The Fairly KickAss Podcast

Ass-Kickers! Welcome to the Rush episode for the Song of the Summer. Ass-Kickers! Welcome to the Vibes episode for the Song of the Summer. [cue that one gif from Road to El Dorado where Miguel and Tulio are all "Both! Both-both... both."] Yep, we smashed the two episode types together. It's basically a Rush with more discussion... or is it a Vibes with more rankings? I mean, what even IS a "podcas...

Ass-Kickers! Thanks to technical difficulties, you get a reprieve. Specifically, a reprieve from the same tired old May Reviews bit... you know the one, we're 5/12ths through the year so let's talk about 5/12ths of this, 5/12ths of that. Fun the first year? Sure! Fun the fifth year? Nah. I (Zack, clearly) had this year's iteration 90% written - I just needed to update a few more things, slap the s...

Ass-Kickers! There was a bit of news on the music front today. (Wednesday 5/28/2025, a date that was absolutely not backdated to account for an episode that was posted late, couldn't be us, nope.) Specifically, the record for the most RIAA Diamond Certifications by one artist was set. For reference, here's the qualification, according to Wikipedia : 500,000 units: Gold album1,000,000 units: Platin...

More like "LATE-pril", amirite? I'm rite, of course. It's like May Something-or-Other-th. We get it. Sometimes things get weird! For example: the Eurovision Song Contest preview ep taking up residence before the reviews... as well as a couple other odds-and-ends. Thus: late reviews. But! Better late than never, as they say in "the biz". Industry term. Usual thing: new albums. Charting reviews. In...

Ass-Kickers! We're taking a trip across the pond. It's time once again for the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest. For the uninitiated, the ESC is a yearly contest, by which many European countries (and Australia and part of Asia... it's a thing) bring their best musical acts (which may or may not be from that country... it's a thing) to compete for the title of the Eurovision Song Contest champion. For...

Kickers of Ass! I'd like to reintroduce all of you to the year 2009. The biggest news in the music industry was the passing of one Michael Jackson, and sitting here nearly 16 years later, it doesn't feel like it's been that long. On the other side of the spectrum, sometimes-singer and mostly-actor Patrick Swayze also passed away in 2009, which feels like it was way longer ago. I don't at all mean...

Ass-Kickers! We've been doing this for five years now ( over five years, as I write this), and... wow. We never get the chance to toot our own horns, but we're going to - just this once - because, damn. We're proud of what we've been able to do, we're proud of all of the content that we've produced, and we're proud that we get to continue to do this - hopefully for another five years, and beyond....

Ass-Kickers! It's time for another Coverlutions episode, and this time we're going a bit... melancholy. We talk about a bit of a downer jam, but one that is truly beautiful - that being the song Ain't No Sunshine, by the legendary Bill Withers. For those of y'all who have no idea what a "Coverlutions" is, lemme back up a bit for ya: we take an oft-covered song, and the three hosts work to find gre...

New ep who dis? [EDITOR'S NOTE: Okay, you can't keep saying that this podcast knows about "the youths" and then use old-ass references like that. Do better.] What the helly? It's a new episode type, that's what!! [EDITOR'S NOTE: sigh] We're calling this one SomeOnes. The premise is easy to learn, but takes a lifetime to master... or something. You see, each of us got a randomly-generated year, som...

Ass-Kickers! Happy April! Well, Happy March as it were, because yes, this is April, from where we sit right now, but the reviews are from March. Truthfully I'm just practicing the use of the HTML bold t e x t tag. But I digress. You know the drill by now: new albums, newly-charting top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Good and bad in both areas this time around. But if you know this drill (had to...

Ass-Kickers! This is a fittingly Ass-Kicking episode, as we're talking about our Top 5 Guitar Solos. Guitar Solos just kick ass! It's a whole thing. You'll hear some songs that you expect, along with some unexpected songs from artists that you expect... and some unexpected artists altogether. But with 15 (or less?) songs between us, there were MANY that we didn't have time - or knowledge - to cove...

Ass-Kickers! If you didn't listen to last week's episode of the Fairly KickAss Podcast, STOP! Like, right in your tracks. Because this episode is Pt. 2, and you, Dearest Listener, need Pt. 1! So hit your handy-dandy "go back one episode" button in your podcastin' doodad, and check out the first part of our Deep Dive into the life and music of Tupac Shakur. Back from Pt. 1? Good! Now listen to Pt....

