The Album Concept Hour

" From the slums of Shaolin, Wu-Tang Clan strikes again The RZA, the GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck Raekwon the Chef, U-God, Ghostface Killah and the Method Man ..." (and also Masta Killa...) That's right. Today we're talking about the greatest rap album of all time made by the greatest rap collective of all time. It's time to enter the 36 chambers of death... "Enter the Wu-Tang" is explos...

"We come from dirt and when we transition out we go back to dirt. […] We’re CPUs, our brains are uploading, downloading, transmitting, passing back and forth information. And with all computers you got your bugs, you got your viruses. But are those negatives, positives, features? Or not? I think it’s a conversation I want to have with us as a society, as human beings, about what it means to tell s...

What is Christian Rock? Where did it come from? Was it always so worship-y? Today on a very special episode of The Album Concept Hour, we're going to be answering all of those questions for you. Brad has teased his background in the Christian music industry before and with the help of his close friend and 2nd/3rd mother, Kathy Taylor from the Give Me 1 Reason podcast, they are going to compare not...

Today we get a chance to talk to Denver musician Scott Uhl about his project Spiral Cell and the 2016 debut album "The Maze in the Tree Rings". Scott is a one man band, mostly using loops to fill out his recordings and live shows, but gets assistance from musician friends when he needs it. In his debut as the masked figure behind Spiral Cell, Scott delivers a fully fleshed out space opera in "The...

It's the end of Inspector 34 month and we have none other than Patrick Auclair, guitarist & pedal operator of the band, and today we have a very special episode with some heavier-than-usual content. Just a small trigger warning, we are going to be talking about predatory behavior towards minors and although we try not to get graphic, we are discussing real world events about the lead singer, J...

Today we have perhaps the greatest (and possibly only) indie-lofi-folk-punk all star team up of all time (change my mind). To start off we have Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum singing so simple and sweet... followed by fellow Neutral Milk alum, and master of the musical saw, Julian Koster, and their producer from "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea", and inventor of the non-Pythagorean pitch sc...

"The Elektra staff had changed completely. They had fired the guy who signed us, and basically everybody else, including the president. They brought in this whole new staff whose introduction to Ween was 12 Golden Country Greats . With them not knowing us, they didn’t know if it was a put-on. A lot of people have so many misconceptions about that record. I think they thought it was our way to get...

Meat Loaf is one of a kind rock legend. Teamed up with Jim Steinman, they forever changed the landscape of rock with the greatest rock opera of all time: "Bat out of Hell". Like his character in The Rock Horror Picture Show come to life, Meat Loaf took to the stage like... well, like a bat out of hell. His vocal range was astounding and his energy was much bigger than any frontman at the time. Wit...

Austin Powers. Malcolm in the Middle. Looney Tunes. Blues Clues. Istanbul ( not Constantinople). What do all of these things have in common? No, it's not that they all include slapstick gags, it's that they have all had songs from the quintessential art rock group, They Might Be Giants. Whatever strangely themed music they made, the level of production mastery they brought to it was undeniable. “B...

Alright people, we have a real treat for your ears today. In this episode we are talking about some real rock legends. We're talkin' Clapton, we're talkin' Dylan, we're talkin' Muddy Waters, we're talkin' Neil Young and Joni Mitchell at the same time, need we say more?? You might be wondering what kind of epic happenstance brought all of these legends together? The answer is simple. It was for The...

Just one year after the world got the hip-hopera masterpiece "A Prince Among Thieves," the world got another injection of masterful hip-hop story-telling, in 2000's "Deltron 3030." It's an adventure that traverses time and space, in a universe where rap battling is the most honorable form of combat, and a way to fight the corporate overlords. Our heroes are Del the Funky Homosapien as "Deltron-Zer...

What is outlaw country? Is it the raw and rugged wild spirit, like in Hank Williams? Is it Johnny Cash playing at Folsom Prison? Or is it just a moniker used to ground a new generation of country artists that could thrive outside of the country music machine? Some would say it's the latter, but it's really a combination of the three. Before the 70s, if you were a country artist, you followed somew...

