Soul Music

Marking 25 years of the award-winning series, Soul Music features songs from the last 25 years.
“I tried to drink it away... I tried to run it away...” Solange’s hit song, written in 2008 and released eight years later, muses on themes of isolation, loneliness, and depression. She penned the lyrics to Raphael Saadiq’s instrumental in a Miami hotel room, gazing out at the cranes filling the skyline during the onset of the housing crisis and financial crash.
Solange Knowles released her debut album in 2002 at the age of 16. This single appears on her third album, A Seat at the Table. She's the younger sister of Beyoncé.
Featuring: Journalist Douglas Markowitz; music writer Kiana Fitzgerald; author of Why Solange Matters and Big Joanie guitarist Stephanie Phillips; and Rebecca McNeil.
Producer: Eliza Lomas

"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you..."
True stories of what Yellow, one of Coldplay's most iconic songs, means to people 25 years on from its release.
It's December 1999 and a relatively unknown band called Coldplay are midway through recording their debut studio album, Parachutes, at Rockfield Studios in Wales. The days are long, often working late into the evening. One night after a recording session, they step outside with their producer Ken, and look up to a sky full of stars. The rest, as they say, is history...
Featuring, in order of appearance:
Dylan Bode, musician and coma survivor
Ken Nelson, music producer on Coldplay's Parachutes album
Debs Wild, fan liaison for Coldplay and author of Life In Technicolor: A Celebration of Coldplay
Neil Brand, composer, writer and broadcaster
Katherine Ho, singer of the Mandarin version of Yellow for the film Crazy Rich Asians
Producer: Becky Ripley

A song that was everywhere after it was released as a single in 2000. Moby's Porcelain has been used in films, TV and adverts yet remains a much loved melancholic downbeat electronic ballad. Reportedly written about the fragility of love after a break up it's a track that has a place in many people's hearts.
The people featured are:
Felicia Narhi aka DJ Damselfly
Steve O'Brien
Gyu
Ola Mazzuca
John E Roy
Michael Weinhardt
Producer: Maggie Ayre

This hour long special celebrates a quarter of a century of the programme and charts the course of a human life through pieces of music.
Cerys Matthews introduces a compilation of some of the diverse pieces of music we've featured throughout the years - together with stories of the people whose lives have been changed by it. Everything from Satie's Gymnopedies and Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending to Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell and Computer Love by Kraftwerk.
Stories of birth, childhood, adolescence, as well as the griefs and joys of adulthood are expressed through the music that shapes and sustains us through the emotional ups and downs of our lives' journeys.
Producer: Maggie Ayre

How did the greats become the greats? And what did it cost them to get there? Legend is the award-winning music biography series from BBC Radio 4 exploring the lives of pioneering artists who shaped modern music.
In Legend: The Bruce Springsteen Story, we discover how a scrawny, long-haired introvert from New Jersey became the iconic, muscular – and oft-misunderstood – rock star of the 1980s, and ultimately the eloquent elder statesmen he is now. What does his story reveal about America today?
Across the series, Laura Barton takes a front-row seat at five key gigs which illuminate a different side of The Boss. She travels to Asbury Park in 1971 to hear how teenage Bruce began to learn his magic trick at The Upstage Club. She hears about his nerve-wracking London Hammersmith gig in 1975, the electrifying final night of the Born in the U.S.A tour in 1985, and his emotional homecoming show at St Rose of Lima school gym in 1996. Lastly, Laura heads to Milan to witness the final concert of his 2025 Land of Hope and Dreams tour.
Featuring Bruce in his own words across the decades, alongside voices from the E Street Band, devoted fans, biographers, and critics.
Listen first on BBC Sounds.
A BBC Audio Production for BBC Radio 4
Producer: Eliza Lomas
Sound Design and Original Music: Hannis Brown
Series Developer: Mair Bosworth
Production Coordinator: Stuart Laws
Additional Research: Sarah Goodman
Series Editor: Emma Harding
Commissioning Editors: Daniel Clarke and Matthew Dodd
Assistant Commissioner Podcasts: Will Drysdale