Podcast Review: Finding Some ‘Lost Notes’

Lost Notes, produced by KCRW, and hosted by Solomon Georgio for season 1 and Jessica Hopper for season 2. Released weekly in a season format, with an approximate running time of 40 minutes. Started April 2018.

I like to think I have fairly eclectic taste in music. My mom was a fan of musicals and classical music (and grew up in the 40s and 50s), my oldest brother tended to lean into the soft rock of the ’70s, the younger of my two older brothers meanwhile got into punk and metal, while I grew up in the 80s with the pop explosion.

Additionally, at least where I grew up, in the late 80s there was an interest in the rock of the 50s, and my town was pure country where I couldn’t throw a stone without hitting someone who was into Charlie Daniels, Hank Williams Jr., or Dolly Parton. (One of my favorite moments from early college: coming across a guy who was rocking out — headbanging and everything — to Johnny Horton’s “The Battle of New Orleans”.) Meanwhile, my undergrad college had an alternative rock radio station that I helped DJ a time or two, and I briefly dated a guy who was seriously into Christian rock.

And I soaked it up. There are not many genres I don’t like. It helps that I’m a pretty passive listener: I’m not a big fan of concerts, and for the most part I listen while doing something else. I typically can’t just sit and listen to music.

But as such, I barely write about it. I’ve interviewed a couple of musicians on my podcast and written a few other articles that covered it, but for the most part, I don’t consider myself much of a music journalist. Additionally, while I know some general music trivia and history, for the most part I openly acknowledge that I’m pretty clueless about the finer details about music or its history.

That’s a very roundabout way to state that had I not known one of the producers, I probably would’ve never given KCRW’s Lost Notes podcast a listen. Presented as “a collection of the greatest music stories never told”, the podcast is gearing up for its third season and has a wide range of music journalism stories. Over the past couple of months, I finally had some extra listening time to pull this the podcast into my feed.

It starts off with a bang: I actually was already familiar with the first episode — a deep dive into the background of the song “Louie Louie” — thanks to a KCRW Independent Producers event I had attended. It’s a fascinating look at a song that is part of the cultural landscape but that I knew very little about.

The show is a bit uneven to me, however. Some episodes come across needlessly pretentious — treating music like it’s “Art” (capital A intended) that only the “right people” can understand. I’ve never been a fan of people who treat the arts like this: it’s a form of gatekeeping that only narrows down a potential audience.

It’s also a bit difficult for me to figure out what — outside of that general description — the podcast is trying to accomplish. But maybe that broadness is intentional. I mean, look at my own podcast and how broad my concept is.

Each season is fairly short: season 1 had 8 episodes, while season 2 had 9. During the offseason between season 1 and 2, they posted what they called ‘re-issues’ — audio documentaries on music from other sources, which included what so far is my favorite episode, “Mad About the Boy”. As I wrote in an audio recommendation section for my newsletter, being a fangirl is tough. I’ve written before about the misogyny inherent in the geek community. Unfortunately, it’s not just in the geek community. Female fans are consistently considered ‘lesser than’, especially if they are young. The stereotype of the ‘crazy’ fangirl in music circles is at the heart of “Mad About the Boy”, an episode originally produced by Falling Tree Productions for BBC Radio 4. It “takes a look at the empowering flip-side of pop fandom”, and is a great dive into how female fans are considered in the music world.

If you like music journalism, it’s definitely worth a listen — but more in a “dip your toes in and sample what interests you” more than “inhale the whole series”.

You can listen to Lost Notes where you normally get your podcasts, and you can find out more about the show on KCRW’s website.