Pop, Collaborate & Listen

We already tackled Bon Jovi's 'Keep The Faith' album back in Season Two and here we are again face to face with some rock cowboys, this time to have a listen to 'These Days' from 1995. And to help us out we are joined by our good friend Chris Green, a man who has played guitar alongside more rock royalty than you could shake a Fender Stratocaster at and someone who really knows his classic Bon Jovi albums. So will this pass muster? Will it join those other albums like 'New Jersey' and 'Slippery When Wet'? I mean obviously not but let's see what we all reckon. The Bon Jovi album was number one for four weeks so we get to talk about loads of other album and single releases from such acts as Reef, Foo Fighters, Kyuss and WASP. Hmmm. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating or comment over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist   (which contains ALL of the songs we talk about on this one) and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. And if you want to donate to our PayPal account for the price of a pint or a cup of coffee that is always appreciated as well obviously. Cheers!

The King Of Pop returns with a double album in 1995, one of which is a Greatest Hits and the other being an album of new material heavily weighted towards MJ giving vent to his thoughts about the allegations that the press has been hammering him with. He's full or fury and he wants to shout about it! Neither of us had heard this full album before and of the non-single tracks which were completely new to us, there are some very peculiar choices being made. We also talk about the likes of David Holmes, Bjork and Ugly Kid Joe so there you are. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating or comment over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist  (which contains ALL of the songs we talk about on this one) and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. And if you want to donate to our PayPal account for the price of a pint or a cup of coffee that is always appreciated as well obviously. Cheers!

Time to discuss a bit of The Modfather and to help us out we invited comedian and Weller-fan Rich Wilson to help us fill in some of the blanks in our knowledge and to raise the comedy bar higher than we could ever do on our own. Huge huge thanks to him for making the time for us - check out Rich's latest comedy special on Next Up Comedy, his hit podcast Insane In The Men Brain, his music podcast The Tuned Up Time Machine and his website for everything else he's doing at the minute. As well as Weller we have chats about the likes of Jeff Buckley, Beastie Boys and Robson & Jerome so that's something to look forward to, plus Krister has a lot of great suggestions for potential Paul Weller TV projects, every one a winner. As we explain in the episode half of this was recorded with everyone in the same room and half was done over a dodgy Edinburgh hotel wifi connection so please forgive any rubbish audio quality issues - we genuinely tried our best. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating or comment over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist (which contains ALL of the songs we talk about on this one) and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. And if you want to donate to our PayPal account for the price of a pint or a cup of coffee that is always appreciated as well obviously. Cheers!  

It's our second time reviewing a Take That album, this time it's 'Nobody Else' from 1995 which was the one they released just before Robbie Williams left the band and then they decided to split up thus ruining the lives of every teen girl in the UK. It's also the one that has Back For Good on it but having not heard anything other than the singles we weren't sure what the rest of the songs on here were going to be like. As it turns out, lots of New Jack Swing. But we also chat about Clutch, Earthling and Scatman John so happy days. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating or comment over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist (which contains ALL of the songs we talk about on this one) and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. And if you want to donate to our PayPal account for the price of a pint or a cup of coffee that is always appreciated as well obviously. Cheers!

Only three episodes into Season 6 and we're already doing an off-piste bonus episode. But how could we NOT do one on 'The Bends' by Radiohead considering it's crazy that it was never a number one album. For this one we both admit that we were slightly late to The Bends Party but these days we recognise it for the classic that it is and so while this episode might not be as jocular and funny as we try to make our regular ones, we hope that we make up for it in enthusiasm for the source material. Back with a regular episode as soon as we can, hope you enjoy this special bonus treat.

One for the 90s indie fans, here's an episode on Elastica's self-titled debut from 1995 which even though it's got 15 songs on it is somehow only a 38 minute long record. That doesn't mean a short podcast though - quite the opposite in fact as we find ourselves with plenty to enjoy and lots to say. Plus an absolute avalanche of other album and single releases to chat about so apologies if those sections aren't your cup of tea, feel free to skip them (although then you'll miss out on thrilling conversation about the likes of Monster Magnet, Morphine and, erm, Scooter). As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist (which contains ALL of the songs we talk about on this one) and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!

It's a brand new season of PCL, you wonderful people! A reason for celebration and joy all over the world except for the fact that our first episode is apparently on a Celine Dion album that first came out in 1993. How is this the case? It's the one with 'Power Of Love' and 'Think Twice' on it, two monster power ballads which are a weakness of ours so perhaps this will actually be up our streets? There is also a record breaking amount of album and single releases that we get the chance to talk about because Celine's album was at number for multiple weeks at the start of 1995 so you can hear us chat about the likes of Leftfield, Quicksand, PJ Harvey and for some reason, PJ & Duncan. And we also bring up the topic of Jimmy Nail about three times so sorry about that. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist (which contains ALL of the songs we talk about on this one) and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!

