Thompson Twins originally formed in 1977 in Sheffield, in the UK. “Hold Me Now,” their iconic hit, came out as a single in November 1983, and eventually on their 1984 album, Into the Gap. That album went to number 1 in the UK and went platinum in the US. The song spent 21 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. So for this episode, I talked to the founding member of Thompson Twins, Tom Bailey, and he told me how he and his bandmates, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway, made “Hold Me Now.”

You can buy or stream “Hold Me Now” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

footnotes:
Alex Sadkin – producer
Phil Thornalley – engineer
Boris Bransby Williams – drummer
RAK studios
Bob Marley
Oberheim synthesizers and Fairchild compressors
Bill Wyman and The Rolling Stones

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Silvana Estrada is a singer, songwriter, and producer from Veracruz, Mexico. She won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist in 2022, and she’s been nominated for three others, including for her song “Como Un Pájaro,” which is the song that we talked about for this episode. It’s from her second album, which came out in 2025, but she started writing the song several years before that. So we talked about all the different versions of this song, and a couple of versions of Silvana herself, that emerged throughout the process.

You can buy or stream “Como Un Pájaro” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Daniel Bitrán – engineer
Roberto Verástegui – piano
Casa Estudio El Desierto
Hiyao Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away

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The Marías is a band from Los Angeles, made up of María Zardoya, Josh Conway, Jesse Perlman, and Edward James. They released their first EPs in 2017 and 2018, and their first album in 2021. But then, as you’ll hear, there was a period of a lot of uncertainty around the band’s future. Eventually, their second album, Submarine, came out in 2024, and it was incredibly successful. Stereogum called it one of the best albums of the year, and the band was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist. But all of that almost didn’t happen. I talked to María about the making of their hit song “No One Noticed.” The story’s beginning, middle, and end all took place during different eras of the band’s existence. In the middle section, when maybe they weren’t going to even be a band anymore, María enlisted the help of Grammy-nominated producer Gianluca Buccellati. And I spoke to Luca for this episode, as well.

You can buy or stream “No One Noticed” here.

For the Song Exploder episode with Arlo Parks about the song “Black Dog,” which was produced by Gianluca Buccellati, click here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Paris, Texas (film)
Arlo Parks and Biig Piig

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