Political Beats

Scot and Jeff discuss Randy Newman with Matt Murray. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Matt Murray. Matt is editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal and is the author of the book The Father And The Son: My Father’s Journey Into Monastic Life. Matt is on Twitter at @murraymatt. Matt’s Musical Pick: Randy Newman It’s lonely at the top when you’re one of America’s greatest modern songwriters, but the case of Randy Newman is an even stranger one than most: a professional songwriter since 1962, a celebrated solo artist since 1968, and one of Hollywood’s go-to men for movie soundtracks (including, yes, all those Pixar movies) since 1981, Newman is still arguably hugely underappreciated by the public at large. We suppose that’s inevitable when you sing like a bullfrog and your greatest commercial success was a quasi-novelty song about loathing diminutive folk, but Matt, Jeff and Scot are at great pains on today’s episode to explain why Randy Newman is in fact one of the most profound (profoundly acerbic, profoundly cynical, profoundly hilarious, profoundly moving, you name it) artists of the modern popular era. From the halting orchestral experiments of his youth to the deep exploration of the dark weird corners of America during his prime to the scabrous wit of his political and social commentary, Newman is one of the most truly American musicians of the past fifty years, and his musical legacy reveals truths both uncomfortable and undeniable about our national psyche. Dive on in with us — and you can leave your hat on. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Ben Folds Five with Michael Brendan Dougherty. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Michael Brendan Dougherty. Michael is a senior writer at National Review and is the author of the new book My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son’s Search for Home. Michael is on Twitter at @michaelbd. Michael’s Music Pick: Ben Folds Five Were you never cool at school? Are you a fan of Elton John, Billy Joel, Bruce Hornsby, and Todd Rundgren? Well, Ben Folds Five might be the band for you. You must know a few things upfront, though: There are only three members of Ben Folds Five (it just sounds better than Ben Folds Three), and there is no guitar used on any of the band’s proper albums. Piano, bass, and drums. That’s it. Ben Folds, Robert Sledge, and Darren Jessee use those instruments to cover a wide range of styles and dynamics. Jazz? Sure. Rock? Yep. Power pop? Sure? Prog rock? A little. Singer/songwriter laments? Absolutely! We take a deep dive into their output prior to the band’s breakup in 2000 and also cover Ben Folds’ solo work and the band’s reunion album in 2012. Join us Underground, where everything is heavy and everyone is happy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot Bertram and Jeff Blehar discuss Marvin Gaye with Kmele Foster. Introducing The Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@scotbertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Kmele Foster, co-host of “The Fifth Column” podcast and a partner at “Freethink,” where he helps produce original content about the people and ideas helping to reshape the word. Follow Kmele on Twitter at @kmele and check out The Fifth Column podcast (whose members Political Beats likes so much that we’ve had literally every single one of them as a guest) here. Kmele’s Music Pick: Marvin Gaye This week, Political Beats asks whether they can get a witness as they tell you what’s going on with the incredible, sprawling genius of Motown soul/R&B giant Marvin Gaye. Gaye came to prominence as the original cornerstone of Motown’s pop crossover success (a fact which did not prevent him from constantly butting heads with Motown founder Berry Gordy — not even marrying Gordy’s sister could prevent that) in the Sixties. Then he made his name even more solidly by rebelling against the chop-’em-out Motown factory style and the tyranny of Gordy’s “don’t bore us, get to the chorus” hitmaking formula in the Seventies, beginning first with the legendary What’s Going On and continuing all throughout the decade with a series of fascinating (and often fascinatingly unmediated and painfully honest) records. Marvin Gaye — the man, his demons, the dizzying heights to which he ascended and the personal lows to which he plunged — is a topic so vast that you might think it impossible to properly throw your arms around the complexity of the man’s work in a mere two hours and change, and yet with the expert assistance of guest Kmele Foster we somehow managed to do justice to every phase of his career. How sweet it is. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot Bertram and Jeff Blehar discuss LCD Soundsystem with Tim Miller. Introducing The Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@scotbertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Tim Miller, communications consultant, GOP operative, contributor to The Bulwark, and co-founder of America Rising. Follow Tim on Twitter at @Timodc. Tim’s Music Pick: LCD Soundsystem This week, Political Beats is selling its guitars and buying turntables, and then selling its turntables and buying guitars, as we explore the brief but dense discography of LCD Soundsystem, one of the premier acts of the 21st century, and finally back in business after a long hiatus. The band is the brainchild and primarily the work of one James Murphy, former Brooklyn DJ and middle-aged rock snob/producer who finally decided in 2003 to say screw it and start releasing his own music rather than just produce it for other people. His first single, the hilariously self-deprecating music snob’s lament of “Losing My Edge,” became a indie phenomenon and launched LCD Soundsystem on a career path that took it all the way from the New York City hipster underground to selling out the entirety of Madison Square Garden before a breakup and recent reunion that finds Murphy and his friends sounding as vital as ever. Jeff labels LCD Soundsystem’s music “a journey to the end of rock music,” a terminal point for an entire era of musical creativity and fusion, but what a glorious one. If you’re already a fan, then get ready to hit the dance floor with the gang this week. If you’ve never heard LCD Soundsystem before, or know them only from their immense critical reputation, then get ready to experience one of the true greats of the modern century. As for me? I was there. I was there. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Jackson Browne with Cameron Joseph. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Cameron Joseph. Cameron is Talking Points Memo’s senior political reporter, where he covers Congress and the permanent campaign. You can find him at talkingpointsmemo.com and at shows standing back by the soundboard. Cameron is on Twitter at @cam_joseph. Cameron’s Music Pick: Jackson Browne One of the faces of the 1970s west coast singer/songwriters movement, Jackson Browne is the writer and performer of some of the most literate and moving songs of his era. His self-titled debut was the work of a man who had spent some six years honing his craft. A Top Ten hit, “Doctor My Eyes,” was emblematic of what was to come over the next decade: a series of preternaturally mature and affecting songs about, life, love, and death. Browne had a rough transition into the 1980s artistically, though his albums continued to sell well for the first half of the decade. A bounceback with I’M ALIVE proved he still had some gas in the engine. Literate, direct, and armed with a tremendous gift for observation, Jackson Browne can sing the soundtrack for your life, if you’ll let him. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss The Black Crowes with Jay Cost. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jay Cost, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and co-host of National Review’s Constitutionally Speaking podcast. Jay is on Twitter at @JayCostTWS. Jay’s Music Pick: The Black Crowes They’ve been called the “The Most Rock ‘n’ Roll Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World,” and The Black Crowes did their best to live up to the title. Success, label fights, lineup changes, warring brothers, drugs, break-ups, hiatuses, triumphant returns, epic live shows, and unreleased albums. Heck, these guys had their “Behind the Music” on VH1 before some band members had turned 30. Through it all, The Black Crowes turned out some of the best music of the 1990s. We cover it all on this episode, from the initial platinum-selling albums to the unreleased gem, THE BAND, and two extremely well-received albums reunion albums in the 00s. Both Scot and Jay count the Crowes as their favorite band of all-time and bring the passion and knowledge to this episode. They weren’t just Rolling Stones rip-offs; The Black Crowes paved their own road in their career and didn’t care who stood in the way. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Pavement with Jeff Pojanowski. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jeff Pojanowski, professor at Notre Dame Law School. Jeff is on Twitter at @pojanowski. Jeff’s Music Pick: Pavement Political Beats has been dressed for success for a long time, but success it never comes. Finally it arrives with their episode on Pavement, a band that Jeff (Blehar, that is) considers to be the single greatest of the entire 1990s. The discussion carries the gang from Pavement’s early lo-fi EPs and debut album (complete with a ’70s hippie burnout on drums and behind the producer’s desk) to their more assured (but never ‘straight’ or particularly commercial) mid- and late-’90s material. This is a band that, for all their practiced inscrutability and just-don’t-care posing, never set a foot wrong over their entire career (five EPs, five albums, and countless B-sides and outtakes) until the end — a record of near-perfection that makes them one of the most essential bands of the rock era. Join us as we go back to those gold soundz, and you don’t even have to keep your advent to yourself. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss U2 with Stephen Miller. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Stephen Miller. He is a contributor to National Review, Fox News, and a well known social media raconteur. Stephen is on Twitter at @redsteeze where he will calmly insult your music tastes, among other things. Stephen’s Music Pick: U2: The gang gets its Irish up this week as we cover a small Hibernian band of little renown known to the world as U2. As Stephen jokes, they’re the biggest band in the world (still) and yet everyone pretends to hate them. In this epic installment of Political Beats we trace the story of Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen, and that guy who Jeff used to mistake for a notorious New York City Congressman from their beginnings as a Dublin hooligan gang to world-saving musical superheroes. And in the telling we explain why, even though their most recent albums signal a seemingly permanent decline, you secretly love them too. You know it’s time to go, across the sleet and driving snow, across the fields of mourning light in the distance. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) with Jack Butler, host of Ricochet’s Young Americans podcast, sidekick of The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, and a freelancer writer living in D.C. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jack Butler, host of Ricochet’s Young Americans podcast, sidekick of The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, and a freelancer writer living in D.C. Jack is on Twitter at @jackbutler4815. Jack’s Music Pick: The Electric Light Orchestra: What began as a dream of Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne to fuse modern pop songs with classical touches became a hit-making machine through the mid-to-late-1970s and early-1980s. Wood left after album number one, leaving the creative direction to Lynne alone. And direct he did! From the prog-rock stylings of ELO II to the full-on, sugar-sweet, pristine production on OUT OF THE BLUE, to the synth-driven concept album TIME, ELO managed to sell more than 50 million albums in little more than a decade. The music has been used endlessly in the past 20 years in movie trailers and commercials, keeping the band in the public view. Heck, we also make time to discuss Lynne’s turn as “producer to the stars” in the 80s and 90s. Rev up the technicolor spaceship and set your vocoder to “high” — it’s time to dive in to ELO! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss The Clash with CJ Ciaramella, a criminal justice reporter for Reason Magazine. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest CJ Ciaramella. He is a criminal justice reporter for Reason Magazine. CJ is on Twitter at @cjciaramella and you can read his work at reason.com. CJ’s Music Pick: The Clash: The gang wraps up its second year of Political Beats with a discussion of The Only Band That Matters! From rock to pop to reggae to ethno-fusion to, well, “Fingerpoppin’,” The Clash belie their reputation as one of the greatest punk acts of all time with the startling diversity of their music. And what a weird career arc it is, encompassing not only one of the most important punk rock records of all time (their self-titled debut), one of the greatest double albums in any genre of modern music full-stop (the glorious London Calling), and one of the worst TRIPLE albums in history (the fascinatingly failed Sandinista!). Scot, Jeff, and C.J. love much of this music passionately and are deeply confused and dismayed by some of it as well (please, dear reader: never listen to Cut The Crap) but celebrate all of it anyway. Happy Holidays to all of our listeners, and we’ll see you again in January! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Queen with Adam White, law professor and a think-tank researcher. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Adam White. He is a law professor and a think-tank researcher, writing on law and democracy for outlets like the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, National Affairs, many other publications, and occasional legal journals. Adam is on Twitter at @adamjwhitedc. Adam’s Music Pick: Queen Could examining the subject of the #1 movie in America make this the #1 podcast in America? Who knows! But it’s worth a shot. Scot and Jeff welcome Adam White to dig deep into the catalog of Queen. Each host has a different favorite era, which means no segment of the band’s career is overlooked. Yes, we discuss the amazing Freddie Mercury and his death. Yes, we talk about LIVE AID. Yes, we even spend multiple minutes examining if Adam Lambert is a good fit as lead singer for the current incarnation of Queen. It’s all here, for the die-hards and the new fans. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Scot and Jeff discuss Radiohead with Molly Ball, TIME magazine’s national political correspondent and a political analyst for CNN. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Molly Ball (@mollyesque). She is TIME magazine’s national political correspondent and a political analyst for CNN. Molly’s Music Pick: Radiohead: Ahoy! In the deepest oceans, the bottom of the sea, Captain Ahab (aka Jeff) finally goes after his white whale and does an episode on the band people most associate him with, Radiohead! And he is in excellent company this week as the gang is joined by Molly Ball, another Radiohead mega-fan — and this is a group which has spawned an extremely dedicated, devoted fanbase which sits apart from its mainstream praise — to explore the full career of one of the greatest bands of all time. From Pablo Honey all the way to 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool, the gang charts its way through an odyssey of music. There are stopovers to discuss the B-sides, the unreleased outtakes, the song that got ruined in the studio…this is one not only for people who are new to Radiohead, but also people who have been obsessed with them their entire adult lives, as Jeff and Molly have. A true labor of love. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Scot and Jeff discuss Elton John with Jamie Kirchick, author of The End of Europe. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jamie Kirchick (@JKirchick). He’s a Brookings Institution Visiting Fellow, author of The End of Europe, and columnist for Tablet magazine. Jamie’s Music Pick: Elton John: Allow us to simply quote from this recent Vulture piece on Sir Elton: He had seven No. 1 albums in a row in the U.S. These albums, in a three-and-a-half-year period, spent a total of 39 weeks at No. 1, a bit less than a quarter of that overall span. By Billboard’s rankings, he is by far the biggest album act of the 1970s (despite the fact that he didn’t have a top-ten album after 1976). He is also Billboard’s biggest singles act of the decade, and the magazine’s third-biggest singles artist of all time, with nine No. 1 singles and 27 top-ten hits, which is a lot. In all, he’s sold more than 150 million albums and 100 million singles. We cover his classic period in-depth, discuss works through Too Low For Zero, and then do our best to summarize the remainder of an amazing career. