Hearsay retrospectives took the form of an biography of a given artist's career followed by an in-depth appraisal of their recorded output, album by album. Wherever possible, we invited the subject to describe their own work in their own words. It is this part of the retrospectives we have included here. There were never as many of these as they should have been. It was a lot to ask of songwriters to sit down and 'explain' their entire canon, both in terms of the workload involved (and, really, it feels weird to be setting your idols homework), and the physical pain which often accompanies reminiscence of sometimes missed opportunities or false steps. All those below rose admirably to the challenge.

David Lowery on Camper Van Beethoven (1999)
Joe Henry on Joe Henry (1999)
Victoria Williams on Victoria Williams (1998)
Peter Blegvad on Peter Blegvad (1996)
Stephen Duffy on Stephen Duffy and the Lilac Time (1995) [Coming soon]