It feels like it's taken forever but here we are at the end of season 5, our journey through 1994. And as is now tradition we have put an episode together to discuss what our own personal top ten lists of the best albums released during the year are. After a brief chat about some of the albums that NEARLY made our top tens we then get into it and have a lovely conversation about bands like Portishead, Beastie Boys, Soundgarden, Senser, NIN, Kyuss and loads of others. We're also very grateful to some of our friends who contributed their thoughts about their favourite albums of 1994 - big love to the wonderful comedians Stephen Grant and Rich Wilson, and Steve & Gaz from Trve.Cvlt.Pop - stay tuned right at the end of the episode to hear their whole conversation about their choices where Steve manages to not mention the Chaka Demus & Pliers album which frankly none of us could have predicted. If you want to check our our playlist with songs from each of our own choices on it then you can find it here. We will be back ASAP with a whole new season of albums to look at as we go through 1995 but until then enjoy this episode and as always please do let us know your own faves from '94 if we totally missed them out.

For our last "proper" episode in season five before we get into our 1994 end of year round-ups we return to a band that we've covered a couple of times before. And while you could argue that we realistically shouldn't be covering this record because it's not a studio album and is half full of previously released tunes, well... shut up. We're very obviously too big of fanboys not to do this one as well. And to help us out with discussing such a big record we are joined by the brilliant Niall Bakewell from The Zeroes Podcast. Full disclosure: we recorded this episode a good while ago and out of sequence with the rest of this season because Niall had to make the trip over to us from Northern Ireland and he's a very busy man so we happily worked around his schedule. There are also plenty of other bands and acts that we talked about in this one as well such as Pearl Jam, Stone Roses, Sheryl Crow and, erm, Jimmy Nail. Hmmm. Along the way we do touch on some more serious subjects as you can probably imagine so this one isn't necessarily as light-hearted as other episodes but there are also some of Dave's worst jokes to date to try and balance it out. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!

Our third REM episode but the first one that we had to delay some recording of because of too much vomiting, which was a treat for Dave. If you've heard our takes on 'Out of Time' and 'Automatic For The People' you'll know that we absolutely loved those but we weren't even a fraction as familiar with this one at all. Also this is an absolute beast of an episode in terms of running time, mainly because of the total deluge of album and single releases within the five week time period in late 1994 that we were looking at so we won't be offended if you skip those sections if those aren't your favourite bits. But if you do skip them you'll miss us talking about the likes of Korn, Shellac, Digable Planets, Refused, Shampoo and obviously East 17. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!

So here's what happened. We scheduled an episode on Eric Clapton's 'From The Cradle' album from 1994, made a big old list of all the other records we were going to discuss during the episode that got released at the same time but then realised that the Clapton record was just a collection of blues cover versions, not his own songs. And the rules we have say that we don't need to cover that sort of nonsense and we therefore chose to skip it. However, there were too many albums and singles which we planned to chat about to just bump into the next episode because the list of releases for THAT one is also pretty massive and so we came to the decision to make a mini/bonus episode which was just us doing the albums and singles sections. And frankly we know that for some of our listeners that's all the really want anyway. So here it is, a filler stopgap episode before we come back into the proper timeline with the REM one. If you do want to hear the Eric Clapton album (and all of the singles we discuss herein) then you can always head to this episode's companion playlist and knock yourself out there. Cheers!

When you're talking about bands that defined 90s music it's hard not to include Oasis which means that simply doing an episode on their debut album 'Definitely Maybe' from 1994 is a minefield because everyone has an opinion on this one, usually either VERY positive or VERY VERY negative. Krister had this album at the time and remembers enjoying it for the most part, Dave has never previously deliberately listened to Oasis in his life but still knows most of the songs on here through mere osmosis. Will either of us end up loving this one by the end of a reassessment? Not completely, no, but we both have songs on here that we really love it turns out. We also talk about bands like Portishead, Manic Street Preachers and, erm, Indie Kylie along the way. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!

Hey, stop that sniggering at the back. Just because a Prince album is called 'Come' doesn't mean that it's all smutty and full of filth. Oh wait no, that's exactly what it means. Recommence sniggering if you wish. If you want to hear Prince croon about oral sex and orgasms then have we got a treat for you in this episode. Conversely if you want to hear Krister find it excruciatingly embarrassing having to listen to Prince's sexy talk then you're also in luck. Thankfully we're also able to chat about acts such as Jeff Buckley, Gravediggaz and Orbital so it's not all wall to wall smut. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers! 

