Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

Music and storytelling meet on Broken Record, where artists across genres and generations sit down to explore the joy, chaos, and vulnerability of creating—and what it means to devote a life to music. From legendary icons to groundbreaking new voices, each episode captures artists in conversation sharing the inspirations and experiences that shape their craft.

Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond is a music podcast hosted by Pushkin Industries, with 403 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Pushkin Industries hosts Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond, a music show with 403 episodes published.

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  Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

  The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic | Malcolm Gladwell's New Audiobook

  Oct 6, 202615 minS6

  The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why?  In his new audiobook book, The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American “peculiarity” — how the world’s wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world’s poorest countries.  Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy?  In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it.  Here's a preview. Get the full audiobook at pushkin.fm/audiobooks or wherever you get audiobooks. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  Episode #226

  Elvis Costello

  Sep 29, 20261h 2mS6

  Elvis Costello seemed to arrive fully formed with his 1977 debut, My Aim Is True . The look, the voice, the wordplay and the attitude were already there, along with songs like “Alison,” “Watching the Detectives” and “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” that helped establish him as one of the most distinctive songwriters of his generation. But behind that seemingly sudden arrival were years spent absorbing everything from Motown and country to Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman and the California folk-rock of the late ’60s and early ’70s, as Costello worked to find a musical language of his own. Now, nearly 50 years later, Costello is revisiting that evolution with an expansive new anniversary edition of My Aim Is True . The collection reaches back to songs and demos he recorded before the album, tracing his early experiments as a songwriter through the sessions with producer Nick Lowe and the American band Clover, and eventually to the formation of the Attractions. On today’s episode, Bruce Headlam talks with Elvis Costello about how he found his voice as a songwriter, the music that shaped him, and the stories behind some of the songs on My Aim Is True . They also talk about the “angry young man” persona that followed Costello through his early career, what he learned about music from his parents, and what he hears now when he looks back at the young songwriter he was nearly half a century ago. You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Elvis Costello HERE . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  Episode #225

  Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo

  Sep 22, 202652 minS6

  Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo helped transform the possibilities of the electric guitar at a time when its role in rock music could seem well established. He came of age in New York City’s downtown No Wave art scene in the late 1970s before co-founding Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon in 1981. Over the next three decades, the band became an artistically and critically important act in American rock, serving as a conduit between the underground and the mainstream. Since Sonic Youth’s dissolution in 2011, Ranaldo has continued to work prolifically as a solo artist and collaborator, moving freely between noise, folk, drone, and spoken word. His work reflects a restless curiosity that has made him a genuine musical polymath. On today’s episode, Justin Richmond talks with Lee Ranaldo about his life and work, including the recent release of The System , a soundtrack he composed for Dutch filmmaker Joris Postema’s documentary about three climate activists working to imagine a different world. You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Lee Ranaldo HERE . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  Episode #223

  Tom Morello

  Sep 8, 20261 hourS6

  Tom Morello arrived in Los Angeles from Libertyville, Illinois, in the mid-1980s with a Harvard political science degree in his pocket and a guitar slung across his back, determined to become the next great guitarist on the scene. Instead, he found himself locked out of the glam-rock world that had taken over the Sunset Strip. By day, he worked as a secretary to a state senator; by night, he played clubs, searching for a way in. Then, in 1991, Morello co-founded Rage Against the Machine with Zack de la Rocha—and everything changed. The band fused hip-hop, punk, metal, and politics into something entirely new, becoming one of the biggest rock bands of the 1990s. Rage has been on and off over the past 25 years, but Morello has rarely stood still. He formed Audioslave, recorded folk protest songs as The Nightwatchman, toured as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and collaborated with artists ranging from Chuck D and B-Real to Johnny Cash. Now, for the first time in his decades-long career, Morello has made a true solo album. Everyone Gets Everything They Want combines high-energy rock with social consciousness—and features his 15-year-old son, Roman, as a collaborator throughout. On today’s episode, Justin Richmond talks with Tom Morello about making Everyone Gets Everything They Want and the long road that led him there. Morello tells the story of his early years in Los Angeles, the divide between the Eastside and the Sunset Strip, his time with the E Street Band, and much more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  Episode #222

  David Porter

  Sep 1, 20261h 3mS6

  David Porter's story goes well beyond writing songs and releasing albums for Stax Records. His recent memoir, The Soul Man , tells how he and his partner Isaac Hayes helped invent a sound rich and enduring enough to define American music from the 1960s to today. Together they wrote and produced hits for Sam & Dave, Johnnie Taylor, and dozens of other artists, and in the process built what became known as the Stax sound, a sound Porter still describes as the pursuit of pure emotional connection. Porter grew up on a dead-end street in Memphis that also produced Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire and members of the Bar-Kays. He started out singing in church before eventually singing and producing music for Stax. He never learned to read music. None of the great names at Stax did. Instead, they built songs by ear, in the room, together, a process Porter calls “head arrangements,” and it became the foundation for some of the greatest songs in the history of R&B. Today, Bruce Headlam sits down with David Porter to talk about how he and Isaac Hayes built a signature sound to set themselves apart from Motown, Burt Bacharach and Hal David. He also recalls the writing session that turned a bathroom joke into Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Coming," and the incredible story of how Otis Redding went from an artist's personal driver to a Stax superstar. You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from David Porter HERE . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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