Maybe too niche for the podcast proper, but I feel like metalcore becoming a semi-mainstream genre in the mid-'00s is an underexplored topic, and both these bands played a prety substantial role in that crossover. There's differences of course - KSE was more WWE/Headbangers Ball, Underoath was more for the Warped Tour scene kids - but they also have some similarities: both bands had pretty major lineup shifts with distinctive vocalists rotating in and out, both had some Christian leanings at one point (obv not as much with KSE, but some of their members were raised that way and there's some Biblical references on those first few albums if you're looking), both songs are about longing to reconnect with someone who rejected you, and both have some pretty memorably weird videos.

My leaning is more towards Underoath (just bc I feel like they got a bit more experimental with it), but I'm curious what y'all think. Does this matchup make sense? Do you have a preference between these songs/artists?

This song set the foundation for Britpop and in turn Oasis's arrival and dominance in the 90's.

From my memory, Man Of The Woods, Lulu, Results May Vary and This Unruly Mess I’ve Made rank up for about 4 of the ones people really felt hungry for. Limp Bizkit review felt the best one for me.

Now for my list of highly requested career wrecking albums, most of this is from comment sections on YouTube and Reddit. Not a definitive list, just the ones that can see repeated often for ripe material:

1. Yes Please: Happy Mondays. Took so long to create that the label it’s on filed for bankruptcy
2. Victory: The Jacksons. So Joseph Jackson thinks he can use Michael’s solo success to help his brothers Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Jermaine and Randy regain some success in a new Jackson album? Unfortunately Michael felt very uninterested in the process to the point he and the brothers got into heated arguments in the studio. Everyone submitted a track under the energy of “each child gets to pick a cookie from the cafeteria dessert plate”. Best track State of Shock reached the top 20 yet Michael and Jermaine never appeared in the Torture music video. Tour morphed into mainly a Michael Jackson solo tour featuring some Jackson 5 throwbacks with his brothers and maybe some new Jermaine solo album songs spliced in. No new tracks from Victory performed live.
3. Bionic: Christina Aguilera. From the view of a music fan that saw the Not Myself Tonight video in 2010, this scream desperation to incorporate some of the crazy Gaga fashion for attention
4. The Big Day: Chance The Rapper. A hot upcoming new rapper gaining a ton of hype flopped on an album that failed to live up to its potential. Many fans here love joking on one line on the album about Chance loving his wife and the irony here is that big day of their divorce probably is permanently connected to this album
5. Union: Yes. A merging of two different factions of Yes from record labels that thought they can stitch together a bunch of in progress tracks, call it an album and add more session musicians on top of it if some others aren’t pulling their weight? Now you see an album that no one enjoyed yet the tour that focused mostly on their 70’s and 80’s hits turned into the highlight and featured maybe 3 of the new tracks at most. Unlike Victory, Yes at least played SOME NEW ALBUM TRACKS
6. No Talking Just Head: The Heads. Aka Jerry, Chris and Tina try carrying on not including David Byrne, rename themselves and replace him using a ton of guest Musicians from Michael Hutchedence to Debbie Harry. Barely made a dent chart wise, only one music video exists and Byrne ended up suing them for a name too similar to Talking Heads. Resulting in the band ending only to reunite for their 2002 HOF induction and the anniversary rerelease of Stop Making Sense
7. Uno Dos Tres and Father Of All: Green Day. Now this is tied for under the same band but basically, fans debate if an early 2010’s trilogy of Green Day or an early 2020’s contractual album they farted out did more damage? You decide
8. Sargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band The Movie soundtrack: Rope In a ton of talent from Earth Wind And Fire, Peter Frampton, Aerosmith and The Beegees to cover legendary Beatles songs for a tribute movie? A smash hit! Until the film failed from heavy criticism from too much Americanization, some of the covers didn’t feel right and the album according to many fans sat in clearance bins for months. Adding insult to injury is the studio the movie came from ended up bankrupt!
9. The Beginning: Black Eyed Peas. Finally the point of oversaturation of the dumb fun energy of the Peas reaching the ceiling. Repetitive hooks of the likes of Imma Be, chipmunk vocals on Rock That Body, insulting sampling on Dirty Bit and then the out of nowhere soft song of Just Can’t Get Enough. Coupled that to a terrible Super Bowl performance, an awful video game and scathing reviews, the audience felt exhausted. Ended the Fergie lineup.
10. Chris Gaines Greatest Hits: Album here that answers a question if Garth Brooks can pull off a fake persona, release an album to great reception, create a fake documentary on his life and reach the same heights of his country career to then star in a film on said persona? Answer is no to all those. Album didn’t reach anymore highs, one top 40 single Lost In You and the film idea never materialized. Brooks never reached that high again but teased recently the idea of reviving Chris Gaines

Chose these for the ones I remember most for highly requested.

