Explore every episode of the podcast Unsung Podcast

If you've been tuned into the news around the Scottish grassroots music scene at any point in the last few weeks, you'll likely have seen there's been a bit of controversy brewing around King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow and their owners, DF Concerts.

Following a piece published in The Bell, where numerous people spoke out about the poor terms that King Tut's offers to emerging artists, various corners of social media were ablaze with righteous fury. It prompted DF to threaten to take The Bell to court, and also saw The Herald get in on the action. So we think it's fair to say that this is a blaze that might be threatening to run amok.

The terms that King Tut's offers has been something of a known issue in the Scottish music community for a number of years, and whilst there are certainly reasons for small artists to be aggrieved (reasons which we share), the matter is not quite as clear cut as The Bell article would have you think.

On this week's episode we draw from our own experiences as musicians and promoters to try to give a more complete picture of the issue. We also do a wee exercise where we map out whether putting on gigs yourself is more cost effective, using examples of the rates offered by many venues in Glasgow to paint a picture of what the costs of running a show yourself actually are.

Which ultimately leads us to ask a few questions: is what King Tut's offer fair? Is it just better to put on gigs yourself? And if King Tut's parent company, DF Concerts, used their corporate backing to pay artists more, what might be the outcome of that on the wider grassroots scene as a whole?

If you like this episode please consider subscribing to our Patreon at www.patreon.com/unsungpod

You might think you don't know Christophe Szpajdel's work. You almost certainly do. The Emperor logo. The Metallica Mankind clip. The Rihanna lettering that went a hundred feet high at the MTV VMAs. If you've spent any time near heavy music, his hand has been on things you've stared at without knowing his name.

This week we sit down with the man known as Lord of the Logos — Belgian-born, Devon-based, currently on shift at the Co-op — to talk about a career that has produced somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 logos, and counting. We get into his early years doodling in school notebooks in Liège, the Art Nouveau obsession that underpins everything, and how a chance encounter on the Tube ended with his work displayed at one of the biggest awards shows on the planet for £500 — a fee he only learned was for Rihanna after he'd already quoted it.

We cover the Emperor logo that defined his reputation, the Metallica commission that required him to draw at Heathrow five hours before a flight to Japan, and the Foo Fighters Christmas jumper that was a mutilation of his work, and what he did about it. We also discuss the readability question that divides the scene, the three-month creative block triggered by a South Korean band, his forestry degree and why nature sits at the centre of everything he makes, and the political stance on Ukraine that has cost him ten logos in one go.

The question running through all of it: how does someone this prolific stay original?

Highlights

00:00 Intro

01:00 Meet Christophe Szpajdel — Lord of the Logos

04:00 Logo Count and the Goal of 20,000 by 2030

06:00 The Process Explained

09:00 The Unsung Logo and Chris's Tattoo

10:00 Background: Belgium, Poland, Ukraine, Devon

11:00 The Co-op Day Job and Why It Works

13:00 Side Projects: Murals and the Polish Calendar

17:00 Musical Influences: Kiss, Motörhead, Celtic Frost

19:00 First Logos and Early Career

21:00 The Emperor Logo

25:00 Chilean Influence: Rick Zuniga

26:00 Nature, Art Nouveau, and the Forestry Degree

28:00 Best Work Comes from Anger or Obsession with Death

29:00 Symmetry, Creative Block, and the Client Problem

33:00 Live: Working Through the Drag Logo

38:00 The Readability Debate

43:00 The Rihanna Story

47:00 Metallica at Heathrow

53:00 The Foo Fighters Bootleg Response

54:00 The Mandy Soundtrack

57:00 AI and Market Saturation

59:00 Ukraine, Politics, and the Russian Flatmate

01:02:00 Losing Ten Logos Over a Political Stance

01:03:00 Black Metal, Church Burnings, and Forbidden Fruit

01:08:00 The Trump/Putin Artwork

01:09:00 The Books: Lord of the Logos, Archaic Modernism, Oracles in Black

Charles Bradley’s cover of Black Sabbath’s Changes is one that both hosts of this podcast believe could well be the definitive version of the song. And we say that having done three episodes on Black Sabbath — an odyssey that gave us both a newfound appreciation for one of, if not the, most important metal bands to have ever existed.

Changes itself is a great song, but this emotional reworking casts an entirely new light on its meaning and power. That, in turn, led us to dive into the work — and world — of Charles Bradley.

Much was (rightly) made of Bradley when the then 62-year-old “Screaming Eagle of Soul” burst into public consciousness in 2011 with his debut album No Time for Dreaming. He was met with widespread critical acclaim, and the record proved a major success for his label, Daptone Records. From there, he went from strength to strength, releasing two more albums before his untimely death in 2016 from stomach cancer.

A former James Brown impersonator, Bradley’s life was one of tremendous hardship, which ultimately saw him achieve his greatest dream. He burned brightly and briefly, and his final record, Changes — named after the excellent Sabbath cover nestled within — is a remarkable work to bow out with.

In this episode, we talk all about his life, through the lens of the 2011 documentary Charles Bradley: Soul of America, before discussing some of our favourite soul covers of rock songs.

If you enjoyed this episode, do take some time to check out our Patreon, where you can get early access to episode (with no ads), bonus content and much more.

R.E.M. never really chased superstardom, and yet they found themselves thrust into it in the mid-90s. Last week we ended by talking about Green and Out of Time. In part three we chat about Automatic for the People and Monster, before diving into the records they made after drummer and founding member Bill Berry left: Up, Reveal, Around the Sun, Accelerate and Collapse Into Now. This episode's the longest of all four parts precisely because we cover so much ground. We try to give each album a fair hearing before we circle back to Chris' choice of New Adventures in Hi-Fi in part four/Side D.

There's a ton of samples of this, and it soon becomes clear that without Berry and dimming commercial appeal, that they were starting to become a little bit listless. Hope you enjoy getting stuck into it!

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

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

The catalyst for this series is that Chris has chosen the album New Adventures in Hi-Fi by R.E.M. as an unsung classic. But before we even get to the album (coming next week in part four) we need to do our due diligence and take a quick glance over their entire discography.