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this special episode, Scot and Jeff discuss Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker with David Lowery, the main singer/songwriter and bandleader for both groups. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest David Lowery (@DavidCLowery). He’s the main singer/songwriter and bandleader for Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker. David also is lecturer in music business at the University of Georgia, chief muckraker at The Trichordist, an artist rights activist, and 2014 Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Champion. David’s Music Pick: Camper Van Beethoven/Cracker: How did we do this? We have David Lowery joining the show, the ringleader of two of the best bands in the past 35 years. Camper Van Beethoven merging of punk, folk, ska, and world music was unlike anything else happening at the time and, frankly, just about anything happening now. Cracker took a step forward when Camper broke up, embracing Americana and country along with traditional rock ‘n’ roll elements. David spends more than three hours with us, walking us through the beginnings of CVB to the most recent releases from both band. We ask about some random CVB/Cracker trivia and also discuss music in the modern streaming era, copyright law, and the Music Modernization Act, which has been one of David’s causes for years now. No, really. The actual David Lowery is on this podcast with us. You must listen. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Old 97s with Jessie Opoien, political reporter with the Capital Times in Wisconsin. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jessie Opoien (@JessieOpie). She’s a political reporter for the Capital Times in Wisconsin and host of the Wisconsin politics podcast, “Wedge Issues,” featuring interviews with candidates, strategists and other players in the Wisconsin politics world. Jessie’s Music Pick: Old 97s: One of the seminal alt.country bands of the mid- and late-90’s, Old 97s continue releasing vital albums to this day. Celebrating 25 years together, the band has consisted of the same four members for the entire time, each with his distinctive qualities — Rhett Miller’s front-man good looks and incredibly detail-oriented songwriting, Murry Hammond’s muscular bass and perfect harmony vocals, Ken Bethea’s surf/country approach to guitar, and Philip Peeples insistent drumming. From the classic country-influences of the early years, to the power pop-leaning of Fight Songs and Satellite Rides, to the band’s incendiary live shows, all is covered in the episode. Are they the best band you might never have heard of? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss King Crimson with Dave Weigel, political reporter for the Washington Post. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Dave Weigel. He is a political reporter for the Washington Post, writer of the new campaign newsletter, The Trailer, and author of the recent book The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock. Follow him on Twitter @daveweigel. Dave’s Music Pick: King Crimson: This week the gang softly sings three lullabies in an ancient tongue on Political Beats as they enter the court of King Crimson, the first true ‘high progressive’ act covered by the podcast. And they couldn’t have a better guest for the journey than the one who joins them today, Dave Weigel (@daveweigel). Dave isn’t just a national politics reporter for the Washington Post, he’s a man who loves prog so much that he recently wrote a book about it called The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock. Buy it! But first, come join us as we travel through the career of the most fearless, most stubbornly mutagenic progressive act of them all. King Crimson never sold as many albums as its three “major” Seventies prog confreres (Genesis, Yes, and ELP), but they had a more lasting influence on later artists than all of them and have outlasted all comers as a band, still touring and making relevant music to this day in 2018. Since setting the tone for an entire genre of music with their 1969 debut album (and immediately collapsing, something which would become a ongoing theme), Crimson have gone through at least seven different iterations, wild shifts in musical approaches, and have cycled personnel in and out of the group with only one constant: the restlessly visionary guitarist and bandleader Robert Fripp. The gang are men with an aim this week: we somehow manage to get through the entire scope of KC’s majestic career in under 2 & ½ hours, which is frankly a miracle given that this isn’t merely Dave’s favorite band, it’s one of Jeff’s as well. Long live the Crimson King. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Guns N’ Roses with Robert VerBruggen, deputy managing editor of National Review Online. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Robert VerBruggen. He is deputy managing editor of National Review Online. Follow him on Twitter at @RAVerBruggen Robert’s Music Pick: Guns N’ Roses: You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby. But if it’s a jungle with wi-fi, you’re in luck! This week the crew tackles the rock ‘n’ roll excess of one of the biggest bands of the late 80s and early 90s. Guns N’ Roses exploded out of the Hollywood club scene with the biggest-selling debut album of all time, created some of the most iconic music videos on MTV, then spent the better part of two decades laboring over Chinese Democracy. It’s all here, including a discussion of how we should look at GN’R’s musical legacy. Political Beats: where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Bob Dylan with Andrew Kirell, a senior editor at The Daily Beast overseeing breaking news, political media, and occasionally music coverage. Part 3 of 3. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Andrew Kirll. He is a senior editor at The Daily Beast overseeing breaking news, political media, and occasionally music coverage. Follow him on Twitter at @andrewkirell Andrew’s Music Pick: Bob Dylan: In this part three of three, we pick up with Dylan’s Gospel Era and Slow Train Coming. The less said about the 80s, the better. But against all odds, Dylan stages a major comeback in the late 90s. We discuss all the way up to the present day and include talk specifically about the Bootleg Series. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Bob Dylan with Andrew Kirell, a senior editor at The Daily Beast overseeing breaking news, political media, and occasionally music coverage. Part 2 of 3. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Andrew Kirll. He is a senior editor at The Daily Beast overseeing breaking news, political media, and occasionally music coverage. Follow him on Twitter at @andrewkirell Andrew’s Music Pick: Bob Dylan: In this part two of three, we pick up with Dylan’s turn toward country (and a new singing voice) on Nashville Skyline. The 70s begin with Self Portrait and continue with the creative peak of Blood on the Tracks. We close this edition with Street-Legal and the live At Budokan, the final albums before The Gospel Years. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss Bob Dylan with Andrew Kirell, a senior editor at The Daily Beast overseeing breaking news, political media, and occasionally music coverage. Part 1 of 3. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Andrew Kirll. He is a senior editor at The Daily Beast overseeing breaking news, political media, and occasionally music coverage. Follow him on Twitter at @andrewkirell Andrew’s Music Pick: Bob Dylan: Following our trip through the music of The Beatles, we decide to tackle an artist who is just as important and influential, but with a discography roughly four times as long. What could go wrong? In this part one of three, we tackle Dylan’s career from Bob Dylan (1961) through John Wesley Harding (1967), one of the most prolific and successful periods of any artist in history. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss The Beatles with Charles C. W. Cooke, editor of NationalReview.com and the author of The Conservatarian Manifesto. Part 2 of 2. Introducing the Band: Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Charles C. W. Cooke. He is the editor of NationalReview.com and the author of The Conservatarian Manifesto. Follow him on Twitter at @charlescwcooke Charles’s Music Pick: The Beatles: Charles returns to finish our lengthy conversation about the Fab Four. Part Two begins with the “Paperback Writer” / “Rain” single and takes us through Abbey Road. Yes, we discuss the albums in the order they were recorded, so Let It Be comes first. An enormous amount of music means we crack the three-hour mark in length. Listener be warned. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss The Beatles with Charles C. W. Cooke. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Charles C. W. Cooke. He is the editor of NationalReview.com and the author of The Conservatarian Manifesto. Charles’s Music Pick: The Beatles There’s this band you might have heard of called The Beatles. It’s Paul McCartney’s old group. Anyway, if you’re not aware of them, or their music, Scot, Jeff, and Charles turn the spotlight on this foursome that broke up nearly 50 years ago and then slowly faded from the public’s consciousness. Oh, come on! It’s The Beatles! John. Paul. George, Ringo. We’re going to spend two episodes just scratching the surface of their catalog. Part One takes us through Rubber Soul and the double A-side single “We Can Work It Out” / “Day Tripper”. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Christopher Scalia. He is co-editor of Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived, the New York Times best-selling collection of his late father’s speeches. He works at a public relations firm in Alexandria, VA, and has written reviews and political commentary for the Washington Post, NRO, Weekly Standard, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter at @cjscalia. Chris’s Music Pick: Cheap Trick Scot, Jeff, and Chris have not forgotten the magnetism of Robin Zander, the charisma of Rick Nielsen, or, most importantly, the tunes! We celebrate the music and career of Cheap Trick, power-pop masters and occasional hard rock purveyors. Join us for the ups (the 70s), the downs (the 80s), and the highly-respectable late-career albums. One of us even tries to defend “The Flame.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jon Gabriel, co-host of the Conservatarians podcast and editor-in-chief of Ricochet. Follow Jon Twitter at @exjon. Jon’s Music Pick: New Order This week the gang gets pumped full of drugs as they discuss New Order, the rock legends who emerged from the ashes of Joy Division to spend an entire decade shaping the sound of modern dance music. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff discuss The Velvet Underground with Mark Joseph Stern of Slate. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Mark Joseph Stern covers courts and the law for Slate. Follow him on Twitter at @mjs_DC, and find more here. Mark’s Music Pick: The Velvet Underground Scot, Jeff, and Mark find their respective mainlines and nearly overdose on a large helping of The Velvet Underground. Widely respected as one of the most influential bands of all time, The VU has a short but distinctive discography. As Brian Eno said, while their debut album sold only 30,000 copies in its early years, everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff talk to Kevin Madden about Wilco. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Kevin Madden, Republican strategist, CNN Commentator and former advisor to President George W. Bush, Gov. Mitt Romney, Republican House Leaders John Boehner and Tom DeLay.” Follow Kevin on Twitter at @KevinMaddenDC. Kevin’s Music Pick: Wilco This week the gang gets a shot in the arm as they celebrate Wilco, one of the great genre-transcending American groups of the past quarter century. This is a band that had a cult and critical following long before they emerged into wider prominence in the 21st century, and co-host Scot was there from the start: Wilco is one of the bands nearest and dearest to him in his entire life. Kevin tells the story of sitting in Yonkers city hall during his years as an aide to the city council president and having his head turned around by hearing a song on the radio: “California Stars,” which set him on the path to lifelong fandom. Jeff tells a more familiar story for many, one of finding Wilco due to the hype surrounding Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and being mildly perplexed at first until the eventual discovery of Summerteeth clicked everything into place for him. Too Far Apart: Uncle Tupelo and the origins of Wilco As much as the gang would have loved to, there just wasn’t any time to seriously discuss Uncle Tupelo, the groundbreaking band from southern Illinois led by Jay Farrar that formed in 1989 and ended up defining the entire subgenre of alt-country. Instead, Scot gives a brief rundown of their career and points out that by far the more important thing, as far as the present episode is concerned, is that Uncle Tupelo also happened to contain a second key member in the quiet, retiring bassist Jeff Tweedy, who began writing more and more songs as the band’s career progressed. This led to incurable friction with Farrar, and when Tupelo eventually collapsed and Farrar quit, Tweedy took the rest of the band with him and renamed it Wilco. Farrar began a new band named Son Volt, and for the next two records, a ‘battle of the bands’ (as Kevin calls it) was on between Son Volt and Wilco. The overwhelming critical consensus is that Farrar won round one in a knock-out with Son Volt’s magnificent debut Trace; Wilco’s 1995 debut A.M. was seen by most as an afterthought — a middling continuation of the Uncle Tupelo sound — and proof that the real magic in the band came from Jay Farrar. In retrospect we now know that not to be the case, but the gang argues that A.M. is itself an underrated record in its own right, far too quickly dismissed by critics and fans (and even the band) for failing to advance much on Uncle Tupelo’s original sound. Scot and Kevin praise the guitarwork of Brian Henneman (on temporary loan from the Bottle Rockets) in particular, and note that the embryonic “Tweedy style” of lyrical introversion is found in so many of the highlights of this record, like “Box Full Of Letters” and “Should’ve Been In Love.” Misunderstood: Jay Bennett and Being There All talk of Wilco as an also-ran in the alt-country scene immediately ended with their second album, 1996’s sprawling 2CD masterpiece Being There. And yet with this record Tweedy was already declaring, on songs such as “Misunderstood” and “Sunken Treasure” (which, as Jeff notes, tellingly open disc 1 and disc 2 respectively), that Wilco was not content to be a mere alt-country act anymore. The impetus behind this shift was Tweedy’s for sure–all of the songs on this LP are solo songwriting credits–but a major reason for the success of Wilco’s sudden musical complexity must be laid at the feet of their newest member, Jay Bennett. Originally hired to be the band’s lead guitarist, Bennett immediately revealed a passion for piano and keyboards and used his skill with them to bathe nearly every song on Being There with graceful and haunting coloristic touches. From “Red-Eyed And Blue” (which Jeff is passionate about) to “Outta Mind (Outta Site)” (which sounds more like a Beach Boys Christmas album outtake than anything else), Bennett’s impact as a performer and an arranger are instantly felt, and his creative contributions to the band would rapidly rise to the level of a near-even collaboration with Tweedy on subsequent records. All three of the gang are effusive in their praise of Being There, a record which finds Wilco stepping into a much larger world of art-rock while still keeping its feet solidly in the world of country balladry and sprightly rockers that had been the Uncle Tupelo calling card. What impresses even more than the variety of this record is its consistency: as a double album with 18 songs, it should drag and yet there few if any perceptible weak spots. A Shot in the Arm: Mermaid Avenue and Summerteeth On tour, Wilco ran into venerable UK political guitar-folkie Billy Bragg and predictably hit it off. Thus, when Bragg was approached by Woody Guthrie’s daughter with the o

