Listeners Like You

This week, Cort reports back on West Side Cowboy’s It Goes On, an album that takes him on a bit of a journey before landing in considerably more positive territory than where he started. Brian is ... more enthusiastic. West Side Cowboy naturally leads us from Manchester music into Manchester football, British politics, and eventually Ted Lasso (later, we circle back to our apparent Anglophile tend...

This week, Brian reports back on Twisted Teens’ Florida Water Blues, an album that raises several important questions. Is three albums in one year too many? Why does New Orleans produce so few rock bands? And has modern music quietly adopted a requirement that every album contain at least one reference to the cunning linguist? We don’t know, but we know where we got our episode’s title. From there...

This week, Cort reports back on Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, an album Brian has been trying to force into his life for years and which has, according to Brian, been one of the most acclaimed records of the century for even longer. We get into Jeff Tweedy, the strange history of an album its own record label didn’t want, alternate mixes, violins (!!!), and Cort’s decision to conduct a highly scien...

This week, Brian reports back on Sawyer Hill’s new album Everybody’s Home, Nobody’s Happy, which gives us religion, Arkansas, a voice that appears to have been issued to a much larger human being, and the new musical concept: “Arkansas Hozier.” We try to decide exactly what kind of music Sawyer Hill is making. We may give it short shrift, but it’s enthusiastic short shrift, if that can be a thing....

Episode 90: The Meryl Streep Chum Challenge This week, Cort reports back on Cannonball, the debut album from Man/Woman/Chainsaw. We get into a band that seems determined not to sound like the same band from song to song, the proper deployment of a violin in indie rock, rotating lead singers, and an unexpectedly competitive field of things named “Cannonball,” including The Breeders and Damien Rice....

This week, Brian reports back on Ariana Grande’s new album Petal, an assignment that somehow leads us to Train covering Led Zeppelin, the limits of musical talent, and the question everybody should be asking: if you can sound like Led Zeppelin, why would you choose to sound like Train? From there, we return to the watermelon podcast. I’ve got this little bonne mot for you: AI uses for weedkiller d...

This week, Brian sends Cort down the Spoon rabbit hole with both a greatest hits collection and a fan-curated playlist, because apparently one assignment wasn't enough. The result? A discussion about indie rock, gateway albums, and the eternal question: is "pretty good" the same thing as "Will I ever voluntarily listen to this again?" From there, we wander through new releases from The Strokes and...

Brian reports back on The Age of the Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets, discovering that Alex Turner's side project sounds less like Arctic Monkeys and more like the soundtrack to a 70s or 80s spy film. The discussion wanders through David Bowie, spaghetti westerns, supergroups, and the unposed question: is being called "background music" a bad thing? Then things take a turn. Brian unveils...

Cort reports back on World Party's Goodbye Jumbo, an album he somehow already knew by heart despite being convinced he'd never heard it before. Brian makes the case for Karl Wallinger as one of pop music's great overlooked craftsmen, and the conversation wanders into college radio, movie soundtracks, and whether some albums simply refuse to age. From there: TV recap podcasts, comfort television, t...

Brian reports back on Gigi Perez's At the Beach, In Every Life, and the verdict lands somewhere between appreciation and exhaustion. Which songs are keepers? Which songs leave Brian and Cort wondering whether they've accidentally wandered into an entirely different album. Along the way they discuss what is possibly Spotify's most baffling artist bio, and Brian develops a strange guilt complex for...

Cort reports back on his assignment, Hope We Have Fun by Mt. Joy, and, thankfully, the answer appears to be yes. The album sends the guys down a rabbit hole of favorite tracks, genre-hopping bands, Nathaniel Rateliff connections, and the increasingly rare experience of finding an album that simply makes life a little more enjoyable. From there, things proceed exactly as they always do. Mt. Joy lea...

The assignment was American Football’s LP4. The episode is, somehow, four days of Brian having no internet, a severed wire, a locked neighbor’s gate, and a customer satisfaction survey that would not let him rate the one person who actually helped. We promise we talk about the album too. Briefly. Before the rant takes the wheel. Somewhere beneath the Comcast fury lies a real, perhaps even earnest,...

May Madness reaches its conclusion. But before the bracket chaos resumes, Cort reports back on GOLDSTAR by The Sophs. The album slowly wormed its way into his brain through catchy hooks that took their sweet time arriving, strange charm, and lyrics that demanded he actually pay attention. Brian, meanwhile, continues his campaign to promote emotionally damaged (or damaging) indie bands to the masse...

