Sincerity or self-branding: what defines millennial music?
From the unstoppable rise of hip-hop to the 'millennial whoop', what does today's new music sound like? And how has social media changed the...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & Podcasts
Arts
FT Life of a Song
Each month FT music critics and contributors discuss the story of a song, from its origins and early recordings through cover versions good and bad. Formerly called FT Arts.
Episodes
20 of 283 episodesKate Bush's Wuthering Heights
When "Wuthering Heights" was released 40 years ago this year, it became the first song written and performed by a woman to reach number one...
1968: The Year that Music Changed
Set against a backdrop of protest and upheaval, the songs released in 1968 represent a turning point in music. FT pop writers David Cheal an...
The best Christmas music: a definitive guide
What makes a good Christmas song? Should it be cheesy or serious? And why do millennials love them? FT pop writers discuss festive classics...
The Life of a Song: Strange Fruit
Billie Holiday’s 1939 'Strange Fruit' was called 'the first significant protest in words and music, the first unmuted cry against racism'. O...
The Life of a Song: Make You Feel My Love
From Bob Dylan to Adele, the song that was first called 'a spare ballad undermined by greetingcard lyrics' is now a karaoke tearjerker. FT p...
The Hits that Shook the World
In a special episode to mark the publication of The Life of a Song book, FT pop critics Helen Brown, David Cheal and Ludovic Hunter-Tilney d...
The Life of a Song: Wild Thing
It achieved distinction in an era of elemental riffs, and journeyed effortlessly to and fro across the Atlantic. It also marked a turning po...
The Life of a Song: Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel
The singer’s old label boss called the song ‘a morbid mess’, but it shot to number one in the US. Ahead of the 40th anniversary of Elvis’s d...
The Life of a Song: Radiohead's No Surprises
Twenty years after they headlined Glastonbury, Radiohead return to the British music festival. FT pop writers Ludovic Hunter-Tilney and Davi...
The Life of a Song: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
David Honigmann looks at how a sleeping Keith Richards dreamt up a riff that would later develop into a number one hit for Rolling Stones an...
The Life of a Song: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
David Cheal looks at how Bob Dylan took inspiration from an old Scottish border ballad while writing this era-defining apocalyptic vision of...
The Life of a Song: Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus
Helen Brown looks at how Serge Gainsbourg's infamously salacious love song originally written for Brigitte Bardot would become a hit for the...
The Life of a Song: The Message
Ian McCann takes a look at one of the greatest and most culturally influential rap songs by genre pioneers Grandmaster Flash & The Furious F...
The Life of a Song: O Sole Mio
Ian McCann looks at how a turn-of-the-century Neopolitan ballad was adapted into a hit for Elvis, before becoming an anthem for ice cream lo...
The Life of a Song: Tainted Love
Sue Norris explores how a B-side by a little known American singer, Gloria Jones became a cult hit on the 1970s English northern soul scene,...
The Life of a Song: Let It Go
Helen Brown looks at how the most successful Disney song of all time became an unlikely favourite among prisoners and a "coming out anthem"...
The Life of a Song: Hotel California
Peter Aspen looks at how The Eagles turned a few improvised chords into one of the most iconic, and enigmatic, rock songs of the 1970s. Cred...
The Life of a Song: Midnight Train to Georgia
Sue Norris on how Cissy Houston and Gladys Knight respectively transformed the sound, and meaning, of Jim Weatherly's country number. Credit...
The Life of a Song: 9 to 5
Harriet Fitch Little on how Dolly Parton's anti-work anthem went from the movies to the White House to a muddy field in Glastonbury. Credits...