And folks, for R.E.M., it's a big ol discography. With fifteen albums, there's a lot to wade through, which is why this is a series in four parts, as opposed to one episode.

But before we dive into the discography, we need to give context. So in episode one Chris talks about his affection for R.E.M., why he picked New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and we do a little bit of background on the band's pre-history. We also talk about our overall impressions of the band, what it was like to get to grips with the back catalogue. We also talk about Elizabeth Wurtzel's 1993 article "R.E.M. for The People", a key text for this series. In the next episode (dropping today RIGHT after this one) we dive into their discography. Stay tuned!

We're back! In new surroundings (digitally). To kick off our tenure in our new home of Bleav we thought we'd get out some Christmas leftovers and reheat them for you. Long time fans of the show will know that every Xmas we answer questions from our lovely listeners. Well, we had a couple we didn't answer from the 2023 Xmas specials and it just so happens that they pertain to the podcast itself and its future. So we talk a little about what drives us, why we're still doing it, what things might look like going forward and also chuck in some silly shit too. Can't be too serious all the time. Particularly when we talk about how fucked the music industry is.

So sit back and relax with the first episode of the new era, and look forward to a bit more this week...

So here we are, the truly magnificent, slightly chaotic, overly long conclusion to our Xmas madness. It’s seen us well into January this year, which is maddening and funny.

We had so many questions this year. A ridiculous amount, frankly. But we couldn’t let the die hards down, and that meant doing each and every single one. Somehow, despite divvying them up equally across the three episodes, the final part of this trilogy comes in a whopping 3 hour episode.

Yes folks, bear witness to our first and hopefully last ever 3 hour episode. It was a chore, the edit was painful but it was also an immense amount of fun. This is probably actually our funniest episode ever. The hot takes are hotter than ever and the bantermobile has gone off the track and into some truly outlandish territory.

After all this we’re taking next week off. Mostly because we actually have a lot to do and a lot of research on a band with a huge back catalogue. A band you perhaps never thought we’d cover (it’s not Prince).

To keep you going we’ve created a playlist of our favorite albums of 2023. See ye in two weeks!

Christmas and New Year are very much in the rear view by this point, but due to our schedule having shifted due to ransomware attacks and COVID, we only managed to record parts two and three of our Xmas special last week.

Usually part two is where we really get cooking. The booze is starting to kick in, the takes are at a reasonable level of spice, and we’re still largely coherent. That is, of course, not the case this year. We start part two sober, but it’s still as fun as it usually is.

Because this is the part of the podcast schedule where we give back to you lot, we really take our time in answering your questions this year. That’s why this is a mega episode. It’s a lot of fun though. So grab something non-alcoholic (seriously, give your liver a break) and cosy up with this our new year’s treat.

OH YEAH: we also made a playlist of all our favourite Scottish bands right now. It’s not just the ones we mentioned in the episode, there’s a whole bunch more besides. Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ZCFOr1YDagIqbsKpTB3lz?si=1b6f6edb4dcb4db9

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Due to COVID we recorded part one of our Xmas Xtravaganza remotely, so this is a relatively subdued affair both in terms of banter, hilarity and searing hot takes.

But we do get through a fucking TON of your questions, and that’s awesome. Thanks to every single person who sent us some in December. We’ve got two more episodes to record, which we’ll be doing TOMORROW (Jan 2nd) in person with copious amounts of alcohol.

Thanks for an excellent 2023. Let’s smash 2024 together, eh?

We’ve taken a small break this week to record bonus content, so we thought we’d drop some of our older bonus content as a way to tease you into subscribing.

Unsong is basically THE UNSUNG SINGLES CLUB. In it, we breakdown a single song to talk about why it works so well. On this episode, Mark has chosen Separate Ways by your dad’s favourite 80s band, Journey.

If you’d like to get more of this kind of content, consider subscribing to our Patreon. From just £4 you can be a member of the club, and if you really fancy a commitment you can donate a little more and subscribe to our RECORD CLUB. Each month we send out you a record from the host of your choice (or you can do a pot luck if you fancy), either digital or vinyl. It’s a fun wee thing, and we have some great records in it so do check it out! We also encourage subscribing and unsubscribing if you don’t want to carry it on month to month, or simply want to dip in and out as you see fit.

Back next week with something a little bit different again.

IT’S CHRISTMAS! Is this our first ever Christmas day episode drop? Possibly. But don’t quote us on that. It’s been six years. So it’s likely we’ve done it before…anyway, this week is NOT part one (or two) of our Xmas Xtravaganza, but it’s part TWO of our karaoke mixtape!

Last week we spoke all about the history of karaoke. This week we’re chatting about a couple things: are artists who tour using backing tracks essentially doing karaoke? And we also chat about our favourite karaoke tunes, our least favourite karaoke tunes, hear from some more friends of the pod and chat a whole other bunch of shite besides. HAVE A GOOD CHRISTMAS, FOLKS! See you in the NEW YEAR for the NEW YEAR’S TREAT!

Karaoke is a divisive artform. In fact, even calling an “artform” is divisive in itself. For most people it’s a fun thing to do with friends, and for that reason it is hugely popular around the world.

Inspired by Chris’ recent birthday night out that ended in a karaoke booth, we thought we’d do something FUN and explore the history of karaoke. In part one we talk about how it began, its success and reveal the staggering scale of this multi-billion dollar a year industry.

We also hear from a few of our regular contributors and past guests as they give us their opinions on karaoke and tell us what their go to songs are. We hope you enjoy this episode!

TWO THING: One, the Xmas Vinyl Hamper has now been joined by a digital variant, which is great for people who live outside of the UK. Find out more over on our merch store. Also, we’ll chuck in a personalised message for you as well.

Two, we are SIX YEARS OLD today. So please wish us happy birthday.

Bowie fans have long found ways to make peace with some of the more unsavoury aspects of his character and behaviour during that decade. His Thin White Duke persona highlights what, by his own admission, were “the darkest days” of his life. And while he was quick to distance himself from that character as he grew older, its influence on certain members of the British far right certainly left a mark.

