Political Beats

• Episode 146: Jeff Pojanowski / Turnpike Troubadours

  Introducing the Band:Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Jeff Pojanowski. Jeff is a professor at Notre Dame Law School, where he teaches and writes about philosophy of law and legal interpretation. He also writes occasional columns for The Pillar. He has been living happily in Northern Indiana after escaping Washington, D.C., 15 years ago.Jeff’s Music Pick: Turnpike TroubadoursThis is a rarity for Political Beats, in which we present a show driven largely by our guest’s preferences. Jeff Pojanowski joined us previously for Pavement and Crowded House and by now we trust his musical judgement. For quite a while, he’s been selling us hard on taking up the career of Turnpike Troubadours for an episode. With the recent release of a new album, and additional endorsements of the band from others in our sphere, it seemed a good time to take him up on the offer.We’re awfully glad we did.The Turnpike Troubadours, hailing from Oklahoma, have become one of the leading purveyors of Red Dirt country music, featuring songs that are masterclasses in storytelling, instrumentation, and authenticity. Look, if you don’t like fiddle, you might be in the wrong place. Formed in 2005 by frontman Evan Felker and bassist R. C. Edwards, the band’s early years were shaped by relentless touring. The first album, Bossier City, is almost more a collection of demos. The group wasn’t quite fully formed yet. But on Diamonds & Gasoline (2010), everything began to click into place. As the band matured, their songwriting deepened without losing its raw immediacy. Albums like Goodbye Normal Street (2012) and The Turnpike Troubadours (2015) would be highlights of any band’s career. Felker’s songwriting stands out not just for its precision (though occasional lyrical duplicity can leave the listener wondering exactly what a song is about), but for its ability to evoke vivid rural landscapes. These are songs about places and towns that many Americans easily can picture in their mind. Musically, Kyle Nix’s fiddle and Ryan Engleman’s guitar work offered a dynamic counterpoint that always serves the song first.The band’s career wasn’t without turbulence, of course. After the 2017 release of A Long Way from Your Heart, the band entered a hiatus amid Felker’s battle with alcoholism. Fans cheered the band’s 2022 comeback, marked by the release of the Shooter Jennings-produced A Cat in the Rain. It’s impossible to listen to songs on the record without putting them in the context of Felker’s troubles. It’s an album that likely had to be made, however, to bring the band to 2025’s The Price of Admission, a release that all three of your hosts come to praise.There’s probably still a lot of music left in the tank for Turnpike Troubadours, and there’s no better time than now to jump on board to discover what you might have been missing.

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• Episode 145: Andrew Stuttaford / Brian Eno

  Introducing the Band:Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by Andrew Stuttaford. Andrew needs little introduction as the editor of NR's Capital Matters. Find him online right here at National Review or at @AStuttaford on Twitter/X.Andrew’s Music Pick: Brian EnoHere he comes, the boy who tried to vanish to the future or the past. Yes, it's time for Political Beats to celebrate one of the most influential musicians in the history of modern recorded sound -- a man who, ironically enough, is at pains to characterize himself as a non-musician. Children of the Eighties and Nineties may primarily understand Brian Eno as the producer who took U2 to megastardom, but his work as a producer is properly only a footnote to his work as a songwriter and (most importantly of all) a conceptualist. Eno first achieved fame with Roxy Music as their "noise man," providing outrageous sounds alongside "treatments" -- electronic reprocessing -- of the rest of the group's instruments. But Roxy Music was ultimately pianist/vocalist Bryan Ferry's baby, and so Eno soon struck out on his own, for a solo career that would bring him into collaboration with some of the best and most innovative musicians of the Seventies as he put out a sequence of four "lyrical" albums which bent the definition of "popular music" well past its breaking point and into the avant-garde. At the same time, Eno was creating an entirely new genre of recorded sound: so-called "ambient" music, written and recorded in such a way as to (per his maxim) "reward your attention without demanding it."This, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg in a career that also includes brilliant songwriting collaborations with Robert Fripp, David Bowie, and Talking Heads among others. All of this and much more are discussed on a episode Political Beats has been waiting to do for eight years: Brian Eno played an enormous role in inventing the sonic world we still live in, and also made some of the most unexpectedly profound and beautiful music while doing so. We are lucky to be joined by NR's own Andrew Stuttaford for this episode, who lends particular credibility to the discussion as a fan from all the way back in 1972, during the Roxy years. Enjoy stepping into another (green) world.

