Unsung Podcast

This is it. Time to talk about what records we actually picked and why we picked them. Chris decides to tackle his youthful enjoyment of far left cliches by choosing a record he adores, by a band whose politics he has grown to have serious questions about, in The (International) Noise Conspiracy’s second album ‘A New Morning, Changing Weather’. Whilst Weaver goes for Rage Against the Machines fina...

Despite our Liberal leanings, we are not a communist podcast. But we do hold some of the same fundamental views on society, politics and people. Which means, surprisingly, that we rarely disagree on politics. So why a Red Meance podcast? Well, due to our leftness, we thought it'd be fun to explore some of the artists who espouse or influence our views. Thus, a mixtape was born. This, and next, wee...

One listen to Hood’s intriguing fifth album ‘Cold House’ would have you think that they were just another bunch of perennially morose Northern Englishmen. Not so. This week Weaver aims to tell you otherwise. Despite critical acclaim, some tasty tours and lovely festival slots, Hood never did seem to catch the right wave. By the time record came around, they’d been ploughing their trade for ten yea...

Before we delve into the funk let’s start by saying that we’re a little out of our depth here because funk, and specifically P-funk, is a mad, mad sci-fi psychedelic world of slap bass, 70s keyboard freak outs, horny horns, gospel-esque backing vocals, R&B melodies, the occasional Hendrix-style guitar freak out and more funk than James Brown could shake a stick at. The mythology behind Parliament’...

Surprise! Part two of our Biffy episode is available a few days early, as we look to go ahead with ‘Mothership Connection’ by Parliament this Friday. The gloves are off in this episode as Chris finally gets to the root of his deep seated disdain for the band, we talk about this album, where it sits in the context of their discography, and the weirdness of their fame. We also get a bit philosophica...

Alongside Fritz, Crag is one of the podcast’s biggest donors. We planned to have him on the show sooner but it proved somewhat difficult to organise on account of him living on the other side of the world. But a recent trip home meant we were able to tie him to a chair for a couple of hourswhile Chris gave it both barrels on Biffy. Sadly, due to a bereavement Weaver wasn’t able to join us, but Cra...

In many ways, Pitchshifter are an anomaly. Initially staggering onto the scene in a maelstrom of pseudo-Minestry inspired industry metal, although somehow heavier , they were every bit the equal of their early 90 metal peers in terms of sheer ferocity and ambition. But as they progressed, changing vocalist and embracing a multitude of influences from drum and bass, dance music and more, they begun...

“Flash in the pan” style genres are a distinctly modern creation. Once born from message boards and chatrooms, they’re chucked into existence on social media and furiously lapped up by the music press. Every magazine, website, blog, podcast and channel is keen to shape the tastes of thousands, and embracing such fanciful “microgenres” can reap immense short term benefits for any outlet that appear...

Like every genre, hardcore has evolved over the years. From its snotty beginnings in the 80s to the present day, it’s been welded to just about every genre and subgenre of punk rock you can imagine. In this episode, we dedicate a little bit of time to talking about melodic hardcore, the bastard offshoot of hardcore, punk and emo. Oh and we talk about Witness by Modern Life is War. A “foundational...

And now we get to the heart of the matter. The very meat of the discussion, if you will. Sonic Youth have a huge discography that, like nearly artists with catalogues of such size, varies wildly in quality. Yet someone, even towards the tail end of the career, they will still able to produce an album as cohesive and consistent as Rather Ripped. After some more discussion around what “cool” is, and...

We’re back in action this week as Chris finally pulls the trigger on Sonic Youth. Behind the scenes he’d been deliberating doing this record for a while, but the time has finally come to do it. The episode turned out to be a lot longer than we anticipated - I mean, the band have a lot of records and a huge legacy - and we barely even scratched the surface of their discography, instead devoting mor...

With Mark currently undertaking a road trip of the American Deep South, Chris and David thought this would be a fine time to talk about their own road trips, discussing some of their favourite tunes from playlists of old. They even trade some cool tour stories too, which is definitely worth the listen alone. And in true Unsung fashion Mark even finds some time to phone in his own comments. So this...

