Podcasts · Music · Society & Culture

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

Pushkin Industries

300 episodes

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.

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. Rhiannon Giddens

    · 54 min · S6 E229

    For more than 20 years, Rhiannon Giddens has explored the musical traditions that shaped American culture, often bringing overlooked Black musicians and their contributions into focus. On her new album, Hope Is the…

  2. Revisiting: Raphael Saadiq

    · 1 h 23 min

    Today we’re revisiting a conversation with R&B great Raphael Saadiq. Since this conversation aired, Raphael’s brother and bandmate in trio Tony! Toni! Toné!, D’Wayne Wiggins, passed away. In this episode we revisit…

  3. Grace Cummings

    · 49 min · S6 E228

    Australian singer-songwriter Grace Cummings has one of those voices that’s hard to forget. It’s raw, powerful and deeply expressive, capable of moving from a delicate whisper to a full-throated roar. Broken Record…

  4. Revisiting: Patti Smith

    · 1 h 09 min

    Broken Record re-wind: Today we’re throwing it back to a conversation Malcolm Gladwell had with the one and only Patti Smith. Patti is the consummate downtown NYC artist. Her 1975 debut album Horses is credited as one…

  5. Susanna Hoffs

    · 44 min · S6 E227

    Susanna Hoffs rose to fame in the 1980s as the lead singer and guitarist of the Bangles, the Los Angeles band behind hits like “Manic Monday,” “Walk Like an Egyptian” and “Eternal Flame.” Inspired by the Beatles, the…

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

    · 15 min · Bonus

    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…

  7. Elvis Costello

    · 1 h 02 min · S6 E226

    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…

  8. Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo

    · 52 min · S6 E225 · Explicit

    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…

  9. Brandon Flowers

    · 1 h 13 min · S6 E224

    Brandon Flowers’ new album, Thrasher, is a beautifully written ode to the Southwest where he grew up. It’s a deeply personal record, shining a light on the people close to him, the lives they’ve lived, and the…

  10. Tom Morello

    · 1 h 00 min · S6 E223 · Explicit

    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…

  11. David Porter

    · 1 h 03 min · S6 E222

    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…

  12. Travis Barker

    · 1 h 00 min · S6 E221 · Explicit

    Travis Barker grew up in Fontana, California, and was gifted his first drum kit at the age of four from his mother, who made him promise before she died that he would never stop playing. This was just before he started…

  13. Interpol's Daniel Kessler

    · 55 min · S6 E220

    Daniel Kessler grew up between London, Paris, and Washington, D.C., listening to his older brother’s early UK rock records. He picked up guitar as a teenager, the same day he quit skateboarding, and after moving to New…

  14. Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard

    · 59 min · S6 E219 · Explicit

    Brittany Howard has never been the type to do things quietly. Whether it was fronting Alabama Shakes with a voice that could fill a room and level it in the same breath, or striking out on her own with two solo records…

  15. Wu-Tang v. Shaolin | From Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem

    · 34 min · Bonus

    In Revisionist History's new season The Staten Island Problem, senior producer Ben Naddaff-Hafrey investigates the story of what was, at the time, the biggest secession movement in the U.S. since the Civil War. The…

  16. Harvey Mason Jr.

    · 56 min · S6 E218

    Harvey Mason Jr. grew up steeped in music. His father, Harvey Mason Sr., was half of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters rhythm section and played on countless sessions through the '70s and '80s. After a brief detour through…

  17. Daveed Diggs on the Need for Artistic Expression | From Who's With Me? with W. Kamau Bell

    · 1 h 18 min · Bonus

    My friend W. Kamau Bell has a new show out, Who's With Me?. Known for having conversations about the issues that divide, enrage, and confuse us, Kamau sits down with someone he admires to give them their flowers, ask…

  18. Melissa Auf der Maur

    · 53 min · S6 E217

    Melissa Auf der Maur came of age in Montreal's bohemian art scene in the '80s and early '90s, at the very moment that alternative rock was becoming the defining sound of a generation. Through an unlikely chain of…

  19. Rewind: Johnny Marr

    · 1 h 19 min · S6 E216

    Today we're revisiting a conversation with acclaimed British guitarist Johny Marr. Marr started playing guitar as a young teenager growing up in Manchester. When he turned 15 he dropped out of school and moved to…

