billion streams on Spotify alone, and itās a part of her new album, which came out in April 2025. In this episode, youāll hear how the song evolved, from her first voice memo to the final version, which she recorded in her childhood bedroom. I talked to Gigi about how āSailor Songā came about, and about all the different parts of herself that she put into itāher faith, grief, desire, and more.Ā For more info, visit songexploder.net/gigi-perez.
Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Each episode features an artist discussing a song of theirs, breaking down the sounds and ideas that went into the writing and recording. Hosted and produced by Hrishikesh Hirway.
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