The Smell of Music

For tonight's show, we circle back to an artist that won our hearts and ears over during the TSOMposium with his song, "Be Healed," a name-it-claim-it record for your body, where he spent the course of the song healing various reproductive organs so that couples could conceive. We were, frankly, a bit surprised by the recording and inquired about additional material from this artist....

For tonight's episode, we are joined by the fantastically-talented Erik Randall, who writes under the name Rhythm Method for Sidespin, little brother to Deadspin. Erik and his partner Not Something Structural (@nss_ds), have made it a mission to find the very worst song since 1990 and, to decide this, they've opened up the voting to the readers of Sidespin with a 68-song bracket. So, tonig...

Tonight, we turn over the show to our dads with the upcoming Fathers' Day weekend. Sam's dad gets something off his chest, Clint's dad doesn't know what a podcast is, Dirty Deacon's dad viciously hates soft rock, and we pull our socks up to our knees, yell at neighborhood kids from our porch, tell bad jokes to our kids and then go to bed by 9:00. We don't think we're go...

Playing tracks by Hardfloor.

Tonight we take a trip into the weird musical universe where Cowboy Troy exists. If you're not familiar with the act that is Cowboy Troy, he helped pioneer the bizarre and unnecessary genre "hick hop" or country rap. Bravely breaking down evident racial lines, Cowboy Troy was destined to be remembered alongside other legendary musicians to leap over prejudice and racial divide like C...

Ladies love him, men fear him. For tonight's episode, our own Dirty Deacon takes us on a quick ride through five of the more insufferable missteps in Michael Bolton's career. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, Blake Collier has amassed a frightening file of Bolton knowledge (and not in the ironic hipster way). Join us, as we hop on the Blake bus for a bumpy ride through Bolton's entire 40...

Tonight, we venture where few dare as we wade in the shallow end of a vast and endless ocean of musical compositions. For #TSOM23, we discuss on-hold music. We are joined on this episode by the talents of Eli Sanchez from the YellowCity Podcast of Amarillo, TX, which aims to tell the stories of Amarillo, uncenscored and unfiltered. So, get ready to be here a while as the TSOM panel put your life o...

For tonight's episode, a special treat to wet your whistle. We present our first official TSOMposium. If you're not familiar with a symposium, in Ancient Greece, Plato and his boys would spend all night drinking and listening to poetry. While that'd be cool, we set the bar much lower tonight. As always, we're pursuing the worst music ever, but tonight, we're pairing it with the...

In celebration of Holy Week here at TSOM, we found it fitting to celebrate our Bible Belt roots, get drunk on the Holy Spirit, and find the worst children's gospel records ever recorded. The history of gospel music targeting children goes back long before "Jesus Loves Me," but the modern spectrum of these recordings has taken on some disastrously turns for the worst. This small assor...

Happy Leap Year Birthday to the great Ja Rule, who turns 40 this year on February 29th. Rare is the occasion we can sit down and celebrate a leaping musician's birthday so, naturally, we had to do it. Before Ja became a big movie star or reality TV celebrity, he was a top-selling, no-good, foul-mouthed rapper. Tonight we explore his four worst recordings from his rapper career. Despite attempt...

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and, for this episode, the TSOM panel readies their playlist in pursuit of the worst hip hop slow jams of all time. The slow jam, "ballad," or "hip hop love song" has been a mainstay in hip hop ever since raucous and rowdy LL Cool J shed his rough veneer to record "I Need Love" in 1987. It showed a vulnerable LL getting i...

For this episode, the TSOM panel prepare for the AFC and NFC Championship games with a critical listen to the 1990-something Deion Sanders record, Prime Time. Long, drivelous, and completely self-indulgent, Prime Time marks a day and age where athletes were making risky and daring moves with their careers off the field and the lure of making music was real. But, so then, was the lack of talent and...

To start off 2016, we decided to reward you, our listener, with a pick. A Walla Walla, WA pick asked how come it's taken so long for a "Rap Rock" episode. Naturally, we took this as a challenge. But because we were so damn busy searching for higher ground in Missouri or shoveling snow in West Texas, we consulted the talents of Californian Sean Duregger of Screamcast and AXPX (Armchai...

