PopCult’s 20th Anniversary week continues with new episodes of our music specialty shows that debut on Wednesday afternoon, as The AIR brings you new episodes of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, each of which celebrate a notable anniversary of a different sort.  You can tune in at the website, or just stay right here and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM (EDT) Beatles Blast brings you an all-covers mixtape recreation of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, which was released sixty years ago this fall.

Considered by many to be their best album, it’s one that I have avoided in the past because it concludes with what I feel is the band’s worst song, “Run For Your Life,” which is so mysognistic and threatening that years later, John Lennon apologized for writing it.

However, I managed to find a gender-flipped cover that somewhat redeems the stalkerish sentiments in the song. Since the alubm runs considerably less than an hour, you’ll get to hear more than one version of some tunes.

The rest of our hour presents artists employing a wild variety of musical styles tackling some of the Fab Four’s most beloved tunes.

Check out this playlist:

Beatles Blast 124

Black Heat “Drive My Car”
Parekh & Singh “Norwegian Wood”
Ernie Smith “You Won’t See Me”
Yellow Matter Custard “Nowhere Man” “Think For Yourself”
Blues Beatles “The Word”
Allan Holdsworth “Michelle”
Joe Val & The New England Bluegrass Boys “What Goes On”
Ronnie Von “Girl (Meu Bem)”
Ted Leo “I’m Looking Through You”
Bonnie Tyler “In My Life”
Ben Kweller “Wait”
Joe White “If I Needed Someone”
Nancy Sinatra “Run For Your Life”
Henrique Cazes “Girl”
Dion “Drive My Car”
The Hot Club of San Francisco “If I Needed Someone”
Ozzy Osbourne “In My Life”

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 11 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM (EDT) on Curtain Call, for its fiftieth anniversary year, Mel Larch salutes the Tony and Pulitzer winning show, A Chorus Line.

Conceived by director and co-choreographer, Michael Bennett with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante, A Chorus Line set records for longevity that lasted decades.  With its stark realism and mature content, A Chorus Line was the first raw, honest and occasionally downbeat look at Show Business.

This Mel has assembled a collection of highlights from the musical, using the original Broadway Cast album, later revivals and maybe a surprise or two.

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM, Saturday at 8 PM and Monday at 9 AM. A six-hour marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday evening starting at 6 PM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.

Also on The AIR, Wednesday at 11 PM,  The Comedy Vault brings you an hour of something so surprising that, as I write this, I don’t even know what it is yet.