Unsung Podcast

IT LIVES! Sorta. After all the silly bastard nonsense of the Xmas Xtravaganza, we decided to re-record the episode we lost on our 3rd birthday. Welcome to our Cocteau Twins analysis, as we talk about their career and the album Heaven or Las Vegas. As fans will recall, our first attempt at this episode was scuppered by some tech issues, and we were unable to recover it. In some ways, it’s kind of a...

It’s time to bring this whole sorry four parter to an end. Christmas is now well in the rearview and to be honest folks, after the chaos this descended into, we’d really like to put this behind us too. We talk a whole lot of pish here, including Chris talking about some of 2020’s most highly rated albums that he thinks are not that good. We also, finally, after three years, get a complete history...

Happy new year folks! Hopefully the Brexit chat last week didn’t make you feel depressed. I mean, it probably did but hey, everything’s fucked anyway right? This week we go down the Taylor Swift rabbit hole when we ask Jonah Matranga what’s better - Evermore or Folklore? We then get into a very drunken heated debate about just how much agency Taylor Swift has in the corporate process of her image...

Before we got in the room to record this whole debacle, we planned out the questions to that they would cover two parts. In the end, we recorded for 5 hours or so, and that two parter became a three parter in the room, and is now a four parter after the edit. Merry Christmas?! Anyway, we go in hard on Brexit right at the top of this episode. No stone left unturned, as they say. We drop some realne...

Christmas is a time for cheer, and a time to eat, drink and be merry with family. For a lot of folk, some of these things may not be possible this year, which is why we felt even more duty bound to continue our very own festive tradition of getting really bloody silly at the end of the year. For the first since March, we decided to get in a room together and stare in lovingly into each other’s eye...

It seems our argument that Metallica are the “acceptable” version of thrash has gained a little agreement on all of the internets on which we are present, which is nice. Of course, after the abomination (?) of St. Anger, Metallica returned to their “roots” with Death Magnetic and Hardwired… to Self Destruct. Which as Dave points out on this episode, is now a bunch of (mostly) old dudes trying to b...

We’re three bloody years old today. THREE. Can you believe it?! As is tradition, we do something a bit silly around our birthday. In year one, Chris decided to take things very seriously do the album Meantime by Helmet, because the name of this podcast comes from one of the songs on that record. In year two Mark subjected the world, and a room full of actual live human beings, to the ridiculous po...

Well, this is annoying. We find ourselves without an episode this week due a hideous technical issues which saw an entire two hours of content on Heaven or Las Vegas by the Cocteau Twins sent completely down the drain. To so it was a bummer is a total understatement. Two weeks of episodes, three weeks of research, all lost forever. We will re-do the episode at some point though, so do keep an eye...

This week we take a critical look at the discography of LA noise/electronic/pop/metal/dance/whatever band Health from good ol’ Los Angeles. Perhaps best known to some as noise rock band, their sound has changed a fair bit over the years. After releasing two acclaimed DIY noise type records they went away and did the soundtrack to Max Payne 3. When they returned years later they had fully embraced...

One of the things that we find quite gratifying about these double episodes is the amount of time we can spend talking about a storied band’s large back catalogue. Of course, in many ways that’s the entire raison d'etre of this whole damn enterprise, but it feels particularly good when you’ve spent a bunch of time learning about an artist and can just splurge all this knowledge out in a way that (...

We hope you like Wire. Or, at the very least we hope you’re interested to hear about Wire because we have a lot to get through with this. David couldn’t join us this week, but we were able to get a post-punk expert to join us for this mammoth two parter, so say hello to Ferruccio Quercetti of the Italian punk band Cut. He is a true font of knowledge and he provides a ton of context here, which fra...

This week we welcome back our good friend Vicki as we finally get with the programme and talk about the impact covid-19 and the ongoing global pandemic are having on music and the arts right now. It is Unsung vs the Coronavirus and by god are we coming out swinging. A word of warning though, there are some slight audio issues. Still working out some of the kinks that are inevitable parts of our gu...

Welcome back friends to our first ever podcast crossover as we welcome back Mitch Bain from the excellent Strong Language & Violent Scenes podcast . If you missed it, part one is here . Just a wee reminder to everyone, Strong Language & Violent Scenes is is about giving genre films a second chance which, as they put it, may or may not deserve it. They’ve produced well over 200 episodes on this poi...

