This week, we’re throwing away our hard-earned indie cred and dropping in a few more words from our sponsors than usual. We have some great new products to tell you about, and along the way, we will be discussing the 1967 classic The Who Sell Out. Conceptualized as a tribute to the UK pirate radio culture of the mid-60s, The Who go all-in on the concept (well, at least until they completely drop it about three-quarters of the way in) complete with station IDs and their own fake commercial jingles. It captures the band at their peak as a 60s pop band with instantly catchy melodies and clever, funny lyrics. Crack open another can of Heinz Baked Beans and join Dan, John, Ben, and Rich as we dig into this product placement classic.
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What kind of band was Genesis - strange, artsy prog-rock masters, or catchy, commercial pop stars? In this very special episode of Discord and Rhyme, we’re here to make the case that they did both equally well - and not only that, but the presence or absence of Peter Gabriel was not the main influence on their sound. They never truly lost their prog sensibilities, but they did get better at balancing them with more commercial and accessible sounds. After you get through all three hours of our third double feature, you will be the person at the party who says, “WELL, ACTUALLY” when someone tries to tell you that post-Gabriel Genesis is bad.
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The phrase “so-and-so band needs no introduction” is incredibly overused, but if there’s a single band for whom the phrase holds true... it’s the Beatles. However, if there are two bands that it holds true for, it’s the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Many associate the Stones with “good old-fashioned rock and roll,” but that isn’t really true. Sure, the band has been locked into its trademark style for several decades now, but in the ’60s, they were far more creative than they were often given credit for. And they never ventured further afield than they did on 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request, a bizarre, stoned, trippy, psychedelic album, filled top to bottom with strange sounds, experimental song structures, and tons and tons of just-plain-weirdness. Fans and critics hated it and the band quickly moved on, never attempting anything in this style ever again and generally pretending that the album doesn’t exist. Is the album really that bad, though? Phil sure doesn’t think so, and he’s here to make the case to Rich, John, and Dan that it’s a detour in the Stones discography well worth taking.
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Buckle up and run a systems diagnostic, because this is a long one. Where do you go after revolutionizing electronic dance music twice in a row? Daft Punk’s albums Homework and Discovery spawned a whole generation of imitators, way too many of whom were content to just copy their source code. The duo’s response was to load up Random Access Memories, an album that looks back to the sounds of the great synth and disco pioneers while envisioning a bold future for music that mixes the analog and digital. The music industry chose not to pursue this future, in part because this album was just too damn expensive, but it resulted in some great music, and one of the most Discord & Rhyme-ready albums we’ve covered. So get ready to get lucky and lose yourself to dance, as Daft Punk give life back to music.
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Born in the USA isn't Ben's favorite Bruce Springsteen album. In fact, it's not even his favorite Bruce Springsteen album whose name begins with Born. So why the heck are we covering it here? Well, despite selling 30 million copies in the last 37 years, it's sometimes unfairly dismissed as Bruce's vapid radio album. But there's real depth on Born in the USA: politics, heartbreak, angst, humor, and creative frustration, all snuck into the Top Ten by virtue of being attached to catchy melodies and muscular rock and roll. So join Ben, who gets to be the Boss — for two hours, at least — and the awesomely insightful Employees Amanda, Rich, and Phil, as they discuss a huge hit album that's way more interesting than you might remember.
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As we’ve discussed on this show before, rock critics are sometimes terribly, terribly wrong. When Paul and Linda McCartney released Ram in 1971, not only was everyone still mad about the Beatles breaking up, but the album was just innovative and groundbreaking enough that plenty of the tastemakers of the time just didn’t get it. Fortunately, the general public has known for quite a long time that Ram is amazing, and there’s recently been a big critical re-assessment of it. We’re here to help that process along. It’s an excellent album, containing some of McCartney’s best work, and we’re doing our best to convince anyone who is still in doubt.
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Mahavishnu Orchestra, the brainchild of guitarist and prominent Miles Davis sideman John McLaughlin, spent roughly two years (1971-73) playing an incredibly intense brand of cutting-edge jazz-rock fusion and became bonafide rock stars in the process, before their comet-like rise to fame led to the group members hating each other and going their separate ways. In this episode, John (host), Phil (moderator), and Mike tackle The Inner Mounting Flame, the band’s 1971 debut album, and an album that John once found intimidating but now merely finds challenging and extremely enjoyable. Instrumental music and jazz fusion may not be for everybody, but if you’re skeptical, this episode may convince you that it’s more up your alley than you might have thought.
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The Magnetic Fields, during its early-’90s heyday, consisted mainly of introverted wordplay enthusiast Stephin Merritt, his collection of abused, dinky electronics, and Claudia Gonson, his drummer, cheerleader, and buffer to the outside world. Other collaborators came and went through astonishingly catchy, brainy, and weird albums like Holiday and The Charm of the Highway Strip (not to mention the creme-de-la-creme indie-rock ball of the 6ths’ Wasps’ Nests, which we covered like eight years ago). But nothing prepared the rock-geek world for 69 Love Songs: Merritt’s three-disc 1999 opus that was no longer lo-fi (unless he wanted it to be), no longer willfully obscure (unless that was the point), and no longer inaccessible (unless it was “Love Is Like Jazz,” which … ecch). Instead, it was a seemingly impossible romp through dozens of musical styles that could be hilarious, heartbreaking, mocking, sincere, or all of the above in one big clump. Will and Rich stick this whole thing out over three episodes which we’ll be releasing over three joyous nights, joined variously by John, Amanda, and recurring D&R guest hosts Libby Cudmore and B. Heard.
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One day in September 1976, fueled by cocaine, peppers, and milk, David Bowie entered a Los Angeles recording studio, and then emerged a couple months later remembering nothing about what had just happened. Discord & Rhyme is here to fill in the blanks for you: He spent those two months recording Station to Station, a transitional album between his funk and experimental art rock periods that may be his all-time greatest work. The only album from Bowie’s Thin White Duke persona is only six songs long, but they’re so colorful and dense that Producer Mike and co-hosts John, Rich, and Ben spend nearly two hours talking about them. There’s so much going on in this music that it could fill a movie or book (and Ben even wrote one about him), but for today, a really enthusiastic podcast episode will suffice. And unlike your television set, there is no evidence that your podcatcher of choice will try to eat you!
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This week, Dan, Mike, and Rich take a break from the usual state-of-the-art Discord & Rhyme studio, dust off the four-track, and head down to the basement with a case of beer for a no-frills chat about Guided by Voices. After percolating as 37-year-old school teacher Robert Pollard’s side hustle for over a decade, GBV (as we refer to them for 99% of the episode) suddenly found themselves on the radar of hip indie-rock tastemakers. 1994’s Bee Thousand captures this turning point for the band with a gloriously messy patchwork of 20 home-recorded songs that incorporate influences of what Pollard calls the Four P’s of Rock: prog, psych, pop, and punk. Jam along with us to these lo-fi anthems, and try to not pull a muscle while imitating Pollard’s signature stage kicks.
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