Joe Bennett

Tonight on the show, Steffan Powell was sitting in for Gordon, and together we explored one of the most well-used and enduring musical formulas in pop: the 1-5-6-4 chord progression. This sequenc...

https://joebennett.net/2024/10/14/1564/

This evening, Gordon and I were among the woodwinds, with an entire show dedicated to the saxophone. The single-reed instrument was designed around 1840 by Belgian Adolphe Sax. Sax invented two g...

https://joebennett.net/2024/10/07/its-saxophone-week/

This evening, Nick and I entered possibly dangerous broadcasting territory, as we listened to controversial songs. Throughout popular music history, some broadcasters or even governments have ban...

https://joebennett.net/2024/09/30/controversial-and-banned-songs/

In tonight’s show, Johnny and I will be listening only to songs entitled “Breathe”. It’s part of an occasional series that I loosely call “you can’t copyright a title” (true, in the...

https://joebennett.net/2024/09/23/breathe/

In tonight’s show, Gordon and I listened to songs in 12/8 time – that’s 4 beats to the bar, with each one divided up into three beats. Depending on tempo, 12/8 can give you anything from a ...

https://joebennett.net/2024/09/16/midnight-musicology-with-dr-beat-songs-in-12-8-time/

Tonight, guest host Connie McLaughlin and I will be talking about (and listening to) the Mercury Prize, which famously (sometimes controversially!) focuses on the album as a whole, apparently pri...

https://joebennett.net/2024/09/09/mercury-prize-winners-and-the-art-of-album-craft/

This week on the show, Gordon and I are listening to songs that come straight in. No faffing about – no chord loops, drum patterns, secondary hooks, or scene-setting of any sort – just straig...

https://joebennett.net/2024/09/02/no-intros/

This week, I’ll be talking with guest presenter Connor Phillips as we explore the influence of the “Windrush generation” on British pop music 1940s to today. We begin with Lord Kitchener’...

https://joebennett.net/2024/08/26/caribbean-connections/

In this week’s show, Gordon and I will be listening to pentatonic melodies. A pentatonic scale, as the name suggests, consists of 5 notes per octave. There’s a major and minor version, which ...

https://joebennett.net/2024/08/19/pentatonics/

Winners vs predictions Phew! What an intense evening. One media outlet described it as “beset by chaos”, and there was certainly a lot of drama – from the last minute disqualification of t...

https://joebennett.net/2024/05/11/eurovision2024/