Episodes
| Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Episode 1: The Baritone Voice | 20221213 | The music writer Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on different facets of the music we enjoy - starting with the baritone voice. Celebrated British singer Roderick Williams has described his role as an operatic baritone as often arriving on stage 'with a frown'. He shares the characterisation of the baritone voice in opera and classical concert music with Laura, and also reflects, alongside Matt Berninger of the American indie rock band The National, on the wisdom, the masculinity, the melancholy often associated with it, while John Cale (formerly of the Velvet Underground) meditates on the timbre - the fundamentals and frequencies - of the baritone voice. Music: Bill Callahan - Riding the Feeling Leonard Cohen - Chelsea Hotel Beethoven - An die ferne Geliebte (Roderick Williams) Verdi - Di provenza il mar (La Traviata) (Dmitri Hvorostovsky) The National - Sorrow Johnny Cash - I See a Darkness Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows Smog - Let Me See the Colts The National - Light Years John Cale - You Know More Than I Know Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs Mark Lanegan - Judas Touch Gerald Finzi - By Footpath and Stile (Roderick Williams) The National - Pink Rabbits Bill Callahan - Pigeons Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 The music writer presents a series of meditations on different aspects of music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Episode 2: Bells | 20221220 | The music writer Laura Barton presents a seasonal edition of her series of meditations on different aspects of music. Today it's the turn of bells and the change-ringing that is particularly English in its origins and feels at one, according to the poet John Betjeman and the musician Virgina Astley, with the landscape of this island. Laura visits All Hallows in Twickenham, Surrey where Stephen Mitchell and his bellringers demonstrate what's possible with a peal of ten bells. She even has a go. And she relates the timbre of the bells to the music of Jonathan Harvey whose Mortuos Plango Vivos Voco is drawn from samples of his son's treble voice and the largest bell at Winchester Cathedral. Music: Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure Purcell - Rejoice in the Lord always (Brandenburg Consort) Jonathan Harvey - Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco John Betjeman - Myfanwy at Oxford (Including a recording of St Paul's Cathedral's muffled bells on the day of the Queen's funeral, courtesy of Joe Harvey-Whyte.) Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 The music writer presents a series of meditations on different aspects of music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Episode 3: Cars And Girls | 20221227 | The music writer presents a series of meditations on different aspects of music. Today, Laura is drawn to examine the connection between cars and music, including Tift Merritt on how she's never grown tired of Traveling Alone, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney on the car as cocoon, and Laura's own obsession with Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner. Music: Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers - Roadrunner (variously Once, Twice and Thrice) The Replacements - Left of the Dial Tom Petty - The Waiting Iggy Pop - The Passenger Tift Merritt - Traveling Alone Chuck Berry - No Particular Place To Go Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love Tift Merritt - Wait For Me Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Laura Barton Comes Alive | 20211021 | Spring 2008, and pretty much the only album Laura Barton wants to listen to is Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago. She plays it constantly.
That May, she goes to every show on Bon Iver's short UK tour. It's their second show, at The Social in London, that she remembers best - the audience pressed into a hot basement bar. The reverence, the silence, the singalong. The songs played down among the crowd. The sense of the night and the city alive. The thought that no gig could ever be better.
Laura revisits that night with Justin Vernon, Bon Iver's songwriter and frontman; Robin Turner, co-owner of The Social; and Paul Burnley, the Social's sound engineer,
Music Played:
Produced by Alan Hall
A triptych of audio essays on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Laura Barton Comes Alive | 20211021 | 20211025 (R4) | Spring 2008, and pretty much the only album Laura Barton wants to listen to is Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago. She plays it constantly.
That May, she goes to every show on Bon Iver's short UK tour. It's their second show, at The Social in London, that she remembers best - the audience pressed into a hot basement bar. The reverence, the silence, the singalong. The songs played down among the crowd. The sense of the night and the city alive. The thought that no gig could ever be better.
Laura revisits that night with Justin Vernon, Bon Iver's songwriter and frontman; Robin Turner, co-owner of The Social; and Paul Burnley, the Social's sound engineer,
Music Played:
Produced by Alan Hall
A triptych of audio essays on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. |
| Laura Barton Goes West | 20211104 | In this third episode, Laura Barton explores music's idea of the West, from the strings, sustained harmonies and open fifths of Western film scores, to the percussion, nasal pitch and perfect fourths favoured by indigenous Plains Indians, and how they connect or confront ideas of frontier thesis, manifest destiny, and the relationship with the land itself.
With contributions from Samantha Crain, a Choctaw songwriter from Oklahoma; Bryce Dessner, guitarist with The National and provider of music for the 'early western' film The Revenant; and Professor Philip Deloria, a specialist in Native American, Western American and environmental history.
Music:
Produced by Alan Hall
A triptych of audio essays on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Laura Barton Goes West | 20211104 | 20211108 (R4) | In this third episode, Laura Barton explores music's idea of the West, from the strings, sustained harmonies and open fifths of Western film scores, to the percussion, nasal pitch and perfect fourths favoured by indigenous Plains Indians, and how they connect or confront ideas of frontier thesis, manifest destiny, and the relationship with the land itself.
With contributions from Samantha Crain, a Choctaw songwriter from Oklahoma; Bryce Dessner, guitarist with The National and provider of music for the 'early western' film The Revenant; and Professor Philip Deloria, a specialist in Native American, Western American and environmental history.
Music:
Produced by Alan Hall
A triptych of audio essays on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. |
| Laura Barton's Happy Sad | 20210323 | The music writer Laura Barton presents a triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music.
