Personal Jukebox Music Podcast

The original Live Aid is still held up nearly 40 years after it occurred on July 13th 1985 as a major cultural moment. Bob Geldolf’s charity behemoth, bursting with musical acts and celebrities from the time raised mega-millions for the charities it was shoving to the forefront and raised the profile of nearly everybody involved. Simon is back, heavily affected by early season hay fever with 80’s...

Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, John Densmore and the leather-clad Lizard King himself Jim Morrison were The Doors. Described by their own website as intoxicating, genre-bending, provocative & uncompromising, this LA quartet went on to to establish a string of hit singles and big selling albums all within the space of under 5 years before Jimbo’s untimely death. Although the rest of the band did carr...

Simon & Chris return with the second part of this compilation album. Please listen back to the last episode for the opening half. Loads more of the mid 00’s band are covered, let’s dig in and get this one done. Rate and review the Personal Jukebox on Spotify, iTunes and all of your podcast providers! And don’t forget to subscribe. We’d super appreciate the love! Got any questions about the show? Q...

This is part 1 of a double episode. For the first time, Simon welcomes Chris Wellings to the podcast to pour over what some may consider to be Indie Landfill, the summer of 2005’s compilation album Festival, but this one is chock-full of big hitters. This double disc cd was squarely aimed at the mainstream side of festival-goers of the year including a host of headliner-worthy acts as well as a fe...

Simon & Neil risk any remaining shred of credibility by reviewing Avril Lavigne’s 2002 album Let Go. Released at the time of Pop-Punk saturation & armed with a trio of radio-friendly big hitters, Avril’s debut was seen for many as an attempt by record company bosses to cash in on the scene by creating a girl punker to peddle to the younger female demo… and it worked. The disc was the biggest pop d...

Settle down and listen to the latest episode of the podcast, where this time we look at the most successful selling album we’ve covered so far (currently sitting at the 13th highest selling worldwide ever) Alanis Morisette’s major breakthrough Jagged Little Pill. Alanis’ 3rd album was a major change in style to her previous output and drew from the massive Alt-Rock prominence of the time but how d...

Formed in the back room of a London fashion store as the brainchild of Malcolm McLaren sometime in 1975 and initially lasting just two and a half years, the Sex Pistols were one of the most groundbreaking acts in the history of music. They were responsible for kicking off the Punk scene in the United Kingdom and inspiring absolutely loads of following budding musicians (?) to ply their trade.  So...

Simon welcomes back the main man Stewart Boyd to cover the debut album from Sheffield’s very own Arctic Monkeys.  Released at the tail end of mid 00’s UK indie landfill era and lauded for their organic entrance onto the day’s music scene, the Monkeys were hailed as the latest saviour of guitar music and very much christened the ‘Cool new thing’. We look back to see if they have the tunes and chops...

For the last time for a fair while we head both back to the eighties and into chart countdown territory. April 1986 really is a catch-all for music of the era, as this episode takes in everything from Van Halen to Sam Fox via Prince, The Bangles & Sinitta. Our old pal Gaz is back alongside Simon as they discuss the music from the chart of the day as well as Celebs Go Dating, Chris Moyles’ I’m a Ce...

When the instrumentalists from Rage Against The Machine found themselves singer-less, friend of the band Rick Rubin suggested former Soundgarden frontman/vocalist extraordinaire Chris Cornell. And thus was formed the millennium’s first rock supergroup.  Simon & Gaz kick off the new year by reflecting on the festive season, Gaz’s arcade cabinet purchase & receive the nicest email ever sent to the p...

It’s party time on the last episode of the year so grab your glow sticks, blow your whistles and fire off your klaxons as we pit 2 dance compilation albums (90s Dance Classics vs. 90s Dance Anthems) off against each other. Cuts by Faithless, Basement Jaxx, Baby D, Urban Hype & Robin S as well as over 40 others fight it out in an attempt to find the quintessential 90s dance/house track.  Neil (He’s...

Episode 62 of the Personal Jukebox brings you the 1998 third studio album from Marilyn Manson, Mechanical Animals. Released at the height of the band’s popularity/infamy, it signals a change in musical direction and offers a (shudder) concept album. Any good? or just pyro, ballyhoo and religion baiting? Mr. Neil Strong hops back on the pod to discuss this one out with Simon. They also cover the re...

Simon welcomes Ning back onto the pod as they take in Nirvana’s final recorded act, MTV’s Unplugged in New York. Recorded both when they were legitimately the biggest band in the world and less than 6 months before Kurt’s demise this has long been held up as one of, if not THE most iconic Unplugged performances.  It’s stacked with many unheard and unfashionable-at-the-time covers and poignant perf...