Yet there is a much darker period of his life than this. It is now a matter of record that he was in sexual relationships with both Lori Maddox and Sable Starr — perhaps the two most infamous “baby groupies” of the early ’70s — when they were just 13 and 15 years old, respectively. Grim stuff all round.

We’ll be exploring both of these aspects of his life in this week’s episode, as well as the wider “baby groupie” culture of the era. This episode raises questions about separating the art from the artist, the role of 1970s rock culture, and the personal responsibility of fans. Join us as we navigate the challenging waters of moral grandstanding and personal hypocrisy, questioning if, and how, we can reconcile admiration for Bowie’s art with the transgressions of the man himself.

Highlights
00:00 Introduction
00:38 Unfinished Business with David Bowie
02:26 Trigger Warnings
04:05 David Bowie's Complex Legacy
13:57 Fascism and Controversial Statements
38:50 Sexual Misdeeds and Allegations
41:05 Introduction to Statutory Rape in Rock Culture
41:30 The Story of Dana Gillespie and David Bowie
42:34 Lori Maddox and the Baby Groupies
43:29 Sable Starr and the Rock Scene
45:05 The Culture of Underage Groupies
47:24 Laurie Maddox's Relationship with David Bowie
56:51 Jimmy Page and Laurie Maddox
01:00:06 The Wider Problem in Rock Culture
01:07:45 Modern Reflections on Past Actions
01:14:58 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

This week we have a guest! Grant Donaldson from Moni Jitchell (and many others) joins us to talk about the debut album by ‘68.

Launching almost immediately after the abrupt end of the critically acclaimed Christian Metalcore The Chariot, ‘68 are a very different proposition indeed. At various points channelling equal parts southern blues, angular punk rock and noise rock, they couldn’t be further away from metalcore.

Written in the studio and recorded in a very short space of time, In Humor and Sadness is both an extremely fun and seemingly spontaneous sounding record that also somehow comes across as well crafted. Truly a testament to the talent of Josh Scogin and drummer Michael McClellan, it’s an album full of ferocious energy, playing and charisma.

In this episode we talk about the band’s history, including briefly touching on Norma Jean, The Chariot, Christian Metalcore and the band’s entire discography before giving the album itself a good once over.

We hope you enjoy!

VINYL FANS: Like the idea of the record club but don’t want the commitment? Well, this Christmas treat yourself or a loved one to our vinyl hamper, where will send you 3 albums from our extensive record club collection. Tell us which host you want to get albums from, and we’ll send them out for only £30 + postage. Check it out, now.

This week we talk about something positively wintery indeed, as we explore the foreboding sounds of Swedish sonic sorceress Anna von Hausswolff. Tracing influences from baroque pop storytellers like Tori Amos through to the cavernous industrial churn of Swans, we chart Anna's evolution across a series of bold studio works and her new live album.

While early piano-led efforts drifted into listless bluesy indulgence at times, subsequent records built in scale and ambition, making powerful use of church pipe organs alongside doom-laden guitars. We make the case though that it is most recent album, a live collection titled Live at Montreux Jazz Festival, where von Hausswolff's songs are distilled to their dramatic, emotionally coruscating essentials.

Spotlighting tracks from latest LP 'Dead Magic' alongside back catalogue standout 'The Miraculous', the performance captures a gifted ensemble locked into Anna's haunted creative vision. Sweeping highlights like 'The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra' and 'Ugly and Vengeful' twist and turn from Radiohead-esque ethereal fragility to Sunn O))) styled nightmarish peaks of noise, never losing their hypnotic grip.

After a trademark meandering musical nexus takes us via Napoleon Bonaparte's living heirs to Kate Bush and Scott Walker, we also discuss the latest on our recent break and our upcoming Christmas episode plans. Which we’re taking questions for now, so if you want to contribute, send em over now!

We're back! After over a month away due to technical issues, the Unsung Podcast has returned with an explosive new episode on metalcore pioneers Poison the Well and their 2003 album 'You Come Before You.'

Joining Chris and Mark for the first time in many months is Dave, who chose Poison the Well as his band for the episode. Hailing from Florida, Poison the Well helped define the metalcore genre in the early 2000s with their blend of hardcore punk and extreme metal. Albums like 1999's 'The Opposite of December' and 2002's 'Tear From the Red' built them a cult following.

But it's their third album, 'You Come Before You,' that Dave considers their unsung classic. Recorded with producers who had previously worked with Refused, the album shows Poison the Well branching into more melodic territory even as the riffs become heavier. With nods to bands like Deftones and Cave In, it expanded the boundaries of what metalcore could be.

The episode explores Poison the Well's entire career, analysing how they evolved from their raw early material into a more ambitious band on 'You Comes Before You' and subsequent releases. Though not all fans appreciated their change in direction, Dave makes the case for why their third album struck the perfect balance and deserves classic status.

Tune in now to hear the full discussion and analysis of why Poison the Well's 'You Come Before You' is an unsung classic!

This week we get into the meat of Spotify streaming manipulation. We’ve already discussed the history, but how did Spotify become so influential? And why?

The advent of music streaming opened new avenues for questionable promotion tactics to thrive. While piracy dealt a blow to record sales in the 1990s and 2000s, streaming's growth led to playlists becoming hugely influential.

Getting on a top Spotify playlist can bring an artist millions of streams overnight. But with intense competition, some turn to shady methods for infiltration. Fake bot accounts, incentivised listens, and even playlists curators demanding payment to be on large playlists are used to artificially inflate plays.

The goal is gaming Spotify's algorithms and human curators to appear more popular than the music merits. Companies openly sell packages guaranteeing huge stream counts through deception.

But risks abound, from wasted money to torpedoed careers. Streams-for-hire erode consumer trust and unfairly disadvantage honest artists.

The pattern echoes radio payola's heyday, which we discussed in part one last week. As technology progresses, some industry players still cut corners.

While once payola was stamped out, streaming's unregulated landscape enabled its revival. Manipulation tricks the algorithm, but harms fair chance. If streaming aims for integrity, the platform, artists, and fans all must play a part.

The path ahead remains murky, as new innovations open fresh exploitation possibilities. Yet hope persists that streaming may steer towards rewarding talent, not deception. By learning from history's mistakes, perhaps music promotion can shed its shadows. Or perhaps it’ll remain a wild west, with various figures and organisations vying for the attention, and money, of naive young artists.

