Unsung Podcast

We reach into the vault this week to extra an old bonus episode that has a fairly unique format we liked to called the Split 7". In this episode, we talk build our own festival line ups. ORIGINAL SHOW NOTE We’re going to be 4 years old soon and for pretty much every single week of those 4 years (with the sole of exception of around this time last year when a technical issue made us lose an entire...

In this interview, Mark Davyd, founder and CEO of Music Venue Trust, mentions the "famous" and famously misattributed Hunter S. Thompson quote about the music industry. It goes "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." It's now common knowledge that Thompson didn't act...

You might think you don't know Christophe Szpajdel's work. You almost certainly do. The Emperor logo. The Metallica Mankind clip. The Rihanna lettering that went a hundred feet high at the MTV VMAs. If you've spent any time near heavy music, his hand has been on things you've stared at without knowing his name. This week we sit down with the man known as Lord of the Logos — Belgian-born, Devon-bas...

In our previous episode, we went deep into the history of Cabaret Voltaire and their importance to UK industrial and, latterly, dance music. Now, we follow the trail we laid therein by taking a journey through the band's extensive discography, really fleshing out how they went from a Sheffield attic in 1973 to a Patagonian field site recording lizards for David Attenborough. Along the way, we take...

Cabaret Voltaire are no one thing. Depending on which corner of the internet you found us from, you might know them as the caustic Sheffield noise act who preceded post-punk, the sinister electro-industrial outfit with a penchant for evangelical samples and anti-fascist agitprop, or the dancefloor-adjacent act who fetched up on Factory's Belgian satellite label and made something close to club mus...

We don't often cover classical or neoclassical music, as it’s a wee bit out of our wheelhouse. But that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy it—often, our entry into that world is via film soundtracks. Jóhann Jóhannsson is a perfect example, having scored some of the most iconic films of the last 20 years. However, that’s only part of the story. Jóhannsson also released a series of acclaimed solo records;...

This week, we're talking about two things we think are quite interesting. First off, we chat about the early mathcore/metalcore band Drowningman and reflect on why they never quite reached the heights of their peers, such as Converge and The Dillinger Escape Plan—bands they often found themselves touring with in the late 90s and early 00s. While that story is compelling in itself, Drowningman can...

This week's episode is another FROM THE VAULT as we travel back to one of our (sadly) many episodes that were recorded during the pandemic. This one is actually a condensing of two episodes on the weird/genius/odd/interesting music, and personality, of pianist Lubomyr Melnyk. Enjoy! Chris has been chomping at the bit to do this Lubomyr Melnyk album for a while. In fact, some may even remember that...

THIS WEEK ON FROM THE VAULT we revisit episode 25 and our dive into Never Better by P.O.S. It's a great example of what this podcast does best, and we hope you dig this episode if you haven't heard it before. In the intro Mark talks a little about what's happened to P.O.S since too, specifically around the allegations made against him in 2020, his apology, and where he is now. Original shownotes f...

You may be shocked to hear that Lift to Experience made one album. One. A ninety-minute double CD concept record about the apocalypse, set entirely in Texas, written by three boys from Pentecostal and Baptist backgrounds who genuinely believed they had something to say to God. And then, more or less, they vanished. In this episode we cover the Texas Jerusalem Crossroads in full — the vision behind...

This week we're throwing back to June 2018, when this pod was only six months old. Things were simpler - the research was less onerous, episodes were shorter (this would easily be a two parter these days), Dave was still part of the crew and the world wasn't ending... Godspeed You! Black Emperor don't really do brevity. They do epic, sweeping, often joyous, always elaborate, suites of music that a...

You may be shocked to hear that musicians sometimes lie about who they are. Some may say this is not shocking at all - it's almost a tradition. But there's a meaningful difference between Ziggy Stardust and a band from North Dakota claiming to be a Chinese black metal act to game the press. In this episode we try to map that difference. We spend a healthy portion of time on what we're not talking...

