Pop, Collaborate & Listen

Thirty years after their debut album it turns out that the Rolling Stones are still capable of getting to number one in the UK with a new record. The 90s were fucking weird. Is this actually a good album though, should the Stones still have bothered putting out new music to add to their legacy? Opinions are divided. For this episode we are joined by the wonderful Gaz Jones from the Trve. Cvlt. Pop...

Some albums are deserving of the term 'gamechanger' and here's a massive one from 1994. The Prodigy's second album 'Music For The Jilted Generation' introduced so many people to dance music who might not previously have given it a second thought so we were very excited to do an episode on it. So excited in fact that we brought a guest in to help us out so huge thanks to Cliff Barnes from the Devil...

Who's up for a bit of Swedish reggae-pop then? Who knew that was going to be a big genre in the early 90s? Apparently Ace of Base did and they gave us quite a lot of it on this, their debut* album, which got to number one in 1994. As well as discussing the merits of The Sign and All That She Wants we chat some rubbish about Suicidal Tendencies, Kyuss and the Reverend Horton Heat among many others....

We're taking a metaphorical journey to Ireland to dip our toes into the debut album by The Cranberries 'Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can't We'. A band that both Dave and Krister admit to not liking the majority of what they've heard but then again the majority of what they've heard is the single 'Zombie' so perhaps there's more to The Cranberries "dan dis". As well as pointed digs at Krister'...

How in the merry hell did 2 Unlimited get ANOTHER number one album in the UK? We thought we were done with these guys after our episode in Season 4 but here we are again apparently. So is this one a drastic departure away from their hyper-cheesy pop rave previous albums? Or course not. What are you, mad? Enjoy our journey through another record of Eurohouse ridiculousness and be thankful you don't...

We are back, and so is Seal with another self-titled album. After doing Seal 'Seal' in our second season we find ourselves doing Seal 'Seal' in season 5 as well. Has the music changed or progressed? Is this a very different beast to the one that went before? What we did find is that this is up there with the most divided we have been on an album - let us know which way you end up landing. But as w...

We are thoroughly back into our regular episodes after a bumpy, special-riddled journey of recent times. And this one is about Erasure's sixth album 'I Say I Say I Say' from May of 1994. We have already done an Erasure album back in Season 2 and we thought that that record was just ok, maybe this one will be more up our street? Along the way we also chat about Jeru the Damaja, Pearl Jam and, erm,...

Yes, yes, ANOTHER diversion from our regular journey through the 90s, this time an episode all about Senser's debut album 'Stacked Up' from May 1994. This is an album that we both have a lot of love for, one that we played over and over when it came out and so we were keen to check it out again to see how it stands up after nearly 30 years. We have contributions from some of our podcast buddies pe...

If you've ever heard Dave talk about Blur on the podcast before you'll know that he was NOT looking forward to this episode one bit. But rules are rules and so we had to cover it and see what we reckoned - the question is did it change Dave's mind? The answer is pretty much a "no" but with some definite concessions along the way. But apart from hearing Dave rant about Damon you can also hear us ch...

Sound the Prog Rock Siren, we're back in business with Pink flipping Floyd and their 1994 album 'The Division Bell'. An album which the band thought at the time would be their last - did they try and mix things up for their swansong and put together a record full of upbeat happy tunes to make you laugh and dance? Well, no. This episode also sees us chatting about acts such as Terrorvision, Rollins...

In the second of our mid-1994 sidesteps away from the actual number one albums we decided to do a full episode on Soundgarden's massive breakthrough album 'Superunknown' which was released on the same day as last episode's NIN 'The Downward Spiral'. We're both big fans of this record but came to it from different angles back in the day and so are interested to see if the whole thing stands up 30 y...

It's our 100th episode!! Which is mad enough in itself so we figured we should mark the occasion with a bonus episode on a true classic album of the 90s, Nine Inch Nails 'The Downward Spiral'. Dave came into this one already a huge fan of the record but Krister was brand new to a lot of it. Along the way we have a few clips from some old friends and former guests such as Darren from our Def Leppar...

