Now it’s time to get down to the meaty business of talking about Big Country’s debut album The Crossing. As well as the rest of their back catalogue. We go into a lot of detail on their 80s and some of their 90s stuff too, and it’s interesting to see how this band, and Adamson as a writer, evolved over this period. There’s also a lot of discussion on just what makes this band’s first three albums so good. Each of these first three albums show a distinctly different side of the band, from the pos...
Apr 05, 2021•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 167
When was the last time we did a Scottish band on this show? Too bloody long, if you ask us! This week Chris redresses the balance by humbly submitting The Crossing, the debut album by the Kingdom of Fife’s very own Big Country. This turned into a very nice two parter, so instead of getting one MAHOOSIVE deluge of Big Country, we thought it best to split the difference. This week we talk about the history of the band, Stuart Adamson himself, the band’s origins, their BDE (that’s Big Dad Energy, y...
Mar 29, 2021•53 min•Ep. 166
ESG are without a doubt one of the most unsung bands we’ve covered on this podcast. You may never have heard of them, but you have definitely heard them. Particularly if you like hip hop, dance or house music. There’s an absolute ton of literature devoted to sampling in music, including the ethics of it and the affect it has had on many artists. We won’t go into that here, but suffice to say some of the most well known beats in hip hop coming from this band’s first EP and their first album Come ...
Mar 22, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 165
There’s a bunch of bands from the late 90s punk and emo scene that are hugely influential. Of them though, one could argue that Lifetime are the least well known. Which is odd given that many huge bands are on record as stating that they were directly influenced by this album in particular. Everyone from Saves the Day to Fall Out Boy, Thursday and Taking Back Sunday have all voiced their appreciation for this album over the years. Which until we did this episode, was news to Mark as he had alway...
Mar 15, 2021•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 164
The ABBA-geddon comes to an end this week in part two of our ABBA mixtape. If you missed part one, listen here . We listened to everything ABBA ever wrote in order to devise a comprehensive list of the best, most unsung ABBA songs and yes, it was a complete joy, before you ask. Over the course of 8 albums, ABBA explored pretty much every facet of 70s pop music. They swung from stomping glam rock to disco floor fillers, and from mad prog rock excursions into weird baroque pop. They even experimen...
Mar 08, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 163
Oh lord it’s another two parter. However, you should rejoice as it is our long promised ABBA mixtape and boy is it a TRIP. First of all, thanks to Tommy Smith for first suggesting that we should do an ABBA episode. Initially we scoffed at the idea - ABBA? They’re not unsung! - but Chris suggested they could be ripe for a mixtape. Eventually, we said we would do it but only if we got ten new subs. Well folks, we got them in the end and here we are. Once we’d dived deep into ABBA’s catalogue - whi...
Mar 01, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 162
Last week was part one of our Faith No More two parter and it is, as it turns out, quite easy to dedicate the best part of three hours to Faith No More and their music. We did try to keep it brief but how many times have we said that and failed miserably (AHEM XMAS SPECIAL AHEM)? To wit, this week we’re covering the band’s output from 1995 to this very day. As is our wont, we dive into Album of the Year and Sol Invictus before swinging back around to King for a Day, giving that album the usual u...
Feb 22, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 161
Mike Patton is now officially the first ever artist to have been nominated twice for this podcast. His previous inclusion was in the guise of Tomahawk, and their second album Mit Gas. The public rightfully decided that this was worthy of inclusion in our discography. Now it's time to see if Faith No More's fifth album, King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime, will join it. Chris has been talking about doing this album for bloody ages. Him and Mark are huge FNM fans and Chris has a very compelling ca...
Feb 15, 2021•57 min•Ep. 160
All good things must come to an end. This week we finish our round up of DOOM’s career and cover the wonderful, influential and (so far) only Madvillain album, Madvillainy. If you’re familiar with DOOM you’ll no doubt have seen scores of articles about his influence and legacy, about how he remains a rapper’s rapper. There is, of course, not much more we can add to that but my god to we try. So tune in for Mark and Weaver getting geeky over the album, Chris being somewhat of a bystander and some...
Feb 08, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 159
We’d always planned to do a hip hop episode after the Cocteau Twins, but after the sad passing of MF DOOM was announced on December 31st 2020, we decided to switch focus from The Cold Vein by Cannibal Ox to one of DOOM’s finest hours - Madvillainy by Madvillain. Madvillain is one of many collaborative projects that MF DOOM embarked upon throughout his career, with this particular one being his first collaboration with legendary undergroun hip hop producer/DJ/MC Madlib. One of Daniel Dumile’s man...
