History in Five Songs with Martin Popoff

History in Five Songs with Martin Popoff is the show that aims to make grand and often oddball hard rock and heavy metal points through a narrative built upon the tiny idea of a quintet of songs. Buttressed with illustrative clips, Martin argues quickly and succinctly why these songs - and the specific sections of these tracks - support his mad professor premise, from the wobbly invention of an “American” heavy metal, to the influence of Led Zeppelin in hair metal or to more succinct topics like tapping and twin leads. The songs serve as bricks, but Martin slathers plenty of mortar. At the end, hopefully he has a sturdy house in which this week’s theory can reside unbothered by the elements. At approximately 7000, Martin has had published in books more record reviews than anybody in the history of music writing across all genres. Additionally, Martin has penned approximately 85 books on hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock and record collecting. Proud part of Pantheon - the podcast network for music lovers.

Recent Episodes

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Recent Reviews

KW_77

Love it

I’ve been listening to this pod for a while now and Martin’s breadth of knowledge across rock music is quite impressive. He packs more information into a short 15-30 minute podcast than many longer form shows do. Also he gives a lot of love to overlooked bands from the 70s, 80s and 90s and has turned me on to some great tunes!
Jkb22008

Guru of rock

Martin is second to none with his knowledge of 70s and beyond rock acts.
marked for life

Different views

Of course i dont always agree, but martin is always informative and has opened me to music i didnt know about
BranDunlap

New favorite

Thanks to Martin I have discovered a lot of great influential bands I was too young to appreciate growing up. I love this podcast and highly recommend it. I am now a huge fan of Gillan...thanks Martin!!!
Johnh76

Martin is the historian of rock ‘n’ roll & metal

Martin‘s episodes are well researched and well thought out. The topics he picks are very interesting and I love the way that he explains everything, it’s in a format that would make it easy to understand if you knew nothing about the subject. The episodes are also very short, so he never loses you by going on and on for too long. You can tell he’s very knowledgeable, well read and passionate about what he talks about. I love his different opinions, all very respectful and definitely makes you think. One of the best podcasts out there! 👍🏼
abbatude

Super interesting

Very well done with the obsessive love and care Martin P puts into all of his work. You’ll find yourself listening to a lot of topics that you didn’t think you were interested in and then soon after rabbit holing into bands and albums you either never really thought about or haven’t listened to in decades. Highly recommended, as well as Popoff’s Contrarians show on YouTube.
The Actual Hollywood Steve

A motherlode for metal nerds

I've learned more about heavy metal from Martin Popoff's books than any other single source, so I was excited to see he'd started doing a podcast. And I'm happy to report he still knows more about the evolution of heavy metal and all its myriad stylistic variations than anyone else I know of. The five-song format is concise enough to let him focus his vast knowledge on one specific topic, but he's still able to draw out so many connections and historical details just within that one topic. He's got subjective opinions AND objective analysis, and he's listened to more records than anyone can count. The man just flat-out knows his stuff. Dive in, metal nerds - it's gonna be hard to do better than this!
cjoffitt64

Great listen!!!!!

I have a lot of Martin’s books and have long admired his intimacy with the rock heroes of our times. This podcast is even more interesting than his books. Martin has an enormous amount of knowledge of not just musicians and bands but of Hard Rock/Heavy Metal origins and styles and even music theory. I have learned a great deal with each show as well as been entertained. Keep em coming Martin!!!
rgl7194

Review in five words: This is a great podcast!

Right up my musical alley, this podcast is short, sweet, and to the point, yet packs a ton of musical history and information into each episode's average half-hour length. Martin is a walking rock & roll / hard rock/ metal music encyclopedia, and this knowledge infuses the podcast. Lovin' it, keep it going!

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