"What's Good?" W/ Charlie Taylor · The 5th Element Podcast Network

Ep.361 - "Intellectualised Music" W/ Steven Blush

December 11, 2025·1 hr 28 min·7 clips

A misfit teenager discovers revolutionary punk in 1980s England, sparking a lifelong obsession with music's political power.

1. 'What's Good?' episode 361 features Charlie Taylor interviewing Steven Blush, whose book 'When Rock Met Hip-Hop' is one of the first subjects of press coverage ahead of its February release. 2. Steven Blush is a New York-born author, filmmaker, and music journalist whose credits include founding the magazine Seconds, writing American Hardcore, and directing the Sundance-screened documentary of the same name, acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. 3. The episode's thesis is that no genre exists in cultural isolation and that the most interesting music happens at the intersection of supposedly separate traditions. 4. Blush grew up in a non-musical family in New York and New Jersey; his father played opera, his mother owned Harry Belafonte records, and Blush developed his own knowledge by memorizing Casey Kasem's American Top 40 before buying records by Johnny Cash. 5. Working in his father's Lower East Side print shop in New York during the early disco era, Blush absorbed the genre's orchestral production without ever subscribing to the 'disco sucks' position held by many rock fans of his age. 6. A 1980 high school exchange program placed him in working-class Essex rather than the private London school he expected, where he saw the Clash, Iggy Pop, and Siouxsie and the Banshees live for the first time. 7. Blush describes British music culture of the period as 'intellectualized,' filtered through publications like NME and Melody Maker and political movements like Rock Against Racism — a sharp contrast to American rock's focus on technical virtuosity. 8. At a 200,000-person outdoor concert at Blackbush Aerodrome, Blush found himself indifferent to Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton while Joan Armatrading's songs about race and gender as a Caribbean woman became a decisive turning point in his musical values. 9. Returning to America, Blush became involved in Washington DC's hardcore punk scene, booking bands including Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, and Bad Brains, who would crash on his couch when touring. 10. He moved to New York and became a club DJ for 15 to 20 years, working at a four-floor club where Red Alert and David Morales played one floor, Dimitri from Paris another, and Moby played the fourth floor. 11. His journalism began at college after a high school English teacher gave him a D and told him he could not write; friends at the college alternative paper published his band reviews to a strong response. 12. He edited and wrote for fashion magazines including Interview, Details, and Paper before founding his own publication, Seconds, which covered insider music culture and broke bands including Soundgarden, Queens of the Stone Age, and Nirvana. 13. His book 'Lost Rockers' documented musicians who fell through history's cracks, including Gloria Jones (who recorded the original version of Tainted Love before Soft Cell covered it) and Jake Holmes (who wrote the original 'Dazed and Confused' before Led Zeppelin appropriated it). 14. Blush and a friend were the people who persuaded Holmes to press charges against Led Zeppelin; Holmes settled out of court, but when Led Zeppelin's recent documentary once again took credit for the song, Holmes sued a second time and settled again. 15. Blush was present in Rick Rubin's studio during the recording of Anthrax and Public Enemy's 'Bring the Noise,' and traveled on the Run DMC 'Raising Hell' tour with the Beastie Boys. 16. The book argues that Rick Rubin's vision was to deliberately cross rock and hip-hop: the first Beastie Boys single sampled AC/DC's 'Back in Black,' and Kerry King of Slayer played guitar on 'License to Ill' because Rubin was producing Slayer in an adjacent studio simultaneously. 17. Blush characterizes the trilogy — When Rock Met Disco, When Rock Met Reggae, When Rock Met Hip-Hop — as arguing that music is 'not really black or white, but gray,' with the blues originating on hillbilly instruments and Motown aiming to be a Black version of the Beatles. 18. The conversation is structured as a long-form interview with occasional tangents into British culture and Charlie's own music listening habits, with Blush answering at considerable length in each turn. 19. Listeners who are fans of music history, hip-hop and rock crossover culture, or who are interested in the 1970s-1990s New York music scene will find the episode rewarding. 20. Listeners who prefer structured debate or topic-focused episodes rather than wide-ranging biographical interviews may find the lack of editorial focus a limitation.

As heard by us

A loose, history-heavy chat that treats rock-hip-hop crossover as lived, messy culture.

Stephen Blush is here to talk through the run-up to When Rock Met Hip-Hop, with Charlie Taylor setting it up as a look at a new book due early next year.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the backstory on a book about when rock met hip-hop.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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