Don't ask us why* we decided to hurl a rock at William Joel's 1980 release, "Glass Houses" -- but we're ranking that album with the help of Ambassador To Long Island Pop Culture Dan Rogge. Along the way, we met a shark named Leyna, contemplated essential Billy-ness and Blondie cosplay, added to the list of songs Mark can't retain, and went behind the scenes of an ill-advised French mash note. Grab a "Monsieur Massapequa" tee and get your karaoke picks in; it's time for another MASTAS ranker! *it...
May 26, 2025•1 hr 23 min
We end the Best New Artist season where it all began for the podcast: the Grammys. We're talking today about the 67th Grammy Awards' "big 4" categories, plus a couple of wildcards -- and along the way, the American need for underdogs, nominations of encouragement, Mark's "Folkmore" playlist, Uncanny George Valley nightmares, couples skate, and a purse dog named Aristotle. Grab an electric clarinet and join us! (Throw the clarinet in the garbage first. THEN join us.) Intro and outro by David Greg...
Feb 03, 2025•1 hr 31 min
It's the Best New Artist Breakdown season finale, featuring a MASTAS greatest-hits line-up, the return of sprung rhythm, grand unifying complaints about breakthrough categories, Elt Zeppelin, and how to evolve past Wolfman Jack in pop-music discovery. Do we agree with the Grammys' most recent BNA choices? Have we decided how to tackle the 2025 nominees? Should jerks win awards? Come spook the Recording Academy herd with us! Intro and outro by Laura Barger and Jack Baldelli; for more information/...
Dec 23, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Our penultimate Best New Artist Breakdown moves into the teens; we're talking about Amy Clonehouses, lost anthems of lady rage, gold-watch nominations, the Overton window of band-name ludicrosity, and much more. Grab those Kendrick Lamar seminar syllabi and have a listen! Intro and outro by Andrew Byrne; for more information/to become a patron of the show, visit patreon.com/mastas . SHOW NOTES Episode 107: Bond-Movie Songs, Ranked Duffy's return to social media after her ordeal Episode 166: Tayl...
Dec 16, 2024•1 hr 20 min
As the Best New Artist Breakdown season rounds the millennium turn, we're talking about which band is playing when Jennifer Love Hewitt flees a serial killer, artists we should like on paper but fall asleep to in practice, the music of shampoo ads, and the basic room in each of our hearts. If Kanye West will make room, join us on the line between genius and madness for our latest episode! Intro and outro by David Gregory Byrne; for more information/to become a patron of the show, visit patreon.c...
Dec 09, 2024•43 min
We're closing out the twentieth century in our fifth episode, and there are fewer howling embarrassments among our Best New Artist winners this time...but just as much anal-retentive insanity in our prep, plus diversity of sound, nothingburger arrangements saved by a Braxton, convincing Patsy Cline drag, effortful album titles, and the memory-holing of a multi-platinum act. Your dinner-party table in hell is ready, so pull up a chair and listen! Intro and outro by David Gregory Byrne; for more i...
Dec 02, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Confusing band names, the MTV aura, and what happens if the comedy/tragedy masks and a keyboard mate: it's the 4th episode of our Best New Artist season, which brings us great winners, indefensible losers, and tracks that are more branding exercise than song. Does Mariah tie a whole Reagan-era room together? Listen now and find out! Intro and outro by Andrew Byrne; for more information/to become a patron of the show, visit patreon.com/mastas . SHOW NOTES The list of Best New Artist recipients, a...
Nov 25, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Disco, NuRo, and not knowing where to look during "Afternoon Delight" -- it's all part of our third episode, when we're also talking about Starman's dinner party, the mayonnaise filter, the Michael McDonald industrial complex, and Mark's request to dump all the geography-named bands into one planetary supergroup. There's only one way to lift the Best New Artist curse, and that's to listen now. Intro and outro by Laura Barger and Jack Baldelli. For more information/to become a patron of the show,...
Nov 18, 2024•1 hr 6 min
We're wading into the '70s in our second ep, which includes ruminations on inessential classic rock; how Karen Carpenter and Judy Garland can take you whenever they are; holding your nose and throwing your vote at the nomination dartboard; and more. We've only just beguuuuuun / to taaaaaaalk -- and to hear your comments! -- so listen now. Intro and outro by David Gregory Byrne. For more information/to become a patron of the show, visit patreon.com/mastas . SHOW NOTES The list of Best New Artist ...
Nov 11, 2024•51 min
The Best New Artist Breakdown season has begun! Instead of pitting the 64 winners of the Grammys' Best New Artist category against each other, we're talking about each year's nominees and winner in the context of their time...and in today's sixties-spanning ep, we're trying to make sense of the 20th century's monocultures, how far in the past most votes had gotten stuck, the weird dominance of the ukelele in the Kennedy years, and the weird ambitions of Mr. Swingle. Ready to go Bach to the futur...
