Love That Album

There are some artists who make a career of changing their musical styles between albums. They took risks to remain artistically relevant or just because they don’t want to repeat themselves. David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Wilco, The Beatles, John Cale, XTC are all examples…..a ton of others could be nominated. Let’s talk about Suzanne Vega. Welcome to episode 170 of Love That Album podcast. From the mid...

Buddy Guy put out an album in 1991 called Damn Right I Got The Blues. The song sounds like so much of a form of catharsis. However, blues can also represent a form of celebration. There's pre-war country blues, jump blues, swamp blues.... There's blues styles from Chicago, Texas, Louisiana and other American regions. The blues is not one thing. It's old...it's contemporary. It's relaxed...it's hea...

The process of recording music in 2023 has changed drastically to what it was in the latter half of the 20th century.....sort of. Sure, musicians can go in to a recording studio with an engineer and record in a way not dissimilar to the days of old. However, as technology changed inside professional studios, it changed for musicians who wanted to get a great sound in their bedroom. Many studios co...

There's a quote attributed to Louis Armstrong: “All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song”. Apocryphal? Who knows? Still, it does raise the question as to what folk music actually is. It can be contemporary contemporary or traditional. It can be associated with any number of cultures. It can be instrumental or songs without instrumental accompaniment. The songs can be about...

Growing up in the eighties, commercial AM and FM rock radio in Australia was very supportive of local bands (well...... to a point). The biggest of them all was Cold Chisel which had hit after hit. They broke up in 1983, but their songs never left Australia's consciousness. Their original era and reformation albums are the soundtrack to Baby Boomer and Gen X music fans.....and their offspring. ….b...

Easybeats April continues at LTA HQ. Welcome to episode 165 of Love That Album. On the last episode, I spoke with author Jeff Apter about his book Friday On My Mind: The Life of George Young. His book looks at Young as musician with The Easybeats, and Young as songwriter and producer for Alberts Productions after the band broke up. This time around, I am joined by host of Let It Roll podcast, “Kid...

Ask any Australian rock fan who is the greatest Australian performer or band over the history of the last 70 odd years and you'll get a multitude of answers (as you would anywhere). It's a subjective question and there are generational factors to be taken into account. However, an Australian Performing Rights Association panel declared “Friday On My Mind” by The Easybeats to be the greatest Austra...

There was a time where Australian bands felt that the only way they were going to get noticed was to leave the country and head to London. Sometimes, this would translate to great popularity ...and sometimes, it meant bands would live under difficult financial circumstances while their music was not in danger of bothering the top 40. Welcome to episode 163 of Love That Album. I'm joined by previou...

The 1980s have often been derided musically. The truth is there was interesting stuff happening that we've conveniently forgotten. An interesting question is how the 80s treated musicians considered important in the 60s. How did they adapt with the technology and change in direction for songwriting? Once again, there are some who handled it better than others. Dylan started and finished the decade...

It's been 3 months since I recorded the most recent episode of Love That Album. Real life interfered with being able to do something fun like speak into a microphone about great music. The show had to go into hiatus.   It's with the utmost joy I can say.....welcome to episode 161 of Love That Album.   The hiatus is going into....ummm...temporary hiatus as I present my annual episode of favourite d...

Without repeating the details, over the years, John Hiatt has assumed the status of legend in LTA lore....go back to episode 100 if you need a refresher. His life story is the focus of episode 160 of the show. Is this episode any good? Have a little faith......   Welcome to episode 160 of Love That Album.   My friend of many years and fellow Hiatt fan Geoff Smith joins me as we welcome radio annou...

In the days before music streaming services became a ubiquitous, when physical media ruled the music world, the first thing a music fan encountered before playing the music on a record, a CD or a cassette was the artwork on the cover. The cover was the always gateway to the music. Some cover art is tastefully done, some covers have Facebook groups devoted to their awfulness. If done very well (or...