Scot and Jeff talk to Ellen Carmichael about Dire Straits. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Ellen Carmichael, president of The Lafayette Company and contributor to National Review and Forbes . Follow her on Twitter at @ellencarmichael, and find more here. Ellen’s Music Pick: Dire Straits Creators of one of the most iconic guitar solos (“Sultans of Swing”) and music videos (“Money For Nothing”) of all time, Dire Straits recently was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The distinctive finger-picking guitar style and songwriting of Mark Knopfler helped drive the band to tens of millions of record sales worldwide. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Christian Schneider, columnist for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and USA Today. Follow him on Twitter at @Schneider_CM, and read his work here. Christian’s music pick: Pixies It’s time to gouge away as the gang attacks the Pixies, a band that was around for only a few short years (minus a 21st-century profit-taking reunion tour or two) but managed to influence an entire generation of musicians with the music they created during that brief span. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff talk to the WSJ‘s Matt Murray about Talking Heads. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Matt Murray, executive editor of the Wall Street Journaland author of The Father and the Son: My Father’s Journey into the Monastic Life. Follow Matt on Twitter at @murraymatt. Matt’s Music Pick: Talking Heads This week the gang stops making sense as they tackle Talking Heads, a band that resolutely defies easy classification. Beginning as the most self-consciously quirky (yet appealingly melodic) band on the New York CBGB punk/new-wave scene of the mid-1970s, they gradually transformed into pioneers of complex polyrhythmic Afrobeat fusion under the auspices of producer Brian Eno until suddenly remaking themselves once again as a pop band. All throughout, they were guided by the singular muse of lead singer (and guitarist) David Byrne, whose lyrical concerns ranged from quotidian to the profound and frequently encompassed both simultaneously. Matt tells the story of his exposure to Talking Heads, first as a child with ’77, and then how they were ubiquitous on the college scene in 1983 with Speaking In Tongues. Jeff remembers to this day the moment he first became aware of the group: having his senses assaulted as a 10-year-old by the famous music video for “Once In A Lifetime” and barely being able to believe it wasn’t some sort of elaborate practical joke VH-1 was playing on him. From CBGB to ’77: The Formative Years Scot and Jeff run through the brief history of Talking Heads’ formation: songwriter and guitarist David Byrne was in a band with drummer Chris Frantz while the pair were students at Rhode Island School of Design. After moving to New York City along with Frantz’s girlfriend (and later wife) Tina Weymouth, she is cajoled into learning to play the bass from scratch. She was a quick study and completed them as a trio just in time for them to be present at ground zero for the birth of the American punk/new-wave scene in New York City, centered around the Manhattan club CBGB and featuring such legendary artists as the Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, the Voidoids, and an odd-duck group that never quite fit in: Talking Heads. While the other groups in the scene were deeply confrontational, either playing loud and aggressively or adopting transgressive lyrical poses, Talking Heads were…downright nice. David Byrne’s terse, naively childlike quasi-Aspergers approach to lyrical themes immediately set him apart from the snarling contemptuousness of the rest of the American punk scene, while the band’s herky-jerky compact melodicism and clean crisp rhythms were miles away from the snarl of, say, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. Little wonder, then, that they were very quickly given a major-label record deal and immediately began to make good on it. Their only officially-released recording as a trio was their debut single “Love -> Building On Fire” (the title alone gives fair indication of how Byrne wrote), at which point they expanded to a quartet with the addition of keyboardist/guitarist Jerry Harrison (formerly of the ahead-of-their-time Modern Lovers), who rounded out their sound. This is the group that would record their debut album Talking Heads: ’77 (no prizes for guessing which year it was released). Jeff thinks this is their most underrated album, unfairly neglected because it falls outside the upcoming “Eno trilogy,” and chockablock full of wonderful, weird tunes. Matt and Jeff spend a lot of time discussing why David Byrne is so compelling as a lyricist. Matt says that he is an artist in the truest sense of the word: trying to take the familiar things in this world and see them with fresh eyes. Jeff agrees and compares the seeming lack of artifice in Byrne’s vocals and lyrics to outsider art. He also adds that Talking Heads’ lyrics during this era make sense the moment you realize that they are meant wholly unironically: “New Feeling” is about a new feeling, “The Book I Read” is about a book David Byrne read, and “Don’t Worry About The Government” is a song that suggests that you shouldn’t worry about the government. Matt and Scot also note that “Pulled Up” is exactly what it purports itself to be: an earnestly cheerful song of thanks from Byrne to his parents for pulling him up from the doldrums of depression. The Brian Eno Era: More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, and Remain in Light Enter Brian Eno. Fascinated by the rhythmic and lyrical approach he heard on Talking Heads: ’77 (so much so that he wrote an anagrammatic tribute to them on his own Before And After Science called “King’s Lead Hat”), Brian Eno came to the band and offered to produce their next album, beginning one of the most well-known artist/producer collaborations of the rock era. More Songs About Buildings And Food (1978) draws primarily from the same first batch of songs the group had written as far back as 1975, so structurally these songs

Scot and Jeff talk to Terry Teachout about The Band. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Terry Teachout, drama critic for the Wall Street Journal, author of the plays “Satchmo At The Waldorf” and “Billy And Me,” and author of, among others, The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken and Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington. Follow Terry on Twitter at @TerryTeachout, check out his excellent books of cultural and musical criticism here, and read his most recent work for the WSJ here. Terry’s Music Pick: The Band This week the gang hops on board the mystery train and takes a journey deep into the unknowable heart of America as they discuss The Band, one of the true sui generis phenomena of the rock era. The Band is a rock group that, despite their relatively short (and variable) major-label career, has called forth more profound verbiage from music and cultural critics than most other North American artists save Bob Dylan, so the gang understands that they are walking paths already trodden solidly into shape by others (hello, Greil Marcus!). Nevertheless, attention must be paid: Terry, a child of the ’50s growing up in southeast Missouri, tells the story of growing up in a non-‘rock’ household and suddenly becoming cognizant of the great cultural ferment playing out on the radio and on vinyl. An early ’70s purchase of the original edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide having piqued his interest, he mail-ordered The Band’s first two albums and nothing was the same after that. Terry talks about how, as he went on to become a gigging jazz bassist in his college days and afterwards, he returned to much of the rock he had absorbed earlier to find it trite and ephemeral….but what had not aged for him was The Band’s deeply authentic take on the American tradition. Jeff comes from a much later generation (born in 1980, a tail-end Gen X’er) but feels exactly the same way despite telling a different story, one about being exposed to The Band (simultaneously with Dylan) by his father, who was a Sixties folkie at heart. All agree about how preternaturally uncanny The Band’s skill was at creating music and lyrics that evoked the true, beating heart of the American historical experience — music both current and modern, yet inexplicably timeless — despite the legendary irony that 4/5ths of the group were actually Canadians. From the Hawks to The Basement Tapes: The Pre-History Jeff argues that few artists have an actual history more compelling than The Band’s pre-history, and Terry agrees. Their story begins as a group that came together piece-by-piece in the early Sixties as the backing ensemble for Ronnie Hawkins (a rockabilly musician from Arkansas who made his name playing in Ontario, Canada, bringing people an authentic sound otherwise unavailable in the Great North). Rick Danko (bass), Richard Manuel (piano), Garth Hudson (organ/keyboards), and Robbie Robertson (guitar) were all from the Toronto area; only Levon Helm (drums) was an American born-and-raised — and, tellingly, a Razorback just like Hawkins. After they struck out on their own as Levon & The Hawks, they recorded a series of singles that made no impression on the charts but came to the attention of one Bob Dylan, who had just decided to shake off the shackles of folk-protest music and was looking for a touring band. What happened next is truly the stuff of music legend, and yet the legend is actual history: working as Dylan’s backing band during the moment of his most transcendent cultural importance, they participated in the recordings of the Blonde On Blonde (1966) era, and then went on tour with him as he visited the United Kingdom and played one of the most infamously confrontational series of concerts in the history of modern music. The protest-music lovers and Trotskyists roundly booed Dylan and The Band on a nightly basis for “selling out” to electrified music — “JUDAS!” — even as they were churning out a miasma of sound that still sounds to this day like (to quote Dylan himself) “thin white mercury music.” Levon Helm actually bowed out of the tour, tired of the brickbats he’d received on Dylan’s American gigs and unwilling to play music being denounced as the second coming of the man who sold out Christ. (Adding to the legend of the group, he ducked out of the music business entirely and went to work on an oil rig in Louisiana.) The true story of The Band as an independent entity (outside of Levon & The Hawks) really begins after this point, when Dylan crashed out of the music scene in 1967 (nominally in a motorcycle accident, but more accurately in a bid to escape from the pressure of the unanswerable expectations placed upon him) and began recording demos with The Band in the basement of a curiously-colored house in Woodstock, NY. These of course became The Basement Tapes (perhaps the most famous bootleg recording of all time, before they saw an adulterated release in 1975 and a full and prope