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• Episode 144: Steve Singiser / Def Leppard

  Introducing the Band:Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Steve Singiser. Steve is formerly a contributing editor at Daily Kos Elections and now is a contributor at The Downballot.Steve’s Music Pick: Def LeppardDo you wanna get rocked?If the answer is yes and the decade was the 1980s, it’s likely Def Leppard was at least partially responsible for the rocking. With two massive albums released four years apart, the band’s songs provided the soundtrack for a generation.Pyromania lit the fuse, so to speak, with “Photograph” bursting through televisions on MTV and with “Foolin’” and “Rock of Ages” cracking the Billboard Top 40 chart. The production skills and songwriting savvy of “Mutt” Lange was key. A de-facto sixth band member, his contributions transformed the group from a solid British hard rock/heavy metal band to one that took over the world with massive pop/rock crossover success. Infinite hooks, layered vocals, processed everything, pre-choruses everywhere -- those are Lange trademarks that helped lure in listeners.Hysteria followed after a number of setbacks and delays. Drummer Rick Allen lost an arm and Lange initially pulled out of the project due to exhaustion. But once things came together, the album took off like a rocket. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” was the jet fuel to power Hysteria after initial just okay sales numbers. Eventually seven singles were released, including #1 hit “Love Bites,” fulfilling the ambitions of creating a hard rock Thriller.Unfortunately, guitarist Steve Clark lost his battle with alcoholism shortly afterward. His songwriting contributions and playing style are missed from future releases, though Vivian Campbell has proven to be a solid replacement. There’s plenty to love from the first two albums, prior to the band’s breakthrough, and Adrenalize and Euphoria still contain highlights (we urge you to check out “Paper Sun” from the latter album).This is also a story about loyalty. Def Leppard’s line-up has been remarkably consistent through the years. When Rick Allen lost his arm, band members gave him the time to recover and learn to play in a different way. When “Mutt” Lange couldn’t produce Hysteria, the band realized the project couldn’t move forward without him. When Steve Clark needed help, the band gave him time off and got him into rehab as many times as possible.The band still is a huge draw on tour because songs as good as these don’t die. Listen in, enjoy the tunes and feel free to rock, rock ‘til you drop.

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• Episode: 143: Eli Lake / Stevie Wonder [Part 2]

  Introducing the Band:Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Eli Lake. Lake is a columnist with the Free Press and also a contributing editor at Commentary. Find him online at the Free Press or @EliLake on Twitter/X.Eli’s Music Pick: Stevie WonderIt’s time to sing some songs in the key of life as we tackle the amazing and iconic second half of Stevie Wonder’s career. From his emergence as Motown’s first truly singular independent artist in in 1972, with Music of My Mind, Wonder blazed a path through the musical Seventies crossing over successfully into ever musical genre, to the point where Paul Simon infamously thanked him -- when accepting a “Best Album” Grammy in 1976 -- for not putting out an album in 1975. Stevie owned the American 1970s commercially and artistically in a way that few other of his era did -- David Bowie is a strange but apposite analogue for his effect on British culture of that era -- and even if he tailed off into pleasant innocuousness from the Eighties onward, his musical legacy is deathless. So once again, there’s no need for a lengthy introduction to this (refreshingly brisk!) episode: Everybody knows who Stevie Wonder is, and unless you were born or moved here only five years ago, you will spend nearly half of this episode dancing out of your shoes. Isn’t it lovely?

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• Episode 142: Eli Lake / Stevie Wonder [Part 1]

  Introducing the Band:Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Eli Lake. Lake is a columnist with the Free Press and also a contributing editor at Commentary. Find him online at the Free Press or @EliLake on Twitter/X.Eli’s Music Pick: Stevie WonderHappy New Year, everyone. 2024 was a mess, 2025 looks to be every bit as much of a mess, and gloom pervades the national mood. Therefore, it is high time for Political Beats to turn to Stevie Wonder and remind ourselves of what real joy sounds like. There's no need for a lengthy introduction to this (refreshingly brisk!) episode: Everybody knows who Stevie Wonder is, and unless you were born or moved here only five years ago, you can name at least six or seven classic hits of his off the top of your head. But Stevie Wonder's career arc is less appreciated, and in this first episode we are joined by Eli Lake to recount the first half of that career, informally subtitled "The Education of Little Stevie." Joining Motown as a preternaturally multitalented (and charming) eleven-year-old blind boy, the next decade found him learning to first survive, then thrive, then drive the Motown hit machine as he learned the ropes. From a happy harmonica-wielding child stealing stage-time from his labelmates on "Fingertips, Pt. 2" to the teenaged hitmaker of "I Was Made To Love Her" to the self-confident young man cranking out one endlessly listenable hit after another, this episode sees Wonder first get lost in the Motown "machine," figure out its inner workings, and then conquer it. On our next episode, he will leave it behind entirely. But for now, enjoy some of the snappiest hits R&B ever recorded, and the beginnings of the greatest musical career to ever emerge from Motown.

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