Bigmouth
Clever talk about pop culture.
Bigmouth is pop culture talk for discerning grown-ups. Music, TV, movies, books or something else entirely – we’ll enthuse, argue, squabble and pick over the bones of what’s happening in the world of the stuff we love.
Presented by WORD magazine veterans Andrew Harrison (ex-editor of Q, Select and Mixmag) and Siân “Stan” Pattenden, a graduate of the Smash Hits and Select Mag Schools of Excellence.
76
Noughts + Crosses on BBC1, Soccer Mommy, U.S. G...
DON’T CALL ME BLANCA: Does BBC1’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s race-inversion counterfactual Noughts + Crosses work as drama as well as thought experiment? New albums from “queen of screwing up” Soccer Mommy and Toronto-based megapop torch singer U...
65 min
77
Steve Coogan in Greed and The Trip To Greece, C...
BLAME IT ON THE COOGAN: Does Alan Partridge’s alter ego acquit himself better as a thinly-veiled pastiche of charmless retail plutocrat Sir Philip Green in Michael Winterbottom’s gaudy comedy Greed? Or as an even-thinner-veiled version of himself in th...
66 min
78
Andrew Weatherall tribute, Pete Paphides memoir...
After the great ANDREW WEATHERALL’s untimely passing, we assemble Weatherall-watchers Anthony Teasdale and Peter Paphides to appreciate the life, legacy and inspirational madness of Lord Sabre, the polymathic Oscar Wilde of acid house. Plus…UNSUNG H...
66 min
79
Parasite, Gil Scott-Heron, C90 indie rock
HOME ALONE: Is Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-scarfing class-battle nerve-twister Parasite really as good as they say? POSTHUMOUS POETICS: There’s another version of Gil Scott-Heron’s final album I’m New Here out. Makaya McCraven jazzes it up into We’r...
53 min
80
188: Writing thrillers with Mat Osman of Suede ...
It’s crime fiction week! We talk to Mat Osman of Suede about his genuinely excellent debut novel The Ruins, and our old Smash Hits/Select colleague William Shaw about his spectacular new career as an author of superior crime fiction.Plus, does much-...
68 min
81
187: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Isobel Campbell, Eng...
This week, presenter of radio, podcasts and Thronecast Jamie East and Lydon/Tricky biographer Andrew Perry descend into the BigmouthCave. On the menu… THE ONCE AND FUTURE CRINGE: Curb Your Enthusiasm is back after three years. Does the come...
65 min
82
186: Uncut Gems, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Lab, Ha...
This week, TV oracles Julia Raeside of The Guardian and Michael Hogan of the Telegraph join Andrew and Siân to read pop culture’s spiritual aura. Submitting to past-life analysis this week… BLING ME THE HORIZON: Can phoner-in of broad and b...
67 min
83
185: Pet Shop Boys, Bowie graphic novel, Armand...
Dance music guru Ralph Moore of Mixmag and well-dressed journo-about-town Justin Quirk join Andrew and Siân on the Pools Panel of pop culture. This week:BABYLON BERLIN: Recorded in the German capital, ‘Hotspot’ completes the Pet Shop Boys’ trilogy w...
65 min
84
184: 1917 movie, Dracula, January No.1s, Star W...
ROCK ON, TOMMY: Why there’s more to Sam Mendes’s nerve-shredding trench epic 1917 than total WW1 immersion horror. TYPE AAARGH! POSITIVE: Was Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat’s Dracula update too kitsch, or not kitsch enough?BRING YOUR DAUGHTER...
63 min
85
End of Decade Special feat Bowie, Fleabag, St V...
Blackstar! Inside No.9! Arrival! St Vincent! Kill List! Robyn! Shame! Bicep! All these and more feature in our end-of-decade bloody assizes. As the Clanging Chimes of Doom bring us to the end not just of 2019 but the TwentyTeens™ themselves, what were ...
68 min
86
182: Best of 2019 feat. Booksmart, Chernobyl, N...
Do we hear a middling mid-2000s rock track or is it time for the best, the best, the Best of 2019? Joining Andrew and Siân to reveal their favourite films, albums, tracks, and other things are musician, yogi and Mojo writer Sophie Harris, a...
70 min
87
181. Sound systems book, Burial, Psychemagik, 8...
It’s a bass-heavy podcast as we welcome dance music guru and Bigmouth regular Joe Muggs and photographer Brian David Stevens to talk about their book Bass, Mids, Tops: An Oral History of Sound System Culture...