Scot and Jeff talk to Mark Davis about Paul McCartney and Wings. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with . . . no guest at all! Yes, this is a Very Special Episode of Political Beats, where the gang learns the true meaning of Christmas as well as a valuable lesson about the importance of friendship. In other words, this is PB’s first format-bucking episode where, instead of having a guest on to discuss their favorite artist, the subject is Scot and Jeff’s favorite cover songs of all time. And they’ve also canvassed the opinions of all their former guests as well! Instead of a formal set of show notes like we would do for a typical episode, we feel it’s better to let this show’s surprises unfold themselves organically, but to give a general sense of how the show is structured, we begin by discussing Peter Gabriel, then move to covers of Beatles songs. Then: Al Green, coming and going; Motown; covers done with toy instruments; bands that jam econo; repurposed late ’60s pop; the great singer-songwriter book; total demolition/reconstruction cover versions; The Jimi Hendrix Problem; and finally our last few favorites that didn’t really fit into any category but just had to be cited to. Throughout the show we refer to the picks of our former guests, but for posterity’s sake, here are the picks they submitted to us: – SEAN TRENDE: The Gourds, “Gin & Juice”; Van Halen, “You Really Got Me”; Dwight Yoakum, “Ring Of Fire” – TIM MILLER: Fugees, “Killing Me Softly”; Gary Jules, “Mad World”; Talking Heads, “Take Me To The River – JANE COASTON: Nine Inch Nails, “Physical”; Soft Cell, “Tainted Love” – DAN MCLAUGHLIN: Aretha Franklin, “Respect”; The Beatles, “Rock & Roll Music”; Bruce Springsteen, “I Want You (live 2/5/75)” – JAMES POULOS: Helmet, “Army Of Me”; Creedence Clearwater Revival, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”; The Byrds, “Mr. Tambourine Man” – MARK HEMINGWAY: Jimi Hendrix, “All Along The Watchtower”; Eef Barzelay, “Faithfully”; Bettye Lavette, “Love Reign O’er Me” – PHILIP WEGMANN: Jimi Hendrix, “All Along the Watchtower”; Johnny Cash, “Hurt”; Jeff Buckley, “Hallelujah” – JAY COST: Joe Cocker, “Feelin’ Alright”; The Band, “Don’t You Do It”; The Rolling Stones, “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” – MATT WELCH: Jimi Hendrix, “All Along The Watchtower”; The Beach Boys, “Sloop John B”; Jeff Buckley, “Hallelujah” – ANTHONY FISHER: Merry Clayton, “Gimme Shelter”; Amy Winehouse & Mark Ronson, “Valerie”; Nirvana, “Ain’t It A Shame” – EZEKIEL KWEKU: The Slits, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”; McCoy Tyner, “My Favorite Things”; Woven Hand, “Ain’t No Sunshine” – STEPHEN MILLER: Jose Gonzales, “Heartbeats”; Noel Gallagher, “To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have A Nice Time)”; The Flaming Lips, “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” – ERIC GARCIA: Jimi Hendrix, “All Along The Watchtower”; The Ramones, “Baby I Love You”; Emmylou Harris, “For No One” – BRUCE ED WALKER: Santana, “She’s Not There”; Patti Smith, “Gloria”; Was Not Was, “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” – JOHN J. MILLER: Calexico, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”; The Ataris, “Boys Of Summer”; The Afghan Whigs, “My World Is Empty/I Hear a Symphony (live medley)” – KAROL MARKOWICZ: Sinead O’Connor, “Night Nurse”; White Stripes, “One More Cup Of Coffee”; Jeff Buckley, “The Other Woman” – JULIE ROGINSKY: Derek & The Dominoes, “Little Wing”; Led Zeppelin, “Traveling Riverside Blues”; After The Fire, “Der Kommissar” – ROBERT DEAN LURIE: Afghan Whigs, “Band Of Gold”; Bryan Ferry & Todd Terkel, “Johnny and Mary”; Isaac Hayes, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” – JAY CARUSO: Johnny Cash, “Hurt”; Stevie Ray Vaughn, “Voodoo Chile”; The Rolling Stones, “Not Fade Away” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jeff and Scot talk to Jay Caruso about Foo Fighters. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jay Caruso, editorial writer & board member at the Dallas Morning News and co-host of the Fifth Estate podcast. Follow Jay on Twitter at @JayCaruso, check out the Fifth Estate here, and read his most recent work here. Jay’s Musical Pick: Foo Fighters This week the gang dusts up the ashes from Nirvana’s auto-combustion as they cover Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl’s wildly successful follow-up band. Jay talks about how he got into the Fighters Of Foo via ’90s radio play, initially skeptical when he heard “Big Me” as “the next big single from the drummer of Nirvana” and then SOLD SOLD SOLD once “Everlong” checked, he bought The Colour Of The Shape, and was in for the long run. Scot, as a DJ, was familiar with them from jump, but for once it’s Jeff who is coming to a band on Political Beats as a true tyro: to him, the Foos were merely a namechecked “ex-Nirvana” band until *literally* three weeks ago, at which point he dove into their discography and realized that he’d been a terrible, terrible fool. Everyone appreciates the fact that, while they take their music seriously, they don’t take themselves seriously — which anyone who’s seen any of their music videos already figured out. From mere colour to real shape: Foo Fighters and The Colour and the Shape The gang discusses how the band’s first album emerged from the wreckage of Nirvana, with Grohl recovering from depression after Kurt Cobain’s suicide to go in and record a demo tape of his favorite self-penned songs all by his lonesome: drums, bass, guitars, vocals, the whole shebang. That tape was so good that it became, after a mere remix, Foo Fighters (1995): a debut album for a band that wasn’t, at that point, actually even a band. But everyone loves this one and considers it among the Foos’ best, particularly Jeff, who considers it a My Bloody Valentine tribute record in all but name outside of “This Is A Call,” which is the most Nirvana-like song Nirvana never recorded. The big hosannahs are reserved for 1997’s The Colour And The Shape, however. Suddenly the Foo Fighters are an actual band: Grohl recruited the rhythm section of the newly-defunct Sunny Day Real Estate and added ex-Nirvana (touring version) guitarist Pat Smear — but then subtracted the Sunny Day drummer to re-record his tracks himself! — and came up with one of the finest albums of the late ’90s, and one of the most long-lasting as well. We’ve collectively forgotten the vast majority of the alt-rock/hard-rock acts from that era, but Shape lives on, all the way from “Dolls” to “New Way Home.” Jeff adores the whiplash contrasts of “My Poor Brain” and the earned anthemicism of “My Hero,” while Scot and Jay both single out “Everlong.” Scot and Jeff strongly disagree about the merits of “Hey, Johnny Park!” (“in my notes, there’s a big equals-sign saying ‘Goo Goo Dolls'” — Jeff), but there is universal agreement about the utterly consistent greatness of the rest of Colour And The Shape, whether it’s “Monkey Wrench,” “Up In Arms,” or “Wind Up.” Something Left to Lose Opinions differ about the Foo Fighters’ 1999 follow-up (recorded as a drums/guitar/bass trio) There Is Nothing Left To Lose. Jeff thinks this is nearly as good as The Colour And The Shape, and labels the two-song sequence of “Generator” and “Aurora” as the backbone of the Foos’ entire career. Scot thinks this LP reminds him most of The Lemonheads, but strongly dislikes “Breakout.” Jay (a drummer himself) praises the addition of Taylor Hawkins on drums. And everyone loves “Learn To Fly” especially the ridiculously goofy music video (the final three seconds of which, freeze-frame and all, tell you everything you need to know about how down-to-earth the Foos are). The band famously dislikes the follow-up album One By One (2002), though Jeff (the newbie listener) actually thinks it’s an unfair rap. The Foo Fighters re-expand back to a four-piece by adding Chris Shiflett on guitar, and come up with two radio-dominant singles in “All My Life” and “Times Like These” (you know it as “oh…I’m a new day rising” song). But while Scot, Jay and Jeff all agree that the back-end of this album is sludgy and unmemorable, Jeff really thinks “Tired Of You” and “Halo” are excellent songs. Foo Fighters: In a Folk Mood The header there is a reference to the infamous Pat Boone: In A Metal Mood record, which is how all three of the gang (including a hardcore Foos fan, a conversant listener, and a sympathetic neophyte) think about fully half of the unfortunate In Your Honor (2005). Honor makes the mistake of dividing itself into two discs (the Foos’ longest record to date), the first electrified and heavy, the second acoustic and poncy. Scot actually thinks disc 1 on In Your Honor is among the Foos’ best material, particularly the three-song run of “No Way Back,” “Best Of You,” and “D.O.A.” But they all agree that t

Scot and Jeff talk to Ezekiel Kweku about Talk Talk. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Ezekiel Kweku, politics editor at New York magazine. Follow Ezekiel on Twitter at @TheShrillest, and read his work here. Ezekiel’s Music Pick: Talk Talk What if one of the most important, most rewarding bands of the 1980s was a band you had most likely never heard of, or knew only as a one-hit wonder? The gang argues this week for the genius of Talk Talk, which many (if not most) listeners know, if at all, from a No Doubt cover song. But while Scot is new to them, Ezekiel and Jeff are hardcore fans and will argue that this band — widely acknowledged by musicians and critics as one of the most influential of its era, in the long run — are one of the finest, most moving and transcendent, groups of their era or any era for that matter. Beginning as catchy UK synth-pop and ending as one of the most profoundly unique progenitors of post-rock, Talk Talk followed a singular evolution that makes them one of the most fascinating bands of the decade. From The Party’s Over in 1982 all the way to Laughing Stock in 1991 (or Mark Hollis in 1998), Talk Talk worked its way from worldwide popularity to intensely beloved insular niche jazz-art-rock, with every step along the way perfectly understandable in light of the prior one. Ezekiel argues, intriguingly, that Talk Talk isn’t necessarily a band for everyone; he doesn’t mean that in the condescending hipster sense, rather in the sense that their music begins in one niche genre (early ’80s New Romantic/postpunk synthpop) and ends in another (early ’90s visionary jazzy post-rock), so it isn’t exactly Top 40 hit material. But Jeff, ever-voluble proselytizer that he always is, disagrees: this music should be for everyone, he thinks, and if he can introduce just one more person to The Colour Of Spring or Spirit Of Eden, then he’s done God’s good work. Jeff also notes that Ezekiel (who has a background as a DJ) made a fantastic, beautifully sequenced mix of artists influenced by (or influencing) Talk Talk called “Watershed,” and we recommend it heartily to you. All You Do to Me is Talk Talk: the Synth-pop Years Talk Talk began life as a synth-pop band springing out of the same ’80s UK ‘New Romantic’ scene that spawned Flock Of Seagulls, Culture Club, and Duran Duran…but right from the jump there was something ineffably different about them. Maybe it was the songcraft, which was a well-considered cut above the rest of their peers despite the occasionally dated synth line on their earlier records. Maybe it was lead singer/songwriter Mark Hollis’ remarkably breathy vocal approach: a man who sounded for all the world like he was inhaling his own life essence every time he sang a note. Or maybe it was just the fact that they were one of the rare groups (in the USA, at least) score the legendary ‘trifecta’: a hit single/album/band all sharing the same name. (As Jeff authoritatively announces: “‘Talk Talk!’ Off the album Talk Talk! By the band Talk Talk!”) But while the gang agrees that The Party’s Over (1982) is merely adequate as a debut — halting, a bit chintzy, and dated aside from the still-memorable hit single “Talk Talk” and “Today” — they also agree that its follow-up It’s My Life (1984) is a major leap forward. Unless you, intrepid listener, are a big post-rock/art-rock fan, you know Talk Talk primarily through No Doubt’s cover of their hit “It’s My Life” (which Ezekiel still rates as one of their best songs), but the ominously nagging “Dum Dum Girl” and “Tomorrow Started” (where Jeff notes the ‘hook’ is merely a two-note guitar, oscillating up and down) are every bit as good. And “Renee” is, as Ezekiel points out, the first moment where Mark Hollis embraces the idea of ‘space’ and quietness within his productions. Chameleon Day: Talk Talk Discovers the Colour of Spring One thesis that both Jeff and Ezekiel are at pains to emphasize during this episode is just how smoothly natural (even telegraphed) Talk Talk’s evolution from album to album was, no matter how radical those shifts must have seemed at the time. In retrospect, you can clearly hear the seeds of what was to come embedded within the songs on It’s My Life. Still, it’s hard to overemphasize what a massive leap forward The Colour Of Spring (1986) was — a masterpiece of the decade, an album that all three of the gang emphatically agree on, and to this day an album Jeff has been known to thrust upon unsuspecting strangers with a creepily zealous gleam in his eye. Ezekiel starts by noting that the opening seconds of the first song, “Happiness Is Easy” are the moment where listening chronologically through Talk Talk’s discography pays off: suddenly they are breathtakingly organic, acoustic, and touchingly original (the purity of slightly out-of-key children’s choir in the chorus slays Jeff every time). Scot is bowled over by the painstakingly methodical unfurling of “I D

Jeff and Scot talk to Eric Garcia about AC/DC. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Eric Michael Garcia, reporter for Roll Call. Follow Eric on Twitter at @EricMGarcia, and read his work here. Eric’s Musical Pick: AC/DC The gang breaks out their schoolboy uniforms and disconcertingly tiny shorts as they get dosed with ten thousand volts of AC/DC, one of the quintessential hard-rock groups of all time. After an opening debate on whether they’re properly an Australian or Scottish band, Eric, Scot and Jeff talk about the glory of brothers Angus (lead guitar) and Malcolm (rhythm guitar) Young as reliably great purveyors of riffage with a dark edge and a sure sense of ridiculousness. Jeff emphasizes that, while they were the key blueprint for Spinal Tap, it should never be forgotten that AC/DC was always in on the joke, with self-consciously silly over-the-top lyrics combined with deadly serious guitar playing. Eric celebrates them as a band without any pretensions that seemed made directly for “the knuckleheads like me.” The Aussie Years: High Voltage, T.N.T. and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap From small things big things one day come, and all are agreed that AC/DC wasn’t really sure quite what they wanted to be on their Australian-only debut album High Voltage (1975). Their cover of “Baby Please Don’t Go” is pretty snappy, but elsewhere they experiment with glam-rock touches (and even make a laughable attempt at a ‘pretty’ power ballad in “Love Song”) and generally don’t seem to know where they’re going. Their lead singer, a chap named Bon Scott, seems to have very little idea of how to even carry a tune — but that would change very soon. Everyone is much more positive about the band’s second album, T.N.T. (1975), where the band scores their first real classic in “It’s A Long Way To The Top” (featuring Bon on bagpipes) and generally sounds ten times more competent and self-assured. Only the rather stifled production (Jeff says “Live Wire” sounds like it was recorded in a tube sock) and a few obnoxiously repetitive songs — to wit, Scott’s ode to venereal disease “The Jack” — let it down. Scot loves the ‘boogie’ sound on this album – not quite the blazing metallic hard rock of their later career, still more openly bluesy. Eric draws attention to the interplay between Malcolm and Angus as guitar players, weaving in and out of one another all over this record, and particular on the title track (oi! oi! oi!). While T.N.T. eventually gained international release outside of Australia (in an adulterated version that was, confusingly, called High Voltage and included two songs from the debut record), their 3rd album was rejected by American record executives and kept away from U.S. audiences. The irony is this record was Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976), the record where many believe AC/DC really put it all together for the first time. (Certainly, most readers will be familiar with the fascinatingly charismatic grunting of the title track.) Scot avers that the record company might have had their reasons, not only because the album is still a bit unformed (with a few generic tracks), but also because it’s a deeply, deeply sleazy record, with songs like “The Squealer” about which the less you understand lyrically, the better. Jeff agrees but nevertheless cannot help loving wonderfully stupid dirty jokes like “Big Balls,” which is pretty much about exactly what you think it is. (Jeff declares Bon Scott to be “the Leonardo da Vinci of singing about balls.”) Let There Be Rock: AC/DC Find Their Sound and are Fully Unleashed A healthy quotient of fans would argue that the band didn’t really become the AC/DC we all know and love until Let There Be Rock (1977), an album that is a sonic revolution for the band. Not only is their playing tighter and more focused, but their production is improved tenfold and finally the guitar sound is that wild, overcharged, lightning-bolt AC/DC sound that went on to define the group for the rest of their careers. Jeff loves every song on this record, yes, even the one called “Crabsody In Blue” (no points for guessing what it’s about). But Scot loves the title track (which is self-mythologizing sort of ‘gospel of rock & roll’ song that every self-respecting metal band needs) and points out that songs like these are long because Angus Young genuinely has interesting things to say. Jeff agrees and says he has never been more interesting than on “Whole Lotta Rosie,” and that his brother’s rhythm guitar is nearly as impressive. Scot thinks that 1978’s Powerage might even be better, from its delightfully silly cover on downward. One of the few AC/DC albums that gets away from goofy sex songs and clowning around for more hardscrabble serious lyrical concerns by Bon Scott, the Young brothers match it with an all-out guitar assault on songs like “Riff Raff” and “Down Payment Blues.” There isn’t a single bad song on Powerage, and indeed Scot c

