“Let’s Make a Music,” often abbreviated LMAM, is a podcast in which hosts Brian David Gilbert, Laura Katherine Gilbert and Jonah Scott use suggestions from Twitter to create music that is professional quality, if somewhat silly.
The variety of tunes they have made via the podcast is stunning, ranging from sad ballads about a breakup with in a craft store, to high-octane rock songs about a bar mitzvah on top of a car. The songs are almost always great, and I’ll often find them stuck in my head for days at a time.
Each episode consists of Laura reading suggestions from a themed Twitter thread that they created to fit a theme. Topics have ranged from “songs about plants” to more vague ideas, even just words, like “sharp.” These tweets go out sometimes minutes before the trio start recording, so suggestions often come in essentially live. The three hosts then make riffs and jokes off of the suggestions, slowly constructing a narrative for the song. Then, they cut away to the song itself, which they wrote over the course of a week. Afterward, they do a wrap-up on the song, and discuss their process.
Among the only complaints I’d offer is that some of the songs fall a little flat, and when they do, the climax of the show can feel like a letdown. The hosts’ personalities are great, and I love to listen to them, but their conversations aren’t quite entertaining enough to save an episode when the song is less than stellar. Still, these episodes are few and far between, and well worth making it through to get to the best songs.
Sadly, there is one other complaint that I have: two weeks ago, LMAM released its final episode before what the hosts are calling an “indefinite hiatus.” Despite this, I wholeheartedly recommend the podcast for its small 40 episode backlog of excellent songs and funny moments. They’ve released four compilation albums of their songs, and I think they’re well worth the low price if you enjoy the podcast and the songs.
While the show’s over for now, the hosts hope to return to it at some other time when they aren’t so busy, and I for one will be eagerly waiting.