Life and Art from FT Weekend

This week, musician Jenny Lewis joins Lilah to break down how she writes a song. Lewis’s music has paved the way for many famous pop stars and singer-songwriters today. She brings us through her trajectory: from child actor supporting her family, to lead singer of the beloved indie band Rilo Kiley, to solo artist who just, at 47, came out with her fifth solo album, Joy’All. Lilah asks her what she had for breakfast, she says “one weed gummy”, and they’re off.– Read Lilah’s profile of Lewis at https://on.ft.com/45jih08-------We love hearing from you! You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.-------Our FTWeekend Festival is back on Saturday, September 2 at Kenwood House in London! It’ll be a day of debates, tastings, Q&As and more. For £20 off your festival pass, use promo code FTWeekendPod here: http://ft.com/festivalSpecial FT subscription offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.--------------Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam GiovincoClips used: Psychos and Giddy Up from the album Joy’all (2023), Blue Note RecordsRabbit Fur Coat from the album Rabbit Fur Coat (2006), Team Love RecordsRead a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shanna Swan is a scientist who has spent decades chasing a mystery: why global sperm counts have seemingly dropped significantly since the 1930s. At its heart, this story is simply a brilliant yarn. It has got all the elements of a Hollywood movie: this heroic dog-with-a-bone scientist, recalcitrant big business in the role of the baddie, and the looming threat of a global fertility crisis caused by harmful chemicals in everyday plastics such as baby bottles, garden hoses, andthat Tupperware you use to heat up your lunch.You can also find this story in FT Edit, an iPhone app that gives you a taste of the very best of FT journalism. After a month’s free trial, it is 99p or 99 cents a month for the next six months. Try it out if you want the best global politics, analysis and opinion pieces.Learn more about FT Edit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, musician David Byrne joins Lilah in the FT’s New York newsroom to talk about how he makes creative choices. Byrne has been an enduring cultural figure for more than four decades, known for always doing something new. His current project is Here Lies Love, a disco musical on Broadway about Imelda Marcos, a former politician and first lady in the Philippines. He’s also revisiting his days with Talking Heads, as a remastered version of their seminal concert documentary Stop Making Sense will be rereleased this month by the indie studio A24. Byrne rewatched it recently, about 40 years after its release. “I’m looking at my younger self … and he seems like a stranger,” he tells Lilah. “And I go, ‘Who is this strange guy?’” – Read Lilah’s profile of Byrne at https://on.ft.com/44SpQLK-------We love hearing from you! You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.-------Our FTWeekend Festival is back on Saturday, September 2 at Kenwood House in London! It’ll be a day of debates, tastings, Q&As and more. For £20 off your festival pass, use promo code FTWeekendPod here: http://ft.com/festivalSpecial FT subscription offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.--------------Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam GiovincoClip of Burning Down The House is from Stop Making Sense (1984)Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the next few weeks, we will be bringing you some of our most popular articles from the FT Edit app.Elemental, the new movie from Pixar studios, recently disappointed at the box office.On this episode, Chris Grimes, the FT’s Los Angeles correspondent, takes us inside Disney, the owner of Pixar, and asks whether it can regain its creative crown after a few years of concentrating on lucrative sequels to its existing franchises and on its streaming business, Disney+. It has been a long time since Toy Story, and critics are fretting that Pixar has lost its touch. Even Marvel, which was reliably turning out annual blockbusters, has stumbled recently with the likes of Ant-Man. Chris wrote this article shortly after the release of Elemental.You can also find this story in FT Edit, an iPhone app that gives you a taste of the very best of FT journalism. After a month’s free trial, it is 99p or 99 cents a month for the next six months. Try it out if you want the best global politics, analysis and opinion pieces.Learn more about FT Edit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, as wildfires rage across Greece, Italy and Algeria, we talk about why fires have become so much bigger, wilder and more dangerous. The FT's chief features writer Henry Mance takes us to a wildfire training camp in Poland, where experts from around the world are struggling with how to handle these new megafires. Because of climate change, they behave differently than old fires: they burn quicker and longer, they leap across trees and rivers, and they defy most traditional rules of firefighting. Henry tells us what it's like to confront them, and whether it's possible to prevent them.-------We love hearing from you! You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.-------Links: – Henry’s article, https://on.ft.com/3DvKtRF – The FT’s coverage of wildfires in Rhodes: https://on.ft.com/3Oxpbte   – The FT”s coverage of wildfires in Algeria: https://on.ft.com/3KgCFqISpecial offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.