ABOUT
Another music podcast? What's this one about?
The Songs About Podcast is a Spotify Show With Music. More like a radio show than a traditional podcast, it combines the conversational style of a podcast with full music tracks. Available via Spotify and Anchor, whether you have a free or premium Spotify account, you get the full Songs About Podcast experience.
The Songs About Podcast brings together excellent songs - pop, indie, rock & hip hop - with conversations about life, lyrics and other unclassifiable nonsense.
Do you play full songs on the podcast?
We do! Thanks to the folks at Spotify we can avoid copyright issues and include our favourite tracks in our conversations. The songs are seamlessly part of the podcast & the artists get royalties. Because YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR.
If you have a free Spotify account, you can listen to 30 second clips, and if you've got Spotify Premium you can listen to full tracks. You can also interact with the songs in the Spotify library in the same way as your usual songs - adding them to your own playlists, adding to favourites and downloading etc.
I thought you couldn't play songs on podcasts for copyright reasons?
Due to the very complex and costly world of music copyright and royalties, until now it's been almost impossible to play songs, clips of songs or even covers of songs on podcasts.
We've wanted to produce the Songs About podcast for 8 years but it's only been possible to make it since late 2020 (cheers Spotify, our benevolent overlords.)
In Autumn 2020, Spotify changed things with the Spotify Show With Music feature, which allows creators to record conversations and drop in relevant songs from the Spotify podcast library.
Why can't I listen to the Songs About Podcast on [every other podcast reader]
At the moment, we can only share the Songs About Podcast on Spotify and Anchor, so if you've added us to your other podcast readers you will only be able to listen to our trailer.
We're hoping things will change so we can be listened to on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast etc...
Who even are you?
The Songs About Podcast is hosted by Allana and Kate.
We've been listening to music together since secondary school and we live together in deepest Yorkshire, UK. Gigs, festivals and dancing in the kitchen are our top 3 hobbies.
Why did you start the Songs About Podcast?
We make the Songs About Podcast because we want to make you laugh, introduce you to new songs and remind you about old favourites. From Song Exploder to All Songs Considered, we love music podcasts but many of them have the massive drawback of only talking about music - not allowing you to listen. The Songs About Podcast is our opportunity to share our love of music with you.
We were the teenage music nerds who were as excited about the tape and CD album artwork and tiny font lyrics booklets and things haven't changed too much in the intervening decades.
How do you select the songs and themes for the Songs About Podcast?
Allana has made it clear that her song selection process is a) secret, b) magic, and c) never going to be revealed.
Kate however keeps long, obsessive lists of theme ideas, song meanings (updated daily, as and when she hears new ones or picks up on lyrics), and reads interviews with bands and artists, articles and album sleeve notes. For her, every episode starts with a list of 10-15 songs cropped to 3 bangers to present on the podcast.
When it comes to themes, we've got a list of over 250 to work through (8 years in the making, remember) but we LOVE to hear your ideas - submit a song or theme for us here.
You made a mistake / You're so brilliant
Ah no / Ah thanks! We love feedback.
Tell us about a great or obvious song we totally missed by emailing us, connecting with us on Instagram or Facebook or leaving us a voice note on Anchor.