Reverberate
By The Guardian
The Guardian’s Chris Michael explores incredible stories from around the world about when music shook history. Each episode focuses on a turning point in a city’s story, as told through a song that sparked a moment – and reveals the deeper social and political issues that shaped these pivotal events
Latest episode
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Reverberate, episode 6: The plastic people of Prague
The Plastic People of the Universe were a group of underground Czech psych-rockers known more for their outlandish stage presence than for their songs. After the Communist invasion in 1968, however, they became a thorn in the side of the repressive r… -
Reverberate, episode 5: Birmingham's bhangra revolution
Racism, riots and political upheaval seemed to be spreading like wildfire in Britain in the 1980s. In that increasingly hostile environment, the ‘daytimers’ – mostly south Asian teenagers who skipped school to attend daytime raves – began to mix thei… -
Reverberate, episode 4: the bloody symphony of Leningrad
In 1942, the city we now call St Petersburg had been under siege by Nazi troops for months. With hundreds of thousands starving to death and the prospect of victory looking bleak, Soviet leaders tried what might now seem an unlikely attempt to salvag… -
Reverberate, episode 3: the call and response that changed Cairo
Ten years ago the Arab spring spread into north Africa’s biggest country as more than a million Egyptians, enraged by police brutality and a collapsing economy, took over Tahrir Square – the heart of Cairo’s police state. It was Ramy Essam’s moment. … -
Reverberate, episode 2: Rick Astley versus the dictator of Panama
Christmas, 1989: the White House has sent troops to depose Manuel Noriega, but the dictator of Panama has holed up in the Vatican embassy. So the US military tries a new ‘psy-ops’ tool: it points huge loudspeakers at the embassy and begins blaring ro… -
Reverberate, episode 1: Hong Kong's accidental pop star
It was the stuff of dreams: in 2013, Kashy Keegan was an unknown singer-songwriter in a sleepy English town when, out of nowhere, he became the voice of Hong Kong’s nascent pro-democracy movement. Alongside Vivienne Chow, a journalist from Hong Kong,… -
Reverberate: a new podcast from the Guardian – coming soon...
The Guardian’s Chris Michael explores incredible stories from around the world about when music shook history. Our first episode – which tells the story of an unlikely pop star who accidentally became the face of a huge new protest movement in Hong K…