WELCOME BACK TO FROM THE VAULT. That's right, on our off weeks we'll be pulling an episode from our extensive vault that we love and we think is somewhat relevant to goings on in the modern era. And our latest episode is about Pashka by Shortparis. An episode which has been through into sharp relevance by the recent death of singer Nikolai Komyagin, who passed away in mysterious circumstances on F...

You may be shocked to hear that Green Day have a lot of songs. Some may say, in fact, that they have too MANY songs, because there does come a point where they all just blend into on another. In this episode we explore this phenomenon, and it is exclusively (in our view) an issue that plagues the latter half of their career. We cover everything from American Idiot to Saviors, and whilst not all of...

Could it be done? Is it possible to call anything Green Day have ever released both unsung AND (crucially, because there's a fair bit of 'meh' in their catalogue) good? Well folks, this week and next we're going to do our very best to find out. And we're joined by our good friend Rick Bruce from Coffin Mulch and Moonshine Docks. Our contention? That their fourth album, Insomniac, is an unsung clas...

This week we've got a really fascinating chat with Stewart Home. Originally a punk in London in the early days of the movement, he's since forged a career as a musician, author and visual artist. In this interview we talk at length about his early days as a punk in London in the late 70s and early 80s, and dig into how his own perception of the genre has helped to inform his outlook on music ever...

Ah yes, the gooch of the year. Or the barse if you're so inclined (or perineum if you want to keep it medical). Long time fans will know that every Xmas we usually have a massive blow out where we answer fan questions. Well, we did that this year too! Part one is available to our Patreon subscribers, and you can still listen to it here: www.pateron.com/unsungpod hell, we won't even begrudge you si...

This week, we're joined by Anthony Sahyoun, member of the Lebanese experimental band SANAM, for a conversation that extends far beyond music. Recorded just before the band's autumn European tour, we explore their unique sound—a compelling blend of Arabic traditional forms, post-rock, noise, and electronic elements that defies easy categorisation. SANAM's origins trace back to an improvisational fe...

Charles Bradley’s cover of Black Sabbath’s Changes is one that both hosts of this podcast believe could well be the definitive version of the song. And we say that having done three episodes on Black Sabbath — an odyssey that gave us both a newfound appreciation for one of, if not the , most important metal bands to have ever existed. Changes itself is a great song, but this emotional reworking ca...

Bowie fans have long found ways to make peace with some of the more unsavoury aspects of his character and behaviour during that decade. His Thin White Duke persona highlights what, by his own admission, were “the darkest days” of his life. And while he was quick to distance himself from that character as he grew older, its influence on certain members of the British far right certainly left a mar...

We're back after a fairly shambolic three weeks in our lives (redundancy sure does suck) with this slice of fried gold from the 1980s. You've almost certainly heard the lead single from this record. In fact, the question as to who the singer is of the song "The Warrior" has quite likely come up on a pub quiz at some point, and you've quite likely got the answer wrong. The answer is not, as you may...

This week we're diving into why bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and King Gizzard are pulling their music from Spotify - and why it probably won't change anything. It's a trickier situation than it seems, but the whole mess starts with Napster in 1999. 80 million people sharing MP3s illegally crashed the music industry, dropping revenue 15% in four years and creating a chain reaction that le...

As stated at numerous points in this episode, a lot of the things discussed here can be found in the documentary Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus. We urge you to go check out that film here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/qlazzarus as it is a brilliant piece of work. For long time pod fans, this episode could technically be classed as part of our unsong series. But the reality is that the...

Everyone knows Hulk Hogan's entrance music, but how many know the fascinating story behind Rick Derringer's "Real American"? With the recent passing of Hulk Hogan, we thought we’d revisit a previous episode and update it with new information. Oh, and also to film the whole dang thing as we weren’t doing that back then. So, this week we’re exploring the unlikely journey of a song that became one of...

Like us, are you somewhat uncomfortable of about Pantera playing with Metallica? Why exactly might that be? We need to explore what it is about Phil Anselmo that gives people that icky feeling. This week we try to put some meat on the bones about the rumours that have dogged Anselmo for the last three decades of his career. White supremacist? Racist? Just a bit of a steamer?  What is it about this...