Polishing Turds: A Bad Music Podcast

Did your parents make you listen to Kidz Bop CDs back in the day? If so, we apologize for inadvertently triggering your childhood trauma. For everyone else, let's admire all the ways this seemingly innocent brand manages to embarrass itself over and over. From horrendous production to inexplicable lyric changes to a litany of ill-advised spinoffs and marketing gimmicks, Kidz Bop is living pro...

We're back for our 5th annual Polishing Turds Holiday special! This year we'll be covering the wacky and disturbing world of AI, perhaps the one instrument capable of making Christmas music even worse. We'll take you on a cringe-tastic sleigh ride through vast snowfields of slop; from carols of reindeer sacrifice to fake vulgar Motown hits through - and I swear to god this real - a...

In the conclusion of our series, we bring the Babymetal story up to date. Like it our not, these kawaii heroines are here to stay, having upset the Metal Establishment and fostered a fanatically loyal fanbase that follows them through every puzzling career move. But are they in fact "the future of metal"? And if so is that a good or bad thing for the genre as a whole? Other topics of dis...

Fox Gods, crucifixions, and magic corsets oh my!  We continue the story of Babymetal by exploring the wild and confusing "lore" surrounding this group. We also examine the lyrical content of their early songs, cover the initial reactions they received from the Western music scene, and tackle the sticky question of whether or not Babymetal truly is "metal". [Sorry, again, about...

Ah, how fitting that this episode number is 2/3 of the Number of the Beast! Today we continue to excavate the origins of Babymetal by diving into the history of Heavy Metal in Japan. This episode features some of the coolest bands we've ever covered, so for once we're actually excited to talk about our subject matter! FOLLOW US: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@polishing_turds Instagram...

What comes to mind when you think of Heavy Metal ? Is it three cute little girls wearing Lolita dresses and doing synchronized dance moves? Well if you answered "no" you're out of touch, my bruh! Welcome to the preposterous world of Babymetal , a Japanese girl group that combines the saccharine imagery of J-pop with the bone-crushing heaviness of metal. Sounds incongruous? It is, an...

Don't you hate it when an artist wastes everyone's time by dedicating verses or even entire songs to shouting out dozens of random cities? No? It's just us? Well too bad, we're talking about it anyway! Why do so many artists feel compelled to list off dozens of cities they may or may not have been to? Where did this phenomenon begin, and which songs are the absolute worst offen...

We wrap up this beast of a series by covering the last four decades of Village People history: from their uncomfortably cringe downfall to their recent return to relevance at the hands of a fascist goon.  This ever-dumbfounding narrative winds its way through the topics of Milkshakes, Phone Sex, Copyright Law, German Soccer, and so much more! FOLLOW US: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@polishing_...

The Village People hit their stride with such monster hits as "Y.M.C.A." and "In the Navy", proving that mainstream America will go to any lengths to not get the hint as to what their music's really about. We'll analyze the music from the band's golden age while also connecting it to the broader context of the late 70s music scene...  You see, by this point Disco...

We begin a three part series on the Village People, who for legal reasons we must tell you are absolutely not gay at all... FOLLOW US: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@polishing_turds Instagram: polishing.podcast email: polishingturdspodcast@gmail.com

Awww yeah! We're back with another low-effort minisode where we catch up on all the recent goings-on from artists we profiled in the past. Come hear about all the wacky exploits from your favorite Polishing Turds alumni. We've got Cruises with Creed, AI experiments with the Black Eyed Peas, juicy drama from the Cyrus family, and so much more!  What better way to start off this horrible,...

You thought American Christmas music was dumb? Wait till you hear what the folks across the pond are up to... This year's Holiday Special examines the annual tradition of the UK Christmas Number One. Each year the British public gets hyped up over which song is going to top the charts on Christmas week. Sounds innocent enough, and yet for whatever reason half the songs they pick make no godda...

We conclude our interminable Iced Earth series with the dramatic assault of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021. This riot was facilitated in part by a wacky  militia called the Oath Keepers, a group whose membership happened to include Jon Schaffer.  As usual we go deep; covering the history of the Oath Keepers as well as the far-right Patriot movement from which they emerged. We also di...