Scot and Jeff talk to John J. Miller about The Police. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest John J. Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College and national correspondent for National Review. His latest book is “Reading Around: Journalism on Authors, Artists, and Ideas.” Follow John on Twitter at @heymiller, buy his book here, and read his work here. John’s Musical Pick: The Police The gang shows up with peroxide dye jobs this week as they tackle one of the most successful acts of the entire postpunk era, The Police. Where to begin with a band universally agreed upon as one of the all-time greats? Well Jeff, for one, isn’t quite sure they belong in the pantheon; while he praises the impressive musicianship of Sting (bass, vocals), Stewart Copeland (drums) and especially Andy Summers (guitar), he argues that most of their albums are extremely hit-and-miss, with classics sitting alongside utter trash. John isn’t having any of this, however, and pronounces them one of the greatest bands of all time. Faux-punks: Outlandos D’Amour What every member of the gang agrees on is the greatness of The Police’s debut album, Outlandos D’Amour (1978). This is The Police masquerading as punks, despite the fact that their musical skills and individual pedigrees made it clear that they were far more suited to more complex material. Jeff notes that they really got into reggae (which became their early signature) because they wanted something more interesting than three-chord punk rock to play. But there nobody can say a seriously bad word against this album, even though Scot doesn’t care for “Born In The ’50s” and yes, there is always the song about the blow-up doll to reckon with. Otherwise, from “Next To You” all the way to “Masoko Tanga,” the sheer energy of Outlandos overwhelms all other considerations. “Roxanne,” “So Lonely,” “Can’t Stand Losing You,” “Truth Hits Everybody” – you know these songs and love them for a reason. White Reggae: Reggatta De Blanc and Zenyatta Mondatta With their combination of tricky guitarwork, complex polyrhythms, and reggae style, The Police had found an approach that was singular enough to call their own, and they leaned into it hard with Reggatta De Blanc (1979) — the title is a portmanteau that literally means “white reggae.” John thinks this is either their best album or close, while Scot identifies “Message In A Bottle” as the quintessential Police song. Meanwhile, Jeff is on the opposite side, labelling it as one of their worst albums, stuffed with faceless and unprepossessing material. Outside of “Message In A Bottle” and “Bring On The Night,” there is very little agreement between Scot and John and Jeff about the merits of these songs: Jeff and Scot both rate “Walking On The Moon” as one of The Police’s least deserving hits (“there’s barely a song there at all” — Scot) while John claims it as one of his favorites. What they all agree on is that Stewart Copeland is more than a mere drummer – his contributions to Reggatta are among the album’s highlights, particularly the spacey “Contact.” Then it’s Jeff’s turn in the barrel as he goes to bat for Zenyatta Mondatta (1980) as one of The Police’s greatest records while John and Scot disagree. They find much of the music on this one to be forced and generic, whereas Jeff considers it the fullest expression of the great Robert Fripp-like sound that Andy Summers brought to the band with his guitarwork. “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” may occasionally be mocked for its title, but Jeff hails it as a postpunk marvel, with “When The World Is Running Down” and “Driven To Tears” not far behind. Scot salutes the peppy ska of “Canary In A Coalmine” while otherwise downing on what he perceives as the increasing ponderousness of Sting’s socially aware lyrics. Bring on the Horns: Ghost In The Machine Disagreement reigns again as John’s favorite album, 1981’s Ghost In The Machine, is Jeff’s least by far. They all agree that “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” is a masterpiece (Jeff rates it as The Police’s single finest song) and that “Omegaman” is the best thing Andy Summers ever wrote, but from that point onward Jeff departs from the the gang by rating the horn-soaked middle 20 minutes of Ghost as among the most gormless and charmless music of the band’s entire career, pure filler. John couldn’t disagree more, citing to “Invisible Sun” and “Spirits In The Material World” as well as the funk workouts of “Demolition Man” and “Rehumanize Yourself” as peak Police. What all agree upon is that Ghost marks a fundamental shift in the band’s sound, away from the pure ‘trio’ presentation of the first three records toward a more “produced” sound. Ending on Top: Synchronicity Synchronicity is an album that needs little introduction, seeing as how most of the United States bought a copy of it during the years 1983-1985. Everpresent though The Police may have been in the middle reac

Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Eli Lake, columnist for Bloomberg View. Follow Eli on Twitter at @EliLake and read his work here. Eli‘s Musical pick: Steely Dan From Brill to Can’t Buy A Thrill: the formative years Steely Dan tries to be an actual band, then thinks better of it: Countdown To Ecstasy and Pretzel Logic The transition into studio obsessionalism: Katy Lied and The Royal Scam Aja and Gaucho: from the perfection of jazz-rock fusion to the drawn-out hangover Aftermath and reunion: Fagen’s The Nightfly and the reunion albums Finale Eli, Scot and Jeff each pick their two key albums and five key songs by Steely Dan Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff talk to Bruce Walker about The Monkees. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Bruce Walker, policy advisor for the Heartland Institute, contributor to The Federalist and host of the Acton Institute’s “Upstream” pop-culture podcast. Follow Bruce on Twitter at @BruceEdWalker. Bruce’s Musical Pick: The Monkees Here the gang comes, walking down the street, getting the funniest looks from everyone they meet as this week they discuss the Monkees. Long dismissed as a “fake band,” the Monkees underwent a critical renaissance in the late ’80s and early ’90s as a new generation of fans discovered the ’60s TV show that spawned them and the older generation of listeners who had once dismissed them returned to their music shorn the cultural preconception that once burdened them and discovered just how consistently great it was. Bruce was there from the beginning, listening to them as a kid in the late ’60s, while Jeff and Scot (who are roughly the same age) remember them from their late ’80s revival era. All are pretty emphatic that this was a pretty great band, and are entirely uninterested in questions of “authenticity” that mean even less in the modern era than they did back in the ’60s, despite noting that the band had managed to wrestle complete creative control away from their creators after a mere year into their career. The Prefab Four: The Monkees and More Of The Monkees Between late 1966 and 1967, the one band that owned the U.S. charts wasn’t the Beatles or the Stones, it was The Monkees, who spent a whopping 36 weeks at #1 in Billboard between October of 1966 and December of 1967. The band started, obviously, with the TV show of the same name introducing the four guys: Mickey Dolenz (vocals, “drums”), Davy Jones (vocals, “percussion”), Peter Tork (vocals, “bass”) and Mike Nesmith (vocals, “guitar”). The scare-quotes are intentional, but not entirely accurate: Dolenz couldn’t play drums and Jones’ instrumental contributions were little more than the occasional shake of a tambourine, but Tork and Nesmith were actual musicians and Nesmith in particular had been playing (and pioneering) country-rock on the local Los Angeles scene for years before he got cast in the show. The stubbornly independent streak of the latter two would soon assert itself, but for these two records they were primarily singers, and aside from Nesmith (who as a songwriter got to record his own numbers) they were performing songs written for them by professional songwriters. But so what? These are great albums. The gang rolls its eyes at schlock like “I Wanna Be Free” or “Gonna Buy Me A Dog,” sure, but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to enjoy “Last Train To Clarksville” or “Take A Giant Step,” or the assured proto-country-rock of Nesmith’s “Sweet Young Thing” and “Papa Gene’s Blues.” And More Of The Monkees (an album, as Scot points out, that the band didn’t even know was being released until they saw it on store shelves) is even better. “I’m A Believer” is arguably the best song Neil Diamond ever wrote (Bruce and Jeff want you to check out the Robert Wyatt cover version!), but that’s only the loss-leader; “Sometime In The Morning” is a lovely ballad, “She” and “Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)” are incredibly catchy could-have-been singles, Nesmith’s “The Kind Of Girl I Could Love” again signals his country allegiances, and “Steppin’ Stone” is so punkish that it didn’t sound out of place being covered by the Sex Pistols. Masters of Their Own Destiny: Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones After the release of More Of The Monkees behind the band’s back, Tork and especially Nesmith put their foot down and demanded more artistic input into the music. To make a long story short (recounted by Jeff on the podcast) that is exactly what they got on Headquarters (1967): an album the band recorded with complete creative control, writing over half the songs and playing every single instrument themselves. A lot of Monkees fans consider this to be their best record, and while the gang doesn’t quite agree, they think it’s a great record nonetheless. Nesmith in particular is unleashed during these sessions, with four songs (“You Told Me,” “You Just May Be The One,” “Sunny Girlfriend,” and the B-side “The Girl I Knew Somewhere”) that rank among the Monkees’ finest. Tork gets his first songwriting credit and in doing so manages to come up with what would become the TV show’s end credits theme in “For Pete’s Sake.” And Mickey Dolenz, who had literally never written a song before in his life, ends up writing the album’s sole hit single, the ridiculous “Randy Scouse Git,” which Jeff observes sounds exactly like the sort of thing a non-songwriter would have come up with, and is all the more interesting for it. As good as (and as important a declaration of independence) Headquarters was, the gang agrees that it’s not a patch on the remarkable Pisces, Aquarius, Capri

Scot and Jeff talk to Guy Benson about Billy Joel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff talk to Karol Markowicz about Pulp. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Karol Markowicz, opinion columnist for the New York Post and elsewhere. Follow Karol on Twitter at @karol and read her work here. Karol’s musical pick: Pulp The gang has decided to meet up in the year 2018 and marvel at how strange it is now that they’re all fully grown and discussing Pulp, a fixture of both Karol’s and Jeff’s younger days back in the 1990’s. Karol reminisces about living in Scotland during the era of Britpop and Pulp’s greatest ascendancy, and closing down countless dance floors and discotheque’s to the sounds of “Disco 2000,” while Jeff recalls the awkwardness of high school and how he couldn’t help but feel that songs like “Mis-Shapes” were speaking directly to him. Ten Years in the Wilderness: Pulp 1981-1992 The gang discusses Pulp’s early, awkward years – a full ten-plus years of struggling as an on-again/off-again regional act for Jarvis Cocker and his band as they sought to figure out who they were as musicians, what the band’s lyrical vision would be, and how to actually write a catchy melody. From the wispy folk-rock of the 1983 debut It to the overwrought gothicism and gloom of Freaks and Master Of The Universe to the breakthrough (in terms of sonic blueprint at least) of Separations, an album that sat in the can for two years after its 1989 recording. Pulp Put it Together: the Gift Recordings and His ‘N’ Hers Almost miraculously, in 1992 Pulp finally figure out the right synth tones, the right guitar-layering, the right production, and the right songwriting craft: nothing in their previous discography had ever sounded as assured, joyful, well-produced, or instantly, memorably catchy as 1992’s “O.U. (Gone, Gone)” and this the moment where “modern” Pulp truly begins. That continues with His ‘N’ Hers (1994), which Jeff considers their finest record even if it’s the least well-known of their four mature-period works. “Lipgloss” may just be the best song they ever recorded. Becoming Cultural Icons: Different Class and “Common People” With the release of Different Class (1995) Pulp go from being just another band on the Britpop scene to cultural immortality in the United Kingdom. Jeff thinks this their most overrated record, but Karol and Scot think he’s seized with contrarian folly and rank it as Pulp’s greatest. That’s in keeping with general critical opinion in the UK, where Different Class is ranked as one of the best (if not the best, full stop) albums of the 1990s, and certainly the one with the most sociological/cultural import. That import can be heard in all of the remarkably precise, savagely observant Jarvis Cocker lyrical commentaries of this record (“Sorted For E’s & Wizz,””Bar Italia,” “I Spy,” etc.), but no more perfectly so than on “Common People”: a song that encapsulates its era, both lyricaly and musically, better than all others. The Sound of Someone Losing the Plot? This Is Hardcore Pulp’s labored follow-up to Different Class was This Is Hardcore (1998), a record far darker and more crabbed than its predecessor. Gone are the glossy upbeat anthemic sounds of songs like “Disco 2000” or “Common People,” replaced with tales of sodden sexuality, suffocatingly paranoid grooves like “The Fear” and the title track, and the occasional lament about being over-the-hill (the glorious “Help The Aged”). Pulp’s mass audience fell off after this album, for obvious reasons, but the entire gang loves it and Scot and Jeff in particular rate it among Pulp’s best work (and Cocker’s best set of lyrics). They also take time to praise some of the non-album material from this era as well: Scot loves “Cocaine Socialism” (a scathing attack on the high decadence of Blairite Labour during the late ’90s) and Jeff rhapsodizes about “Like A Friend.” Pulp Crashes Out at Dawn: We Love Life Pulp’s final record, 2001’s We Love Life, is usually treated as a junior partner to the trio of records that precede it, but Jeff’s not sure that’s fair. He thinks this is their most underrated record and finds it to be a strangely appealing act of coming full circle for the band: after years of synth and dance-based musical approaches, Pulp’s last album feels in some ways like a bit of a throwback to their first, It: a guitar-based album full of neo-acoustic folk touches and gentle strings. The only failing is that Cocker doesn’t seem to have written melodies as good as the instrumental tracks which surround this music. Finale Karol, Scot and Jeff each pick their two key albums and five key songs by Pulp. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff talk to Fox News’s Julie Roginsky about Led Zeppelin. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Scot and Jeff talk to Fox News’s Stephen Miller about Oasis. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Stephen Miller, co-host of The Conservatarians podcast, opinion contributor to FoxNews.com, formerly of National Review and IJR. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @redsteeze and read his work here and here. Stephen’s Musical Pick: Oasis It’s time to break out the cigarettes and alcohol as the gang talks about one of the definitive Britpop acts (and arguably one of the biggest bands in the world during the 1990s), Oasis. Stephen cheerfully predicts this will be our “least popular episode ever” as he labels Oasis a band that people love to hate, despite the objective quality of their music. Stephen celebrates them not only as one of rock’s great “troll” bands (anyone familiar with the public interviews and appearances of brothers Liam (lead vocals) and Noel Gallagher (lead guitars, vocals, songwriting) will immediately understand the label), but as a refreshingly straightforward answer to the pretensions of the rest of contemporaneous rock scene: a bunch of guys who unashamedly wanted to be rock stars and had the songs to match. Jeff reminisces about being on the other side of the great Blur vs. Oasis “Britpop Wars” of the mid-’90s (truthfully, he was with the weirdos and theater-kids who loved Radiohead), and how it kept him from giving them a chance for years. “The band you were waiting for your entire life”: Definitely Maybe and the Creation of Britpop Definitely Maybe (1994) — eleven tracks of straight-ahead, tightly-constructed three-chord meat & potatoes RAWK — is considered by many Brits to be one of the greatest debut albums of all time, and none of the gang are going to run counter to the conventional wisdom here. Jeff thinks it might just be a touch overrated (he thinks it’s a tad monochromatic, and oh lord the brickwalled sound can get hard on the ears), but that’s about it for criticism; Scot labels this their finest record. Jeff celebrates the gloriously boneheaded lyrics of songs like “Supersonic” and Stephen agrees, chalking it up to the sound of a band who simply wasn’t even the slightest bit insecure about who they were or what they wanted to be. Stephen also points out how refreshing it was to hear Definitely Maybecoming out of high self-seriousness of the Grunge era (In Utero, Vs., even the miserabilism of Pablo Honey-era Radiohead). Everyone cites to “Columbia” as the finest song on the album (though Jeff regrets now he didn’t mention “Slide Away,” which is nearly as good), and Scot considers “Live Forever” to be their greatest anthem. KEY TRACKS: “Rock ‘N Roll Star” (Definitely Maybe, 1994); “Columbia” (Definitely Maybe, 1994); “Live Forever” (Definitely Maybe, 1994); “Supersonic” (Definitely Maybe, 1994); “Cigarettes & Alcohol” (Definitely Maybe, 1994); “Digsy’s Dinner” (Definitely Maybe, 1994); “Slide Away” (Definitely Maybe, 1994); “Whatever” (A-side of single, 1994) First Britain, then the world: Oasis conquer the globe with (What’s The Story) Morning Glory Definitely Maybe may have made Oasis megastars in Great Britain, but it made only minor ripples in the United States (where their tour was aborted when Noel quit the band after several incidents of asinine behavior by his brother Liam). Their big breakthrough would have to wait until next year, when Oasis truly became one of the biggest bands on the planet with (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? (1995). Stephen is a bit tired of this record due to its ubiquity, but since Jeff was a latecomer to Oasis he never had the chance to get tired of it and loves nearly every single song on it, including, yes, “Wonderwall.” But it’s really the Beatley jangle of “She’s Electric” that makes him swoon, while Stephen prefers “Some Might Say” and Scot goes for the epic hook of “Don’t Look Back In Anger.” Stephen points out that bands like Blur and Radiohead may have been the choice of Oxford students and bedsit-room musos, but when the people of Manchester got together to publicly remember the lives lost in the recent Manchester terror bombing, it was “Don’t Look Back In Anger” that the crowd spontaneously broke out singing: this was music that resonated, and still resonates with the masses. KEY TRACKS: “She’s Electric” ((What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, 1995); “Roll With It” ((What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, 1995); “Don’t Look Back In Anger” ((What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, 1995); “Cast No Shadow” ((What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, 1995); “Some Might Say” ((What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, 1995); “Wonderwall” ((What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, 1995); “Champagne Supernova” ((What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, 1995) The Masterplan: Oasis as one of the great B-side acts of rock history No understanding of Oasis’ career makes even the slightest bit of sense unless their stunningly impressive passel of otherwise unavailable B-sides are considered, which is what the gang does now. Many (but