Some albums are deserving of the term 'gamechanger' and here's a massive one from 1994. The Prodigy's second album 'Music For The Jilted Generation' introduced so many people to dance music who might not previously have given it a second thought so we were very excited to do an episode on it. So excited in fact that we brought a guest in to help us out so huge thanks to Cliff Barnes from the Devil Times Five Horror Movie Podcast who is a Prodigy uber-fan as well with loads of insights. Among us we also talk about other acts and albums from the time like Downset, Killing Joke and Julian Cope. Oh and the Vengaboys of course but presumably that goes without saying. We also mention our May 2024 Brighton Fringe live shows, tickets for which are already on sale and can be bought from the website here. We'd love to see some friendly faces if you fancy coming along! And as always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!

Who's up for a bit of Swedish reggae-pop then? Who knew that was going to be a big genre in the early 90s? Apparently Ace of Base did and they gave us quite a lot of it on this, their debut* album, which got to number one in 1994. As well as discussing the merits of The Sign and All That She Wants we chat some rubbish about Suicidal Tendencies, Kyuss and the Reverend Horton Heat among many others. We also mention our May 2024 Brighton Fringe live shows, tickets for which are already on sale and can be bought from the website here. We'd love to see some friendly faces if you fancy coming along! If you'd like to listen to the Unsung Podcast episode that we mention all about the Nazi rumours behind the band then check it out here - it's a really interesting and well put together bit of research. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!   *sort of debut but repackaged and rejigged. Don't be a pedant.

We're taking a metaphorical journey to Ireland to dip our toes into the debut album by The Cranberries 'Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can't We'. A band that both Dave and Krister admit to not liking the majority of what they've heard but then again the majority of what they've heard is the single 'Zombie' so perhaps there's more to The Cranberries "dan dis". As well as pointed digs at Krister's Irishness we also chat about acts like Fun-Da-Mental, Rancid and The Sp!n Doctors. Apologies for that last one. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!

How in the merry hell did 2 Unlimited get ANOTHER number one album in the UK? We thought we were done with these guys after our episode in Season 4 but here we are again apparently. So is this one a drastic departure away from their hyper-cheesy pop rave previous albums? Or course not. What are you, mad? Enjoy our journey through another record of Eurohouse ridiculousness and be thankful you don't have to listen to this record as many times as we did. Thankfully we also get the chance to chat about other acts like Stone Temple Pilots, Bruce Dickinson and Helmet so it's not all bad. As always please do give us a follow on our social media platforms and why not go and give us a nice rating over on Spotify now that you're able to while you're checking out this episode's companion playlist and our ongoing and sprawling playlist of songs from each album that we do an episode on. Cheers!

We are back, and so is Seal with another self-titled album. After doing Seal 'Seal' in our second season we find ourselves doing Seal 'Seal' in season 5 as well. Has the music changed or progressed? Is this a very different beast to the one that went before? What we did find is that this is up there with the most divided we have been on an album - let us know which way you end up landing. But as well as Seal we do chat some rubbish about Fish from Marillion, the Beastie Boys and, most bizarrely, 2 Live Jews. The 90s were a very strange time indeed. And as always check out the companion playlist for this episode with all of the songs we talk about included on it and please feel free to get in contact if you fancy - you can do so via our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. And you can catch up with our ongoing playlist made up of songs from all of the albums we've covered so far right here.

We are thoroughly back into our regular episodes after a bumpy, special-riddled journey of recent times. And this one is about Erasure's sixth album 'I Say I Say I Say' from May of 1994. We have already done an Erasure album back in Season 2 and we thought that that record was just ok, maybe this one will be more up our street? Along the way we also chat about Jeru the Damaja, Pearl Jam and, erm, Toad The Wet Sprocket so enjoy those diversions. And as always check out the companion playlist for this episode with all of the songs we talk about included on it and please feel free to get in contact if you fancy - you can do so via our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. And you can catch up with our ongoing playlist made up of songs from all of the albums we've covered so far right here.

Yes, yes, ANOTHER diversion from our regular journey through the 90s, this time an episode all about Senser's debut album 'Stacked Up' from May 1994. This is an album that we both have a lot of love for, one that we played over and over when it came out and so we were keen to check it out again to see how it stands up after nearly 30 years. We have contributions from some of our podcast buddies peppered throughout this as well so thank you to Stephen and Gaz from Trve.Cvlt.Pop, Si from Beat Rehab and Niall from The Zeroes for sharing their memories of this record.