The cinematic hip hop coming of age tale continues and Tariq is really being taken in by this new flashy lifestyle, but in this half of the album, the other shoe drops. After a run in with the cops that lands him in a cell, dealing with the guilt to his mom and his reverend, and a brutal betrayal, Tariq goes through the entire school of hard knocks in just days. I won't spoil it for you, I'll just...

There was a lot going on in 1999. Y2K was looming over us, we were all partying like Prince (the artist formally known as) told us to, all colors were quickly being replaced with chrome, and all the pop monsters like Britney Spears, Cristina Aguilera, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, etc, RULED the charts. But underneath the bubbly surface, a hip hop coming of age tale of epic proportions was being carefu...

Alright, everyone... It's finally time... to talk about the King.... No, not Elvis, we're talking about the real King. King Crimson. The band that was your favorite classic rock band's favorite band. One of those bands that although hugely influential, has maintained a weird underground cult status as well. They weren't the first to attempt some of the things they were doing, but they were certain...

Today's episode is a FREE PREVIEW of SIDE B (available at patreon.com/flyoverstatepark)! Host of this podcast, Brad LeBaron joins new cohosts, Reis Galvan and Nathan Maney as they attempt to complete what Sufjans Stevens started with his 50 states project, beginning with "Michigan" (available at patreon.com/flyoverstatepark)! It's Stevens' home state, and we unravel the mysteries of Stevens and th...

Its right in the middle of the holidays and we hope that everyone is having a wonderful time and remembering what brings us together. But we know that this is a hard year for holidays and many of us are not physically with our families or loved ones for the first time in recent memory, and it has surely taken a toll on our collective mental health. With that in mind, we thought what better way to...

Its the holiday season, and even though the world is on fire, there is still one holiday tradition that we can practice: throwing on some Frank Sinatra and sipping martinis next to the Christmas tree. We've heard your croons and we're covering Sinatra again, but this time he has a little more pep in his step. As a followup to "In the Wee Small Hours," "Songs for Swingin' Lovers" could not be more...

Love indie music from the 2000s? Do you enjoy a nice sea shanty from time to time? Do you read short stories and wish that they would be put to music form? Well, look no further. The Extraordinaires are a band that excels at short stories (and I'm not just talking about their album "Short Stories"). "Ribbons of War" is a classic star-crossed lovers story turned into a tale at sea. It switches betw...

Scoop Troop get out your pens, because we have Inspector 34 on the podcast, and there's so much to learn. Hailing from Lowell, Massachusetts, Inspector 34's music ranges from apocalyptic indie to psychedelic to neo-surf, with some cool guitar doodlies and screaming to round it all out. They recently release their hit music video for Gray House , where they hit on the real theme behind their music,...

The eras of Voïvod are many. His adventures traverse the stars and civilizations throughout the cosmos. He has been both a prisoner on a prison planet, and a warden of one. He's spent some time in Morgoth, and has seen much destruction. The band, Voïvod, merely act as intergalactic bards, consigned to tell the tales of his adventures. On earth we call it thrash metal. In our earth year 1987 they r...

Missing the boy bands of yesteryear? Longing for fresh group choreography with equally fresh vocal variety? Remembering a time right around the turn of the Willenium, when pop and hip hop completely took over the airwaves? Well you can stop nostalgia-ing because K-Pop has brought it back. Introducing BTS, a Korean Pop group of 7 that has broken record after record and honestly we should have known...

We've covered a variety of relationship themed music in this podcast. From "Rumours" and the complicated spaces between friendship and infatuation, to predatory relationships that Alanis Morissette sheds light on, to the crooning longing of Sinatra for a relationship past, to just plain toxic relationships such as in "Song's About Jane." But today we finally have it. An album about the complexitie...

Southern rock. In the pantheon of rock, it goes back to the times of Bo Diddley and includes many rock groups over the decades: Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Band in the 60s, The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd in the 70s, Pantera in the 80s, The Black Crowes in the 90s, and of course the infamous rise of Kid Rock in the 2000s. But somewhere in the late 90s or early 2000s, a strange chil...

[to be read in the voice of Nick Wiger] William Hanna and Joseph Barbera met when they were both working at MGM studios in 1930. This was a time when Disney was still building their monopoly on family entertainment, and they were the kings of animation. In 1957, they joined forces to create H-B Enterprises (eventually renamed to Hanna-Barbera Productions), in the hopes of challenging the vast empi...