Unsung Podcast

On this episode we look at modern turbofolk. It's still hugely popular in some areas of the Balkans, in particular Croatia. So we dive into some recent examples from the genre and then take a wee peek into what the future of the genre might be.

Last week was heavy. We ended on a pretty sour note. This week is slightly better if only because you get to hear some actual music and we talk a lot less about war criminals. Operative word here being less; we're talking about Ceca this week which means we must talk about Arkan. After that we then get start to look at some of the other popular turbofolk artists that emerged in the late 90s and 00...

Turbofolk is heavy. Not musically. Thematically. You'll notice that, if you've made it through both episodes, that Side B ends with Weezer, so for this week's From the Value episode we thought, let's go back to that episode! The band have a massive back catalogue. One which has only grown since. It's a tough listen at times, but we did it. Rumour has it that Mark still hasn't fully recovered from...

WARNING: This episode contains some pretty hideous shit. We play samples and quote some truly despicable lyrics. Now that we've laid the foundations for what turbofolk is and the environment from which it came, we talk about some actual music in side B. We looked at Rate Your Music's list of the most critically acclaimed turbofolk albums and decided to do a brief rundown of their music and their m...

Turbofolk is basically Serbian, and sometimes occasionally Balkan, pop music. It's something of a thriving scene these days - think eurodance with traditional Balkan rhythms - but it's origins are very, very murky. It came to prominence in Serbia during the Yugoslav wars in the 90s, and was heavily exploited by Slobodan Milosevic government. In fact, it essentially became propaganda, pushing a nat...

Four people with a bunch of songs each is, as it turns out, a whole lot of songs to talk about. That's why Mitch's Movie Mixtape is split into two parts. Across both episodes, the first of which you can find here , we chat about our favourite needle drops in films. We also talk about why they work and also chat more generally about film. Mark even drops some film theory on these poor folks.

Modern post-punk music (the post-punk revival revival?) has a fair few acts that all indulge in sprechgesang and sprechstimme vocals. From Dry Cleaning and Squid to Idles and Fontaines D.C., there's a whole lot of artists out there using the same vocal technique that Sue Tompkins deploys effectively on Any Other City. In part two we chat about modern examples of this sound, including a bunch of po...

In part one we chat a little about Life Without Buildings and their origins. In doing so, we're forced to reckon with the particular vocal style of Sue Tompkins. In some quarters it's been quite divisive (there's a particularly bad NME interview that is a good example of this) but really her style is part of a much longer and larger legacy, one that is still very much alive and kicking to this day...

With our levels of existential dread reaching the normal level following our episodes on The Haxan Cloak, we thought we'd stick on the movie theme but go in a completely different direction for this week's From the Vault episode. We're going back to pandemic times and revisiting our excellent two part movie mixtape with our good friend Mitch Bain. We chat about our favourite needle drops in films...

We wrap up this week's dual episodes on The Haxan Cloak with Mark going deep into the Returnal soundtrack, doing a quick drive-by on the Beef soundtrack, touching on a couple of other movie scores, before taking Excavation on in its entirety. Due to the hype around Excavation when it came out, we go on quite the tangent about PR in music. We discuss how there seemed to be very little in the way of...

Diving deep into the discography of R.E.M. rapidly turned into a sorta of existential torture, particularly as we got towards the end of their career. So what did we decide to follow it up with? A journey into what existential despair may ACTUALLY sound like with The Haxan Cloak. Under the guise of The Haxah Cloak, Bobby Krilc has only released two albums, three EPs and, more recently, a single. I...

This week's From the Vault episode is from the pre-pandemic days when we were starting to get into the flow of how this show goes. There's still a few rough edges, but the dynamic and banter are all here. There's some particularly spirited debate in this episode where Chris talks about one of his favourite albums ever and Mark absolutely detests every single note of it. But hey, that's one of the...

