Pop, Collaborate & Listen

S05E22 Best Albums of 1994 - Season Five Wrap-up

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.

S05E21 Nirvana 'Unplugged In New York' with guest Niall Bakewell

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!

S05E20 REM 'Monster'

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!

S05E19 Us Not Talking About Eric Clapton

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!

S05E18 Oasis 'Definitely Maybe'

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!

S05E17 Prince 'Come'

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! 

S05E16 Rolling Stones 'Voodoo Lounge' with guest Gaz Jones

Thirty years after their debut album it turns out that the Rolling Stones are still capable of getting to number one in the UK with a new record. The 90s were fucking weird. Is this actually a good album though, should the Stones still have bothered putting out new music to add to their legacy? Opinions are divided.
For this episode we are joined by the wonderful Gaz Jones from the Trve.Cvlt.Pop (and previously Track One, Side One) podcast who is a big Stones fan and actually bought this record in the week it came out back in 1994. Big big thanks again to him for coming to join us on this one.
And this week we also get the chance to chat about bands like Kerbdog, Marilyn Manson and the mighty Let Loose. All of which made Gaz very happy.
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!
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!

S05E15 The Prodigy 'Music For The Jilted Generation'

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!