Unsung Podcast

The dreaded double album. In the eyes of some, it’s an aberration. A sure sign of a band with too much ego/money/time and not enough tunes to make it really work. Well, join us this week as we talk all things double album. The double album dates back to the last 50s, with Ella Fitzgerald first releasing a double LP set with her 1956 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook. Yet many wi...

Before we dive into Demanufacture properly, this week we take some time talking about Fear Factor’s albums from Archetype until this year’s Aggression Continuum up and friends, to say it’s a mixed bag would be an understatement. If you missed last week’s episode, listen here . Largely this is down to interpersonal issues between the band, with Digimortal being the last time the “classic” lineup of...

A mainstay of 90s and early 00s metal, Fear Factory are a band whose influence has been felt keenly on both nu metal and industrial metal alike. Their second album, Demanufacture is, Weaver argues, a hugely important record on metal music in general, so this week we take a tour of the band’s history and more. Despite having been a band for over 30 years at this point, Fear Factory have only releas...

If you’ve any interest in underground hip hop then this album is probably familiar to you. Widely hailed as one of the most important hip hop albums of all time, The Cold Vein by Cannibal Ox a real lightening in a bottle moment for Vast Aire and Vordul Mega. And now, having just celebrated its 20th anniversary, it seems a good a time as any to explore why. Having formed simply by dint of knowing e...

One of the ultimate aims of this podcast is to introduce lesser known bands to a new audience, which is why we’re all pretty chuffed to be doing This is the Third Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank by Adebisi Shank. Hailing from Wexford in Ireland, Adebisi Shank were a band for about 8 years, and in that time released three albums and one EP. Throughout their life, they were able to release musi...

Our good friend Ferruccio Quercetti returns this week, nominating Brainiac’s third and final album, Hissing Prigs in Static Couture. Over the course of their five year career, Brainiac recorded three albums and two EPs as well as a bunch of singles. They’re widely recognised as being one of the most influential post punk/noise rock/experimental rock bands of all time. So much so in fact that a doc...

Interview time part 2! In case you missed it, here is part one, where we discuss Andy’s career in mclusky and Future of the Left. In this episode we asked Andy to pick three albums he thinks are unsung classics: Jarcrew - Breakdance Euphoria Kids (which you will find version of on Spotify simply titled Jarcrew) The God Machine - Scenes from the Second Storey New Kingdom - Paradise Don’t Come Cheap...

Interview time! It’s been a wee while since we did one of those so we got one of our favourite musicians, and general lovely bloke, Andy Falkous from mclusky, Future of the Left and Christian Fitness on to have a good ol’ yammer. In part one we chat about IKEA furniture, tiny cans of Diet Coke, why you shouldn’t put beer in the fridge and many other things. Including his musical career thus far. W...

In case you missed it, we discussed The Walker Brothers’ career, and some of Scott Walker’s, in part one, which you can listen to here. This week we dive into the period where Scott gets weird. From 1984’s Climate of Hunter onwards, Scott begins his transformation from 60s pop poster boy to avant-garde legends. He only followed Nite Flights with another 4 albums, but the impact of his work from th...

You know how it goes by now folks: artists with big catalogues get two parters, and Scott Walker is no exception here. Weaver has chosen Nite Flights by The Walker Brothers this week, but with a particular focus on the Scott Walker songs on the album, which necessities a deep dive into his catalogue. And what a catalogue it is. It’s so large in fact, that we only get as far as the 1980s. Indeed, t...

Last week we chatted about a bunch of different supergroups and devised 5 categories that we felt all neatly fell into. If you missed it, catch up by listening here. It occurred to us soon after recording this episode (well, it occurred to Chris, really) that perhaps there should be a 6th category for supergroups that are side projects. Ones that are not ongoing, regular projects for their members...

170 goddamn episodes. Jeez. Y’know, we’ve actually had a chat about supergroups on this podcast before. Twice, in fact. But we’ve had to cut it out of the episode because the discussion just went on for far too long. Which surely meant that we’d need to do an episode on supergroups just to do the topic justice. Or two episodes, as it happens. In part one Chris lays out his five supergroup categori...

