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SODAJERKER
IF you don’t want to start buying up the gaps in your music collection you’ll probably want to avoid Sodajerker.
In each episode, hosts Simon Barber and Brian O’Connor take a different major music star through their songwriting process, forensically questioning everything from influences to how they penned an individual line.
They’ve been at it for 179 episodes so far, so your favourite songwriter is bound to be in here – from Paul McCartney revealing the tricks he used to get him through writer’s block in 2017 to Rufus Wainwright chatting in an office next to a bust of his own head earlier this year.
That Simon and Brian are themselves songwriters gives their interviewing an edge, and their polite, enthusiastic style and dry sense of humour immediately warms up their subjects.
Pick a musician, delve in and find yourself coming up for air several back-to-back episodes later.
Where to start:
TRANSMISSIONS
THE story of 70s Salford band Joy Division - where they came from and how they evolved into New Order after Ian Curtis’ suicide - is told with frank honesty by the people who were there.
Narrated by Manchesterborn actor Maxine Peake, the script is packed with colourful detail that spirits you away to that very particular period in music history.
You can almost hear the ring of Bernard Sumner’s mum’s phone as he waits for those who have seen his advert for bandmates to call, and feel the rough texture of the carpet on the walls of their first recording studio.
Charismatic real-life characters are what makes this tale so compelling – as well as the band members and Unknown Pleasures producer Martin Hannett there is of course the late Factory Records director Tony Wilson, whose ex-wife talks candidly of how much he was sometimes hated. Where to start:
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