Aural Fixation

Let us take you back to 2011. Egypt is in revolt. The people of London are rioting. Earthquakes are wreaking havoc in New Zealand and Japan. Amy Winehouse is dead, for christ sake. Life is bleak.   But wait – what’s that we can hear in the distance? It’s a girl with a sugary voice. And it sounds like she’s... imploring a boy to... pick up the phone and... give her a call? Oh happy day mama, it’s C...

After slyly dominating the first ten episodes of your new favourite music podcast, we're finally giving a much-deserved hour to the pop monolith that is... Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. Madame X, if you're nasty.   Fourteen studio albums, three hundred million records sold and a superlative-exhausting run of smashed records later, the Queen of Pop has been thrusting queer sensibility...

Any typical conversation about Kelis will almost undoubtedly centre around *that* dairy-based beverage, and its power to lure ~the boys~ to her front lawn for a taste. Of course, Drew and Andy aren’t interested in typical conversations. This episode, the boys have gone lactose-intolerant – they didn’t come here to talk milkshakes; they came here for flesh.   2010’s Flesh Tone was recorded in colla...

Our email servers have crashed time and time again underneath the sheer influx of mail, and our fans have questions which need answering. It was time to give the people what they want. Drew and Andy settle down with a glass of cask wine and give our listeners insight into what makes us tick, what gets us razzed, and what makes up our pop DNA. Forty-five minutes isn’t enough to get through all the...

The year is 2004. The likes of Katie Melua, Jamie Cullum and Dido dominate supermarket shelves, as the UK charts are pervaded with an overwhelming sense of beige – that is, until, a glamourous quartet from the streets of New York storm through with a disco Pink Floyd cover to punctuate the gloom with glitter. The Scissor Sisters channelled the peacocking showmanship of Elton John and Freddie Mercu...

When 23-year-old Lady Gaga strode boldly into the flashing lights with 'The Fame' in 2008, she was lauded as a new kind of pop princess – honest, opinionated, perhaps a little extra but with the vocal chops to back it all up. Her eight-track 2009 follow-up 'The Fame Monster' dug its gilded heel into the zeitgeist with instant classics like 'Bad Romance' and 'Tele...

From daughter of a preacher man to empress of New York nightlife, Grace Jones has spent her career challenging, scintillating and titillating listeners, audiences and baffled onlookers, with panache like no other.   Andy and Drew meet underneath the disco balls of Manhattan, dancing through Grace's early greatest hits, before skipping thirty years ahead to a decade-in-the-making comeback, rec...

Step aside, we're back again – and frothing to spill ALL of the tea on RuPaul's political juggernaut 'American'. Released as a direct response to the 2016 US Election, the album speaks to civic disenfranchisement, administrative unease and, of course, lady cowboys.   With a career trajectory unlike any other, RuPaul has solidified his status as an icon in recent years with the...

Birthed from the profits of Cher’s ‘Believe’ and Geri Halliwell’s blink-and-you-miss-it reality show judging career, Girls Aloud are the biggest UK girl band ever… who no-one outside the country actually knows.   With twenty consecutive top 10 UK singles, four million albums, and some of the most bonkersly brilliant bangers of the 21st century to their name, the band hit their commercial and criti...

Let us break the ice and give you more in our third episode, an exploration of a pop masterpiece created at the most tumultuous intersection of Britney Jean's career.   Released four years following her commercial zenith with 'In the Zone', 2007's 'Blackout' gathered innovative producer upstarts, like Danja and Bloodshy & Avant, alongside industry veterans, like t...

Episode two of your new favourite podcast plunges deep into The Velvet Underground and their debut album 'The Velvet Underground and Nico'. Produced by Andy Warhol and featuring the trickley tones of German songstress Nico, 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' is lauded as the first indie rock album ever, and one of the greatest of all time. Join Drew and Andy as they wax intrigue...

Drew and Andy kick off Aural Fixation with a personal analysis of the Divine Miss M, the wind beneath our wings, Bathhouse Bette herself: Bette Midler. In our inaugural episode, the conversation centres around Bette's 1993 greatest hits collection 'Experience the Divine' – a childhood favourite of Drew's – featuring beloved hits such as 'Chapel of Love', 'From a...