Spin It! The Record Ranking Podcast

We're just living that life, Von Dutch, cult classic, as we rank Charli XCX's hyperpop club record Brat! Its danceable melodies, carefree bite, and minimalist neon green aesthetic sparked a cultural movement in Brat Summer, and hits like 360, Apple, and Sympathy Is A Knife turned into certified Club Classics. Inspired by her early days in London's underground illegal rave scene, Brat sees Charli s...

Same as it ever was... We're letting the days go by as we review and rank Remain In Light by the Talking Heads! For their iconic 1980 record, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz migrated to the Bahamas to escape city life. While they were there they developed an affinity for the Caribbean ethos and African-inspired percussion, which they brought into the studio alongside producer Brian Eno. The result...

Ooh-wah-ah-ah-ah!!! This week we head into the Eye Of The Storm as we review and rank Immortalized, the riotous sixth studio album from Disturbed! After an indefinite hiatus in the early 2010s the band roared back onto the scene with this surprise record in 2015, featuring iconic moments like The Vengeful One, the ballad-adjacent The Light, and an unforgettable cover of The Sound Of Silence. Sucke...

Honey, Just Allow Him One More Chance! The Year Of Redemption blows us back into the North Country this week to revisit The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan! After Highway 61 Revisited didn't exactly leave Connor "going electric," we decided to wind back the clock to 1962 and explore one of Dylan's first masterpieces. After barely breaking even with his debut, people called him a folly... but with his sopho...

We're gonna keep on dancing into 2026 with Chappell Roan's electric debut album The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess! Join us as we review and rank this Grammy-nominated record full of powerful pop hits like Red Wine Supernova and HOT TO GO! From a small town in Missouri to the world's biggest stages, Chappell Roan's rise has been surreal. We'll talk about her early folk songwriting days, her m...

The Spin-ter Wonderland season is upon us! Get ready for a head-to-head bracket elimination of your favorite holiday hits with our annual NAUGHTY OR NICE Competition! We've selected fourteen songs by artists we've covered on the podcast in the last year and pitted them against one another to determine who comes out on top, based on YOUR VOTES! From Frank Sinatra's crooning Have Yourself A Merry Li...

We're heading to the Land Of Sweets this week and reviewing The Nutcracker ballet, an annual seasonal staple around the globe! The 1892 ballet proved to be Pyotr Tchaikovsky's swansong, serving as a capstone on a composing career that brought Russian music to western audiences. Today, the ballet brings in more than $50 million in annual ticket sales to support dance companies and education... but...

It's All Blues this week as we review and rank Kind Of Blue, the revolutionary instrumental modal jazz album by the legendary Miles Davis! Davis and his sextet (full of icons like John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley) abandoned the idea of chord progressions and studied scales, with minimal rehearsal. The result is a five-track improvised album that "changed the language of music." Its s...

It's like paradise spread out with a butter knife! This week we wanna scream "EUREKA!" with the colorful third record from Canadian sibling band Mother Mother! Ryan and Molly Guldemond noticed a striking lack of powerful melodic rock and set out to make the music they wanted to hear. After becoming British Columbia's next big thing (and releasing the future viral hit Hayloft), the band pushed high...

If you've lived your whole life before the First Light, you'd better check out Hozier's latest LP, Unreal Unearth! James & Connor are reviewing the "Unaired" edition of the album, with seven bonus tracks including Too Sweet, his biggest hit since Take Me To Church! This concept album inspired by Dante's Inferno takes us down circle by circle, vice by vice, so seamlessly that you'll forget you'...

You know him, you love him, You've Got A Friend In Him... It's Randy Newman! This week we're exploring his sardonic, sarcastic wit as we review and rank his commercial breakthrough, Sail Away! After years as a hit songwriter behind the scenes and a false start to his own recording career, Newman turned his greatest hits into a studio album full of social commentary that still resonates today. From...

Almost 200 weeks ago we explored Thirty Seconds To Mars' 2017 record America and... let's just say it didn't go well. For the Year Of Redemption, we decided the band needed a second chance so we're back to talk about A Beautiful Lie, the band's sophomore record that really solidified their arena rock sound. Jared Leto sings and screams his way through some of the band's all-time classics like Atta...

The Early November came out of nowhere in 2001, and after a strong debut in The Room's Too Cold, frontman Ace Enders got ambitious. Their sophomore record, The Mother, The Mechanic, And The Path, is a three-disc concept album that pushed every boundary. It's the longest album we've ever reviewed and scored, clocking in at 2 hours and 12 minutes, with more than 45 tracks that tell the story of a br...