How did Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer become a deranged conspiracy theorist? What led him down that toxic rabbit hole, and what exactly are the beliefs that led him to storm the Capitol on January 6? It turns out most of Jon's anger and paranoia was centered around the Federal Reserve system, which conspiracy cranks believe is responsible for a sinister plot to impose a New World Order on...

We cover the bizarre story of heavy metal legends Iced Earth, whose lead member was involved in the January 6 Capitol Riot.  (Sorry about the dog barking in the background lol) YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btd2KxXOvNc&list=PL6QhZ78uzXMohSWyUqf72sHHcCMjDd1PK Selected Sources: Metal Injection article from 1/6/2021: https://metalinjection.net/politics/is-this-a-photo-of-iced-...

Imagine Dragons have become too popular for their own good; a worldwide backlash is only inevitable! Critics, musicians, and countless Twitter randos unite to take the piss out of this commercial rock behemoth. They are, to put it bluntly, the New Nickelback... All this ridicule naturally hurts Dan Reynolds' feelings, and he responds to it the only way he know how: by making crappy music. Ind...

In Part II of our series we take on Imagine Dragons at their biggest, their boldest, their most obnoxious stage. During the mid-2010s this "rock" band brought their thunderous stomp-clap earworms to every observable realm of the human experience. Whether you were simply trying to listen to the radio, watch a football game, or take a stroll through a shopping center you COULD NOT escape t...

Who are Imagine Dragons? Why has their music dominated every mall, stadium, and TV commercial for the past 10 years? Why do old fogies like us find their music so obnoxious?? Perhaps Imagine Dragons are the industry's final attempt to kill rock and roll. Or maybe their music is a sincere expression of their soul and just happens to sound like that. Either way, the only to find out is to dig i...

Live Aid - the 1985 worldwide charity extravaganza - has often been called the "greatest concert of all time." So why is it here getting the Polishing Turds treatment? Well, there's more to Live Aid than the iconic Queen set from Bohemian Rhapsody . There's the disturbing, politically-charged famine that inspired the event in the first place. There's a famously inept reuni...

It's a brand new millennium. The "Tubthumping" heyday is long gone and most people have forgotten Chumbawamba even existed. But that doesn't mean our quirky comrades are down for the count; on the contrary they're ready as ever to confront this modern tech dystopia with their trademark wit and biting social commentary, in addition to a rather liberal employment of accordio...

At long last, it's TUBTHUMPING TIME!! After endless digressions through history, politics, and obscure music scenes we finally arrive at Chumbawamba's era-defining hit. What does "Tubthumping" mean? What inspired its composition? Which creepy pederast mogul pushed it onto pop radio? We're gonna tell you everything you wanted to know about this tune and then some! This epis...

Our heroes continue their wayward march toward improbable fame, satiating their anarchic through dalliances with new genres of music, including dance, pop, reggae, and a mysterious unheard-of one which we apparently think exists.  And of course this being Chumbawamba, we've supplied the necessary historical context for each esoteric track. Topics of conversation in this episode will include L...

( Okay FINE we'll tell the actual story of Chumbawamba and not a bunch of obscure noisy punk bands you've never heard of!) Before they were pop superstars, they were a misbegotten collection of misfits from the post-industrial wasteland of Northern England. They lived collectively in a dilapidated squat house, sharing all food and money (and, occasionally, each other's bodies). They...

In 1997 a smash-hit single called "Tubthumping" took the world by storm. Its authors were an eccentric eight-piece outfit from Leeds, England who kept insisting that they were anarchists. Media and fans alike were confused: what did this feel-good drinking song have to do with politics? And what were a bunch of radicals doing making pop music anyhow? This is the story of Chumbawamba... s...

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ABUSE, KIDNAPPING, AND OTHER GRUESOME SUBJECT MATTER. Hey guys. Remember Viper, that insane meme rapper who sang about the virtues of smoking crack? Well recently he's been arrested on some truly disturbing charges. This story is so monumentally insane that we had to talk about it separately from our regular content.  This episode is short and not very fu...