Polishing Turds: A Bad Music Podcast

Yes, it's true. After five incredible years Cal and Nick are retiring Polishing Turds as an audio podcast. To send ourselves off and thank all the loyal fans who've supported us for so long, we conducted an exclusive Ask Us Anything episode, fielding terrific, thought-provoking questions from turdlings around the world. What are our favorite and least favorite episodes? How has doing this podcast changed our perspective on music? What spicy takes can we drop that will alienate the few p...

Did your parents make you listen to Kidz Bop CDs back in the day? If so, we apologize for inadvertently triggering your childhood trauma. For everyone else, let's admire all the ways this seemingly innocent brand manages to embarrass itself over and over. From horrendous production to inexplicable lyric changes to a litany of ill-advised spinoffs and marketing gimmicks, Kidz Bop is living proof that sometimes the solution is worse than the original problem... NOTE: We recorded this episode ...

We're back for our 5th annual Polishing Turds Holiday special! This year we'll be covering the wacky and disturbing world of AI, perhaps the one instrument capable of making Christmas music even worse. We'll take you on a cringe-tastic sleigh ride through vast snowfields of slop; from carols of reindeer sacrifice to fake vulgar Motown hits through - and I swear to god this real - a veritable library of AI Eminem singing gospel music. Don't say you weren't warned.... Select sources for this ...

In the conclusion of our series, we bring the Babymetal story up to date. Like it our not, these kawaii heroines are here to stay, having upset the Metal Establishment and fostered a fanatically loyal fanbase that follows them through every puzzling career move. But are they in fact "the future of metal"? And if so is that a good or bad thing for the genre as a whole? Other topics of discussion include some bizarre Babymetal collabs, kawaii metal imitators and the mysterious departu...

Fox Gods, crucifixions, and magic corsets oh my! We continue the story of Babymetal by exploring the wild and confusing "lore" surrounding this group. We also examine the lyrical content of their early songs, cover the initial reactions they received from the Western music scene, and tackle the sticky question of whether or not Babymetal truly is "metal". [Sorry, again, about the unusual amount of random noises in this one. At least there are no babies or dogs this time!] FOLLOW US: Y...