Listen or Die

We talk about albums from two artists of stratospherically different backgrounds, who both incidentally got a big career boost from a movie. Behind the unmistakably gnarled vocals of Richard Butler, the Psychedelic Furs added proud '60s influence and wall-of-sound instrumentation to the postpunk UK. Their 1981 album, Talk Talk Talk, is an anti-romance manifesto with plenty of suburban ennui. It is...

Steely Dan fail upwards into rock stardom and Chic write songs to get past the world’s doormen. Pardon us for going long but on this episode; we examine a total of five entries from the 1,001 Albums You Must (supposedly) Hear Before You Die. First, we dig into the early days of your dad’s favorite band, Steely Dan. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen met in the weed-stenched dorms of Bard College, trie...

On this bonus episode, Nick talks to Adam Bernard, music writer and author of One Hit Wondering: The Stories of 40 One Hit Wonders + Other Tales From The Crates. It's a compilation of columns on artists overlooked even by the standards of one-hit wonders. Get ready to remember and reevaluate Jennifer Paige, Chumbawamba, OMC, Meredith Brooks, Len, the Cardigans and others. Questions pondered: Did t...

No one's keeping it real this month; Outkast keeps it surreal and X-Ray Spex are ART... I.... FICIAL!!! On this episode of album deep dives, we check out the band that broke the mold of punk rock just as that mold was set. X-Ray Spex, lead by the wonderfully pseudonymous Poly Styrene, had acute social perceptiveness, a saxophonist and the wardrobes of 40-somethings at a dinner party. Their debut a...

Paul Revere and the Raiders say no to kicks and Elton John says Yes to orchestration. This episode, we're discussing Midnight Ride and Madman Across the Water. Paul Revere and the Raiders were just a Pacific Northwest party band in funny outfits when Columbia Records paired them with producer Terry Melcher and gave them a chance to partake in rock's artistic advancement, resulting in the mostly se...

Mariah Carey surprises Rolling Stone by understanding hip-hop and Laibach is outlawed for being confusing. In this episode, we try to move past our rock-centric tastes and enjoy Butterfly , the 1997 album on which vocally superpowered top 40 hit machine Mariah Carey found artistic freedom and conveyed an uplifting message to burn her ex. Then we unpack Laibach, the semi-industrial band that provok...

Os Mutantes did not actually break your turntable and Talking Heads learn to get along and really collaborate, for a few weeks. After taking a month off, we are back to discuss the cross-continental pollination of ideas heard on both the Brazilian band's 1968 debut and the most beloved album in Talking Heads' catalogue. Stacey rates both one head exploding emoji. Learn about the Tropicalia, precar...

The Who relieve themselves of prog-rock ambitions and the Cocteau Twins will not dress up for you. We're again considering three albums from 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, that staple of the classic rock starter kit, Who's Next, and the Cocteau Twins' cultier Treasure and Heaven or Las Vegas. Does a song lose its meaning if you've heard it on FM radio thousands of times? Does it gain a...

Nanci Griffith tries to make folk-a-billy happen and Elliott Smith backs up Madonna, literally. This time, we ponder three albums from 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Griffith's The Last of the True Believers and two by Smith, Either/Or and Figure 8. We also dive into Texans' profound love of all things Texan, learn about the Great Credibility Scare and why it meant payday for some oddba...

Pink Floyd's awful fans punish them with more rock stardom and Supergrass discover that meeting the strange ones isn't actually so great. We also learn about Pittsburgh's Aerosmith riot of 1976, revisit the homogeny of mid-'90s alt-rock radio, stumble upon a celebrity cameo in the Supergrass story and discover that under and overachieving as an adolescent can both tragically lead to a career in jo...

Miles Davis teams up with that radish guy to partake in the evolution of jazz and ABBA win over Pete Townsend and Joe Strummer, so what's your problem? Includes a brief and somewhat informed history of early jazz subgenres. Our logo is by Kelsey Byers and our theme song is "Stuff that Sounds like This" by Women's Basketball , used courtesy of Brian LaRue. https://linktr.ee/listenordiepodcast

Oasis do not overcome infighting to create a modern-day campfire classic and Eminem says crazy stuff about women and gay people but it's apparently okay because he's not being serious all of the time. If Paul Simon was right and every generation puts a hero on the pop charts, why did millennials go with these bushfires of personal toxicity? Nick and Stacey explore, plus lessons on healthily embody...

The Velvets ditch their supposed cool boss and live their best lives, infuriating sound engineers, and Slade rise up from the Black Country to install their Wolverine-looking frontman as the UK's new Father Christmas. Plus, Nick and Stacey talk about exploring a parent's record collection. Our logo is by Kelsey Byers and our theme song is "Stuff that Sounds like This" by Women's Basketball , used...