By design, hosting a New Year's Eve party can be a long-winded affair. There'll be drinking, it'll last until at-least midnight, and no one has to work in the morning so there's no hurry to leave. For that reason, TSOM built the ultimate party-ending playlist to end the night without being an ungracious jerk of a host. So, put on some comfy house shoes, turn it up, and watch them f...

For this episode, TSOM helps you ring in the most wonderful time of year with the First Ever Mistletoejam. Destined to be an annual event, the TSOM Panel brings for discussion four truly intolerable Christmas recordings.

For this episode, TSOM remembers the late Texas rap legend DJ Screw, who died 15 years ago this month, leaving behind a legacy that is still felt in today's rap scene. Unfortunately, he also left behind a legion of wannabes and imitations. Tonight, we screw ourselves by exposing our eardrums to four of the most difficult screwed and chopped recordings. So fill your cup with some of that purple...

For this episode, the TSOM panel gets pummeled by a five fingered death punch of metal. They are joined by Jeremiah Wehler who speaks fluent metal. In fairness to the genre, we understand that finding five songs that truly capture the worst of the metal genre is a lofty goal. For this reason, we are currently contemplating further chapters to make sure we are doing our due diligence in our journey...

For this episode, the TSOM panel search deep and wide, and sift through hours of terrible mashups to bring you the five worst mashups we could find. A “mashup” is when elements from multiple songs (typically vocals from one and instrumental from another) are mixed together to create a new song. Different from a “remix,” the mashup is largely absent of any original material or artistry and relies a...

The TSOM panel inundate themselves with selections of the worst music recorded by young children (12 or less-ish). Borderline references abound in the episode and not just from the tracks themselves. Every type of music is covered here from 90s country to yodeling to late-stage R&B and yet we try to decipher what truly makes a child artist bad, not merely immature in their musical experience. Need...

For this episode, the TSOM panel venture deep into the stinky world of Butt Rock, which gets its name from the radio stations that support it, claiming to play "nothing but(t) rock ." As it would turn out, three quarters of the panel sound fairly well-versed on their Butt Rock, making for compelling 30-ish minutes of, often, painful admissions and uncomfortable soul searching. So, journey with us...

For this episode, the TSOM panel get their soul flattened by Chip Davis, creator of Mannheim Steamroller with the worst from Chip Davis and that classic Mannheim Sound. From his young days as an entrepreneur using his gifts for advertising jingles to his more ambitious creations under the wildly successful Mannheim Steamroller name, we have selected three of the disheartening Chip Davis compositio...

For this episode, the The Violent Ambassador, the Foolish Professional, the Thunderous Beggar, and the Erratic Assassin are joined by Unkut.com 's Robbie Ettelson who has brought with him four selections he picked from the Wu Tang catalog (including extended affiliates) that he believes represent the very worst from the Wu in our Steamy Pile of Wu Show. It's really steamy and truly stinky. To hear...

For this episode, the TSOM panel are joined by the wonderfully elegant Matthew Linder as they search out the worst recordings by fictional artists. Spawned by a brainstorm that involved doing an entire episode on the California Raisins, it turns out the California Raisins were way too damn talented for this show. Tonight, we're joined by ghosts, aliens, monsters, an evangelizing rabbit, and, natur...

For this episode, digs deep into the seedy underworld of tribute-to records. Tribute-tos have become common in the modern musical space because it allows nameless musicians to re-record popular favorites to make a fair living. They are joined graciously by friend of the show, Clint Carroll from Episode #1. As a change for this evening show, Jeff decides to surprise our panel with his selections as...

For this episode, the crew dares to listen to multiple selections from the Psychopathic Records catalog with a specific focus on the recordings of Insane Clown Posse. They are joined graciously by a gentleman named Nemo, who is a contributor and writer at Faygoluvers.net, a fan site devoted to all things Psychopathic. He brought four songs that he believes represents the very worst of the Psychopa...