Kirk McElhearn
Co-Host of The Next Track
Kirk McElhearn is a freelance journalist. He writes on his website Kirkville, and is Senior Contributor to Macworld, where he is The iTunes Guy. He is also a regular contributor to TidBITS, as well as several other web sites and magazines. He is co-host of The Committed podcast. Kirk has written more than twenty books, including Take Control of iTunes. On Twitter, he's @mcelhearn, and he has a Facebook page.
Kirk McElhearn has hosted 307 Episodes.
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Episode #274: OMD
January 31st, 2024 | 28 mins 21 secs
We discuss the first album by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, aka OMD, called Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. This was a foundational album in the synth-pop movement that started in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the UK.
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Episode #273: Sheik Yerbouti
January 17th, 2024 | 29 mins 24 secs
Doug has long been a fan of Frank Zappa’s music, yet we’ve never spent an episode discussing it. In our irregular series looking at individual albums, we look at Zappa’s best-selling record, the 1979 Sheik Yerbouti.
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Episode #272: Keef
January 3rd, 2024 | 30 mins 9 secs
Keith Richards is still alive. We recorded this episode on his 80th birthday, and we discussed how he is one of the most important guitarists in rock music, and the backbone of The Rolling Stones
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Episode #271: New in Apple’s Music App
December 20th, 2023 | 28 mins 54 secs
Apple’s recent operating system updates have added some changes to the Music app. We look into these features and how they affect the way you manage your music.
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Episode #270: Timo Andres on Philip Glass’s Piano Études
December 6th, 2023 | 37 mins 58 secs
Composer and pianist Timo Andres worked on a new edition of Philip Glass’s piano études. He talks about these works, about what piano études are, and about Glass’s music.
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Episode #269: The End of iTunes
November 22nd, 2023 | 27 mins 9 secs
Apple is slowly phasing out iTunes on Windows, after having done so four years ago on Mac. Is it the end of the iTunes brand?
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Episode #268: Miles Davis, Bitches Brew
November 8th, 2023 | 28 mins 24 secs
We discuss Miles Davis's groundbreaking 1970 album Bitches Brew.
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Episode #267: Dark Side of the Moon Gets Rogered
October 25th, 2023 | 29 mins 50 secs
Roger Waters decided to make a new version of Dark Side of the Moon. It's a mistake.
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Episode #266: Is the Sphere the Future of Concerts
October 11th, 2023 | 32 mins 29 secs
The Sphere is a huge new venue in Las Vegas, with a massive scene that provides an immersive video experience. U2 has been playing there, with concerts that combine their music with innovative visuals.
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Episode #265: How Recordings Have Changed Music
September 27th, 2023 | 32 mins 7 secs
Recordings change music by freezing it in time.
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Episode #264: The Heyday of Album Artwork
September 13th, 2023 | 32 mins 35 secs
A new documentary about Hipgnosis, the design team that is famous for covers of albums by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and many others, looks at the period when album artwork became an important element of rock albums.
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Episode #263: More Thoughts on Dolby Atmos
August 30th, 2023 | 29 mins 54 secs
It's been a while since we've talked about Dolby Atmos, so we decided to discuss how much it has changed the way we (well, Kirk) listen to music. (Doug doesn't have an Atmos setup yet.)
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Episode #262: Personal Music Players
August 16th, 2023 | 27 mins 36 secs
Doug bought a Sony Walkman (not one that plays cassettes), and we discuss personal music players, as well as boom boxes, which were collective listening devices.
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Episode #261: Three Chords and the Truth
August 2nd, 2023 | 28 mins 11 secs
Classic rock is back. Its influence is extending, in part because of its presence in movies and TV shows. It is the lingua franca of popular music.
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Episode #260: Live Albums Redux
July 19th, 2023 | 25 mins 36 secs
Live albums are very different from studio albums, but also sound very different than what we hear when we attend concerts. We talk about how live albums work, what sort of artist makes live albums, and whether anyone would want to hear a Taylor Swift live album.
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Episode #259: Music Festivals
July 5th, 2023 | 31 mins 23 secs
It's summer, and there are music festivals. We discuss the Glastonbury Festival, attending live concerts, and more.