Welcome friends, one and all, to our first every podcast crossover as we welcome Mitch Bain from the excellent Strong Language & Violent Scenes podcast . Put simply, his show is about giving genre films a second chance which, as they put it, may or may not deserve it. They’ve produced well over 200 episodes on this point, and have managed to build a lovely community by regularly bringing guests on...

Released to critical acclaim, Marissa Nadler’s third album, Songs III: Bird on the Water, is a record which sees the her begin to expand her sonic palette. Joined by folk-cum-psychedelic rock outfit Espers on a few of the tracks (the album was produced by founding member Greg Weeks), her sound is augmented with hints of synth, electric guitar, cello, percussion and harp. For the first time she rea...

Deep Politics is Grails’ 8th album, and is it turns out it’s one that proves to be particularly divisive on this episode! Chris and David both found this band at different points, with Chris being a fan from the early days and David joining a bit later. What results is a pretty cool discussion around this band’s discography, the highlights and lowlights, as well as providing insight into how peopl...

Rumour has it that Thom Yorke plays in another band called Radiohead, but we found it increasingly difficult to find out about this band. Has anyone ever heard their music? Apparently they’ve released a few records. Yes, this is probably stretching the concept of this very show to breaking point, but the argument here is that this is perhaps the least well known thing that Thom Yorke has done. It...

It’s kinda crazy to think it’s taken us this long to touch a Saddle Creek band, but we got there in the end. This week Mark has picked Cursive’s seminal fourth album The Ugly Organ for inclusion in our discography. A weird mashup of emo, alt-rock, cabaret and more, it’s an album that the band themselves thought might be a bit too weird for a label that had spent many years releasing classic emo re...

Part one can be found here . Whatcha gonna do when Double Glazing run wild on you? Polish up those pythons and take your vitamins pod fans, cause we’re dropping part 2 in the same week as part 1 because we’re just that goddamn crazy. On this ep we talk a little more about wrestling entrance music, WWE Studios, WWE music in general and more. We also pick our top five favourite entrance songs and al...

David ended up in jail last week, so Mark and Chris had to concoct an entirely different episode at short notice. The result? An episode on wrestling entrance themes. Long time fans of the show have probably heard Mark and Chris talk about wrestling from time to time on the show. Turns out that they’re actually pretty big fans of Vince McMahon’s house of big sweaty men and women. However, instead...

Surprise! Here’s another interview for ya’ll. We’re delighted to bring you this interview with the wonderful KateJane Garside. Well known for her staggering voice and stunning stage presence, KatieJane has been involved in a number of musical projects since the late 80s, most notably the garage punk outfit Daisy Chainsaw in the early 90s and ferocious noise rockers Queenadreena from 99 to 2010. Sh...

We seem to say this every time we do an electronic record, but…it’s been a while since we did an electronic record! Lord of Dance (not of the dance , although having seen him cut shapes, we can attest that this may also be somewhat accurate) David Weaver has chosen this seminal dubstep album from the influential UK garage and dubstep artist Burial. If you hear the words “dubstep” and think Skrille...

Chris was ill this week so we decided that we would release of the bonus episodes we recorded for subscribers back at the end of last year. This one was a lot of fun. We talk about some of our favourite guilty pleasures. We hope you enjoy - some truly brilliant and also hideous stuff in here. Next week we return with Burial’s self titled album!1

Why donate to our Patreon? Well, if you’re made enough to donate a Crag ($50) then we’ll make an episode on an album of your choosing. Then we’ll let folk hear it. That’s exactly what happened here. Well, kind of. Our aim with this episode was to release this to subscribers only but it turned out so damn well that we asked my Rayce Bannon, the man that asked us to talk about this album, if we coul...

Chris picked a hip hop album. Chris. Chris Cusack. The whitest man in Scotland. He did a good job too. This is Saul Williams’ second album, but it’s the first one where he true voice begins to emerge. It’s a huge clash of styles too, equal parts punk rock, noise, industrial, spoken word and hip hop. His true eclectic style is born on this album, and what a ride it is. Saul would later go on to wor...