Bonus Content! We sent our wolves to war with Asking Alexandria's Reckless And Relentless on Episode 224... but Connor wondered whether an album with less screaming and more melody could pique his interest. He listened to the band's 2017 self-titled album on his own, and we decided it needed a second look with this Backtrack. The band's shifted away from screaming and blended electronica into thei...

Got questions about being Reckless And Relentless? We do, and we're Asking Alexandria about their 2011 album. (Not literally asking, but we'll review and rank it just the same!) After guitarist Ben Bruce "Ship-Of-Theseused" his band from South Africa to London, they started making waves with vocalist Danny Worsnop and a metalcore sound that ruffled feathers and explored the human condition. On Rec...

Black Sabbath has us Paranoid as we review their sophomore album this week! After Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, and company literally invented the genre of heavy metal with their debut they knew they needed to push the envelope to further define and refine their style with the next release. With just three days of studio time and hits like War Pigs and Iron Man in their arsenal, find out if Parano...

Will The Real Slim Shady please stand up? Mixtober continues as we score and rank The Marshall Mathers LP, the third record by legendary Detroit hip-hop artist Eminem! His shocking, horror film-esque lyrics exploded onto the scene with his Slim Shady LP, and this time around (as the title suggests) he gives us a peek behind the persona with a personal glimpse into sudden fame and public backlash a...

HAPPY MIXTOBER! Connor is out of town, so once again the Mixtaper is taking over for his annual Halloween Thirteen playlist, with 13 songs guaranteed to get you into the spirit of the season! But there's a twist: too many holidays each year go underappreciated (and under-soundtracked), so this time around our resident dastard has decided to share some Halloween Hits with other holidays throughout...

No alarms and No Surprises! This week we're revisiting Radiohead for the Year Of Redemption! Connor tore into the experimental nature of Kid A on Episode 53, so we're turning back the clock to another definitive, revolutionary Radiohead record: OK Computer. We'll learn the story behind this iconic album (from transportation anxiety to haunted mansions), which features some of their greatest hits l...

Get ready to Rocket on a satellite of love with Def Leppard's 1987 hit record Hysteria! James & Connor discuss the band's challenges to grow an international fanbase through their first three albums of "lust, blood, and rock" music with a sleek, polished glam metal edge. We'll talk about the car accident that changed Thunder God Rick Allen's life and transformed Hysteria into a legendary album...

How do you cage an elephant? One bar at a time! There Ain't No Rest For The Wicked this week as we take on the self-titled debut from Cage The Elephant! This unpolished garage rock band from Bowling Green, Kentucky experiments with loud guitars, louder drums, and mile-a-minute soapbox lyrics that offer a candid look at life in 2009. We'll talk about their Foo Friends, stolen pockets, and more as J...

We were drowning and now we're Swimming in the depths of Mac Miller's introspective 2018 record, the final album he'd release in his lifetime. We'll talk about the Pittsburgh native's EZ Mac days and his evolution from frat lyrics to his now-signature deeply personal jazz rap. Swimming features hits like What's The Use and Self Care that see Mac navigate addiction, complicated relationships, and t...

Wop-Bop-A-Loo-Wop-A-Wop-Bam-Boom! This week we're Slippin' And Slidin' into the world of Little Richard Penniman! Raised on Gospel music in his dad's church, the War Hawk soon took to the stage to play "the Devil's music," complete with rollicking piano, screaming vocals, and boundless energy. His 1957 debut Here's Little Richard exploded onto the scene with hits like Tutti Frutti and Long Tall Sa...

We Got Her Back! The Year Of Redemption continues with Olivia Rodrigo's sophomore album GUTS. After our Year Two episode about Sour (Episode 54) James & Connor discovered they weren't in her primary audience demographic... but her maturing perspective and a new, punkier voice might elevate our opinions! Can the Ballads Of A Homeschooled Girl win us over? Hits like Vampire, Lacy, and Bad Idea R...

Doechii the Don, Doechii the Dean, Doechii Supreme has us caught in a Death Roll this week with her Grammy-winning mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal! TikTok turned Jaylah Hickmon from an aspiring choral singer into an overnight rap sensation. On her sophomore record the Swamp Princess blends styles and genres into a biting, analog hip-hop sound that tackles everything from mental health to relati...