music
Hosted by Hrishikesh Hirway · music · EN
Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Each episode features an artist discussing a song of theirs, breaking down the sounds and ideas that went into the writing and recording. Hosted and produced by Hrishikesh Hirway.
Required Pod Score for this podcast. PitchCentric checks your profile against host openness, topical fit, and audience signals before you generate a pitch.
Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
38%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchSong Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Each episode features an artist discussing a song of theirs, breaking down the sounds and ideas that went into the writing and recording. Hosted and produced by Hrishikesh Hirway.
Song Exploder is hosted by Hrishikesh Hirway. The show has published 380 episodes to date.
Recent episodes include "Allison Russell - The Returner" (21 October 2026, 22 minutes), "DJ Shadow - Mutual Slump" (14 October 2026, 16 minutes), and "Elvis Costello - Alison" (7 October 2026, 27 minutes).
Song Exploder publishes roughly every two weeks, with episodes averaging 23 minutes across 380 episodes.
Booking probability for Song Exploder is 38%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. Song Exploder requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. Song Exploder's contact route on record: verified email.
The strongest fits for Song Exploder are Music & Recording. Song Exploder has a music audience.
Hrishikesh Hirway hosts Song Exploder, a music podcast with 380 episodes published.
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.
Episode #323
Allison Russell is a singer and songwriter originally from Montreal and now based in Nashville. She’s a Grammy-winner and an eight-time Grammy nominee. And she’s also won Canada’s Juno Award, an Americana award, and...
Song Exploder
30 years ago, DJ Shadow released his debut album, Entroducing… and it changed my life. I listened to it so much. And when I first started Song Exploder, he was on my list of dream guests. And then 10 years ago, that...
Episode #322
Elvis Costello is a singer and songwriter whose career spans five decades and over 30 albums. He’s a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter Hall of Fame. He’s won Grammy Awards, Ivor Novello Awards...
Episode #321
Olivia Rodrigo is a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter. In June 2026, she released her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love . The day it came out, it broke streaming records on Spotify and Amazon...
Episode #319
Charli XCX is a Grammy-winning artist who has been making music since she was a teenager. In July 2026, she released her eighth album, Music, Fashion, Film . It debuted at number 1 on the UK charts—her 4th album in a...
Episode #83
In 2016, Mitski did an episode of Song Exploder about her song “Your Best American Girl.” She had just released her second album, Puberty 2 . Later, Pitchfork named “Your Best American Girl” one of the top 10 best songs...
Episode #318
Suki Waterhouse is a singer-songwriter, actress, and model from London. She released her first single in 2016, and her first album, I Can’t Let Go , in 2022, on Sub Pop. You might have seen her in the show Daisy Jones &...
Episode #15
My guest today is Ahmir Thompson, aka Questlove, the drummer and founding member of The Roots, as well as an author, a DJ, and an Oscar-winning film director. A song that changed my life is “Double Trouble” by The...
Episode #317
Metric is a band from Canada that was formed in 1998. They’ve won four Juno Awards, including Group of the Year. Rolling Stone included them in their list of the 50 Greatest Canadian Artists of All Time. In April 2026...
Episode #316
Hayley Kiyoko is a singer, songwriter, author, and director from Los Angeles. She was a child actor on Disney and Nickelodeon, and briefly in a girl group called The Stunners. But then, she started her career as a solo...
My guest today is the actor Tatiana Maslany. One of the things I find so compelling about Tatiana and her career is that the roles that she plays often contain multitudes—literally. She played over 10 different...
Episode #315
Paul McCartney is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer whose career spans more than six decades. As a member of The Beatles and later Wings and then with his own solo albums, he’s simply one of the...
Episode #314
Hot Chip is a band from London made up of Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard, Al Doyle, Owen Clarke, and Felix Martin. Their second album, The Warning , came out in 2006. It was nominated for a Mercury Prize, and named one of...
Song Exploder
My guest today is the bestselling author Emma Straub. Her books include 'This Time Tomorrow,' 'Modern Lovers,' 'The Vacationers,' and more. And with her husband, Michael Fusco, she co-owns the beautiful Brooklyn...
Episode #313
The xx formed in 2005, when they were still in high school. They signed to the UK label Young, and put out their first album in 2009. It won the prestigious Mercury Prize, and was named one of the best albums of the...
Episode #200
The legendary singer/songwriter Yusuf / Cat Stevens released his first album in 1967. He’s a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and his albums have sold millions. In 2020, he released Tea for the Tillerman² , a...
Today, we're sharing an episode of Nate DiMeo's wonderful podcast, The Memory Palace, which helped inspire both Song Exploder, and a song on my upcoming album. So today, I want to present a kind of two-part story. The...
Episode #312
Alynda Segarra is a singer songwriter from the Bronx. They formed Hurray for the Riff Raff in 2007, and since then, they’ve released 8 albums. Their most recent is The Past Is Still Alive, which came out in 2024. It was...
Episode #311
Jack Harlow is from Louisville, Kentucky, and started performing and releasing music in 2015, when he was in high school. In 2020, he released his first album, which went double platinum. He was nominated for a Grammy...
My guest today is Baz Luhrmann, the award-winning director whose films include Moulin Rouge!, Strictly Ballroom , The Great Gatsby, Elvis, and Romeo + Juliet. His newest film is EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert , a...
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