Chuck Klosterman discusses his alternative rock history, in which the Velvet Underground supplants the Beatles, and considers why hits happen through craft, mystery and chance. The conversation also follows the shrinking audience for nonfiction, the fractured monoculture and the growing authority of metrics in culture and sports.

NPR Music reporter Isabella Gomez Sarmiento examines the undisclosed payments turning online music tastemakers into stealth marketers for labels. The conversation traces how social-media payola erodes trust in personal taste while raising the stakes for artists without promotional cash.

Recording Academy chief Harvey Mason Jr. sketches an industry already saturated with AI, where songwriters use models for everything from chord progressions to demo vocals even as the Grammys try to preserve a meaningful line around human authorship. The conversation also turns to the academy’s move from CBS to Disney, the politics of platform power, and the scramble to keep music culture visible in the age of TikTok.