What starts as a routine assignment check-in quickly builds into something far more Earth shaking: a fully fleshed-out, 100% opinion driven, completely unnecessary, and yet thoroughly discussed bracket to determine the greatest band with a color in its name. Before the madness begins, Brian reports back on The Black Crowes’ A Pound of Feathers,  and his verdict is … less than glowing. Meanwhile, C...

This week, Cort reports back on Dead Eyes, the podcast written, produced, and narrated by Connor Ratliff, an actor who was fired from Band of Brothers because Tom Hanks thought he had… dead eyes. What starts as a JABA (just another Brian assignment) for Cort quickly morphs into a full-on binge and one very specific expectation about how the story better end. From there, things go exactly where the...

This week, Cort assigned Brian the debut album Sadnecessary by Milky Chance, and what follows is a discussion about: The suspicious similarity threaded through half the album’s tracks Why both of us had déjà vu listening to songs we swear we’ve heard before by a band we've never heard of The fine line between “signature sound” and “they’re just doing the same thing over and over” Whether Milky Cha...

In this episode, Brian and Cort celebrate a near-anniversary of Listeners Like You. Cort reports back on Car Seat Headrest’s Teens of Denial. Some songs hit harder than others but not in the way Cort would have expected. From there, things go into "unstructured land." They talk about Paradise and its questionable version of Memphis geography, the Scrubs revival, the return of U Talkin’ U2 To Me?,...

Cort recommended Rosalía. Brian listened to it. Shockingly, someone loved it. The boys then spiral into a discussion about foreign languages (because Rosalía), cultural barriers, and what it means to enjoy music you don’t fully understand. Also, they talk about the Oscars. Not that anyone asked. Or cares. But opinions are shared anyway. THE ASSIGNMENT OF THE WEEK: Rosalia - Lux  https://open.spoti...

For the first time in show history, Cort reports back on two assignments: Hot Fuss by The Killers and Is This It by The Strokes. Spoiler: in the battle of early-2000s skinny-tie rock, Julian Casablancas and company take the win. While Brandon Flowers receives everything he is due, Is This It ultimately proves to be the better debut. Come see if the guys' argument is compelling. From there, we dig...

Brian doesn't love the honk of Geese? The guys have some corrections to share.  It's also episode 75, so there's the "episode 75" game that must be played. We hit a TON of pop culture.  Brian is asking the questions, sir! Not Cort!  Join us! Geese - Getting Killed - https://open.spotify.com/album/0eeXb23yMW6EaIgm63xxPC?si=8kgyTiU6T8ixTlsapHwNrQ Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus - The Flying Scrub Jays ht...

Cort returns with a review of Dove Ellis's Blizzard, a debut album that came out of nowhere. Dove gained notoriety opening for Geese, and Blizzard may have (briefly) consumed Brian's world. The consensus favorite song is “love is,” which sparks the important question: great song… or perfect song? From there, we do a quick and dirty psychological profile of Dove through his rise to fame, a lecture...

Brian reports back on his latest assignment from Cort: chapters 6–16 of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Somewhere along the way, Brian may have warmed up to the previously disparaged Owen Teale. The conversation expands to Jones’s broader body of work and why empathy, once activated, can be deeply inconvenient. From there, things go where they always do. Clare Danes gets a brief...

Brian assigned Cort some holiday spirit with Holiday Rules, a Christmas compilation by various artists, and some nostalgia with The Grand Archives by Grand Archives. Feelings were had. Some stronger than others. No one is claiming a seasonal awakening, but we listened and we showed up. From there, the conversation predictably veers off course into night swimming, because apparently that was inevit...

This week, Brian reports back on his assignment: the first five chapters of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (Cort’s new literary obsession and Brian’s long-standing one). Turns out, loving Jones on the page may or may not mean loving his work performed directly into your ears. Brian’s early take? Cautiously optimistic. Marin Ireland does fine. Owen Teale … well, Brian isn’t convi...

Brian assigned Cort An Awesome Wave by Alt-J… and Cort actually loved it. The album’s layered production and a unique approach to the rhythm section landed squarely in his wheelhouse, especially since the lyrics mattered approximately not at all. Brian had thoughts too, of course, and they compare notes on how the album hits two very different listeners. Brian also reports back from seeing Nurembe...