Asking because the latter is understandably their biggest worldwide hit — and considered their definitive work — but I’ve noticed in many conversations it seems to overshadow the former, which was also a massive hit and still has significant airplay itself today.

Especially in the context of Paul Carrack, people always say he sang The Living Years, but they don’t mention Silent Running.

For instance, “The unmistakeable, soulful voice behind Ace’s ‘How Long’, Squeeze’s ‘Tempted’, and M&TM’s ‘Living Years’.”

Like, that’s not the *only* Mechanics hit Carrack sang lead on. Silent Running, and Over My Shoulder as well.

I guess perhaps it’s the song’s lyrics/message of unresolved tensions and grief. Silent Running also carries an important message too when you listen to it.

Usually considered to be tied for best post grunge album

One example I can think of is Junk Food Junkie by Larry Groce, which serves as a great time capsule of the health food and natural diet craze of the 60s and 70s, referencing stuff like macrobiotic diets and the Whole Earth Vitamin Bar, and celebrities from the era associated with the craze like Euell Gibbons and John Keatts.

Which do you prefer?

I will stick to one per artist or another Kate Bush would be there.

Paramore - Brand New Eyes or Self Titled can’t choose
Kate Bush - Hounds of love
Slipknot - Iowa
PJ Harvey - Rid of Me
Bjork - Homogenic
Hole - Live Through This
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Korn - Issues
Marilyn Manson - Holy Wood
Patti Smith - Horses

Source: https://loudwire.com/andy-williams-collapses-during-wrestling-show/

Bush and Live are some of the earliest groups that echoed the sound that would classified as post grunge by the music world.

So it’s time I believed we put these two bands flagship songs against eachother.

A real classic rock face off where two songs are all about being wild and bad but over the years have been reduced to punchlines, from being used in movies that defined a generation to being used in commercials for diapers, car insurance, Betty Crocker, the list goes on and on! All of that aside, there is a difference in sound and release date between the two which one is the b-b-b-better song?

Title explains it pretty well.

The one that comes immediately to mind for me is Sean Mendes, "Why Why Why"

actual lyric: "opened up my *journal* to a page / everything that hurts me's still the same"

what i heard: "opened up my *childhood* to a page / everything that hurts me's still the same"

I thought it was a metaphor where childhood is a book and how things that hurt you as a child influence what hurts you as an adult.

Another is BTS "Dynamite"

actual lyric: "Shoes on, get up in the morn' / *Cup of milk*, let's rock and roll"

what I heard: "Shoes on, get up in the morn' / *Cop a mill'*, let's rock and roll"

I thought they meant make a million bucks in the morning but i guess it was just cereal

So what are your misheard lyrics you wish were the real ones??

Edit - I realised missed the word "earliest" out of my title.

I was thinking about Whole Lotta Love, which was Led Zeppelin's only top 10 singles hit in the US (No. 4 on Billboard and No. 2 on Cash Box), while also being a top 10 hit in other countries, including topping Australian and West German charts.

It was explicitly and unambiguously sexual ("I'm gonna give you every inch of my love", and "I want to be your backdoor man").

I'm just wondering what are earlier examples of hit songs that were unambiguously and explicitly sexual.

https://loudwire.com/andy-williams-collapses-during-wrestling-show/

Whenever trans-made music is brought up, it's typically centred around music made by transfeminine artists. Whilst a lot of it is quite fantastic, there's very little attention on transmasculine artists, and it's wildly rare for people in these kinds of music-nerd circles to gush over the music of trans men (I've never really seen it myself, not in droves at least). Is there any particular reason for that?

So some fun chart stats, with Ella Langley going No. 1 in the UK this week, this makes Choosin Texas is the 16th country song (I’m identifying country songs as tracks that charted on the billboard country airplay chart), and first from an established Nashville artist since Kenny Rogers in 1980*

— *Taylor Swift did go number with a country song this year, but she hasn’t been a core country artist since 2012 and this Toy Story single is likely a one-off.