Nov 04, 2024•51 min
Our finale finds us talking about actor/musicians with lasting pop careers: Oscar-winners (Jamie Foxx), Grammy-winners (Childish Gambino), former child stars (Hailee Steinfeld), and Jokers (Jared Leto). After discussing contemporary stank, the competent/memorable axis, music for coffee shops, and the R&B version of that Top Chef challenge where they have to elevate gas-station snacks, we talk about what we've learned about the drive to create art. Grab Ludacris and have a listen. Intro and o...
Oct 07, 2024•45 min
This week's crop of actor-musician hyphenates got their thespian starts in films of the 1980s: Corey Feldman, Keanu Reeves (Dogstar), Kevin Bacon (the Bacon Brothers), and Kiefer Sutherland. Copyright-compliant Gin Blossoms tracks and workout-cooldown music prompted thoughts about perfectly good outdoor-restaurant entertainment, the artistic practice that capitalism tries to stifle, and whether pretty boys want to be told they're smart (and vice versa). Strange things are afoot at the Circle MAS...
Sep 30, 2024•42 min
Do you love to laugh? Then fall down the ha-ha hole that is Pop Goes The Actor's third episode! This week, we're looking at comedians who tested the pop waters, including a Blues Brother, Eddie Murphy, Tracey Ullman, and Jack Black. Acting range, the cult of mid-'70s SNL , finding unexpected IQ points in a song you've heard a dozen times, and which instrument is the creme fraiche of blues tracks -- and much more. Someone here is from Jersey, so order your minimum two drinks and listen! Intro and...
Sep 23, 2024•48 min
Oh yes it's ladies' night on the second episode of Pop Goes The Actor...but IS the feeling right? Sometimes! We wend our way through copyright-compliant bugle boys of Company Wonder Woman, the adorkable Zooey Deschanel, Shelley Fabares's evident terror, Marla Gibbs's appealing blood-thinner ad, and a track from Cybill Shepherd that puts the "no" back in "bossa nova." Throw that sax in a dumpster and join us for legitimate fun vs. snarky fun, the sexual politics of Camelot-era pop, and the timeli...
Sep 16, 2024•40 min
Pop Goes The Actor: a mini-season about thespians who tried (and sometimes succeeded at!) being pop musicians. In our premiere episode, we're talking about Jeff Conaway (Taxi), Donny Most (Happy Days), Esther Rolle (Good Times), Ted Knight (The Mary Tyler Moore Show), and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs (Welcome Back, Kotter) -- as well as smorgasbords of grunting, when a stew has all the right ingredients and yet no taste, how long vaudeville literacy persisted, perceptions of the primetime monoculture,...
Sep 09, 2024•51 min
1996's Romeo + Juliet seemed like a slam-dunk ending to our soundtrack mini-season...but we have regrets! Epcot industrial music, lazy versions of Shakespeare, the psychotic hormonal jangling of youth, Scandinavian cultural crimes, and the returns of Teddy Ruxpin AND No Middle Ground with Paul Quinn accompany our struggling to remember the Wallflowers, and to decide whether it's possible for a song to be disgusting. Sidle up to an aquarium and have a listen! Intro and outro by Laura Barger and J...
Jul 22, 2024•56 min
This episode is, we suppose, like a box of chocolates, because technically you don't know what you're going to get, but we can tell you we're talking about the ubiquitous Forrest Gump soundtrack. Remembering top-loader VCRs, #justiceforJenn, powering through overplay, how long sixties soul acts gave themselves to get drawers on the floor, and songs Muppets sing at you. What does it sound like when the Beach Boys sing a New Yorker article about pirates? Find out with our latest episode! Intro and...
Jul 15, 2024•1 hr 23 min
The '90s Soundtrack Flashback season is bustin' surfboards with Pulp Fiction , 1994's omnipresent Quentin Tarantino joint. After talking about how the movie itself holds up (spoiler: really well!), we move on to fights with the Ventures, QT's trademark alternate timelines, how epic moments are inevitably punctuated by frump, at-the-bank audio wallpaper, and Peanuts-apron guy's moment of glory. C'est la vie , say the rankings, so have a listen! Intro and outro by David Gregory Byrne; for more inf...
Jul 08, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Welcome to our '90s Soundtrack Flashback mini-season! We're ranking the soundtrack albums from four legendary 1990s movies, starting with grunge-adjacent rom-com Singles . We waded into the great plaid middle of this disc to talk about the insouciance of Cameron Crowe stories, when it's okay for grunge gods to laugh, the conversation between this genre and punk (and Zep), and "hard rock for the school bus." Grab a Crystal Pepsi and a flannel buttondown and join us! Intro and outro by David Grego...
Jul 01, 2024•1 hr 8 min
"Blurred Lines," the sound of the summer of 2013, is compared (unfavorably) with a cold sore in today's episode, which pits Robin Thicke, TI, and Pharrell against Weird Al's screed against bad grammar and usage errors. Despairing of Shazam, continuing to die on the hill of "irregardless," and the tyranny of younger siblings over the #oldladywalk playlist...we're working through all of it, AND figuring out who's going to "win" the season. It would be a Class-Y felony to miss it, so listen now. Ou...
