040/ Culture Gabfest's Summer Strut
A quick plug for Slate Culture Gabfest’s annual ‘Summer Strut’ edition.
This is a once-yearly special for Slate’s long-running arts review podcast series, the Culture Gabfest, squonky kid sibling to the Political Gabfest. I’ve listened to both these shows for about thirteen years, ever since Franz Nicolay got me into them when we toured together in 2011. Culture Gabfest has three long-running hosts, former L.A. Times managing editor Julia Turner, who is currently a senior fellow at USC’s Annenberg Center, culture writer and Slate critic-at-large Stephen Metcalf, and Slate’s long-standing movie critic Dana Stevens. It’s not usually a music show, more a broader conversation about mostly American arts and entertainment.
Like all the best ideas, summer strut episode grew organically and sticks to its simple premise: each year at the height of the season, listeners submit suggestions for their favourite ‘struts’ (old, new, any genre, obscure, familiar, whatever) and the team pick favourites. This developed from a Julia Turner plea for music, in which she identified the strut factor and coined the phrase. They’ve been at it for over a decade now. The original driving factor was the correct swaggering tempo, obviously, we’re talking about songs you can strut along to. But as time has gone by, they’ve broadened out, and now they’re pretty flexible, even including the occasional hammock jam.
The regulars are joined for the one-off episode by pop data analyst Chris Molanphy of Hit Parade and The Bridge podcasts (kind of a charming gen x reboot of Paul Gambaccini) who opens the whole thing with his overview of this summer’s pop and unpacks the commercial ‘song of summer’. Then the four take turns to pick out struts until they run out of time. Slate+ subs get an extra round in the bonus segment.
Unabashedly, I love this episode and definitely felt like I needed to share it, as soon as it pops up. It often confirms my instincts about the shape of the year’s mainstream pop, yet it never rolls by without introducing me to something gorgeous I’ve missed. Funnily enough, in the extra round this year, of all acts, Metcalf discovered Yorkshire’s wondrous early 2000s alt/pop trio The Research (just in time for what seems to be a reform) and my heart swelled, listening to this old-school American culture man kvell over a band I’ve loved and gigged with — and thought long done and dusted.
Anyway, it’s worth a listen, even just as a one-off episode.
Summer Strut episode on Apple podcasts
Summer Strut episode on Spotify
Spotify playlist of the 16 song shortlist
If you really want to go deep, There is also a Spotify playlist of the full (unedited) submission list, 829 songs sent by listeners.
icymi —
• Dave Bryant’s great new blog documents every NME Indie Chart #1
• The great Brighton contemporary composer, performer and teacher (and all round lovely person) Ingrid Plum is in long-term recovery after an absolutely horrific cycling accident in June. If you know Ingrid or her work here’s her GoFundMe
• Laura Marling is creating a tarot of songwriting on her super new Substack — I can’t emphasise enough how brilliantly written Laura’s entries are. Shouldn’t be surprised really but she’s just so ridiculously erudite and articulate, while at the same time very open, without being a dick about any of it.
• New Jasmine.4.t. single ‘Skin On Skin’ is produced by boygenius and she’s the first UK artist on Phoebe’s Saddest Factory label. Spotify Line Of Best Fit
• The Guardian interview with Alan Sparhawk