  20. Joe Jackson

    · 1 h 12 min · S6 E215

    Joe Jackson showed up in the late '70s UK New Wave scene, all nervous energy and biting wit, with hits like "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" putting him in the same conversation as Elvis Costello and Squeeze. But…

  21. Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien

    · 1 h 19 min · S6 E214

    Ed O'Brien has spent decades crafting some of the most textured, expansive guitar in modern rock. From the fragmented beauty of Kid A and Amnesiac to the experimental layers of The King of Limbs, with the more…

  22. Earth, Wind & Fire

    · 54 min · S6 E213

    Just before the premiere of Earth, Wind & Fire's new Questlove-directed documentary , the three OGs of the group stopped by Broken Record: vocalist Phillip Bailey, singer and percussionist Ralph Johnson, and bass…

  23. The New Pornographers

    · 54 min · S6 E212

    The New Pornographers have never been easy to pin down. Since forming in Vancouver in the late ’90s, the band became one of the defining acts of the Canadian indie rock explosion. They’re part of a scene that also…

  24. Mopreme Shakur

    · 1 h 10 min · S6 E211

    Mopreme Shakur is 2Pac's half-brother, a rapper, filmmaker, and record producer living at the intersection of revolutionary politics and hip-hop. He's one of the only surviving members of Thug Life and Outlawz, raised…

  25. Hardy

    · 45 min · S6 E210 · Explicit

    Before Hardy was known as the breakout artist who pushed country music into hard rock territory, he was a self-proclaimed redneck from Philadelphia, Mississippi who studied songwriting at Middle Tennessee State…

  26. From Robert Margouleff | Shaping Sounds: Stevie Wonder, DEVO, the Synth Revolution and My Life Behind the Music

    · 12 min · Bonus

    Recently, we had visionary music producer Robert Margouleff on the show and today we're sharing an excerpt from his new audiobook, Shaping Sounds: Stevie Wonder, DEVO, the Synth Revolution and My Life Behind the Music.…

  27. Robert Margouleff and Mark Mothersbaugh

    · 1 h 04 min · S6 E209

    Robert Margouleff is one of the most quietly consequential figures in modern music — a sonic architect who helped build some of the most innovative and enduring sounds of the last half century. Together with his…

  28. Maya Hawke and Christian Lee Hutson - Live from SXSW

    · 41 min · S6 E208 · Explicit

    Maya Hawke first became known to wide audiences as an actress — especially through her work in Stranger Things — but she's been quietly building a parallel life as a songwriter of genuine depth. Since her debut album…

  29. Why Would I Do That to Jennifer Lopez? | Revisionist History

    · 32 min · Bonus

    In the latest season of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell is looking at the origins and consequences of mistakes—why we make them, the context in which we make them, and what happens after we make them. Years ago a…

  30. Bruce Hornsby

    · 56 min · S6 E207

    The magic of Bruce Hornsby isn't just that he's one of American music's great piano stylists — or that he wrote one of the most unlikely pop hits of the 1980s, a song about racism with two improvised solos that nobody…

  31. Dave Grohl

    · 1 h 00 min · S6 E206

    The magic of Dave Grohl isn't just that he's one of rock music's great raconteurs, or one of its greatest drummers and frontmen of the last thirty-plus years. It's the sheer number of lives he's gotten to live within…

  32. Wyclef Jean - Live from On Air Fest

    · 46 min · S6 E205

    Wyclef Jean may just be the most wide-ranging rapper, producer, performer, and composer of his time. As the lead producer and MC of The Fugees, he helped craft their 1996 landmark album The Score, one of the…

  33. Jessie Ware

    · 46 min · S6 E204 · Explicit

    Jessie Ware has always moved between worlds. She's a British soul singer who spent the early part of her career making intimate, understated records. Then, in 2020, she released What's Your Pleasure? and morphed into a…

  34. Patrick Watson

    · 57 min · S6 E203

    Patrick Watson first came to international attention in 2007 when his album Close to Paradise won the Polaris Music Prize, Canada's most prestigious award for a Canadian album. Over the course of his career, the…

