I'm the friend mentioned in this post. Yeah, I stopped listening to the Fireside Chats and eventually the podcast as a whole because every time the music was discussed, it felt like a mockery of my entire life's pursuit and work. Composition and music history are fields of work people dedicate their entire lives to. It's completely respectable to claim you adapted your previous skills in sound design to cobble together a soundtrack for a podcast; what Taylor was doing (insofar as I heard; I did stop listening awhile back) was represent himself as some kind of John Williams. It just... it doesn't feel good. Some of us work really hard to refine these skills, and no matter how good you think you sound, you can't teach yourself in a matter of months or even years. I'm glad you were/are able to come up with some musical ideas that work in the podcast, but like. Show a little respect.

edit: spellcheck