Scot and Jeff talk to Josh Jordan about Pearl Jam. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Josh Jordan, writer for various outlets. Follow Josh on Twitter at @NumbersMuncher. Josh’s Musical Pick: Pearl Jam Break out the flannels — it’s time for the gang to tackle a long overdue episode on Pearl Jam, the most durable (and arguably best — sorry, Nirvana fans) band of the famed Seattle grunge era of the ’90s. But Pearl Jam were so much more than just a “grunge” act, and have remained consistently great (as well as a legendarily top-shelf live act with a fanatical cult-like following) all the way up to the present day. Josh is almost a ‘ringer’ of sorts — a bona-fide megafan who has been to over 70 Pearl Jam shows since the mid-’90s. Josh talks about how he, like most people whose adolescence came during the early Nineties, got into Pearl Jam at the jump via Ten and immediately started using Eddie Vedder’s “poetry” in middle school English class. Jeff was of a similar vintage, but his fandom was interrupted: he fell off after Vitalogy when he discovered The Beatles and classic rock in high school, and only returned to them years later thanks to the fortuitous purchase of the well-curated compilation Rearviewmirror. Ten, Vs., and Pearl Jam’s role in the Seattle grunge scene Scot quickly covers the origin story of Pearl Jam: Seattle act Mother Love Bone collapses when its lead singer Andrew Wood dies of an overdose, surviving members Jeff Ament (bass) and Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar) recruit hugely talented lead guitarist Mike McCready into the fold, and a demo tape from San Diego-based sensitive surfer bro Eddie Vedder finds its way into their hands. Vedder was brought into the band just in time to add lyrics and lead vocals to a series of songs already written by Gossard and Ament, the result was Ten (1991) and the rest is history. Perhaps surprisingly, the gang isn’t particularly enthusiastic about Ten, which most casual fans regard as Pearl Jam’s greatest album (it is certainly their most famous, one that nationally defined the sound of the grunge revolution). Jeff violently hates its quasi-hair metal anthems (even “Even Flow,” a great song, sounds like sludge on the record). He considers “Black” to be faux-sensitive tripe and is authentically offended by the terribleness of “Deep,” though he relents when it comes to “Jeremy” and the straight ahead dash of “Once.” Scot isn’t much more complimentary, noting that so much of PJ’s music is compulsively listenable but he never feels the need to return to Ten. Even Josh isn’t an enormous fan, though he defends many of these songs as live juggernauts (particularly “Release” and “Porch”). Josh notes that the album’s production (which feels more “late Eighties” than grunge) is the primary culprit, and that producer Brendan O’Brien (who joins the band on Vs.) was a savior for the group. The gang is vastly more positive about Vs. (1993), an album that looms nearly as large in the legend of early ’90s grunge as Ten and which is approximately twenty times better-sounding and more consistent. Jeff calls this their “classic rock album”: Brendan O’Brien’s crisp production blasts away all of the chintzy reverb heard on Ten and the band comes up with a set of massively catchy, memorable hard-rock tunes. Jeff prefers the remarkably sensitive lyrical conceit of “Daughter” (Vedder writing from the point of view of a young girl) and the hilarity of “Glorified G” — if you’re gonna work political messages into your music, this is the way to do it: with a smile. Scot is all about the titanic chorus of “Dissident” and the propulsiveness of drummer Dave Abbruzzese’s “Go.” And as the gang remarks on how an album with so much cursing on it managed to get flood-the-zone radio airplay, Josh tells the story of trying to convince his dad that Eddie Vedder wasn’t singing exactly what he is actually singing on “Leash” by futilely showing him the CD’s censored lyric sheet. KEY TRACKS: “Release” (Ten, 1991); “Even Flow (single version)” (A-side of single, originally from Ten, 1991); “Jeremy” (Ten, 1991); “Alive” (Ten, 1991); “Once” (Ten, 1991); “State Of Love And Trust” (Singles – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1992); “Go” (Vs., 1993); “Animal” (Vs., 1993); “Dissident” (Vs., 1993); “Daughter” (Vs., 1993); “Glorified G” (Vs., 1993); “Leash” (Vs., 1993); “Rearviewmirror” (Vs., 1993) Pearl Jam revolts against their fame and nearly implodes: Vitalogy and No Code Kurt Cobain’s 1994 suicide not only brought the curtain down on the Grunge Era with shocking immediacy, it forced Pearl Jam to stop short and reevaluate who they were, who they wanted to be, and where they were going. The result was 1994’s perversely compelling Vitalogy (1994), a record famous not merely for being so good but also for simultaneously being so, so terrible. Jeff is fascinated by the Jekyll-and-Hyde personality of Vitalogy; he considers it their first truly grea

Scot and Jeff talk to Philip Wegmann about Creedence Clearwater Revival. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Philip Wegmann, writer for the Washington Examiner. Follow Phil on Twitter at @PhilipWegmann, and read his past work here. Philip’s Musical Pick: Creedence Clearwater Revival It’s high times on the bayou as the gang discusses Creedence Clearwater Revival, a band that sounded like it crawled out of the swamps of Louisiana despite being composed entirely of guys from Nowheresville, northern California. Is it possible for a band with multiple #1 albums, five #2 hit singles and scads of nearly ubiquitous radio hits to be underrated? If so, then CCR fits the bill: a great band that is still somehow underappreciated as the superlative album act that they were. Maybe it’s because they packed all of their creativity into a brief span of time in the late ’60s (with six classic albums released in the span of two calendar years). Maybe it’s because their constant presence on the radio erroneously led people to think they were a singles act. Maybe it’s because they made it look too easy, pumping out songs with deceptively simple chord changes and instrumentation. Maybe it’s because their record label was famously awful. Maybe it’s because John Fogerty is kind of a jerk. Who knows. All that matters is that Creedence is one of the greatest American rock groups of all time, and it’s downright strange how few people realize that. As for Philip, he describes the joy of discovering CCR as a kid from downstate rural Indiana, listening to honest and plainspoken songs that spoke to his experiences growing up in what, culturally, is more South than Midwest. (If Phil’s parents are reading this, he would like to apologize for blowing out the family speaker system by blasting “Up Around The Bend” on max volume all the time.) Jeff can’t remember a time when Creedence wasn’t part of his life, from his dad’s old CD edition of Chronicleonwards. Only later did he get into the bands albums and realize that nearly every one of them was stuffed full of amazing music. Scot is perplexed that the popular perception of CCR as a singles act has no relationship to the quality of their full body of work. KEY TRACK: “Up Around The Bend” (Cosmo’s Factory, 1970) The Long Hard Road from Tommy & The Blue Velvets to Creedence Clearwater Revival Creedence may have had a brief but prolific reign as megastars, but they had been preparing for their shot at the title for years. Jeff briefly recounts CCR’s prehistory: the band, comprised of John Fogerty (vocals, lead guitar, songwriting/managing/autocracy), older brother Tom Fogerty (rhythm guitar), and junior high school friends Stu Cook (bass) and Doug Clifford (drums), had been playing together since 1959. From sock hops to dive bars, high school proms to thankless opening gigs for bands with regional hits, the quartet paid their dues in a thousand different places just like the one described “Lodi,” even temporarily adopting the dire (and offensive) name “The Golliwogs” in order to pass themselves off as a faux-British Invasion act in 1964. John Fogerty and Doug Clifford even got drafted into the Army, and went and served two years in the Reserves while still trying to make it work. Finally, with their stints in the armed services finished, the band were finally given an opportunity by their record label’s new owner to record a full-length album. One condition: the name had to change. Thus The Golliwogs happily became Creedence Clearwater Revival, and John Fogerty was dead-set determined that they wouldn’t waste the chance they had finally, after nearly a decade of non-stop gigging, finally been given. The result? Creedence Clearwater Revival (1968), a self-titled debut album as impressive as any of the Sixties. Jeff argues that this is CCR’s most underrated record by far, with nary a wasted second on its brief 33 minute running time outside the clumsy instrumental jamming in the middle of “Susie Q” (the group’s first hit single, present here in a ‘spacey’ 8 minute long extended version). Scot disagrees somewhat, arguing that as entertaining as the debut album is, Fogerty’s songwriting isn’t there yet: the best songs in his opinion are the covers, particularly “I Put A Spell On You” and “Ninety-Nine And A Half.” Scot and Philip point to “Porterville” as the true turning point for the band, not only in terms of their soon-to-be-iconic instrumental sound, but in terms of Fogerty’s newfound ability to tell stories that feel authentic and real — in large part because they do draw upon the well of his personal experiences. Jeff also takes time to salute Fogerty’s lead guitar playing (perhaps the most overlooked part of the entire CCR equation), particularly the Neil Young-like guitar tone he gets on songs like “The Working Man.” KEY TRACKS: “I Put A Spell On You” (Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1968); “Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)” (C