In this second episode, Laura asks why so many of us love listening to sad music. What makes music sound sad? And how does it make us happier?
She talks with cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, bow in hand, about his instrument's plaintive tone, consults psychologist William Forde Thompson and music critic of The New Yorker, Alex Ross, and she analyses the descending ostinato bass line that underpins Dido's Lament, one of the most piercingly mournful pieces of the baroque era, and asks Ane Brun why she reconfigured it as an ascending riff in Laid to Earth.
Music:
Produced by Alan Hall
(Photo: Sheku Kanneh-Mason, credit: Jake Turney)
A triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and purpose of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Laura Barton's Happy Sad | 20210323 | 20220503 (R4) | The music writer Laura Barton presents a triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music.
In this second episode, Laura asks why so many of us love listening to sad music. What makes music sound sad? And how does it make us happier?
She talks with cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, bow in hand, about his instrument's plaintive tone, consults psychologist William Forde Thompson and music critic of The New Yorker, Alex Ross, and she analyses the descending ostinato bass line that underpins Dido's Lament, one of the most piercingly mournful pieces of the baroque era, and asks Ane Brun why she reconfigured it as an ascending riff in Laid to Earth.
Music:
Produced by Alan Hall
(Photo: Sheku Kanneh-Mason, credit: Jake Turney)
A triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and purpose of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. |
| Laura Barton's One True Love | 20210330 | The music writer Laura Barton presents a triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music.
For Laura, there's never been any artist to compare with Bruce Springsteen. But what lies at the heart of the enduring appeal of a musician like Bruce? Is he really more, much more than cars and girls? And why do we often invest so much in the work of one recording artist?
All songs performed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band:
With archive from BBC Sound Archives
Produced by Alan Hall
(Photo: Laura Barton, credit Sarah Lee)
A triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and purpose of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Laura Barton's One True Love | 20210330 | 20220504 (R4) | The music writer Laura Barton presents a triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music.
For Laura, there's never been any artist to compare with Bruce Springsteen. But what lies at the heart of the enduring appeal of a musician like Bruce? Is he really more, much more than cars and girls? And why do we often invest so much in the work of one recording artist?
All songs performed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band:
With archive from BBC Sound Archives
Produced by Alan Hall
(Photo: Laura Barton, credit Sarah Lee)
A triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and purpose of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. |
| Laura Barton's Seventeen | 20210316 | The music writer Laura Barton presents a triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music.
At the age of seventeen we stand on the cusp of adulthood, on the edge of new autonomy, freedom, beginning. It is the age, too that has preoccupied songwriters from Chuck Berry via the Beatles and Stevie Nicks to Olivia Rodrigo, who this year - at the age of seventeen - had a global hit with a song about getting that symbol of maturity, her driver's licence.
Laura talks to Janis Ian, herself on the edge of 70, and Sharon Van Etten, who's just turned 40, about the 'seventeen' songs they've written, as well as the music journalist David Hepworth, founding editor of Just Seventeen magazine, about what makes seventeen the pivotal age for pop music.
(Including extracts from Lost in Vegas with George and Ryan and Take 5 with Chit Chat on MAX TV)
Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl
Produced by Alan Hall
(Photograph of Sharon Van Etten, credit Laura Crosta)
Laura Barton on the importance of the age of seventeen in pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Laura Barton's Seventeen | 20210316 | 20220502 (R4) | The music writer Laura Barton presents a triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music.
At the age of seventeen we stand on the cusp of adulthood, on the edge of new autonomy, freedom, beginning. It is the age, too that has preoccupied songwriters from Chuck Berry via the Beatles and Stevie Nicks to Olivia Rodrigo, who this year - at the age of seventeen - had a global hit with a song about getting that symbol of maturity, her driver's licence.
Laura talks to Janis Ian, herself on the edge of 70, and Sharon Van Etten, who's just turned 40, about the 'seventeen' songs they've written, as well as the music journalist David Hepworth, founding editor of Just Seventeen magazine, about what makes seventeen the pivotal age for pop music.
(Including extracts from Lost in Vegas with George and Ryan and Take 5 with Chit Chat on MAX TV)
Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl
Produced by Alan Hall
(Photograph of Sharon Van Etten, credit Laura Crosta)
Laura Barton on the importance of the age of seventeen in pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. |
| Laura Barton's Words | 20211028 | A triptych of audio essays on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music.
In this second episode, the writer Laura Barton looks at popular music's relationship with language - wordplay, neologisms, and the sensory delight of sound, from Little Richard's a-wop-bop-a loo-bop to the fleet-footed grime MCs of today, via the careful honing of the singer-songwriter.
Including contributions from singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell and Poet Laureate and lyricist Simon Armitage, as well as an archive appearance from Billy Joel.
Music:
Produced by Alan Hall
A triptych of audio essays on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. | |
| Laura Barton's Words | 20211028 | 20211101 (R4) | A triptych of audio essays on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music.
In this second episode, the writer Laura Barton looks at popular music's relationship with language - wordplay, neologisms, and the sensory delight of sound, from Little Richard's a-wop-bop-a loo-bop to the fleet-footed grime MCs of today, via the careful honing of the singer-songwriter.
Including contributions from singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell and Poet Laureate and lyricist Simon Armitage, as well as an archive appearance from Billy Joel.
Music:
Produced by Alan Hall
A triptych of audio essays on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music. Laura Barton presents a series of meditations on the enduring qualities of pop music. |