Purveyors of fine Southern Fried prog rock, Mastodon, are one of those bands who have slowly grown in stature with each album. Over the years, their sound has evolved, but the musicianship has remained nothing short of breathtaking. It’s rare you find a band that can play like fuck and continue pushing the limits of what they can do as their career progresses. Some will argue, as we do in this epi...

When one considers the “golden age of hip-hop”, Public Enemy are rightly discussed as vital element of it. It’s a vitality that’s both earned and odd, as their acerbic, caustic, antagonistic, overtly political message may seem at odds with the kind of content their contemporaries were discussing. Yet when viewed as another facet in the rise, and dissemination, of the black culture that PE and thei...

O HAY Because we chopped this in two we decided to drop it on Tuesday instead of Friday. SURPRISE! In keeping with the usual “Ask a question, we’ll give the answer” theme of our Split 7” episodes we’re answering another question. This time, it’s one posed by Chris: who would be the worst band to tour with? It gives him an excuse to tell some of his own touring stories, which we think is the secret...

This week David had an urgent family emergency and couldn’t join the proceedings, so we thought we’d shelf our Public Enemy discussion until his return. With Dave (mostly) out action, Chris and Mark decided to give the general listening public a little taste of what we offer our subscribers. Our Split 7” episodes is where you, the fans, give us a topic and we talk about it. This week we’ve chosen...

This is…three weeks late? We apologise. In our quest to offer you PREMIUM CONTENT at ROCK BOTTOM prices we’ve slung together the second episode of our new feature Sound is a Pound. This week, David takes the reins and dives deep into the Poundland catalogue to produce something which one can definitely describe as an album.

If, like the people on this podcast who are not Chris (i.e, most people), you fuck with Google and Search Engine Optimisation, you would know that Google likes it when you type a blog post that’s over 250 words. So now you know why that sentence above exists.. Seriously though, this week we’re discussing Italian jazz rock maestros Zu. Zu are an incredibly talented band. Since their first album 199...

We haven’t done a mixtape in a wee while so we thought fuck it, let’s do something completely different. This week we’re talking about the soundtracks from films that were commercial failures. There’s some surprisingly fertile ground in this genre, with some great films being considered box office flops, and some terrible films having great soundtracks or scores. The three of us take very differen...

Weezer are a hard band to like. We need to get this out of the way immediately: The Blue Album and Pinkerton are near flawless records, but there is no chance they will get nominated for inclusion in our discography. As Weaver states in this episode, if it were ten years ago then perhaps Pinkerton could be considered Unsung, but it’s now universally recognised that it’s equal to, if not better tha...

SURPRISE! Here’s a brand new thing that we hope to make into a new thing. Inspired by random nonsense found in Poundland, we’ve decided it could be entertaining to see what music we can get for exactly One Great British Pound. We will then do a slightly humorous super fast Unsung-lite review of the album in question before deciding if it’s worth keeping or heading straight for the nearest rubbish...

Whilst D’Angelo’s R&B stylings weren’t exactly traditional, or even reflected the popular sounds of the time, Kelela makes him sound positively contemporary in comparison. Indeed, on her debut release she takes the Contemporary R&B rule book and throws it right out of the window. In fact, one could argue that she barely gave the damn thing a passing glance before she hurled into the street. Kelela...

If you’re of a certain age, like your three esteemed hosts, there’s a fair chance you’ve heard the name The Eighties Matchbox B-Live Disaster. The smashed their way into the music press with this, their debut album, and a reputation for chaotic, enthralling on stage antics that captured the attention of music lovers and press alike. They also happened to pop onto the scene at the same time as a bu...

And now, for avid fans, we present part 3 of our interview with Benjamin Power/Blanck Mass. After two weeks of talking about Blanck Mass and Ben’s career, it’s now time to talk about music that Ben thinks is underrated. There’s some great, obscure, interesting choices and discussion in this episode around the album’s he’s picked, why he’s picked them and what he loves about them. We also recommend...

As is tradition for our interviews, we’ve broken it into three parts and this is no exception. On part two Ben talks about the genesis of Blanck Mass, the method behind some of the music and the boys go on a deep dive of the Blanck Mass back catalogue, taking in as much ground as they can. Ben talks about some of the stuff he says is his favourite and things that encapsulate what Blanck Mass reall...