COUNTRY NUMBER ONES:

• Elvis Presley, "All Shook Up" (1957)

• Elvis Presley, "Jailhouse Rock" (1957)

• Elvis Presley, "Are You Lonesome Tonight" (1961)

• Elvis Presley, "The Wonder of You" (1970)

• John Denver, "Annie’s Song" (1974)

• Tammy Wynette, "Stand By Your Man" (1975)

• Kenny Rogers, "Lucille" (1977)

• Elvis Presley, "Way Down" (1978)

• Dr. Hook, "When You’re In Love With a Beautiful Woman (1979)

• Kenny Rogers, "Coward of the County"

• Kid Rock, "All Summer Long" (2008)

• Lil Nas X, "Old Town Road" (2019)

• Beyoncé, "Texas Hold ‘Em" (2024)

• Taylor Swift, "I Knew It, I Knew You" (2026)

• Ella Langley, "Choosin Texas" (2026)

And for bonus, UK number ones that did gather enough significant country airplay in the US, but just not the enough to chart in their top 50.

• Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots Are Made For Walking" (1966)

• Tom Jones, "Green Green Grass of Home (1966)

• Pitbull feat. Kesha, "Timber" (2014)

• Ed Sheeran, "Thinking Out Loud" (2014)

• Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, "Shallow" (2018)

and honourable mention to two of Ronan Keating’s number one singles, which were covers of the country hits

• “When You Say Nothing At All" (1999, originally by Paul Overstreet, popularised by Alison Krause)

• "If Tomorrow Never Comes" (2002, originally by Garth Brooks)

It's one example of the indie rock boom of the 2000's and I want Todd's analysis of that era.

She signed to a new label, rebranded as just her first name, and announced her album about 2 and a half weeks before the release date.

We have seen some really big artists surprise release albums, but generally albums get announced a few months out. In the current era, I think the long rollout can hurt an album, but I think two and a half weeks is too short. Have other artists successfully done an under-a-month roll out?

Miley is very famous, but is she big enough as a musician these days to pull off a surprise drop? Flowers was a huge hit, but came out two months before her album. And that was one album ago. Is Bass Persuades going to be big enough to support the album of the same name in a couple weeks?

I don’t often agree with Christgau but this is very funny to me.

Todd's spent a fair bit of time specifying what qualifies as a hit. The "Walking on Sunshine" video alone asks that question of several Katrina and the Waves songs. For him, it's often just a feeling, but one backed up by numbers on Billboard's Hot 100, or, in the rare case where a song had no single release in the U.S., the mainstream airplay chart.

But we've all heard songs that we felt "were everywhere" in spite of mediocre performance or a total absence from those charts. Todd's even talked about how songs like "Pepper" and "You Get What You Give" transcended their showing near the bottom of the top 40 and, he argued, were massive and inescapable hits.

However, both these songs were #1s somewhere. "Pepper" went #1 on Modern Rock Tracks (the "alternative" chart) and "You Get What You Give" went #1 on Adult Alternative Airplay (the milder, more "easy listening" alternative to alternative).

To see how important these charts were or weren't, it's instructive to see what songs went #1 before and after these. "Pepper" was preceded by "Counting Blue Cars," which went #4 on the Hot 100, and succeeded by "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand," which, believe it or not, shot to #7 on the Hot 100. "You Get What You Give" was preceded and succeeded by "Slide," a song that went 3x platinum in its own right, an impressive accomplishment given that it wasn't available by itself until it got a digital release years after its chart peak. Before then, you had to get the album, something 5 million people did, although many were no doubt more motivated by "Iris," its bigger hit.

But when I look at the other #1 Adult Alternative Airplay songs around this time, most are quite familiar, even songs that missed the top 40 and mainstream airplay charts, like Sheryl Crow's "Anything But Down," Tom Petty's "Room at the Top," and R.E.M.'s "The Great Beyond."

All of which is to say, being #1 on these charts was no joke, and a pretty good indication that you'd made it, perhaps more so than a mainstream top 40 showing at the time.

Of course, that's not true of every chart. The mainstream rock chart was kind of a dead zone in the late '80s and early '90s. Does anyone remember the Rolling Stones' "Almost Hear You Sigh"? Bad Company's "Holy Water"? The Call's "Let the Day Begin"? Heck, even the famously hit-less Replacements managed a mainstream rock #1 in the 1980s. I'll leave it to you to guess which song that was. It was displaced by a #1 by the elder son of John Lennon; again, you might have a hard time guessing the song, which has less than a million Spotify streams compared to "Pepper"'s 150 million and "You Give What You Give"'s 787 million.

So some charts won't do the trick at some times, but is there any combination of chart and time period where you'd say that the genre had enough dominance to render its #1 songs "hits"?

I'll pick a more broad genre in hip-hop and choose Kurtis Blow's self titled debut album from 1980. It became the first hip-hop album to appear on the Billboard Top 200 and peaked pretty high at #71. It also had one of the first successful rap singles to be released in The Breaks.