What happens when a pop song named after a movie star sends you down a rabbit hole about fame, creativity, culture, and who actually controls the art we consume?

This week, Joe and Toby dive into Adela’s breakout hit “Nicole Kidman,” tracing the young Slovakian artist’s journey from being cut from Dream Academy to finding her own lane and landing on the charts. They unpack the song’s all-star writing team, Adela’s fascination with American pop culture, the inspiration behind the Nicole Kidman reference, and the intriguing tension between the polished pop machine and the much more vulnerable artist underneath it all.

But, naturally, the riff doesn’t stop there. The conversation expands into the supersaturation of modern pop culture, the disappearance of musical tastemakers, Spotify’s genre bubbles, the value of being pushed outside your musical comfort zone, and why curiosity about unfamiliar music might teach us something about curiosity toward unfamiliar people and cultures, too.

Along the way: Eyes Wide Shut, Tom Cruise fatigue, a Mount Rushmore of actresses, Lorna Shore, libraries, jelly beans, the return of the episode playlist, and an important question for every young artist navigating the industry: when you finally get the success you’ve been chasing, how much control do you have over what comes next?

Joe and Toby also build a musical “flight” inspired by the episode, connecting Adela to the artists, writers, samples, influences, and wonderfully strange detours that make the Riffs on Riffs rabbit hole what it is.

Give it a listen. Let it breathe. And maybe try something you normally wouldn’t.

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What happens when the artist isn’t real, the voice never lived, and the face can change with a prompt?

In a different kind of Riffs on Riffs episode, Joe and Toby dive headfirst into the increasingly strange world of AI-generated music, beginning with the controversy surrounding virtual artist Sienna Rose and accusations of “digital blackface.” From there, the conversation gets much bigger: Who owns the culture an AI artist borrows from? What does it mean to “do the work” when a machine can generate the finished product in seconds? And if audiences can no longer tell what’s real, does it matter?

Joe and Toby wrestle with both sides of the technology. AI can democratize creativity, help someone hear an idea they otherwise couldn’t produce, and become a powerful tool for experimentation. But when the shortcut replaces the people, the collaboration, the mistakes, the arguments, the second takes and the happy accidents, something important disappears.

Toby calls it the “angel’s share”: the unmeasurable piece of the creative process that evaporates when the humans are removed. The rough edges. The outtakes. The moment a band loses power and keeps playing anyway. The producer challenging the songwriter. The note that isn’t perfectly in tune but somehow feels exactly right.

The conversation also takes on our growing obsession with perfection, algorithmic manipulation, AI bias, cultural appropriation, physical media, the resurgence of vinyl and CDs, and why holding a fifty-year-old record suddenly feels almost radical in a world of infinitely editable digital artifacts. At the center of it all is a deceptively simple question: are we using technology to enhance human creativity, or slowly engineering the humanity out of it?

And maybe there’s a more hopeful possibility. Perhaps the rise of AI ultimately creates a human renaissance, one where we learn what machines are good at while rediscovering everything that makes real people, real performances, and real connection irreplaceable.

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It’s baseball playoff season, so Joe and Toby are taking the mound for a different kind of pitch.

In this special “Wild Pitches” episode, each host brings three artists they think deserve a bigger audience, whether they’re genuinely under the radar, underappreciated in the U.S., or simply making music too good not to share.

Toby makes the case for Kareen Lomax and her adventurous, genre-bending sound; the organic R&B and vintage warmth of sunandmoon; and Malia, whose new project If I’m Being Honest pairs a rich, mature voice with deeply personal songwriting.

Joe counters with South London sibling duo Wasia Project and the lush, cinematic Nocturne; longtime favorite LP, whose unmistakable voice and songwriting have built a massive following overseas; and UK rock band Nothing But Thieves, powered by huge songs and the remarkable vocals of Conor Mason.

Along the way, the conversation wanders exactly where a Riffs conversation should: Missy Elliott, Stevie Wonder, George Michael, family collaborations, the return of organic musicianship, the virtues of a great EP, Critical Role, overly long fantasy novels, and what makes an artist truly “vinyl worthy.”

Six artists. Two hosts. One highly questionable competition.

Listen, make your own picks, and then tell us who won.

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