Love That Album

From the mid 70s through to the late 90s, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook had a songwriting partnership that had the pundits comparing them to Lennon/McCartney. Don’t feel under any pressure, guys. As mainstays of the band Squeeze, Tilbrook’s music and Difford’s lyrics covered a multitude of subjects including spouse abuse, living under cramped conditions, infidelity, and wanking. They survived t...

On Episode 17 of Love That Album, we try something new and something old. For the first time, there are three of us discussing the album of the episode. In addition to LTA regular Geoff Smith, I’m joined from Sydney by Springsteen aficionado John Stirrat (not he of Wilco fame), to discuss Bruce’s latest long player, “Wrecking Ball”. The fact that we’re covering Bruce is the “something old”, since...

For episode 16 of Love That Album podcast, we see the return of an artist previously discussed on the show, Paul Simon. Back in 1980, the music world was on the cusp of an onslaught of New Wave. Paul Simon wrote and starred in a film called One Trick Pony about a journeyman musician trying to find if he still has a place in the new musical landscape. Famous in the sixties for one anti-war song, he...

For episode 15 of Love That Album podcast, Michael Pursche (of Sitting in a Bar in Adelaide podcast) discuss the wonderful but seldom talked about album from 1981, the eponymous album for Broderick Smith’s Big Combo. (You might say that we’re doing a Brod-cast) Brod emerged from Carson and The Dingoes to form this fantastic ensemble that reminds me of “Darkness” era E-Street Band and reminds Micha...

Why, on a Ramones related show do I have the Allman Brothers song “‘Ramblin’ Man” going through my head? On Episode 14 of Love That Album, the one and only Doctor Zom of Silva and Gold podcast returns to discuss the Alan Arkush / Roger Corman rocksploitation film “Rock and Roll High School” featuring The Ramones in Oscar-worthy performances, as well as their Phil Spector produced album of the same...

If you were a pop music loving teenager back in 1980 (and face it – we all were) and living in Australia or New Zealand, then Split Enz album “True Colours” was part of your aural landscape. This album and its ridiculously catchy singles “I Got You” and “I Hope I Never” were impossible to avoid. The huge success the album gained came for the band after a rough patch living in England. So how does...

On episode 12 of Love That Album, regular contributor, Geoff Smith returns to discuss with me Suzanne Vega’s second album “Solitude Standing”. I’d heard the album many times. Geoff heard it twice. As a result, Geoff suggests the podcast undergoes a controversial name change. What was his suggestion? What did he have to say about the album? Will Geoff get kicked out of Tom’s Diner next time he’s in...

Back in the seventies, San Franciscan band The Tubes set out to shock all those who saw their live shows with their satire of our obsession with materialism, white rich kids with too much time on their hands, and what REALLY went on behind the white picket fences. They were a very theatrical band, but many of their songs stand proudly without the visuals. In 1979, they recorded their final album f...

Love That Album hits double digits, and I celebrate the start of 2012 by focusing on one of the great albums of 2011, Paul Simon’s “So Beautiful or So What”. Simon is in deep philosophical mode here (when isn’t he?), but unlike a couple of his most recent albums he has the melodies to match. This is a beautiful album using a small number of great musicians to convey Simon’s music in the best possi...

For the final Love That Album episode of 2011, my special guest, Julian Gillis, and I discuss our fave albums of the year and then shoot the shit about Matthew Sweet’s two brilliant slices of power pop, “Girlfriend” and “Altered Beast”. These albums are musically sunny and lyrically overcast. There’s some complex stuff going on in Matthew’s head. Does he have stalker tendencies? What is his intere...

This is a really big shooo. The longest Love That Album so far. I'm joined by co-host of the Silva and Gold podcast, Doctor Zom to discuss The Who's "Quadrophenia". We discuss in a lot of detail both the double album from 1973 (just re-released in November 2011 in a multi CD "Director's Cut" edition) and the 1978 film directed by Franc Roddam featuring a very young Ray Winstone and Sting in an exc...

For this episode of Love That Album, I’m working without the safety net of a co-host to bounce thoughts off. I discuss Joe Jackson’s album of 1982 “Night & Day”. Recorded only 3 years after his punky-pop debut “Look Sharp”, Jackson’s musical thoughts are miles away from his early style. More focussed on jazz, samba and piano ballads than punk, pop and ska, Night & Day is a modern musical masterpie...

I'm joined by Melbourne broadcaster and rock-guru Billy Pinnell for a discussion about The Doors' final album with Jim Morrison. Heavy on blues. No Oedipus allusions here. Was Paul Rothschild right to say Riders on the Storm was cocktail music? Is there too much focus on Morrison and not enough on Kreiger, Densmore and Manzarek? Was Morrison saying farewell to the Doors in song through this album?...

Maurice and Geoff Smith discuss Steve Earle's great album of 1997. It's a compendium of all that Earle holds dear - politics, justice, love, Woody Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt, bluegrass and RAWWWKKKK. The third part of the great trinity of albums released after a stint in jail, and with Earle desperately trying to stay off the substances. Where does this album stand in the line of other Earle rel...

In Australia, the band Cold Chsiel inspires either full blown adoration from those who grew up listening to them until today, or dismissiveness from those who only pay attention to the full blown hyena hysterics of lead singer Jim Barnes post-Chisel. In this episode of Love That Album, Jeff and Maurice discuss their two most popular albums East and Circus Animals. How did one follow up the other?...

Maurice and Jeff discuss in some depth why Get The Knack is a classic album, and should not be reviled by the shoe-gazing, too-cool-for-school, Nirvana-loving hipsters. Think about it - if My Sharona makes the Knack a one-hit-wonder, what does that say about Smells Like Teen Spirit? Simply put, Get The Knack is a hook-drenched rock and roll album about lust - isn't that the essence of rock and rol...

So it's like this, folks. This episode was meant to be about Geoff Smith and I chewing the fat about John Hiatt's classic album "Meet The Family". During the editing process, I somehow "edited out" that entire section - with no backup. AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!. Fortunately, Geoff agreed to record that section of the show again, but the recording program did something weird to the audio rendering it unli...

A debate between Maurice and Melbourne music Journalist Jeff Jenkins on one of life's more important issues: Which is the better Bruce Springsteen album? The Wild and the Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle or Darkness On The Edge of Town. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices