Everything but the Music

In this episode, we discuss the art of playlist and mixtape-making as a form of musical dialogue, allowing listeners to establish connections between songs in meaningful ways. Go to everything-but-the-music.com to find our show notes for this episode!

In this episode, we discuss how the “misandrist” female singer-songwriters of the nineties were progressively feminist for their time, and how people's perceptions of them would be similar and/or different in today’s day and age. The three main artists we discuss are Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and PJ Harvey. CW: This episode contains mentions of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

In this episode, we discuss a variety of songs that illustrate just how many different ways there are to interpret the feeling known as “love”. Go to everything-but-the-music.com to find show notes and the transcript for this episode!

We recorded this episode three days before SOPHIE’s untimely death on Saturday, January 30th, 2021. As one of the pioneers of hyperpop, SOPHIE was a true visionary and we’re thankful for the work she shared with us. Although her life was short, her legacy lives on. We dedicate this episode to SOPHIE. In 2013, British music producer A.G. Cook founded the record label PC Music. The label’s known for exaggerating elements of 1990s and early 2000s pop and electronic music, such as the use of vocal effects and synthesizers. In this episode, we discuss PC Music, the advent of hyperpop, and the existence of genres in music today.

In this episode, we discuss a number of topics concerning the relationships between non-human animals and the thing we call music, such as music-making capacities in species other than our own, human musical representations of other species in our own musical practices, and the use of “the animal” in performance and other art forms.

We treat “opera” as a grossly overgeneralized umbrella term when it is far from that! In this episode, we highlight a variety of opera pieces while discussing the operatic canon’s place in today’s society.

A pressing issue that has faced not only the modern music industry, but music consumption for centuries is that of the concept of the musical genius. In this episode, we examine various iterations of the “genius” archetype and how it can often be a driving force behind a musical artist’s entire career. We look at Billie Eilish as a case study for the most recent occurrence of the music industry’s “genius.”

In this episode, we discuss music that encourages the understanding of Black narratives in America. Specifically addressing the questions: how has the movement for Black lives, from the Civil Rights Era, to now, Black Lives Matter, shifted narratives through generations? And how is the music we partake in reflect or even influence how these narratives shift?

We are lacking points of social contact now more than ever, and many of us find connection through popular media such as commercials, TV, movies, video games, and music. In this episode, we discuss the phenomenon of musical nostalgia during the pandemic and how it might differ from other forms of nostalgia.

Welcome to Everything But the Music, a podcast where UCLA undergraduates talk about all things musicking, from contemporary opera to protest anthems to the sounds of other animals. Today, we’re discussing the soundscapes of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal (2013-2015), which employs near-constant musique concrète to invite the audience into the show’s psychological turbulence. We use Hannibal to examine queerness in horror, sonic depictions of disorientation and insanity, innovative trends in contemporary horror, and what exactly horror music allows us to feel and understand beyond the jump scares.