--------------Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.  Archival clip in this episode from the BBC. Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the next few weeks, we will be bringing you some of our most popular articles from the FT Edit app.This week, it’s a story about one of the world’s most loved foods: pizza. Every year, the top 700 or so pizza chefs gather in Parma, in the north of Italy, for the Pizza World Championship. And this year, an English chef from Norfolk named Danny Child is hoping to win. But can a self-trained chef beat Italy's finest pizza masters?You can also find this story in FT Edit, an iPhone app that gives you a taste of the very best of FT journalism. After a month’s free trial, it is 99p or 99 cents a month for the next six months. Try it out if you want the best global politics, analysis and opinion pieces.Learn more about FT Edit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, author Lorrie Moore is on the show. Lorrie is one of the most celebrated living writers in the United States, drawing comparisons with Chekhov and Alice Munro. And she just released her novel, I Am Homeless if This is Not My Home. It's her first in 14 years, and it is hard to describe. Let's call it a magical realist love story, in which a man takes a road trip with the corpse of his dead ex-lover. Lorrie talks to Lilah about her writing process, and how she treads the line between hilarious and devastating.-------We love hearing from you! You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.-------Links: – Lorrie Moore’s novel is called I Am Homeless if This is Not My Home– FT review: https://on.ft.com/44puMaB – Lorrie’s best-known books include A Gate at the Stairs (2009), Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994), and Self-Help (1989).Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.--------------Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.  Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we explore the question of what it means to privatise justice. The FT's Kadhim Shubber explains how, in the UK, private companies are hired to file and prosecute legal cases — even when the police think those same cases shouldn't be tried. Kadhim and Lilah discuss how private prosecutions work, why they exist, and what it could mean for the future of the justice system.Correction: This episode has been updated to remove suggestions that private prosecution does not exist in the United States. Private prosecutions exist in a more limited form in the United States.--------------We love hearing from you! You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com, we’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. --------------Links: – Kadhim’s magazine piece: https://on.ft.com/3qxsKGj – Follow Kadhim on Twitter @kadhim--------------Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.--------------Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Note: We want to be clear that this episode does include material that has been generated by Financial Times journalists using AI tools...we've done it to illustrate just how much AI is influencing the music industry.-------AI has arrived in the music world, and the industry is being forced to wrangle with it. The technology is now sophisticated enough to create entirely new deepfake songs. This year, millions of fake covers, and songs that clone the voices of musical artists, have appeared online. The FT’s pop critic Ludo Hunter-Tilney has fallen down a wormhole to make sense of how these programs work. He actually made a song of his own, an original fake song in the style of Tom Waits. He plays it for us, and it’s pretty bad.-------We love hearing from you! You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.-------Links: – Ludo’s piece for FT Life and Arts: Can AI make me a musical star? https://on.ft.com/3XRMnoZ – Ludo is on Twitter @ludohunter – Anna Nicolaou on why Spotify has ejected thousands of AI-made songs: https://on.ft.com/3rvSqnq – One of Ludo’s recent stories – a review of Glastonbury festival: https://on.ft.com/3rvSq6U -------Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.--------------Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.  Songs played: “Downtown Train” written by Tom Waits, published by Island Records. “Gritty Troubador’s Backstreet”, written by chatGPT, Ludo Hunter-Tilney, Voicify.ai and Boomy.Songs referenced: “Dancing Queen” written by Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson, published by Stockholm Records and MCA/Universal. “Ni**as in Paris” written by Kanye West, Shawn Carter, John Altschuler, Dave Krinsky, Jeff Cox and Dave Cox, published by Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation and Def Jam. “A Thousand Miles” written by Vanessa Carlton, produced by Ron Fair and Curtis Schweizer, published by A&M.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The US economy remains confusing. Markets continue to predict a slowdown but unemployment remains low. Today on the show, we try to figure out what job numbers, manufacturing and credit can tell us about a possible recession and an end to rate rises. Also, we are long the bros at Three Arrows Capital (sort of), and the US stock market. Subscribe to the Unhedged newsletterFollow Ethan Wu (@ethanywu) and Katie Martin (@katie_martin_fx) on Twitter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.