Apr 22, 2024•23 min
Thirty years after the death of frontman Kurt Cobain, Nirvana and their music still feel very close. Does that have anything to do with Weird Al's equally "defining" parody, a track that let Al "sell out" again after the disastrous UHF experience...with a band at the bleeding edge of the sell-out conversation? The shroud of tragedy, the performance of self, rebellious chaos, and ballerina tutus: better get to the gym, y'all! It's an all-new MASTAS. Our intro is by Laura Barger and Jack Baldelli,...
Apr 15, 2024•29 min
It's an all-time training-montage banger vs. Weird Al's vision for Rocky XIII in today's episode, as we drop Wiki factoids, contemplate an all-depressing-follow-up-hits season, digress at length on Live's legal battles, and wonder when in Reagan's presidency the Me Decade became sentient. Greetings from the Sly Stallone industrial complex; get that sammich to go and listen to an all-new episode! Our intro is by Andrew Byrne, and our outro is by the Waitresses. For more information/to become a pa...
Apr 08, 2024•28 min
You can't always control what people do with your art once it's out in the world -- something Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits may have learned the hard way with both the original "Money For Nothing" AND Weird Al's re-imagining of the song via a dream sequence in UHF . Essential references versus essential songs, 20th-century TV's preoccupation with yokels, and resting Don Henley face...they're all in this episode, so finish up that microwave-oven install and listen. Our intro is by Andrew Byrne, a...
Apr 01, 2024•16 min
It's that Airbnb pasta-taxonomy poster in pop-song form: "Lasagna," Weird Al's take on Los Lobos's take on Ritchie Valens's take on the Mexican folk song Sarah and her classmates dutifully droned during first-period Spanish. Before we cast our votes (and yours!), we talk about the restaurant from Big , Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dr. Melfi's ex-husband, Sophia Petrillo, forgetting the word "benefit," and Polish jokes. Are we putting the "no" back in " buongiorno "? Listen and see! Our intro is by L...
Mar 25, 2024•30 min
Late-sixties melodrama meets early-nineties blockbuster in today's episode, as we contemplate who left the Barney cake out in the rain while comparing Richard Harris's "MacArthur Park" and Weird Al's "Jurassic Park." Claymation, foiled cantatae, The Odyssey , Godspell , and songs for when the coffee's kickin' in, plus the YouTube-comments bingo card and an "un-preciation" of a popular novel, all factor into our discussion. Listen and enjoy unironically! Our intro is by David Gregory Byrne, and o...
Mar 18, 2024•21 min
The unique legacy of Tommy James and the Shondells adds another chapter today, as Weird Al contends with Tiffany's smash cover of "I Think We're Alone Now." We're discussing Jersey-girl aspirational fashion, budge sound that's a feature and not a bug, and that person you could know becoming that person everyone does know. Take a break from sewing patches on your jean jacket and have a listen! Our intro is by David Gregory Byrne, and our outro is by the Ramones. For more information/to become a p...
Mar 04, 2024•23 min
Can Weird Al inch ahead in the season standings with "I Lost On Jeopardy," his parody of the Greg Kihn Band's "Jeopardy"? We're talking early adopters, terrible album-title puns we admire, second careers, cheap-but-creepy videos, and how MB's personal Jeopardy! journey deepens his appreciation of this Yankovic joint. Tell 'em what they've won, Don Pardo! (It's either an all-new WAvE episode or some Rice-a-Roni.) Our intro is by Laura Barger and Jack Baldelli, and our outro is by the Waitresses. ...
Feb 26, 2024•18 min
This week's match-up pits The Presidents of the United States of America's "Lump" against Weird Al's "Gump"...but is it really a face-off if the original is two thirds of the way towards being the parody? What is the age of Al-wakening? What's the difference between "unserious" and "unpretentious"? Are butt-adjacent references the Yankovic equivalent of a Hitchcock cameo? And did Al have any choice when it came to his subject matter back then? Watch out for those shifting matrices; it's an all-n...
Feb 19, 2024•24 min
"What if we just........didn't." That's one of the questions confronting us as WE confront an out-of-character entry in the Weird Al songbook: "Fat." The problems don't start there; there's the cheap-sounding and turgidly self-serious original, "Bad"; by problematic artist Michael Jackson; the risible video by MJ, and the shortcutsy cruelty from WA...there's even an ill-advised decision in a high-school talent show. Bass requests, Staying Alive references, and conscientious objections: it's an a...
Feb 12, 2024•21 min
Grab a tube sock for your privates: it's time to pit the Red Hot Chili Peppers against Weird Al! Before Mark makes the pun that drives our listenership numbers off a cliff, we're discussing the omnipresent Chilis hits "Under The Bridge" and "Give It Away"; how many songs Weird Al might have tried to fit his Flintstones joke set into before settling on these; the five items '90s dorm rooms had to contain lest their occupants risk expulsion; and the difference between "sexy" and "just always naked...
Feb 05, 2024•23 min