Feb 01, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 158
We feel that, by this point, you’re aware of everyone’s positions on this band so far, but there’s still a little twist at the end that you’ll want to stay tuned for as we take some (a lot of) time to chat about the legendary Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins. A lot has been said about this album of the years. It’s highly lauded by just about anyone that has an affection for shoegaze, dreampop, 80s goth and even goth-grandad himself Robert Smith. Their influence is huge at this point, even if...
Jan 25, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 157
IT LIVES! Sorta. After all the silly bastard nonsense of the Xmas Xtravaganza, we decided to re-record the episode we lost on our 3rd birthday. Welcome to our Cocteau Twins analysis, as we talk about their career and the album Heaven or Las Vegas. As fans will recall, our first attempt at this episode was scuppered by some tech issues, and we were unable to recover it. In some ways, it’s kind of a shame because there was a great dynamic on the episode as Chris and Mark played their cards close t...
Jan 18, 2021•55 min•Ep. 156
It’s time to bring this whole sorry four parter to an end. Christmas is now well in the rearview and to be honest folks, after the chaos this descended into, we’d really like to put this behind us too. We talk a whole lot of pish here, including Chris talking about some of 2020’s most highly rated albums that he thinks are not that good. We also, finally, after three years, get a complete history of Weaver’s high school band INCLUDING some actual goddamn music. Which is a truly stunning turn of ...
Jan 11, 2021•55 min•Ep. 155
Happy new year folks! Hopefully the Brexit chat last week didn’t make you feel depressed. I mean, it probably did but hey, everything’s fucked anyway right? This week we go down the Taylor Swift rabbit hole when we ask Jonah Matranga what’s better - Evermore or Folklore? We then get into a very drunken heated debate about just how much agency Taylor Swift has in the corporate process of her image and songwriting, then we talk about some of our favourite albums of the year. We’re also incredibly ...
Jan 04, 2021•59 min•Ep. 154
Before we got in the room to record this whole debacle, we planned out the questions to that they would cover two parts. In the end, we recorded for 5 hours or so, and that two parter became a three parter in the room, and is now a four parter after the edit. Merry Christmas?! Anyway, we go in hard on Brexit right at the top of this episode. No stone left unturned, as they say. We drop some realness on how it will affect bands and music both in the UK and the EU. It’s not a pretty picture. Vicki...
Dec 31, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 153
Christmas is a time for cheer, and a time to eat, drink and be merry with family. For a lot of folk, some of these things may not be possible this year, which is why we felt even more duty bound to continue our very own festive tradition of getting really bloody silly at the end of the year. For the first since March, we decided to get in a room together and stare in lovingly into each other’s eyes to record this mega three parter. In the weeks leading up to this, we asked people to submit quest...
Dec 28, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 152
It seems our argument that Metallica are the “acceptable” version of thrash has gained a little agreement on all of the internets on which we are present, which is nice. Of course, after the abomination (?) of St. Anger, Metallica returned to their “roots” with Death Magnetic and Hardwired… to Self Destruct. Which as Dave points out on this episode, is now a bunch of (mostly) old dudes trying to be young again. As if they ever really grew up anyway… To wit, this is part two of our Metallica exod...
Dec 21, 2020•54 min•Ep. 151
We’re three bloody years old today. THREE. Can you believe it?! As is tradition, we do something a bit silly around our birthday. In year one, Chris decided to take things very seriously do the album Meantime by Helmet, because the name of this podcast comes from one of the songs on that record. In year two Mark subjected the world, and a room full of actual live human beings, to the ridiculous pop punk mixtape. Soon after, covid-19 was discovered. A coincidence? We think not. The world hasn’t b...
Dec 14, 2020•54 min•Ep. 150
Well, this is annoying. We find ourselves without an episode this week due a hideous technical issues which saw an entire two hours of content on Heaven or Las Vegas by the Cocteau Twins sent completely down the drain. To so it was a bummer is a total understatement. Two weeks of episodes, three weeks of research, all lost forever. We will re-do the episode at some point though, so do keep an eye out for it! In the meantime, we’ve decided to do our first ever REWIND. Basically, we’re re-broadcas...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 172
This week we take a critical look at the discography of LA noise/electronic/pop/metal/dance/whatever band Health from good ol’ Los Angeles. Perhaps best known to some as noise rock band, their sound has changed a fair bit over the years. After releasing two acclaimed DIY noise type records they went away and did the soundtrack to Max Payne 3. When they returned years later they had fully embraced the electronics that they had begun to incorporate in their second album “Get Color” and fully enhan...