Ass-Kickers! We have a treat for you today, from all the way back in June of 2021. It's one of our Deep Dive segments, where we take a journey into the lives and times of different musicians. We've rewound a few old episodes in this series before - specifically our work-ups on Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and the Spice Girls. Adding to that is our two-parter on Tupac Shakur. We cover his history, during...

Ass-Kickers! I'll level with you: 2025 has been one of the fastest, and slowest, years in recent memory. One of the fast parts is his here podcast; to wit, February reviews! Already!! The holiday season was just a week ago, I feel, and yet here we are. But, no matter how quickly we get here, we know what we have to do. And that, of course, is to review. It's your usual dealio - new singles to the...

For this episode of the Fairly KickAss Podcast, we'll start off with a video , which should help tie the room together. Because, you see, this is one of our One Song episodes, where we tell you all about the very best song in an artist's catalog, the top of the heap, the cremday lahcrem. Only this one is a bit... different. Because, in honor of the 27th anniversary of The Big Lebowski this week, w...

Ass-Kickers! We got a solo dolo for you today, with another one of our Unsung episodes, where we look at those folks in the music industry that are lesser known for their amazing accomplishments. For those who remember, it was the one you were supposed to see a few weeks ago. But hey, better late than never, right? ...right? Well lemme say that this story is definitely one that should be told, lat...

We back! Both with reviews, as this is the first monthly review episode since last November. But also, we back from an unexpected hiatus last week. You see, I ("I" = Zack... yo0O) had grand intentions on getting out an Unsung episode, due to some scheduling issues with the crew. And then... life happened. I'm being overly dramatic - just had a TON of unexpected work to do, and I stayed up way too...

January 17, 1971: Indianapolis Colts rookie kicker Jim O'Brien drills a 32-yard field goal with five seconds left on the clock to give his team the Super Bowl victory over the Dallas Cowboys. January 28, 1990: The San Francisco 49ers hang 55 on the Denver Broncos, setting records for the most points scored in a single Super Bowl en route to a decisive victory. January 30, 2000: Tennessee Titans wi...

Ass-Kickers! It's Grammy Awards time - for the 67th time, in fact - and we wanted to give you a little preview of the same. But the three of us are not well equipped enough to speak on this (or any, let's be real) topic, so we had to go and call in a favor. Thus: the Grammy closer herself, the Senior Music Award Correspondent of FKA: it's none other than Lisa! We talk about who we think will be ta...

Ass-Kickers! We're rewinding back [counts on fingers and toes] [abandons fingers and toes and opens up calculator app instead] 44 years for one of our Billboard Rerank episodes! We're talking about the Billboard Year-End charts for the year 1981. It was a transitional year, as we moved away from the sounds that made up the 1970s - especially the latter half of the 1970s - and began to usher in wha...

Welcome to 2025! Us here at Fairly KickAss hope the best of your todays end up as the worst of your tomorrows, and those tomorrow's start now. The profundity of this episode is apparently contagious, as you will soon see. Hear! That's what you do with your ears. Senses. We had a conundrum right off the bat: start off with something more recognizable, something to ease you into the Year of the Pod...

Let's ring in the new year with old content! Everybody wins! Yaaaaaay!! (Okay, do maybe we just win. That’s how it goes sometimes.) Here’s the deal: we have a New Year's episode in the Vault, from waaaaaay back in 2021. It was pretty good! Content-wise, at least. Audio quality? Not so good. We couldn't use it as-is, so why not repurpose the content? Thus, the Fairly KickAss Redraft™ was born. We'r...

I (Zack - I feel like I should claim this idiocy) wanted to make the dumb "2024 Urine Review" joke that I mentioned in the previous episode's description, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Shout-out to all the PA's out there... you know who you are.) Anyway! Look at us. Not just Podcast Us, but You Us as well. All the Us's. The Royal Us. Because we did it. We got through another year, a year f...

I have a riddle for you, Dear Listener: What do Kendrick Lamar, Alanis Morissette, The Sex Pistols, and "Macho Man" Randy Savage have in common? Not a whole lot, truly. But one thing they share, as does everyone we talk about in this episode, is that they've released a diss track of some form or fashion. There's a lot of dissin' to go around here, targeting specific individuals, rival bands, music...

Remember, remember, reviews of November The reason, the se-[EDITORS NOTE: Hi. So, I try not to be involved too much, but when I see the beginnings of a bit that only means to take up valuable minutes of your day, I have to step in. This episode consists of reviews of new album releases, as well as newly-charting singles, for the month of November 2024. That's it! Nothing fancy. You can instead cha...