Since the Beatles showed up with a built-in songwriting team, bands have always had those members who practised the mysterious art of creating and arranging compositions rather than relying on outside professionals to do that for them. Of course, even those great songsmiths liked to take a break and release an album of music that inspired them to pick up the quill and ink in the first place – Bowi...

It's the tail end of the 70s, and top 40 music is heavily leaning to disco and AOR. Sure there's plenty of other things out there, but the charts point not only to disco artists, but pop singers jumping on board the disco train (Barbara Streisand, Kiss, Paul McCartney and Wings). Then 4 guys based in Los Angeles recorded and mixed a powerful rock and roll album in a little over 10 days, and for a...

In the past, Love That Album has avoided getting political. The albums being focused on for the most part didn't require the conversations to get embroiled in the very furnace that keeps people blathering on talk-back radio and social media – mostly in uncivilised fashion. That all changes for this episode. If you don't like talk about what a pack of dickheads (I use less polite terminology on the...

Are you all seated comfortable, too square on your botty? Then Love That Album can begin. Welcome to episode 155 of Love That Album podcast. As the 1960s rolled on, popular music evolved....and yet some of it looked back for inspiration. In the late 60s, the pop songs that had propelled the early British Invasion bands had moved on to make way for heavier sounds of psychedelia and blues based rock...

The late 60s to early 70s saw a popular run of troubadours, aka singer / songwriters who were usually known for performing acoustic songs, often of a confessional nature or trying to make sense of the world through their work. The best ones sought out new musical territory as they progressed through their work.   Welcome to episode 154 of Love That Album podcast.   Joni Mitchell’s run of albums fr...

As a kid, I was always told to “reach for the sky”.....I think what they meant was “reach out to Sky”....or something like that. Welcome to episode 153 of Love That Album. First of all, thanks for your patience. I didn't get to put out the planned Joni Mitchell episode in December 2021, so that was deferred to January 2022. That then got deferred due to the bastard bug hitting one of my co hosts....

Episode 153 of LTA has to be delayed. This is a brief explanation as to (as Marvin Gaye would have it) what is going on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Think of any number of singers of the 20th century to take to a stage: Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Bon Scott, Nina Simone.....”shyness” would not be any sort of adjective you'd use to describe these people. We're not focusing on any of them this time around. Welcome to episode 152 of Love That Album Podcast. To say that Nick Drake suffered from shyness could be the greatest understatement you...

You know what it's like when you discover a band that was around a long time ago, and then you inevitably go down a rabbit hole and discover a whole lot more music in a “Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation” kind of way? That's happened to me over the last few months. Welcome to episode 151 of Love That Album. A few months back, Christian Swain at Pantheon Podcasts (who supports Love That Album,...

Anyone who's listened to the podcast for a while or hung around the LTA Facebook group long enough knows that my favourite working band is Los Lobos. You'd also possibly be aware that group saxophonist and keyboard player Steve Berlin has joined me on LTA in the past AND on See Hear.....well, Steve's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. Welcome to episode 150 of Love That Album. Los Lobos have relea...

The 1970s going into the early 1980s are generally regarded as a purple patch of Australian cinema – The Australian New Wave. Film makers had financial support. Audiences wanted to see their own backyard on the big screen (before bloody cultural cringe set in again). There were films that focused on T&A and machismo, there were a lot of period pieces, and there were tales of crime. The films weren...

Welcome to part 2 of the Love That Album 10 Year Anniversary extravaganza. If you missed the first part, I asked 7 previous co hosts to recommend some favourite albums recorded over the lifespan of the show. In part 1, I had the first four guests (Ian McFarlane, Jeff Jenkins, Eric Peterson and Heather Drain). The three remaining guests who will share the albums they treasure over the previous deca...

A decade ago (July 14, 2011 to be precise), I unleashed the first episode of Love That Album podcast on the world. Music journalist and massive Bruce Springsteen fan, Jeff Jenkins and I debated which was a better album from the Boss – The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle (me) or Darkness On The Edge of Town (Jeff). I'm pretty sure I won...... I had no idea what I was doing in regards to...