Nov 30, 2020•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 149
One of the things that we find quite gratifying about these double episodes is the amount of time we can spend talking about a storied band’s large back catalogue. Of course, in many ways that’s the entire raison d'etre of this whole damn enterprise, but it feels particularly good when you’ve spent a bunch of time learning about an artist and can just splurge all this knowledge out in a way that (we hope) is enlightening and educational. Our new pod friend Ferruccio is back this week and we fina...
Nov 23, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 148
We hope you like Wire. Or, at the very least we hope you’re interested to hear about Wire because we have a lot to get through with this. David couldn’t join us this week, but we were able to get a post-punk expert to join us for this mammoth two parter, so say hello to Ferruccio Quercetti of the Italian punk band Cut. He is a true font of knowledge and he provides a ton of context here, which frankly is worth the price of admission alone. Anyway, Chris has been talking about nominating Pink Fla...
Nov 16, 2020•54 min•Ep. 147
This week we welcome back our good friend Vicki as we finally get with the programme and talk about the impact covid-19 and the ongoing global pandemic are having on music and the arts right now. It is Unsung vs the Coronavirus and by god are we coming out swinging. A word of warning though, there are some slight audio issues. Still working out some of the kinks that are inevitable parts of our guest’s setups. Looking forward to being able to get back in a room together so that the only issues w...
Nov 09, 2020•54 min•Ep. 146
Welcome back friends to our first ever podcast crossover as we welcome back Mitch Bain from the excellent Strong Language & Violent Scenes podcast . If you missed it, part one is here . Just a wee reminder to everyone, Strong Language & Violent Scenes is is about giving genre films a second chance which, as they put it, may or may not deserve it. They’ve produced well over 200 episodes on this point, and have managed to build a lovely community by regularly bringing guests on to talk abo...
Nov 02, 2020•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 145
Welcome friends, one and all, to our first every podcast crossover as we welcome Mitch Bain from the excellent Strong Language & Violent Scenes podcast . Put simply, his show is about giving genre films a second chance which, as they put it, may or may not deserve it. They’ve produced well over 200 episodes on this point, and have managed to build a lovely community by regularly bringing guests on to talk about films and by doing live shows at Frightfest. In recent times Mitch has also score...
Oct 26, 2020•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 144
Released to critical acclaim, Marissa Nadler’s third album, Songs III: Bird on the Water, is a record which sees the her begin to expand her sonic palette. Joined by folk-cum-psychedelic rock outfit Espers on a few of the tracks (the album was produced by founding member Greg Weeks), her sound is augmented with hints of synth, electric guitar, cello, percussion and harp. For the first time she really begins to truly channel the American gothic vibes that she’d be tagged with for years, and the r...
Oct 19, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 143
Deep Politics is Grails’ 8th album, and is it turns out it’s one that proves to be particularly divisive on this episode! Chris and David both found this band at different points, with Chris being a fan from the early days and David joining a bit later. What results is a pretty cool discussion around this band’s discography, the highlights and lowlights, as well as providing insight into how people’s views of bands changes over the course of their lives. Grails do a pretty good job of splicing a...
Oct 12, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 142
Rumour has it that Thom Yorke plays in another band called Radiohead, but we found it increasingly difficult to find out about this band. Has anyone ever heard their music? Apparently they’ve released a few records. Yes, this is probably stretching the concept of this very show to breaking point, but the argument here is that this is perhaps the least well known thing that Thom Yorke has done. It also wasn’t met with the same kind of critical praise that greets most Radiohead albums, or indeed t...
Oct 05, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 141
It’s kinda crazy to think it’s taken us this long to touch a Saddle Creek band, but we got there in the end. This week Mark has picked Cursive’s seminal fourth album The Ugly Organ for inclusion in our discography. A weird mashup of emo, alt-rock, cabaret and more, it’s an album that the band themselves thought might be a bit too weird for a label that had spent many years releasing classic emo records from the likes of Bright Eyes et al. But no. It went on to sell 170,000 copies and it received...
Sep 28, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 140
Part one can be found here . Whatcha gonna do when Double Glazing run wild on you? Polish up those pythons and take your vitamins pod fans, cause we’re dropping part 2 in the same week as part 1 because we’re just that goddamn crazy. On this ep we talk a little more about wrestling entrance music, WWE Studios, WWE music in general and more. We also pick our top five favourite entrance songs and also pick three songs each that we think would make excellent ring music. We also do our own create a ...
Sep 24, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 139