Jeff and Scot talk to Nicholas Confessore about Ryan Adams. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Nicholas Confessore, investigative reporter for the New York Times, writer at large for the NYT Magazine, and MSNBC contributor. Follow Nick on Twitter at @nickconfessore, read his past work here, and also please do set aside some time for this remarkable long-form piece here. Nick’s Musical Pick: Ryan Adams The gang is extremely excited this week to be covering rocker/country-rocker/all-around-hyperprolific-polymath Ryan Adams, for this is not only one of our guest’s favorite artists, but perhaps co-host Scot’s as well. Scot explains how a chance encounter with Adams at a Chicago in-store performance back in 2000 led to a copy of Heartbreaker and a lifetime of fandom. Nick credits his buddy @JoshuaGreen for introducing him to Adams during their days as fellow wage-slaves at the Washington Monthly. Nick never thought of himself as a fan of country or country-rock, but he was fascinated by Adams’ guitar-playing and quirky songwriting style and before he knew it was teaching himself every song on Heartbreaker. Jeff found Ryan Adams immediately after 9/11, when a friend gave him a copy of Gold as a gift and “New York New York” was just the right song at the right time for him. KEY TRACKS: “Amy” (Heartbreaker, 2000); “New York, New York” (Gold, 2001); “Jacksonville Skyline” [Whiskeytown](Pneumonia, 1999/2001) Origins: Whiskeytown, the Classic Debut Heartbreaker, and the Overstuffed Follow-up Gold Valiant fools that the gang are, they have set for themselves an impossible task: dealing with the ridiculously enormous Ryan Adams discography in less than five hours. This is a guy who released, like, sixteen albums in 2005 alone after all (the numbers there may be a bit off). That means that certain parts of Adams’ career must, alas, get short shrift, and the sting is felt in his original pre-solo career group, the great alt-country band Whiskeytown. Scot, Nick and Jeff all love this material, but there just isn’t time, so Scot gives his “60 second history of Whiskeytown” (extremely talented country-rock group driven by Adams’ singing and songwriting that collapsed under record label disasters and its own sheer gravity). Then it’s on to Heartbreaker (2000), and the gang could have spent an hour on this album alone. Is it one of the greatest debut albums of all time? One of the greatest country-rock albums of all time? Is it even country at all? (Jeff, for one, thinks it owes far more to Bob Dylan and Neil Young than Nashville, despite Adams’ country background; already he was spreading his wings and refusing all stylistic straitjackets.) Scot declares Heartbreakerto be one of his favorite albums of all time, perhaps even his #1 pick. (Scot: “I can’t even be rational about it.”) Nick raves about how Adams creates an entire world with his soft, thoughtful folk melodies and lyrics: a New York City that isn’t quite New York and a Carolina that isn’t quite the real Carolina, but a magical, idealized version of both. Jeff marvels at how every song on Heartbreaker sounds like a standard — like people have been playing them for decades. And yet some young punk who came pretty much out of nowhere wrote them all, and did it on his first album. Jeff can’t even quite believe that “My Winding Wheel” was written; it just feels like it’s been kicking around Appalachia for a century or so. Gold (2001) was Adams’ big grab for the brass ring (as Scot characterizes it), and its failings are telling, the gang agrees: here the first problematic tics of Adams’ career show up: over-prolificity, overstuffing his albums, and being a questionable judge of the quality of his own material. (Nick complains that many of the best songs were left off the original album and only released on a “Side 4” bonus disc that isn’t even commercially available anymore — and he’s right!) But Jeff will walk through fire to defend Adams’ big attempt at a pop hit “New York New York,” and also points out that Adams’ straight rock moves (like “Nobody Girl” and “Enemy Fire”) actually work extremely well, proving how capable he was of playing in genres outside of country and folk. KEY TRACKS: “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)” (Heartbreaker, 2000); “My Winding Wheel” (Heartbreaker, 2000); “Oh, My Sweet Carolina” (Heartbreaker, 2000); “Come Pick Me Up” (Heartbreaker, 2000); “New York, New York” (Gold, 2001); “Nobody Girl” (Gold, 2001); “Enemy Fire” (Gold, 2001); “La Cienega Just Smiled” (Gold, 2001); “When The Stars Go Blue” (Gold, 2001); “Firecracker” (Gold, 2001); “Gonna Make You Love Me” (Gold, 2001); The Weird Years: Demolition, Love Is Hell, and Rock N Roll Political Beats gets spicy, as Scot, Nick, and Jeff all bounce off of one another like pinballs on bumpers debating the merits of Ryan Adams’ mixed-up muddled-up shook-up middle period: Demolition (2002), Love Is Hell (2004) and Rock N Roll (

Scot and Jeff talk to Michael C. Moynihan about The Smiths Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Michael Moynihan, correspondent for Vice News Tonight on HBO and member of the Fifth Column podcast, Follow him on Twitter at @mcmoynihan and read his past work both here and here. Michael’s Musical Pick: The Smiths “Is it wrong not to always be glad?” This is the question Jeff poses as the gang launches into Lucky #13: the long-awaited blockbuster Political Beats tribute to The Smiths, legendarily reputed as one of the ’80s most literately mopey bands. (Jeff also pays tribute to a classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 bit in passing.) But Michael is immediately at pains to argue with The Smiths-as-miserabilists rap, and he explains that one of the reasons he loves them like no other band in the pantheon is Morrissey’s remarkable wit. Michael talks about getting into music as a kid, discovering postpunk in 1987, quickly finding his way to Newbury Comics in Boston and acquainting himself with the pride of Manchester: The Smiths. Like many a budding Smiths fanatic from the late ’80s and early ’90s, this involved a copy of The Queen Is Dead and an older brother questioning his heterosexuality. The rest is history, including Michael relocating temporarily to England and imbibing the mythos firsthand. Jeff’s intro to the band came later: college and a chance encounter with an eccentric friend who refused to lend her Smiths CDs to him because she valued them like other people value family heirlooms. Jeff emphasizes his love not only of Morrissey’s literate, playful lyrics, but actually elevates Johnny Marr’s contribution above it: even if only by a 51-49 margin, Jeff argues, this was Marr’s band, and his love of the eternal verities of melody, production, arrangement, and rock and pop are what make nearly every Smiths track from their beginning right up until the end worth hearing. KEY TRACKS: “The Queen Is Dead” (The Queen Is Dead, 1986); “William, It Was Really Nothing” (A-side of single, 1984); “Rusholme Ruffians (alternate version)” (unreleased, originally from Meat Is Murder, 1985) Morrissey meets Marr: The Formation of The Smiths and the Troubled Debut Album For an album as hailed as The Smiths (1984) is, it had an exceedingly troubled genesis and to this day gets mixed reviews from hardcore fans. The story goes thus: Johnny Marr (guitars, music) introduces himself to local scenester Stephen Morrissey (vocals, lyrics) and says they should form a band. Andy Rourke (bass) and Mike Joyce (drums) are then inducted into this inchoate group and the so-called “Smiths” record a single in a local studio on spec: without a recording contract in hand, but confident enough in their talent to pay out-of-pocket and send it around to various labels in search of a record deal. The name of the label that bit was Rough Trade; the name of the song is their legendary debut single “Hand In Glove.” But the obligatory album follow-up was a much bigger problem: after recording a full version of the debut LP with Teardrop Explodes guitarist Troy Tate producing, The Smiths scrapped it and re-recorded the entire thing from scratch with John Porter. And nobody in the gang can agree on its merits! Scot grants Jeff’s point that the Tate version of “Reel Around The Fountain” is magisterial, but he thinks this is the worst of The Smiths’ four proper studio LPs. Jeff thinks it’s their best studio LP, even better than The Queen Is Dead, and explains why in detail. Michael is in the middle: he loathes “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle” with eloquent passion, but praises the obscure B-sides from this era like “Accept Yourself,” “Wonderful Woman” and “Jeane.” How deep does the rabbit-hole go? This deep: Michael spends time praising Sandie Shaw’s (Smiths-produced) covers of “I Don’t Owe You Anything” and “Jeane” (and Jeff agrees)! Michael also calls out Andy Rourke’s follow-the-bouncing-ball bassline on “Pretty Girls Make Graves” and laughs about the song’s conceit as a Beach Boys number gone horribly wrong. He then spends time discussing his personal experiences with Rourke, and the cosmic unfairness of his lack of appreciation (including a depressing story about watching Rourke open for a Smiths cover band where some other guy was pretending to be Andy Rourke). KEY TRACKS: “Hand In Glove” (A-side of single, 1983; The Smiths, 1984); “This Charming Man” (A-side of single, 1983); “What Difference Does It Make?” (The Smiths, 1984); “Reel Around The Fountain” (The Smiths, 1984); “Still Ill” (The Smiths, 1984); “You’ve Got Everything Now (live at the BBC June 26th, 1983)” (Hatful Of Hollow, 1984); “Suffer Little Children” (The Smiths, 1984); “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle” (The Smiths, 1984); “Wonderful Woman” (B-side of “This Charming Man,” 1983); “Jeane” (B-side of “This Charming Man,” 1983); “Pretty Girls Make Graves” (The Smiths, 1984); The Smiths as the Last Great Non-Album Singles Band;

Scot and Jeff talk to Anthony Fisher about Pink Floyd. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Anthony Fisher, writer/reporter for The Week, Daily Beast and others, producer of The Fifth Column podcast, and Writer/Director of the award-winning indie feature film “Sidewalk Traffic” — a comedy drama about new fatherhood, depression, and holding on to your dreams and letting go of your baggage. Available on iTunes, Amazon, Youtube, Google Play, and most major VOD platforms. Follow him on Twitter at @anthonyLfisher and read his work here. Anthony’s Musical Pick: Pink Floyd Gravity bongs at the ready — it’s time to travel out into interstellar space, as Political Beats finally covers one of the true big beasts of classic rock, Pink Floyd. Anthony’s introduction to the band hits a lot of the same notes that most younger fans will recognize: hearing “Comfortably Numb” as a kid, with his mom saying “ugh this music is boring” as he sits there listening to Dave Gilmour soloing, transfixed. Jeff tells his amusingly quotidian “intro to Floyd” story, which could alternately be titled “the first time Jeff got high.” (Yes, it too involves “Comfortably Numb.”) Jeff then goes on to discuss how, as his musical tastes developed (and his preference for avant-garde wackiness grew), he found himself hanging on to Floyd’s earlier, ropier, more improvisational and instrumental years over their later commercial mega-hits. KEY TRACK: “Comfortably Numb (live August 1988)” (Delicate Sound Of Thunder, 1988) From Blues-Rock (?!) to Space-Rock: the Syd Barrett Era, 1965-1968 Fans know this already, but the rest of you may not: Pink Floyd, the sine qua non space-rock/psychedelic/hyper-stylized programmatic group of the classic-rock era, began life as a BLUES band. And they were terrible! Just truly, goofy, silly-sounding stuff. Floyd really only found their voice with the emergence of doomed frontman Syd Barrett’s songwriting voice, a highly psychedelicized British pastoral style supplemented by the band’s predilection for lengthy live instrumental freakout jams. The gang is actually surprisingly ambivalent about the Barrett era of Floyd, despite the fervor of its cult fans: neither Scot nor Jeff have much time for the tweeness of Barrett’s songs about gnomes, the I-Ching, and currant buns, but everyone enjoys the bonkers insanity of “Bike” and Anthony points out that “Astronomy Domine” is one of the most muscular, threatening psychedelic masterpieces of an era rife with them. Jeff points out that he owns 27 separate performances of “Interstellar Overdrive” alone, by way of arguing that this is the true masterpiece from Floyd’s debut LP The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967), while Scot and Anthony also single out “Lucifer Sam,” a song about a housecat that is way better than that description might make you think it is. During this part of the show, Jeff works an interstitial conversation in about Pink Floyd’s five early non-album singles, all of which he considers top-shelf. “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play” are already well-loved (and well-known) enough as Syd Barrett tunes to need no introduction or defense, but Jeff is at great pains to point out that “It Would Be So Nice” and “Point Me At The Sky” are, if anything, even better, and inexplicably underrated by both band and fans alike. Jeff also points out how pivotal Rick Wright was to Floyd at this point in their career; Roger Waters was actually an afterthought in 1967-68, and it was Wright who carried the most singing, performing, and songwriting weight behind Barrett until 1969. People, go listen to the wistful sadness of the B-side “Paintbox.” The discussion of Wright carries the gang into A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968), where all agree that his “Remember A Day” is a highlight (indeed, probably the best song on the record). Jeff rates Saucerful significantly higher than either Anthony or Scot do, but then he has an avowed preference for horrible noise. The gang discusses Syd’s fade into non-functionality, with “Jugband Blues” as a key track signalling Barrett’s creepily altogether-too-on-the-nose farewell to the Floyd (and to sanity). KEY TRACKS: “I’m A King Bee” (The Early Years 1965-1972, 2016); “Arnold Layne” (A-side of single, 1967); “Astronomy Domine” (The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, 1967); “Lucifer Sam” (The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, 1967); “Bike” (The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, 1967); “Interstellar Overdrive” (The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, 1967); “See Emily Play” (A-side of single, 1967); “Apples And Oranges” (A-side of single, 1967); “Paintbox” (B-side of “Apples And Oranges,” 1967); “It Would Be So Nice” (A-side of single, 1967); “Remember A Day” (A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968); “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” (A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968); “A Saucerful Of Secrets” (A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968); “Jugband Blues” (A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968); “Point Me At The Sky” (A-side of single, 1968) The