Friend of the pod and very nice chap Benjamin John Power used to make music as part of a duo under the name of Fuck Buttons. However, since 2010 he’s been banging out some solo stuff under the moniker Blanck Mass and boy howdy is it some goooooood shit. In order to dismiss accusations of nepotism, and with Dave away moving house this week, we asked our other good friend of the pod Vicki to pick an...

Slightly, eh, dodgy name aside, there are few bands as relentlessly heavy as All Pigs Must Die. Their second album Nothing Violates This Nature really encapsulates all of the things this band do best - combining every single kind of metal subgenre you can image with layers of d-beats and hardcore breakdowns in one massive, intense, screamy cocktail. If you’re unfamiliar with the band, they’re basi...

Now it’s time to get down to the meaty business of talking about Big Country’s debut album The Crossing. As well as the rest of their back catalogue. We go into a lot of detail on their 80s and some of their 90s stuff too, and it’s interesting to see how this band, and Adamson as a writer, evolved over this period. There’s also a lot of discussion on just what makes this band’s first three albums...

When was the last time we did a Scottish band on this show? Too bloody long, if you ask us! This week Chris redresses the balance by humbly submitting The Crossing, the debut album by the Kingdom of Fife’s very own Big Country. This turned into a very nice two parter, so instead of getting one MAHOOSIVE deluge of Big Country, we thought it best to split the difference. This week we talk about the...

ESG are without a doubt one of the most unsung bands we’ve covered on this podcast. You may never have heard of them, but you have definitely heard them. Particularly if you like hip hop, dance or house music. There’s an absolute ton of literature devoted to sampling in music, including the ethics of it and the affect it has had on many artists. We won’t go into that here, but suffice to say some...

There’s a bunch of bands from the late 90s punk and emo scene that are hugely influential. Of them though, one could argue that Lifetime are the least well known. Which is odd given that many huge bands are on record as stating that they were directly influenced by this album in particular. Everyone from Saves the Day to Fall Out Boy, Thursday and Taking Back Sunday have all voiced their appreciat...

The ABBA-geddon comes to an end this week in part two of our ABBA mixtape. If you missed part one, listen here . We listened to everything ABBA ever wrote in order to devise a comprehensive list of the best, most unsung ABBA songs and yes, it was a complete joy, before you ask. Over the course of 8 albums, ABBA explored pretty much every facet of 70s pop music. They swung from stomping glam rock t...

Oh lord it’s another two parter. However, you should rejoice as it is our long promised ABBA mixtape and boy is it a TRIP. First of all, thanks to Tommy Smith for first suggesting that we should do an ABBA episode. Initially we scoffed at the idea - ABBA? They’re not unsung! - but Chris suggested they could be ripe for a mixtape. Eventually, we said we would do it but only if we got ten new subs....

Last week was part one of our Faith No More two parter and it is, as it turns out, quite easy to dedicate the best part of three hours to Faith No More and their music. We did try to keep it brief but how many times have we said that and failed miserably (AHEM XMAS SPECIAL AHEM)? To wit, this week we’re covering the band’s output from 1995 to this very day. As is our wont, we dive into Album of th...

Mike Patton is now officially the first ever artist to have been nominated twice for this podcast. His previous inclusion was in the guise of Tomahawk, and their second album Mit Gas. The public rightfully decided that this was worthy of inclusion in our discography. Now it's time to see if Faith No More's fifth album, King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime, will join it. Chris has been talking about...

All good things must come to an end. This week we finish our round up of DOOM’s career and cover the wonderful, influential and (so far) only Madvillain album, Madvillainy. If you’re familiar with DOOM you’ll no doubt have seen scores of articles about his influence and legacy, about how he remains a rapper’s rapper. There is, of course, not much more we can add to that but my god to we try. So tu...

We’d always planned to do a hip hop episode after the Cocteau Twins, but after the sad passing of MF DOOM was announced on December 31st 2020, we decided to switch focus from The Cold Vein by Cannibal Ox to one of DOOM’s finest hours - Madvillainy by Madvillain. Madvillain is one of many collaborative projects that MF DOOM embarked upon throughout his career, with this particular one being his fir...

We feel that, by this point, you’re aware of everyone’s positions on this band so far, but there’s still a little twist at the end that you’ll want to stay tuned for as we take some (a lot of) time to chat about the legendary Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins. A lot has been said about this album of the years. It’s highly lauded by just about anyone that has an affection for shoegaze, dreampop,...