Well, we did it. We got to the end of R.E.M.'s discography and now we turn our attention to the album that started this journey in the first place - New Adventures in Hi-Fi-. Chris explains to us why he thinks it's unsung classic, and grapples with the possibility that his choice may not have been the right one. And as ever, we drop the nexus too. See ye next week!

R.E.M. never really chased superstardom, and yet they found themselves thrust into it in the mid-90s. Last week we ended by talking about Green and Out of Time. In part three we chat about Automatic for the People and Monster, before diving into the records they made after drummer and founding member Bill Berry left: Up, Reveal, Around the Sun, Accelerate and Collapse Into Now. This episode's the...

2017 was a much simpler time. Both for society and for this podcast. Every Thursday we'll be putting out an old episode and to mark the occasion we thought it'd be good to revisit the very first episode: The Remote Part by Idlewild. The episode lengths were shorter, we were all younger, fresher, more naive. Oh and we still had three hosts. Dave was a fixture from the very beginning and we miss him...

Welcome to part two of our R.E.M. series! Now that the context is out the way, we dive headlong into their discography. In Side B we talk about all the records the released on I.R.S., and also dispense some trivia about the band during the time on the label. We talk about Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant and Document, discussing our highlights, lowlights, and our...

Welcome to part one of our short series on R.E.M. So, as fans of the show know, the general thrust of Unsung is that each week we choose a record by a band. That record is either a classic by an unsung artist, or an unsung classic by a well known (and we take a fairly liberal view on what "well known" actually means) artist. The catalyst for this series is that Chris has chosen the album New Adven...

We're back! In new surroundings (digitally). To kick off our tenure in our new home of Bleav we thought we'd get out some Christmas leftovers and reheat them for you. Long time fans of the show will know that every Xmas we answer questions from our lovely listeners. Well, we had a couple we didn't answer from the 2023 Xmas specials and it just so happens that they pertain to the podcast itself and...

A little update on what's in store for the future of this podcast.

So here we are, the truly magnificent, slightly chaotic, overly long conclusion to our Xmas madness. It’s seen us well into January this year, which is maddening and funny. We had so many questions this year. A ridiculous amount, frankly. But we couldn’t let the die hards down, and that meant doing each and every single one. Somehow, despite divvying them up equally across the three episodes, the...

Christmas and New Year are very much in the rear view by this point, but due to our schedule having shifted due to ransomware attacks and COVID, we only managed to record parts two and three of our Xmas special last week. Usually part two is where we really get cooking. The booze is starting to kick in, the takes are at a reasonable level of spice, and we’re still largely coherent. That is, of cou...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Due to COVID we recorded part one of our Xmas Xtravaganza remotely, so this is a relatively subdued affair both in terms of banter, hilarity and searing hot takes. But we do get through a fucking TON of your questions, and that’s awesome. Thanks to every single person who sent us some in December. We’ve got two more episodes to record, which we’ll be doing TOMORROW (Jan 2nd) in per...

IT’S CHRISTMAS! Is this our first ever Christmas day episode drop? Possibly. But don’t quote us on that. It’s been six years. So it’s likely we’ve done it before…anyway, this week is NOT part one (or two) of our Xmas Xtravaganza, but it’s part TWO of our karaoke mixtape! Last week we spoke all about the history of karaoke. This week we’re chatting about a couple things: are artists who tour using...

Karaoke is a divisive artform. In fact, even calling an “artform” is divisive in itself. For most people it’s a fun thing to do with friends, and for that reason it is hugely popular around the world. Inspired by Chris’ recent birthday night out that ended in a karaoke booth, we thought we’d do something FUN and explore the history of karaoke. In part one we talk about how it began, its success an...

This week we have a guest! Grant Donaldson from Moni Jitchell (and many others) joins us to talk about the debut album by ‘68. Launching almost immediately after the abrupt end of the critically acclaimed Christian Metalcore The Chariot, ‘68 are a very different proposition indeed. At various points channelling equal parts southern blues, angular punk rock and noise rock, they couldn’t be further...