We were hit with a bout of illness and frankly rubbish personal circumstances over the last couple of weeks, but we managed to get our shit together long enough to sit down with the wonderful, Sibohan Wilson.

Siobhan Wilson is a musician from Elgin who has been making music for over a decade. She has released four albums and one EP, the most recent being “Survivre” in 2022. She released the album via her own label, Suffering Fools Records.

On today's episode we discuss her career, discography, record label, Patreon, her love for Celtic Connections and experiences in the music industry. She spoke about the struggles of being an independent artist, her experiences with various record labels and what led her to forge her own destiny with her own record label.

She also discussed the different methods she's using to reach her fans, including her Patreon and how it has allowed her to connect with her fans on a deeper level.

It was a great chat and we're stoked we had her on the show. We hope you enjoy it. NEXT WEEK - Queens of the Stone Age...

Everybody wants to get famous. Or so they say. Fact is, for many emerging artists these days there’s a direct correlation between fame and the number of streams your tracks have on Spotify. As with anything online though, streaming figures can be manipulated. So over the next two weeks we’re going to tell you all about the phenomenon of playola, why it exists, how it works and the ways it has changed the music business.

The story of playola goes back to the days of payola, whereby record labels and/or artists would pay DJs heaps of money to play their tracks on their radio shows. In this week’s episode, we delve into the history of payola for two reasons, really:

1. It’s actually still a thing that happens, despite the fact that radio is more or less irrelevant for younger generations of people.

2. Playola is an evolution of payola, using similar tactics to make artists seem popular, but via streams rather than radio.

So this week, in part one, we’re giving you the context for a wider discussion on streaming manipulation by showing that it is payola by another name.

We hope you enjoy this investigative podcast episode. We don’t often do journalism, but we sure do find it satisfying when we do.

It comes down to this, really - is Incesticide an unsung classic? We’ve added to the discourse around Nirvana’s back catalogue, with the exception of this album. Hopefully we’ve said something different, or offered a new, enlightening perspective. Or maybe we’re just talking unlimited rubbish.

Either way, on the face of it it seems quite unthinkable to call anything by Nirvana unsung. It’s hard to wrap your head around that idea that maybe there’s some underappreciated gems somewhere that haven’t been rinsed to death by their legions of fans over the years.

Our take? Yeah, there probably is some things you missed first time around, and a good selection of them are on this record. What do you think? Let us know on our socials!

Find parts one and two here and here.

The sheer volume of ink spilled on Nirvana could reach the sun – that’s why a nuanced view is needed when re-examining their discography. So in part two of our Incesticide three parter, we’re going to do just that. If you missed it, part one can be found here.

Rarely do appraisals both lionize a band yet conclude “I can’t listen anymore.” But Nirvana inspires this relationship. Their impact was supermassive, culture warping around them like a collapsing star.

As teenagers, we binged their music until boredom bred apathy, echoed by Kurt snarling “Teenage angst has paid off well.” Time grants perspective. Their songcraft endures, but the addictive allure burned us out, like one night of overindulgence.

Our teen obsessions were more than hype. Nirvana still slaps hard. Much of their music is timeless. So cue up the classics and deep cuts – their catalogue warrants renewed attention to hear what has or hasn't stood the testable of time.

So join us this week as we take a trip into Nirvana’s studio albums. And the MTV Unplugged album. With lots of input from our rotating guest hosts, too!

Who would have thought that there would be a lot to say about one of the biggest bands in the history of music? This week, and for the following two weeks, we’ll be talking all about Nirvana. Our discussion has been brought on by Chris picking Incesticide by Nirvana. He thinks its an unsung classic, of course, but before we get into the band’s discography, there’s the small matter of their history…

Alright, so we’ll be real with you here - this is an epic three parter. This episode will see us detail their history. We’ll talk about the odds and ends that bookended each album cycle, the live albums, the boxsets, as well as discuss the different band members, producers, recording circumstances and more. If you’re looking for the usual “unsung talks about the back catalogue before getting to the album proper” routine, well that’ll come in Side B, next week.

It’s pretty wild to think we’re talking about about one of the most “sung” bands in the history of music on a podcast named unsung. But as you will see over the next three weeks, there’s a whole lot of unsung material, from bootlegs to outtakes and b-sides, that really do deserve more attention. We hope you enjoy.

We're back and we're talking about The Armed. But not just The Armed, we're also talking about anonymous bands/pseudo-anonymous bands, speculating about who has been in/played with/responsible for The Armed and, of course, the marketing campaigns that have accompanied all of their releases. 

We're back after a fairly shambolic three weeks in our lives (redundancy sure does suck) with this slice of fried gold from the 1980s.

You've almost certainly heard the lead single from this record. In fact, the question as to who the singer is of the song "The Warrior" has quite likely come up on a pub quiz at some point, and you've quite likely got the answer wrong. The answer is not, as you may think, Pat Benetar. It's Patty Smyth.

The single this album is named after was an 80s hit, and penned by the legendary Holly Knight. We won't go into a huge amount of detail on her here, but suffice to say we think she's criminally underrated given some of the ginormous tunes she penned in the 80s. Indeed, we cover that in extensive detail in our episode on her short-lived band Device.

Scandal imploded soon after this record was released, and members of the band, Patty included, went on to have varying degrees of success in the late 80s and early 90s. Patty Smyth's story itself is a fascinating one, so fascinating in fact that we actually forgot to talk all about her marriage to Television's Richard Hell. That one glaring omission aside, we do a pretty deep dive into Scandal and her career afterwards.

Chris and I are on holiday this week (and possibly next week too). We aimed to have something done this week and next week but we’ve actually been quite busy working on a couple of really interesting episodes. One’s an interview with a noise rock legend, and the other is a detailed journalistic episode about Spotify.

So to make up the short fall, we’ve reached deep back into the catalogue of bonus episode and unearthed this gem. Recorded in 2020 after the first lockdown had been lifted in the UK, and back when Dave was still around, we sat down to talk about some shit albums with good tunes on them.