Like a bit of existential misery and complaining with your indie guitar music, do you? Well what a lucky day you're about to have being able to hear us talk about Morrissey's fourth solo album 'Vauxhall And I' from March 1994. Both of us love some Smiths tunes but don't really know any of Moz's solo stuff so we're not sure what this is going to be like going in. But it's a bumper time period for o...

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why did two Enigma albums have to get to number one meaning we are duty bound to listen to them? 1994 continues its rollercoaster up and down ride with 'The Cross Of Changes', the second album from new age bastards Enigma. Thankfully we are able to talk about other music that was happening at the time as well such as Therapy, Beck and Low among many others....

After last episode's adventure into pop-dancehall we're doing a pretty extreme 180 into the world of Tori Amos and her second solo album 'Under The Pink' from February 1994. Will Dave decide that these songs could also be improved with some toasting from the man Chaka D? We shall find out. We also managed to squeeze in some chat about Reel II Reel ft. The Mad Stuntman, Deep Forest (at which point...

Season Five, people! Imagine that if you can: we have survived the albums from 1990-93 relatively unscathed and we're now diving headfirst into 1994 to see what that holds for us. And it appears to hold Chaka Demus & Pliers. We decided that we needed some help in taking this one on so we drafted in Stephen Hill from the Trve. Cvlt. Pop podcast to join us since he had previously espoused his love f...

The second, and concluding, rundown of our own personal favourite albums from 1993 to round off Season Four with a festive bang. We also managed to rope in some fellow nerds from other podcasts to drop in with their choices so you'll find some of those clips peppered throughout the show. Make sure you listen after the closing credits to hear Steve and Sam from True Cult Pop 's FULL chat that they...

On our journey through the number one albums of 1993 we got the chance occasionally to chat about some other records that came out during the year which we were particular fans of and this is our end of season opportunity to expand on those and make a list of our personal top tens. We've split it over two episodes so this is part one, kind of the lower end of our lists. Check it out and see if you...

It's time for the first of our End-Of-Season-Four bonus episodes and we're starting with a chat about our favourite hip hop albums that came out during 1993. You can hear selections from all of our picks (except for Gunshot which isn't on Spotify so go and listen to it on YouTube instead ) on our companion playlist .  Feel free to get in contact with what your own choices would have been, what did...

Well lookee here - we started this whole podcast about four years ago with a Phil Collins album and here he is again like a bald-headed returning character in the soap opera that is Pop Collaborate & Listen. Can this album live up to the heady heights of his 1990 effort 'But Seriously'? Probably not to be honest. But at least in this episode you also get to hear us chat about MC Ren and Guns & Ros...

We're back with a bonafide POP monster in the form of Take That's second album 'Everything Changes' from October of 1993. Quite simply one of the biggest boy bands of the decade and indeed of all time with their breakthrough record - but does it stand up to a fresh listen nearly thirty years down the line? As well as discussing which of the Take That boys is simply dreamy we are able to discuss so...

It turns out that this was the Pet Shop Boys' first, and only, number one album which was a surprise to both of us considering how big they were in the latter half of the 1980s but neither of us had actually heard a PSB's album in full before so we went into this with pretty high hopes that there would be some gems inside. Just how many gems we did uncover remains to be seen. But we also chatted a...

We've been looking forward to this one for a while - if you've already heard our episode on Nevermind then you'll know we're fans of Nirvana anyway and it was a treat to go back and revisit this album in full. Be prepared for a lot of shameless gushing from some fanboys. But you can also hear us gush about acts like Souls of Mischief, Sepultura and Prince among others. Playlist of everything we ch...

We are back after a longer than anticipated break so thank you for sticking with us (or thank you for just joining us if you're a new listener - you're very welcome), we reckon you're going to enjoy this episode a lot. We managed to bully Dave's wife Jenny into joining us to talk about Meat Loaf's massive 'Bat Out Of Hell II' album because when she was a child it was the only CD she owned and ther...

We confess right at the start of this one that we were not fans of Ms Carey in the early 90s but tried to keep an open mind going into the episode. And it's fair to say that more than once we were very pleasantly surprised; consider some of those words completely eaten. Alongside singing along to some massive power ballads we take the opportunity to talk about other acts such as The Wildhearts, St...