The making of Madonna

Bandsplain, the excellent in-depth music podcast hosted by the charismatic, drily hilarious Yasi Salek, is one of the best shows out there, but I always hesitate to review it because I have appeared on it three times (talking about Suede, Elastica and Blur v Oasis – my “area of expertise”). But this week I can hesitate no more, because Bandsplain is going all in on Madonna and the result is, as regular listeners might expect, absolutely fantastic. 

Bandsplain’s USP, other than Salek’s quick wit, is her enormous efforts with research into the artist she’s covering. Each episode she makes is mega-long (often more than three hours), and it’s because she not only listens to every piece of music the artist has ever made, but also reads every interview and book about them, watches all the TV appearances, the films, the documentaries. She digs up out-of-print biographies, finds obscure magazines, reads other musicians’ memoirs. Recording sessions are epic. 

For Madonna, the biggest-selling female artist of all time, the research took Salek three and a half weeks, and the podcast recording sessions lasted 22 and a half hours. She’s divided Madonna’s career into three episodes, plus an extra one on Madonna’s films. So last week we got up to 1987: a three and a half-hour fun time with guest Mel Ottenberg, editor-in-chief of Interview magazine. As ever, there was a lot I didn’t know. There was much discussion about Madonna’s time before she made it big, when she was living in New York in various precarious situations – in a disused synagogue, in a room at a recording studio, living off yoghurt and peanuts, playing the drums and writing songs. At that time, Madge was in a CBGB-style band called Emmy & the Emmys (“deranged punk with minimal funk”), plus another with two members of Swans and, reveals Salek, she dated Swans’ Michael Gira: “Two of the hottest people to ever exist were dating, and this, to me, is one of the most important things in the entire world.” 

The artists that Salek covers fit into one of two categories: either she loves them or they’re culturally significant. Often, as with Madonna, they are both, and those are the shows I really enjoy. Sometimes her guests can be a bit too gushing (Ottenberg, at one point, simply says: “It’s Madonna, it’s truly Madonna”), but Salek herself walks the line between celebratory and critical (she’s great on Madonna’s voice being appealing to young girls) and it’s that, as well as her campery and fun, that makes her and Bandsplain the best in the business. Yes, these shows are long, but they’re worth it. Get into the groove.

Here are two more best-in-business hosts: Alice Levine and Greg James. James is Radio 1’s breakfast show presenter, as well as co-host of Tailenders, the cricket podcast. Levine presents British Scandal with Matt Forde, and was co-host of the still-missed show My Dad Wrote a Porno. Both are immensely experienced, but, more importantly, warm and droll, particularly Levine, whose storytelling and off-the-cuff lines are spit-your-coffee-out funny.

Bad Chat is their new podcast, and we know we’re going to have a good time, even though the show is, as yet, not completely formed. It needs listener contributions, as they acknowledge in their first episode: “We want your confessions, your obsessions, the things that are taking up your brain space,” says James. “Also I love a mundane story,” says Levine. “The thing that happened last Tuesday that’s still echoing around in your head.”

Magically, they have a couple of early listener contributions. The first caller, Rosalie, is good fun, discussing her teenage horse posters, which nestled up against her One Direction selection. The second sends a voice note that doesn’t go down so well (he says he revels in buying up Greggs  sausage rolls so nobody behind him can get one). 

But the jollity returns via Levine’s account of getting a lump on her breast checked, a potentially troubling time that she makes completely hilarious. She and James are delightful company, and Bad Chat has the potential to turn into a huge-but-with-a-cult-feel show. They say they want niche, but no doubt a sellout stadium live tour would also suit.

Stories from a Stranger is yet another chatting-to-strangers podcast, from Hunter Prosper, a huge American TikTok star. Originally an ICU nurse in Oakland, during the Covid pandemic he shared some of his patients’ uplifting stories (anonymised). A book followed, and now, inevitably, here’s his podcast. 

Actually, I am always up for a stranger-chat show, whether that’s Catherine Carr’s Where Are You Going?, Tom Rosenthal’s Strangers on a Bench, or the fantastic old Radio 4 series Don’t Log Off from Alan Dein. 

Stories from a Stranger’s first episode, about love, features Sally, a lively ninetysomething widow, Tish, a recently married comic-book artist, and Ella, who’s never been in love. All are adorable, but crunchier detail would have been nice: what do (or did) they argue about with their partner? What were the obstacles? This relentlessly positive show will never ask. 

Still, for anyone who feels as though the world is busy arguing all the time, that might be a tonic. Stories from a Stranger might be more sweetness than light, but sweetness can be lovely. 

Photograph by Ross Marino/Icon and Image/Getty Images