  35. Charlie Puth

    · 56 min · S6 E202 · Explicit

    Charlie Puth is a meticulous songwriter whose knowledge of pop music runs deeper than your average chart topper. Charlie, who studied music production and engineering at Berklee College of Music, first gained…

  36. Rewind: Chris Robinson

    · 43 min · S6 E201

    The Black Crowes are one of the great rock bands of the last 30 years, and now they're finally getting their flowers: a 2026 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination, alongside Lauryn Hill, Phil Collins, Wu-Tang Clan, and…

  37. Tommy Emmanuel

    · 1 h 16 min · S6 E200

    Tommy Emmanuel is an Australian guitarist who has spent over six decades mastering the art of fingerstyle acoustic guitar. He's now widely regarded as one of the best acoustic players in the world. Born in 1955, he…

  38. Rodney Crowell

    · 1 h 08 min · S6 E199

    Rodney Crowell has been a fixture in Nashville's songwriting community for over 50 years. Born in Houston in 1950, he was influenced early on by songwriters Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. In 1975, he joined Emmylou…

  39. FKA twigs

    · 51 min · S6 E198 · Explicit

    FKA twigs has spent over a decade redefining the boundaries of pop music through her innovative blend of electronic production, experimental R&B, and striking visual art. Her albums LP1 and Magdalene earned widespread…

  40. Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses)

    · 1 h 07 min · S6 E197 · Explicit

    Ben Bridwell has led Band of Horses for over two decades. He describes the band's sound as "y'all-ternative," a genre that tips its hat to Southern rock's deep myriad of musical influences. Next month, Band of Horses…

  41. Grant-Lee Phillips

    · 43 min · S6 E196

    Grant-Lee Phillips first made his name in the ‘90s as the frontman of Grant Lee Buffalo, a critically acclaimed band that released four albums and toured with Pearl Jam, the Smashing Pumpkins, and R.E.M. Rolling Stone…

  42. Peaches

    · 45 min · S6 E195 · Explicit

    Peaches has spent more than two decades pushing boundaries in electronic music and performance art, inspiring the look and sound of edgy pop artists like Lady Gaga and Grimes. But long before she was known for her…

  43. Jacob Collier

    · 1 h 04 min · S6 E194

    Jacob Collier has built a remarkable career as a multi-instrumentalist and arranger known for his complex harmonic approach and collaborative spirit. He first gained attention as a teenager posting multi-track videos…

  44. Don Was

    · 1 h 21 min · S6 E193 · Explicit

    Don Was has had a remarkable career moving between different corners of the music world. In the 1980s, he fronted the eclectic band Was (Not Was), mixing funk, rock, and pop in unexpected ways. As a producer, he's…

  45. Patty Griffin

    · 45 min · S6 E192

    When Patty Griffin released Crown of Roses earlier this year, she delivered something both timeless and urgent. It’s an album that draws on gospel, folk, and soul to explore themes of faith, doubt, and resilience. It's…

  46. Joe Henry and Mike Reid

    · 1 h 15 min · S6 E191

    Joe Henry and Mike Reid brought two distinct but complementary legacies to Life & Times, their new collaborative album. Joe is a celebrated producer and songwriter known for his atmospheric, deeply literary approach to…

  47. Labi Siffre

    · 1 h 04 min · S6 E190

    Since getting his start in the late ‘60s, Labi Siffre has had an unflinching commitment to writing exactly what he feels. The result was a debut album that announced a singular talent: a British singer-songwriter who…

  48. Chicago

    · 56 min · S6 E189

    When Chicago released their debut album in 1969, they blended brass, jazz sophistication, and rock power into something completely their own. By 1975, when Chicago IX: Chicago's Greatest Hits arrived, the band had…

  49. Justin Richmond on You'll Hear It: "Still Crazy After All These Years" — Paul Simon

    · 1 h 39 min · Bonus

    Justin joined You'll Hear It's Adam Maness and Peter Martin to talk Still Crazy After All These Years. Paul Simon's Grammy-winning album was born out of divorce, and produced some of his greatest songs of all time,…

  50. Drew Holcomb (Live from NYC's Cherry Lane Theatre)

    · 1 h 19 min · S6 E188

    In July, Malcolm Gladwell taped a live episode of Broken Record at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City. It was a wonderful night of conversation and music. Drew Holcomb—a Memphis native who has spent the past 20…

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