Little Simon returns to the podcast to up the 'words per minute' quota and reminisce over the Top 20 chart from mid-February 2003. A countdown which is completely intentionally topped by one of his most-loved singles OF ALL TIME. Lots & lots of stuff discussed on this one, kick back and listen in. Get in touch with the pod via jukeboxpod@gmail.com Follow us on Facebook or Instagram @jukeboxpod 

Time to go way, way back to the Autumn of 1970 where 4 lads from Birmingham, Osbourne, Iomi, Butler and Ward released their second record to the masses. Seemingly universally acclaimed by fans of Sabbath as their best offering and labelled Greatest Metal Album of All Time by Rolling Stone in 2017 (hmmmm, I dunno….) this 8 track stomper followed up the previous year’s self-titled debut. Simon welco...

It’s time for another big one on the Personal Jukebox as Simon teams up with Stewart Boyd to finally take in the second album offering from Oasis.  Released in the heady, Britpop-heavy (and peak) times of 1995 this is an absolute colossus that made Oasis a tabloid editor’s dream & legitimately the biggest and most popular band across the British Isles. Regularly ranked on ‘Best of’ lists worldwide...

Simon welcomes back our old pal Lez to pour over the 35 (!) year old debut scene-shattering album Appetite for Destruction by Guns N’ Roses. Released at the tail end of 1987 and full of all-timers and bangers, this album changed the game for the hair/glam metal/hard/cock rock acts of the era and kicked off the band’s accent to legitimately being labelled the ‘Biggest Band in the World’ BUT, is it...

Let’s head back to the heartland of  the podcast for an episode on Terrorvision’s 1994 sophomore offering How to Make Friends and Influence People. Back to the time when the burgeoning Britpop scene had a somewhat smaller BritROCK sibling. Simon and Boyd put any impartiality to one side and head back to younger days to gush over the band’s incredibly long-titled effort in much the same way that th...

D’you know what I mean? In celebration of this podcast’s 2nd birthday Neil once again joins Simon as they fill those glasses and each offer their own, very different top tunes from the 1980s.  They discuss the demise of John Terry’s NFTs & Aitch whilst Neil discovers that Salt n Pepa are not a one-hit wonder and shockingly reveals that somehow he’s never seen E.T.!  Get in touch jukeboxpod@gmail.c...

WHAT?!? Nickelback on the Personal Jukebox? Guess it had to happen sooner or later.  Simon & Neil, neither particular fans of the Canadian ensemble give Chad and his mates a decent shake of it as they take in the band’s HUUGE selling 5th album All the Right Reasons.  We also get a belated round-up of this year’s Download festival, discuss being mistaken for Chris Moyles in public and bang on like...

Hey Pop Pickers! If you’ve ever wondered which singles shifted the most copies in the UK chart throughout the noughties but didn’t want to have to deal with the X Factor winner’s guff or any ‘charidee’ tripe then you’re in the right place. Simon and Mr. Neil Strong take a (very) free and easy, breezy gander over the 25 highest selling tracks whilst attempting to pinpoint the moment Neil shed his e...

Heads up kids, take heed of that explicit tag. It’s been nearly 2 years but FINALLY….. Fatty Gibbs has come back to the Personal Jukebox Podcast. Simon welcomes back Gibbo to wax lyrical about back in the summer of ‘95 when they were but young pups. They discuss football, losing girlfriends, Gibbo’s online dating/real life relationship debauchery in some pretty lurid detail and have a good old sin...

Way back on an early episode of the podcast we looked at the 2001 debut album from Shinoda, Copperpot and the boys so let’s see how they rounded out their as-of-now resume with 2017’s One More Light.  Released barely 2 months before Chester’s death, the overall sound of the record is completely different to any of the previous output and divided an already fractious fanbase.  Copperpot’s no.1 fan...

After Kurt Cobain’s suicide and the obvious end of Nirvana, drummer Dave Grohl was left with a pocket full of self-wrote songs but no band to record them so he B&Q’d it and completely recorded all parts himself. Simon and Jukeboxpod fave Stewart Boyd dissect the debut album from (The?) Foo Fighters from 1995, long before the fully fleshed-out line-up became arena & festival fillers with a definite...

Time for something a bit different as we take a look at an album only released in the last year. Simon, Ning and the debuting Sammie  hunker down and take in Limp’s latest offering to find out if it was worth the over-10 year wait, where it sits in the Bizkit cannon and what to do if attacked by a (polar)bear. We also cover all the stuff put out in the 11 year gap since 2011’s Gold Cobra and work...