58 min
88
180: Coldplay album, Dolly Parton's Heartstring...
Devon is a place on Earth: West Country sons Coldplay release their new album Everyday Life - a concept album of two halves, Sunrise and Sunset. We discuss this disparate mix of stadium-bothering plus acoustic wibblings and why the hell Nietzsche is on...
66 min
89
179: Leonard Cohen, Nasty Cherry, Lou Reed's ly...
Trawling through the muddy flats of pop culture this week… HELLO, I MUST BE COHEN: Leonard Cohen's posthumous album Thanks for the Dance is released this week. Compiled by his son Adam, did Leonard have more to say af...
52 min
90
178: The Irishman, DJ Shadow, FKA Twigs, winter...
Revealed in the tea leaves of pop culture this week… LEST WE FUGGEDABOUDIT: Does Martin Scorsese’s elegiac epic The Irishman put the capstone on mob movies forever? And who’s best in it: Bobby de Niro, little Joey Pesci, Al ‘The Animal’ Pacin...
66 min
91
177: His Dark Materials, Michael Kiwanunka, Doc...
Spelling themselves out on the ouija board of pop culture this week… DÆMON DAYS: Does the prestige BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials do justice to one of the greatest and most philosophically challenging books in the...
68 min
92
Terminator Dark Fate, Kanye’s Jesus album, Eddi...
Tumbling out of the pop culture piñata this week:THE BECH-DEATH TEST: Does the all-new all-female Terminator Dark Fate bring the much-rebooted “killer robots from the future” saga back online? Or is the story trapped in a repetitive subroutine?HO...
63 min
93
175: Watchmen, Dusty Springfield, Giri/Haji, Du...
Bubbling out of the pop culture percolator this week… NO SQUID PRO QUO: Has Damon “Lost” Lindelof done justice to Watchmen – the Citizen Kane of wearing your underpants outside your trousers – with his “remix” of the concept for HBO/Sky? An...
65 min
94
174: Joker, Suzi Quatro movie, Motörhead, Succe...
Inside the tumble dryer of pop culture this week… REPENT, HARLEQUIN! Is there more to Joaquin Phoenix’s turn in the hit Joker origin movie than half Taxi Driver and half King of Comedy? The movie has divided critics – will it divide our pan...
71 min
95
173: Nick Cave, Michael Hutchence movie, Elbow,...
On this week’s pop culture perusal fest… THE GREAT BARRIER, GRIEF: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ extraordinary new album Ghosteen leaves our panel floored and yet somehow elated. How did he turn unimaginable personal pain into something so...
65 min
96
171: OMD SPECIAL: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The ...
It’s a special Bigmouth this week as we’re joined by Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys AKA Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark as they mark their 40th anniversary with their ‘Souvenir’ box set – half greatest hits, half Pharaonic treasure trove of all th...
62 min
97
170: Mod weekend on Sky, Temples, State Of The ...
We’re joined by Guardian telly and podcasts queen HANNAH VERDIER and Telegraph/Guardian TV writer MICHAEL HOGAN to read the tea leaves of pop culture. On the agenda… FROM A VESPA TO A SCREAM: What it is with men and mod? Sky Arts’s Mod Week...
54 min
98
169: Factory Records exhibition, 2 Tone at 40, ...
This week Mojo mag news editor IAN HARRISON and Empire/ScreenWords/Jewish Chronicle film writer LINDA MARRIC join us to feel the bumps on the skull of pop culture. On the agenda… CRISPY AMBULANCE CHASERS: Early Factory Records relics go on ...
63 min
99
168: Nouvelle Vague saga Shock of the Future, T...
This week we have special guests Miranda Sawyer - author of Out of Time, she writes for the Observer, appears on Radio 4 and much much more – plus ex-Word magazine writer and Bob Dylan boffin James Medd to discuss the pop culture issues of the day.P...
64 min
100
167: Succession S2, UK Rap Game on BBC3, weird ...
LOGAN’S RUIN: Bravura dynastic betrayalfest Succession is back for a second jaw-dropping season on Sky. Are they satirising Murdoch, Trump or plutocrats in general? What do the Murdochs think of it (Simon knows)? And is this actually the new Greatest T...
65 min