Laughs aplenty on this episode. We hope you enjoy it!

To get more content like this, and to learn about the Unsung Record Club, visit: www.patreon.com/unsungpod

After last week’s intro to Gene Clark, we continue the voyage into his career before circling back round to look at his wonderful 4th album No Other in its entirety.

Whilst seen at the time by his record label, Asylum, as being a creative misfire, time has been incredibly kind to it. Maximalist (?) and refined, he was perhaps right in calling it his best work. Certainly, nothing he achieved before or since it ever came close to matching the overall quality of this album.

Unique, daring and above all timeless, do you agree that it is an unsung classic?

Let’s take a trip back to 1994, when Chris was 13 (Mark was 7), and he was busy creating custom Headswim t-shirts around Stirling while discovering the brilliance of that band's debut album.

The album in question was "Flood," and it left a profound impression on Chris. While we often discuss the albums that have influenced us, it's uncommon for us to bring one of these into the Unsung spotlight.

So, let's dive right in: On this album, Headswim was a grunge band, with added psychedelic influences, haunting Faith No More-esque keyboard elements, and occasional Black Sabbath riffs. The record showcased a band brimming with genuine potential. In a music landscape saturated with grunge acts imitating Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or Alice in Chains, Headswim offered a surprisingly refreshing alternative.

However, their trajectory took a turn. Following the tragic loss of a band member's brother, they made a comeback in 1997 with their second album, "Despite Yourself." Although it received some comparisons to Radiohead at the time, the majority of the album epitomized the generic indie rock sound of the late '90s.

And that was essentially the end of their journey. Apart from a single released in 2000 titled "Dusty Road," the band gradually faded into obscurity. That is, until the recent re-release of "Flood" in 2022.

So, the question arises: Is this album a forgotten gem or merely another grunge record best left in the past? Tune in and discover the answer!

What’s this? A regular episode? LIKE THE OLD DAYS?! Yes folks, it’s been a little while since we did a regular, one album one band episode, and this week Chris has chosen the odd choice of Give You the Ghost by POLIÇA.

Why odd? Well, it’s a bit of a spoiler I guess, but after this album the band’s star started to fade. Pretty rapidly. Even the reviews of every subsequent album after this agree.

There’s also the fact that Chris is actually puzzled as to why he even chose this in the first place. Y’see, sometimes a funny thing happens when we chuck an album under the lens of this pod: our relationship to it changes once we analyse it closely. And this is partly why Chris was slightly puzzled by his own choice.

That and the fact that it maybe hasn’t aged as well as it first seemed.

Either way, we get to the bottom of a conundrum or two on this episode. Is Give You the Ghost an unsung classic? Let’s find out!

This week, we're fulfilling a promise we made when we started the Unsung Record Club - featuring episodes on the albums we've included in the club. We're excited to discuss four records available to record club members - two digital and two vinyl.

From the digital selection, we have The Burnt Tapes' "Never Better" and Adam Stafford's "Imaginary Walls Collapse." These albums are a true delight, showcasing the talent of these lesser-known artists we genuinely admire.

Moving on to the vinyl selection, we have Siobhan Wilson's "There Are No Saints" and Kaddish's "What World Was Still?" These records deliver a captivating experience that deserves recognition and appreciation.

When we launched this podcast nearly 6 years ago (!), our goal was to spotlight lesser-known artists we admired. Though we've covered established artists to broaden our reach, the record club remains our means of supporting underrated acts directly, putting money into their pockets, and appreciating their art in a way streaming services can't match.

By introducing these incredible artists to you, we hope you'll discover and enjoy their music too. It's our way of contributing to the music community and helping these talented musicians thrive.

We genuinely love all four of these artists and their work, so even if you're not a record club member, we encourage you to seek them out, purchase their records or merchandise, and help sustain their creativity. Your support means the world to them.

We hope you enjoy this episode, and thank you for supporting us in our mission to promote these exceptional talents. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of these unsung musicians and keep the spirit of their art alive.

This week we have our longest episode yet as we take a deep dive into the work of Rick Froberg, the singer of Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu and Obits who sadly passed away in June 2023.

Enlisting the help of post-punk encyclopaedia, and literal Doctor in punk music, our friend Ferruccio Quercetti, we take a real good look at the work of Nick Froberg through the lens of Hot Snakes.

With work on their fifth album said to be nearing completion at the time of his passing, this episode serves as a tribute to the man’s talent. Whilst we do mostly focus on Hot Snakes for most of this episode, we do touch on every project he, and John Reis, have been part of to some extent. We didn’t want to dwell on the other projects too long though, as there’s a really good chance we’ll come back and do episodes on Drive Like Jehu and Rocket from the Crypt at some point in the future.

Both Chris and Ferro chose their favourite Hot Snakes albums for this episode. Sucide Invoice, the band’s second album, is Chris’ pick, whilst Ferro plumps for their third album, Audit in Progress. Now that isn’t to say that one is necessarily better than the other - truth be told, all four of their albums are really bloody good - but Chris and Ferro have their reasons for picking these two specifically, and we get into that in this episode.

Along the way we also cite a ton of other bands that influenced Rick, as well as a whole bunch more bands that were influenced by him too.

So please, grab yourself a beverage of any kind, raise it in a toast to Rick Froberg, and get stuck into this monster episode.

We conlcude our one album wonder mixtape by diving headlong into four of our own personal favourite one album wonders, and also by exploring two of the catagories we set out in the last episode. As a reminder, we're talking about bands that have had only had one album. We’re not talking about bands that are on their debut album, but acts that were one and done. The categories are:

• Bands that seemed to be fully-fledged projects but ended before they could realise their potential (which we covered last week)

• Spin-offs and side projects

• Acts that changed their name for one record

So aye, we talk about spin-offs and side projects, and acts that changed their name for one record. We also talk about: Nailbomb by Nailbomb, Depatures by Midnight Masses, Hope by Non-Prophets and Handsome by Handsome.

There's not quite as many samples in this episode as there was in the last one, but there's still bloody LOADS so fill your boots! We're going to try to put together a playlist but the edit was a nightmare on both of these so I wouldn't hold your breath too hard for it...

