Song Exploder

Song Exploder is a music podcast created by Hrishikesh Hirway, who hosted it from its 2014 inception until late 2018 and again from December 2019 onwards. In January 2019, Thao Nguyen became guest host for the year, with Christian Koons serving as producer, and Hirway moving to executive producer. The biweekly show features musicians talking about the creative process behind an individual song while "deconstructing" the song into its component parts. The songs highlighted on the program have ranged from pop to hardcore punk to television theme songs, film scores and video game music. 
The podcast launched on the Maximum Fun network, became independent in February 2015 and joined Radiotopia in June 2015.
Format.
Each episode begins with the host introducing the show's featured musician (or musicians) and giving a brief history of the musical act or television program with which they are associated. The artist then discusses the creative process used in the creation of a particular song. This may include anything from songwriting to recording to post-production. The discussion is interspersed with short clips of separate tracks from the song isolated to illustrate the topics being discussed – for example, the drum track might be played to demonstrate how a particular beat was used in the song. The episode ends by playing a recording of the featured song in its entirety.
Subjects.
"Song Exploder" has explored music by acts including Björk, Metallica, the Roots, Solange, Lorde, Brittany Howard, Carly Rae Jepsen, the Killers, Iggy Pop, MGMT, Weezer, the Postal Service, Ghostface Killah, Wilco, Spoon, and U2. It has also deconstructed the theme songs to the television programs "Bob's Burgers", "Stranger Things", "House of Cards", "Last Week Tonight", "Downton Abbey", "Game of Thrones", and "Transparent".
"Song Exploder" has also explored music from the scores of the films "The Imitation Game", "", "The Martian", "Halloween" and "Black Panther". It has also deconstructed music from the video game "Watch Dogs".
Reception.
"Vulture" said, ""Song Exploder" is probably the best use of the podcast format ever," and named it one of the Top 10 Podcasts of 2015. It was also named Best of iTunes in 2015, and "Quartz" named it the Best Podcast of 2015, saying, "It is possibly the most perfect podcast, really." Pete Naughton of "The Daily Telegraph" called "Song Exploder" an "excellent podcast" and placed it on his list of top music podcasts in August 2014. "The A.V. Club" praised the podcast's "beautiful production and thoughtful editing" in June 2014. It has also received favorable reviews from "Spin", "Gizmodo", "Slate", and "The Atlantic".
TV show.
On September 17, 2020, a television series based on the podcast was announced, which premiered on October 2, 2020 on Netflix, with 4 episodes: