How We Heard It

Your “How We Heard It” hosts never know what they’ll find to talk about when they dig through their music collections - albums they forgot they had, albums they didn’t realize they had, albums they could never forget about.

This week they’re at it again and unusually focused, concentrating primarily on artists that start with J, K or L.

The guys give their short takes on some 50 artists - including Ett...

We praise "weird" music because it's engagingly unpredictable, creative and nonformulaic. We condemn "weird" music because it's self-indulgent, affected and weird just for the sake of being weird.

It's not that we can't make up our mind if weird music is good or bad, it's that weird music can be weirdly good or weirdly bad.

This week on "How We Heard It," Chuck, Wayne and John run through a spectrum of offbeat artists who are somet...

Songwriters know there's no place like home - for better and worse.

Home is where the heart is, and home is where the hurt is. We might get homesick when we're away and then feel trapped when we return.

For some, home is a retreat into seclusion, and they won't even answer the door. Meanwhile others never intend to darken the doorstep of their home again.

This week the hosts of "How We Heard It" look at our complicated feelings for...

As we chug deeper into fall, the sunrise comes later each day, and the sundown comes earlier. The thermometer readings are on a steady decline, and there's a pronounced chill in the rain.

Somehow those sunny songs of summer just aren't cutting it anymore.

But an awesome thing about music is there are songs for every mood, every atmosphere and every season.

So this week on "How We Heard It," your hosts bring attention to songs that ...

We all tend to have our favorite movie genres - whether it's action, romcoms, horror, drama or comedies. But often the movies we find it hardest to forget (for better and for worse) are the weird ones, and weird movies transcend genre and time.

On this week's episode of "How We Heard It," your movie-buff hosts talk about some of the weirdest movies they've encountered.

They go all the way back to the 1930s for the controversial "Fr...

Cars are our vehicle to freedom. When you get your first one, you can take off in any direction and just go wherever any highway, road or interstate can take you. What could be more liberating?

On the flipside, cars become our prison, ushering us from one obligation to the next while getting us stuck in traffic with other poor souls just like us. They require maintenance and insurance ... and we won't even go into the state of gas ...

In prehistoric days - like, say, the 1970s - your local rock radio station might play a song that caught your ear. Then you might have read a review of that band in something like a Rolling Stone magazine you picked up at a newstand. And that review might have been just the motivation you needed to fork over five or six bucks at Kmart for a copy of the band's new album, which you would have listened to on the turntable that night a...

Note: This week's episode of "How We Heard It" is posting two days earlier than usual, and the podcast will resume its regular schedule next week.

The world lost Dolly Parton on Aug. 25, 2026, touching off waves of public mourning for one of the most beloved artists in entertainment history.

She was a brilliant songwriter and exquisite singer. Yet there was something extra about Parton the person that transcended even Parton the ar...

It's time to party up and party down.

End of summer blowout? Back to school bash? Check and check.

Even Halloween shindigs aren't so far away. And after that, Christmas and New Year's Eve and ...

OK, we're getting way ahead of ourselves. Besides, you don't even need to have a party if you want to listen to party songs.

This week on "How We Heard It," your hosts are checking off great party songs for the ages.

Always the methodical ...

There's long been some form of "reality TV" kicking around - in the form of news programs, documentaries and game shows, for example. But in the 1990s and especially the 2000s, there was such an explosion of "unscripted" programming on television coinciding with wholesale changes in society that it was hard to separate the two.

It could be argued America in particular has been susceptible to the influence of reality television. The...

If you can find the energy you need to get through every day, how do you do it?

A well-balanced diet?

A consistent exercise regimen?

Regular restful nights?

Maybe you need a little boost - like, say, a methodically steady stream of caffeine during the day balanced with diphenhydramine HCl at bedtime?

Well, don't forget the power of music. Whether you require a special blast of energy to get through a particularly demanding time or ...

Many of us in the Northern Hemisphere have already had our share of scorching days and steamy nights this summer, and there's only more to come.

But rather than take shelter with a cool drink behind blackout curtains, the hosts of "How We Heard It" decided to face the heat head on with a collection of "hot" songs.

Some are obvious, some you might have forgotten, and some you may never have heard. Some are recent, some go back sever...

This week on "How We Heard It," your hosts talk about bands and singers they haven't mentioned often on the show but who deserve to have their stories told.

For example: How did Lauryn Hill squander the record-breaking fame and adulation for her solo debut so badly that she never released another studio album?

Or why didn't Lou Reed's counterpart in The Velvet Underground have anything close to Reed's success?

Then there's the Aust...

"How We Heard It" is two years old this week, and Wayne, Chuck and John hope you're having a good time - because they are.

Oh sure, they sometimes slip up, say "you know" and "right" too often, lose their way sorting out topics and forget what they're saying now and then. Yet they keep finding their way in sharing lose opinions and hard facts about music, movies and TV from before any of us were born to wh...

In May your "How We Heard It" hosts served an episode of songs about moms in honor of Mother's Day, so it's only fitting that for June they turn out an episode of songs about uncles.

Kidding!

Of course Father's Day brings about an episode of songs about dads - all kinds of dads. From supportive dads to deadbeat dads, from the doting fathers to the cold fathers and maybe a hot daddy here and there for those so inclined.

For better o...