Now that we’ve set music festivals to rights (for this year) we thought we’d follow up on our White Town episode - a true one hit wonder - with a one album wonder mixtape. Which, as is our wont, turned into a two parter.

So the remit is simple here - bands that have had only had one album. We’re not talking about bands that are on their debut album, but acts that were one and done. To bring some order to this, we’ve picked three albums each, and also come up with three buckets in which to place artists:

• Bands that seemed to be fully-fledged projects but ended before they could realise their potential

• Spin-offs and side projects

• Acts that changed their name for one record

This week, we go through the first category, which is by far and away the biggest, and talk about two of our chosen albums - In a Million Pieces by The Draft and The Spoils by USSA.

There’s more samples than you can shake a stick at in this episode, which makes it a real fun, and informative listen. Enjoy!

You may have noticed but England’s biggest festival, Glastonbury, took place recently. You know the score already - for a weekend a bunch of farmland in Somerset gets turned into a pseudo-city where people pay an crazy amount of money for a ticket to go and see some good, and some shit, bands.

This year was the biggest (and probably most expensive) yet, with Guns n Roses, Elton John and Arctic Monkeys headlining. Naturally it sold out almost instantly when it went on sale last year. For the most part, the festival was a success. You can see that if you watch the hours and hours of footage that are available on the BBC iPlayer (fi you’re in the UK) and on YouTube.

Chris watched a bunch of it and he has some opinions. Not just on Glasto, but on festivals more generally. Mark missed the entire thing cause he was in Krakow spoiling his liver on a stag doo. He was also able to conjure up some thought the the haze of a four day hangover though.

All this activity led us to decide to do a very special festival focused town hall. We hope you dig.

This week we're doing another UNSONG because Chris has very much wanted to talk about this song for a while. 

You're no doubt familiar with it, but the story around it is fascinating. A one hit wonder for sure, White Town - the long running project of Jyoti Prakash Mishra - has reflected a lot on his brief stint on a major label, whilst also being thankful of the fact he had a one hit wonder.

A truly compelling story, there's a lot to get into with this one so we ended up with an double length unsong-er. Hope you dig it as much as we did!

This week we're diving into why bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and King Gizzard are pulling their music from Spotify - and why it probably won't change anything.

It's a trickier situation than it seems, but the whole mess starts with Napster in 1999. 80 million people sharing MP3s illegally crashed the music industry, dropping revenue 15% in four years and creating a chain reaction that led to piracy running rampant for much of the 00s.

Enter Daniel Ek in 2006 with Spotify, which was built initially using pirated music from The Pirate Bay, telling you everything about how much they value artists. But it worked. By offering free access to entire music catalogues (with ads), Spotify created something no competitor can match without hemorrhaging money.

Today, 412 million people use Spotify's free tier. That's the foundation of their dominance - not the 263 million paying subscribers.

But this creates an impossible situation for artists. Big names with established fanbases can afford to leave, but new artists risk invisibility. Record labels and promoters judge bands by Spotify monthly listeners and post-gig discovery relies on easy music access, meaning that pulling your music from this platform could be potentially damaging for their careers.

The "just use Bandcamp" argument misses the point - it's a different business model entirely. Bandcamp is buying a car; Spotify is hiring any car you want. And as it turns out, a LOT of people prefer hiring now.

But the real problem isn't Spotify - it's "technofeudalism." Tech platforms operate like medieval fiefdoms where users become trapped serfs. Artists complain about Spotify royalties while creating free content for Instagram and TikTok, which monetise their labour through surveillance capitalism.

The arms investment angle (Daniel Ek's €600m in AI weapons) sounds damning until you realise Google runs military AI projects for Israel, Meta builds battlefield AR for the US military, and all big tech props up the military-industrial complex.

Their conclusion is bleak: there's no way out. The market expects free music and won't change. Mass boycotts might work but won't happen. The only real solution is direct artist support - gigs, merch, Bandcamp purchases, because it's almost impossible for anyone to truly extricate themselves from terrible machinery of the current internet era.

In part two of our Lankum special we dedicate some time to talking about the band’s entire back catalogue before getting torn into their 2019 album The Livelong Day.

Up until this record, the band had only really toyed with taking their sound in a darker, more extreme direction. Of course, both of those adjectives are relative - Lankum are not Pig Destroyer - but in the context of traditional music, or folk music, the band make a devilish, challenging noise that is certainly indebted to noise and drone in less than subtle ways.

The band have since gone on to create an even more challenging record in False Lankum, their latest album. It’s clear that they remain committed to treading their own path, and whilst we both admit to having not have had enough time to truly digest False Lankum, it’s heartening to know their vision remains uncompromised.

But really it comes down to the age old question - is The Livelong Day an Unsung classic? Listen and find out, and chip in with your thoughts on our socials!

After the EPIC Nina Nastasia two parter we decided take a wee week off. So this week so we’ve gone deep into our catalogue of bonus content and unearthed the next episode in a series that we’re calling Unsong. If you like what you hear, consider subscribing AND joining our record club here.

It’s basically THE UNSUNG SINGLES CLUB. In it, we breakdown a single song to talk about why it works so well. On this episode, Chris has chosen Come Undone by Duran Duran.

Let us know what you think of this episode. We’re doing more of these in future and we enjoyed the hell out of this! We're welcome to lots of feedback on this. Wanna see more of it? Can we do it differently? What can we improve? Bring on your comments!

This week we've decided to tackle a genre we've yet to tackle - folk. Or traditional. Or traditional folk? Irish folk music? Irish folk drone? Who knows what to label it, really. All we know is that it's traditional music and it's folk music. Yes, we're talking about Lankum.

We've been trying to get this episode in the bag for freaking ages but after interviewing the band, we struggled to land a guest to guide us through the world of folk music. So we decided just to plough on through anyway, so please forgive our ignorance around this genres, as we're not steeped in it like we are many other genres we cover.

Ostentisbly this is a two parter about the album The Livelong Day by Lankum, however this week we actually have an interview with Lankum and with Scottish folk legend Simon Thoumire. In this episode we'll mainly be tackling trad music scene in Scotland, how it may seem inaccessible to some, the class divide, the instituations that train and develop trad musicians, and comparing that somewhat to the scene in Ireland.