Scot and Jeff talk to Robert Dean Lurie about Hall and Oates. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Robert Dean Lurie, author of No Certainty Attached: Steve Kilbey and The Church and We Can Be Heroes: The Radical Individualism of David Bowie. Producer and performer on the tribute album The Dark Side of Hall and Oates. Read Robert’s work in the pages of NRO, the Federalist, and on his own website. Robert’s Musical Pick: Hall & Oates This week, the gang is excited to be discussing one of the most underrated musical acts of the ’70s and ’80s (at least to the extent that any group that scored SIX #1 singles and over 30 chart hits can be considered underrated): Hall & Oates. Robert contends that today’s podcast represents Important Work: correcting the slander that has been directed at Hall & Oates over the years as “disposable pop” when even a brief survey of their career makes it immediately obvious that they are so much more than that. Jeff remembers his introduction to Hall & Oates as a child no moreso than any living creature remembers its first “introduction” to oxygen; their music was always just there, on the radio, in the family’s CD collection, on TV…ubiquitous, in the best possible way. KEY TRACK: “Maneater” (H2O, 1982) Folk-rock and Philly soul: the Atlantic Years: 1972-1974 Before Hall & Oates became multiplatinum megastars in the early 1980s, they were a scrappy, semi-experimental folk duo signed to Atlantic Records, a label which allowed them to indulge their initial folk-soul fusionist predilections with the help of the finest musicians and orchestration Atlantic’s legendary producer Arif Mardin was capable of rustling up for them. While all agree that the duo’s first LP Whole Oats (1972) is tentative, Scot cites “Fall In Philadelphia” and “Lilly” as two that distinguish themselves from the rest. Jeff argues that “it sounds like The Grass Roots, and not in a good way” (he then mis-cites to a Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds song, because of course he does). However, as the sucker for piano ballads that he is, he argues that the gorgeous “Waterwheel” is the highlight. There are no such reservations about H&O’s second record, Abandoned Luncheonette (1973). Jeff argues that this is their finest album, despite the fact that, sonically, it’s miles away from their classic hitmaking-era stuff like Voices or H20. Soulful, assured, with weird progressive touches to boot, there isn’t a single subpar track on Abandoned Luncheonette as far as he’s concerned, and on top of all that it also happens to contain one of greatest singles ever recorded in the history of American popular music. Robert shares his dark reading of “I’m Just A Kid (Don’t Make Me Feel Like A Man)” and notes that Luncheonette is Hall & Oates as a true duo: both write an equal amount of material, and both members’ contributions are sterling. Jeff praises the obscure corners of this record, from “Laughing Boy” (Daryl Hall alone at a piano, with a flugelhorn) to The final record of Hall & Oates’ Atlantic era is the extremely bizarre War Babies. Those hints of prog heard on Abandoned Luncheonette (which recur throughout H&O’s 1970s career) come further to the fore with this LP, produced by Todd Rundgren and featuring his progressive-rock band Utopia as the backing band. There’s a reason you’ve never heard of this record; despite a much more modern-sounding production, it’s such a weird thematic left-turn that it sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of their discography. Jeff admits that, no matter much he genuinely loves the song, he has difficulty recommending a song named “War Baby Son Of Zorro” to others and expecting to be taken seriously. Robert likens War Babies‘ casual oddball fusion to a proto-“Beck” aesthetic — an easy junk-shop mashup of styles that flopped at the time but sounds better and better as time goes by. KEY TRACKS: “Fall In Philadelphia” (Whole Oats, 1972); “Lilly (Are You Happy)” (Whole Oats, 1972); “Waterwheel” (Whole Oats, 1972); “When The Morning Comes” (Abandoned Luncheonette, 1973); “Las Vegas Turnaround (The Stewardess Song)” (Abandoned Luncheonette, 1973); “I’m Just A Kid (Don’t Make Me Feel Like A Man)” (Abandoned Luncheonette, 1973); “Laughing Boy” (Abandoned Luncheonette, 1973); “Everytime I Look At You” (Abandoned Luncheonette, 1973); “She’s Gone” (Abandoned Luncheonette, 1973); “You’re Much Too Soon” (War Babies, 1974); “’70s Scenario” (War Babies, 1974); “War Baby Son Of Zorro” (War Babies, 1974); “Better Watch Your Back” (War Babies, 1974) The Commercial Breakthrough: Darryl Hall & John Oates and Bigger Than The Both Of Us Hall & Oates hire a new manager (Tommy Mottola, later to gain additional fame for discovering–and marrying–Mariah Carey) who pushes them to get it together and put out some tighter, more commercial material. They respond with aplomb, and the result is the duo’s commercial breakthrough, Daryl Hall & John Oates (1975)…a reco

Scot and Jeff talk to Jane Coaston about Nine Inch Nails. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Jane Coaston, formerly political writer for MTV news, now featured in the New York Times and ESPN News, among others. Follow Jane on Twitter at @cjane87 and read her (older) work here. Jane’s Musical Pick: Nine Inch Nails Perch those toasters precariously close to edge of the bathtub and prepare to slide into a downward spiral, as the gang tackles one of the 90’s most influential acts (and one whose massive mainstream success was frankly surprising), Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails. Jane has loved them ever since she first found The Fragile as a teenager — a gay kid in Catholic school, more than a bit confused about her place in the world — and immediately bonded with Trent Reznor’s anger and sadness. Jeff marvels at the fact that he had never really listened to NIN before Jane pushed it on him a couple months ago, and calls them one of the most wonderful (belated) musical discoveries he’s made in the last several years. In particular he taken with the technical excellence of Reznor’s production, from the endlessly layered synth sounds all the way to the overdriven guitarwork. KEY TRACKS: “The Fragile” (The Fragile, 1999); “Head Like A Hole” (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989) Beginnings: Pretty Hate Machine and the Hardcore Turn of the Broken EP Jeff gets a huge kick out of pointing out that, technically speaking, Nine Inch Nails is an EIGHTIES band. And it’s true! Even though we don’t think of them or Reznor as belonging to that decade because how much he went on to define the sound of the ’90s. But the entire gang actually enjoys Pretty Hate Machine quite a bit (though Jane thinks its final two tracks are the worst NIN ever did). Jeff points out commercial this music really is — “Head Like A Hole” was Reznor’s first hit for a reason — and frankly loves the way Reznor mutated the typical industrial genre by deigning to actually, you know, write songs with catchy hooks in that mode. If Pretty Hate Machine is sometimes dismissed by aficionados of industrial music for its New Order/Depeche Mode synth-pop underpinning, nobody does that with Broken, an EP that Reznor recorded in secret while trying to escape from under the thumb of his original record label. Broken is only 21 minutes long (31m if you count the bonus tracks), but in many ways it remains one of the most definitive industrial ‘statements’ ever released and is also the most impressively brutal thing Nine Inch Nails released. Everyone loves “Wish.” Jeff argues that the unexpectedly quiet transitional instrumental “Help I Am In Hell” is the moment where Reznor’s conceptual ambition (and genius) first emerged. And Jane wants you to watch the video for “Pinion.” KEY TRACKS: “Terrible Lie” (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989); “Sin” (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989); “Something I Can Never Have” (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989); “Wish” (Broken EP, 1992); “Help Me I Am In Hell” (Broken EP, 1992); “Gave Up” (Broken EP, 1992); “Suck” (Broken EP, 1992) A Beautiful Corpse-Flower: The Downward Spiral and the Album as Art-Form In some ways there’s not much to say about The Downward Spiral that hasn’t already been said elsewhere: this is the one Nine Inch Nails album everyone should own, and the one that will, from track 1, completely subvert the received stereotype of Reznor as a mere noise-merchant. Jane, Jeff and Scot all marvel at the layers and layers of sound that Reznor one-man-bands into a titanic groove on songs like “Piggy” (Jeff’s favorite) and “Closer” (Jane wants to a erect a shrine to the instrumental playout alone). The gang laughs at how Jeff was scandalized by the lyrics of “Closer” as a bluenose teen, and Jane points out that far too many people fail to realize the song isn’t supposed to be a seductive song at all. Then the inevitable discussion of “Hurt” where (perhaps surprisingly) the whole gang agrees that, as great as NIN’s version is, Johnny Cash ended up doing it better. Buy this album. A brief sidebar ensues as Jane is invited to discourse on the significance of NIN/Reznor’s many remixes and remix albums (e.g. Fixed, or Further Down The Spiral), and why NIN stands apart from nearly every other band in rock history in the critical importance and value of their remix work, which is rewriting much of the time. KEY TRACKS: “Closer” (The Downward Spiral, 1994); “Piggy” (The Downward Spiral, 1994); “March Of The Pigs” (The Downward Spiral, 1994); “The Becoming” (The Downward Spiral, 1994); “Reptile” (The Downward Spiral, 1994); “Hurt” [Johnny Cash] (American IV: The Man Comes Around, 2002); “Hurt (quiet)” (Further Down The Spiral, 1995); “Closer To God” (Closer To God EP, 1994) Drugs, Darkness, and The Fragile After a long layoff, during which the commercial momentum of The Downward Spiral had dissipated almost completely. Meanwhile, as Scot points out, the rest of the musical world had greedily absorbed Trent Re

Scot and Jeff talk to Mark Hemingway about The Replacements. Introducing the Band Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Mark Hemingway, senior writer at The Weekly Standard. Follow Mark on Twitter @Heminator and read his work here. Mark’s Musical Pick: The Replacements. Grab a bottle cheap whiskey, a case of Grain Belt beer, and an electric guitar, because it’s time to talk about the Great Lost Cause of the American indie-rock scene, The Replacements (or The ‘Mats, a nickname that makes more sense the drunker you get). Mark talks about discovering them right after they had broken up in 1991. Jeff explains that he both loves the ‘Mats and hates them as well…more accurately, he resents them for wasting their amazing talents and sabotaging their careers. But they sure did leave us with a lot of great music regardless. KEY TRACKS: “Talent Show” (Don’t Tell A Soul, 1989); “Bastards Of Young” (Tim, 1985) The Early Years: from Punk to Hardcore to . . . Hootenanny? The gang discusses the early Replacements, from their origins as Just Another Punk/Hardcore Band on the Twin Cities music scene (their main competition was St. Paul’s Hüsker Dü). Mark isn’t a big fan of this era of the ‘Mats, but Jeff is, finding in it a period where their proclivity for drunken, devil-may-care wildness was still in harmony with the music they were actually making as an up-and-coming indie band. Jeff salutes the surprising consistency of their debut LP Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash while Mark argues that it’s too well-produced to be a true hardcore document. The Stink EP (1982) is where The Replacements go fully hardcore — Jeff says it sounds more like mocking ‘musical drag’ than a true commitment, citing to the hilarity of “F**k School” — and while Mark and Scot agree it’s a detour, they both love the flagship track “Kids Don’t Follow,” a response-song to U2’s “I Will Follow.” Everybody loves Hootenanny (1983), however, which is a hoot-and-a-half: the ‘Mats suddenly start displaying diversity (Westerberg even uses synths and a demo electronic percussion track on the LP). The result is a record that fuses their early, goofy punk loutishness with promising stabs at maturity in songs like “Color Me Impressed,” “Within Your Reach,” and “Willpower.” And Jeff will always love “Mr. Whirly,” if only for the Beatles parodies. As an aside, both Mark and Jeff are passionate fans of Bob Mehr’s book Trouble Boys: The True Story Of The Replacements, which is no mere quickie rock biography, but rather a true work of journalism: the comprehensively definitive result of years of research, over 200 interviews, access to the Replacements’ outtake vaults, and participation of nearly every living relevant actor (including bandmembers’ friends and family). If you like The Replacements beyond mere casual enjoyment, we cannot recommend this book to strongly enough. It is the last word on the band. KEY TRACKS: “I’m In Trouble” (Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, 1981); “Takin’ A Ride” (Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, 1981); “Johnny’s Gonna Die” (Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, 1981); “Kick Your Door Down” (“this song was written 20 mins after we recorded it” – Paul Westerberg) (Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, 1981); “Kids Don’t Follow” (The Replacements Stink EP, 1982); “F**k School” (The Replacements Stink EP, 1982); “Go” (The Replacements StinkEP, 1982); “Hootenanny” (Hootenanny, 1983); “Within Your Reach” (Hootenanny, 1983); “Lovelines” (Hootenanny, 1983); “Buck Hill” (Hootenanny, 1983); “Willpower” (Hootenanny, 1983); “Color Me Impressed” (Hootenanny, 1983); “Mr. Whirly” (Hootenanny, 1983) The ‘Mats Grow Up, at Least as Much as They Ever Will: Let It Be, Tim, and Pleased To Meet Me This is the true golden era of The Replacements, as all agree. Jeff still thinks the ‘Mats never made a truly great album and argues that Let It Be (1984) is a frustratingly apt example of that: genius music like “I Will Dare” and “Androgynous” sits right next to half-hearted thrashy nonsense like “Gary’s Got A Boner” and “Tommy Gets His Tonsills Out.” This is material that the Replacements would have been more comfortable doing in an early, less ambitious era, but which sits uneasily along the serious gems by this point. Mark and Scot think Jeff is wrong (Mark: “you are high”), and claim Let It Be as the best of the ‘Mats, right in line with general fan and critical consensus. With Tim (1985), The Replacements’ major-label debut, Jeff thinks the problem is even more acute: is there really any better song in the entire corpus of American 1980’s indie-rock than “Bastards Of Young”? (Answer: no.) “Kiss Me On The Bus,” “Here Comes A Regular,” “Hold My Life,” “Left Of The Dial”…half of Tim is comprised of anthemic explanations of what rock (and adolescence!) was about in the ’80s. But then you also have to sit through “Dose Of Thunder” and “Lay It Down Clown” and “Waitress In The Sky.” Was it that The Rep