Hope you dig it!

We’re back with Joe McGlynn from Man Must Die (as well as In the Lap of the Pods Queen Podcast and Shit You May Not Have Seen Podcast) for part two of our two-parter on “Heartwork” by Carcass.

As Carcass plough their way across the UK this week on what seems like a fairly extensive tour, we pick up where we left off last week as Joe opens by telling us his story about the band, before we dive headlong into their two latest releases.

There was a lot of noise made around their return in 2007, but at the time the band said that no new music was on the horizon. It took them a good five years to backtrack on that decision though, and in 2013 they unleashed “Surgical Steel” on the world. It’s an album which very much sounds like the band that did the album “Heartwork”. Indeed, no sonic trace of “Swansong” could be found, which pleased a lot of fans, including our very own Joe here.

A going concern once again, they’ve since fallen back into the cycle of performing and writing music. 2021’s “Torn Arteries” was met with reasonable acclaim in the press, landing on many end of year lists.

Which brings us to the present day, and part two of today’s episode. It may seem odd to some for Joe to have picked why “Heartwork” is an unsung classic, but this week we dive into the album and give it a thorough going over before deciding if it does indeed deserve to be called “unsung”.

This week we’re revisiting a genre we haven’t covered in a while - melodic death metal. Ok, that’s kind of not true cause did Gojira not that long ago but they’re not THIS kind of death metal. Joe McGlynn from Man Must Die (as well as In the Lap of the Pods Queen Podcast and Shit You May Not Have Seen Podcast) nominates Heartwork, the fourth album by Carcass.

Originally a “goregrind” band, whatever that means, the Liverpudlian trio (at the time) were often mentioned in the same breath as Napalm Death, but after releasing their first album Reek of Putrefaction they would soon begin to explore their death metal leanings further. Each subsequent album would double down on the metal whilst slowly bringing in more classic rock elements. This endeavour would culminate on their critically lauded album Heartwork, and would cement them as pioneers of melodic death metal, making them somewhat legendary in the process.

On this episode we cover everything from their first album right up until their 17 year hiatus after the release of their fifth album, Swansong.

So come on this journey with us, and let’s get nasty.

We all meet the reaper at some point in our lives. Most folks make it to a fair old age before they meet their end, but some, well, they depart the world a little too soon.

This episode is dedicated to those that passed too early. We chat about some of our favourite artists, both obscure and well known, before we pay tribute to them by picking 7 songs each that we feel represent their lives and their work.

Which means the trigger warning goes like this - we discuss not just death, but also suicide in this episode, and although we handle it fairly tactfully, you may want to skip this if you feel it’s not for you.

We’ve pulled together a wee playlist with our choices in it too, so you can check this out below.

You may have realised by now that UNSONG is a feature that we usually reserve for our Patreon subscribers. Occasionally we’ll release an episode to general public to give y’all a flavour of what you’re missing over in the Unsung Record Club. Put simply Unsong is basically Unsung but with one song. This week we’re gonna chat about the song Real American by Rick Derringer, a tune best known for being Hul Hogan’s entrance music.

“Why have you dropped this on us in lieu of a regular episode"?” we hear you ask. It’s quite simple, really: after we recorded this we felt it was just so much fun that we wanted the whole world to hear it at the same time.

This song became well known because of Hulk Hogan, but the journey to how it even came into the purview of WWF, how it became Hulk Hogan’s theme song and why is actually really interesting. In fact, it even replaced a song that was written specifically for the Hulkster by Jim Steinman. Aye, that Jim Steinman. The one that wrote Bat Out of Hell.

The 80s was a weird time. In the WWF, Vince McMahon wanted his wrestlers to be rock stars, which meant he pulled shit like having Cyndi Lauper on the first Wrestlemania, and create this whole MTV crossover style thing with the Rock and Wrestling connection.

What should have been a 20 minute episode for us turned into a 40 minute banger so please, come with us into the world of 80s wrestling and Rick Derringer in this special episode of Unsong.

Things went pretty well last week as we delved into the formative years of Placebo. The era that many fans consider to be the band’s peak. This week we discuss everything post Meds and our views are…well, let’s just say they are decidedly less rosy.

With 2009s Battle for the Sun Brian made a lot of noise in the press about how this was a band searching for, and finding, a new identity. That much is true as the band’s sound is a lot more open, optimistic and less melancholic. Perhaps getting sober played a big part in that? Either way, things sound less nihilistic.

Which is somewhat divisive for us because we felt that perhaps they should have continued to plunder on what their signature sound. Or, perhaps, maybe taken other measures…

We do end the episode on a thrilling high though as we discuss the band’s self titled debut album at length and folks, it might be 27 years but it still does the business.

After a quick break this week we’re back as Chris takes a journey into his youth and nominates Placebo’s self titled debut album.

But before we get to that, we need to talk about the band’s history and their back catalogue. Coming onto the scene when Britpop was ascendant, Placebo were often lumped into with that lot even though they sound nothing like that. Taking cues from The Smiths, Sonic Youth, Depeche Mode and more, they were an alt rock band first and foremost.

With breakout hit “Nancy Boy” charting highly in 1997 (almost a year after the self titled debut was released) they went to create quite the name for themselves not just in the UK, but across Europe and in the US too. Between 1996 and their fifth album, 2006’s Meds, the band kept getting bigger, garnering more acclaim and as a result becoming one the UK’s biggest rock acts. A legacy that still seems somewhat true today.

In this episode we talk about the band’s pre-history and dive into everything from Without You I’m Nothing to Meds.

We’d been working hard over the last few weeks to try and secure our next interview and we’re pleased to deliver this wee gem with Chris Spencer from Unsane/Human Impact/Lamb Unlimited (and more).  A lot of prep goes into interviews so that’s why don’t do them very often. Also, we get offers to interview people all the time but it’s rarely people who we think might fit the mold of this show. Unsane tick all the boxes as being an unsung band, really. It just so happens that this coincidenes with announcement of a remaster and re-release of their debut, self titled album (due late September)..  Our Chris is a huge unsane fan, so to be able to interview this Chris was a real treat. Chris S was game to talk about what he felt are the highlights and lowlights of his band’s career, giving us a bunch of cool details and stories from pretty much all of their albums thus far.   Later, he picked an album that he feels is unsung - the self titled debut album from Killing Joke. We had a really fun chat around that too.  Catch them in tour in the UK this October, where they will exclusively be playing stuff from their early years. The remastered version of Unsane drops on September 23rd.

As stated at numerous points in this episode, a lot of the things discussed here can be found in the documentary Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus. We urge you to go check out that film here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/qlazzarus as it is a brilliant piece of work.

It is, in fact, that only "official" release by Q Lazzarus. She would later go on to appear in Demme's next film, the wonderful Philadelphia, singing a cover of Roxy Music's classic tune "Heaven". After that, though, she would simply vanish from the industry entirely.

So what happened? Why did this seemingly promising up and coming artist, who had two huge brushes with fame, suddenly disappear without trace? Well, it's a rather complicated, and compelling, story that touches on industry discrimination, artist exploitation, and the music business's treatment of unique talents. This week we dive into that story, with the help of a remarkable documentary film called Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus - a film that came about through an almost impossibly serendipitous encounter between filmmaker Eva Aridjis Fuentes and her mysterious subject. The documentary is available on Vimeo and you should absolutely check it out for yourself, alongside the Sacred Bones compilation of her previously unreleased works.

Please note that this story deals with some heavy themes and doesn't have the resolution we might hope for, but it's an important and deeply affecting tale that deserves to be told.

Highlights: 00:32 Discussing Q Lazarus and 'Goodbye Horses' 02:30 The Mystery Behind Q Lazarus 03:19 Q Lazarus's Musical Journey 05:36 The Impact of 'Goodbye Horses' 07:19 The Search for Q Lazarus 12:01 Eva Aridjis Fuentes and the Documentary 17:58 Q Lazarus's Early Life and Career 30:37 The Duality of Q Lazarus and Diane Luckey 31:36 The Role of Luck in Diane's Life 32:52 Career Setbacks and Personal Struggles 34:00 Heartbreak and Disillusionment 34:57 Descent into Darkness 38:10 A Glimmer of Hope: Motherhood and Redemption 39:47 The Unreleased Works and Legacy 42:12 The Battle for Royalties 44:17 The Impact of Goodbye Horses 53:16 The Unfulfilled Potential and Legacy Tours 57:31 Final Thoughts and Reflections

This week friend of the pod Benjamin Power, otherwise known as Blanck Mass, joins us to discuss a record he loves by a band he loves - Broken Ear Record by Black Dice.

In this episode we get to grips with the difference between avant-garde and experimental music, ponder what music actually is, and do our best to understand the weird, puzzling world of Black Dice. Strap in. It’s gonna get mental.

Much like Lil Kim, we announced our intention to do an episode on The Gaslight Anthem some time ago. But alas, it did not transpire, and it festered for a wee bit, hung over us, filled us with dread. But we’ve now finally exorcised it from our system with the help of emo scholar Marisa Androvik.

Despite coming from the very fertile New Jersey punk and emo scene in the late 00s, The Gaslight Anthem sound nothing like their peers. On the album we’re covering this week, you may very well get hints of Hot Water Music. Perhaps also Alkaline Trio. As far as contemporary points of reference go, that’s about as many as you’ll find. 

For musicians from New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen looms large. Usually, artists will faintly acknowledge it, merely nod to it. Never embrace it. Unlike those bands The Gaslight Anthem wear the influence of The Boss firmly on their sleeve. Indeed, it is one of the defining features of their sound.

But it’s not as pronounced on their first album, 2007’s Sink or Swim. The influence of Bruce Springsteen can certainly be heard, but it’s not as apparent as it would later go on to become.

Only a year after their debut album the band released their second record, The ‘59 Sound. Their sound had shifted, they leaned more into their heartland rock/Jersey Shore Sound influences. They became much more evident but not overdone (well, depending on who you ask of course), and their trajectory changed. Rapidly.

Once The Boss himself had gotten wind of the band, their star began to ascend at speed. In the albums that would follow (with the exception of their fifth album, 2014’s Get Hurt) they began to incorporate more of Springsteen’s varied influences, not just writing the big obvious rock bangers that he did, but augmenting their sound with elements with the of soul, RnB which always peppered his music. They also added in Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and a sprinkling of Social Distortion to boot. 

As the acclaim, and the record sales, and the size of their tours, began to grow, eventually Mercury Records came calling and what followed were two big rock records. It was the latter of the two, the aforementioned confused and confusing Get Hurt, that led that band to announce a hiatus in 2015, shortly after its release.

As of 2022 they’re now a “full time band” again. What does the future hold? Well, with a new album in their sights, perhaps they can improve on the misfire of their last record and craft something closer to the soaring radio rock of 2012’s Handwritten.

Or maybe they’ll go all the way back to the source and become a punk band again like they were on their debut album, which is the subject of this very episode. Who's to say. In the end, only one question really matters - is Sink or Swim an unsung classic? You decide. 

Been a wee while since we did a covermount CD so this week Crag joins us from 12 hours into the future to have a look at “Wake Up! (15-Track Guide To New North American Indie)” which comes from the March 2007 edition of Uncut.

North American indie at this period contained a hell of a lot of flannel, as well as a shit ton of Americana influence. That kind of thing comes up a lot in this compilation. It’s also quite twee which is a vibe unto itself. It may not be for everyone, of course, but it certainly was for a lot of people back then.

As is the case with most of the covermount CDs we have reviewed so far, there is an abundance of well known artists but a sheer lack of good songs by those artists. There are a couple exceptions to the rule on this CD (TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me” is a straight banger and one of their very best songs period), but generally that rule holds well. Duff album cuts from the likes of Metric, Deerhoof, The Shins and Band of Horses can be found on this compilation.

They’re slung alongside artists that…well, promptly vanished into obscurity when tastes moved on.

Not the worst we’ve done so far, but certainly not the best either. Let us know what you think. Do you remember any of the bands from this era? Still a fan of them?