Part two of our Strokes double header. We pick up after the runaway success of their debut album and the pressure to follow up. These pressures took their toll on the band but despite all this, they managed to create their second masterpiece. We go through every track and then look at what happened next and give ur verdict on each subsequent album. We also mention Ryan Adams. And that's the way it is.

The first of a Strokes double header. The band that started the early 00s new garage rock revolution reshaped rock music for the new millennium and smashed open the door for a swathe of incredible bands.  We discuss the impact they made and how and why it happened, the unprecedented hype, bidding war, release of their EP and album and insane, inherent hipness that took coolness to a whole other level. Take it or leave it...

This week we go deep into the borderline as we explore Tool's 1996 masterpiece Aenima. We are joined by a psychologist to take us through Maynard's journey of individuation. We also cover the history of the band, joining the army, working in pet stores, selling out, learning to swim and waiting for the next album! Re-uploaded with improved sound. Still not perfect but we're working on it.

Time to play The Piper! We delve into the fragile genius of Syd Barrett in examining Pink Floyd's debut album and telling the beginnings of the band and the life of Syd Barrett the crazy diamond

This week we enlist the help of a real life former goth to explore the sepulchral behemoth that is The Cure's Disintegration. 

We are back! On our first episode in over a year we discuss Joy Division's stark masterpiece, Unknown Pleasures. We talk about its influence on what we now call post punk and gothic rock, the themes of detachment, control and pain communicated through Ian Curtis's tortured lyrics. We also take some time to cover Joy Division's imprisoned ex-drummers, Hooky and Barney's beef and the morphing of JD into electronic rock pioneers, New Order. It's good to be back!

The season finale everyone's talking about (.... that doesn't involve dragons)! To mark this special occasion, we've decided to do a slightly different episode so, instead of exalting one of our favourite bands, we've decided to salute the people behind the scene(s) who made it possible for us to even hear the music we love.... the all too often unsung heroes: RECORD LABELS! We go through the history of some of our favourite indie labels, how important they were in kicking off a sound, a...

This week we welcome Mr. Bowie's most enduring, far out and cosmic, colourful creation, Ziggy Stardust. Strap into your rocket ship as we discuss his origins, arrival, success and how, inevitably, Ziggy lived by the chord and died by the very same (almost taking our David with him), but not before leaving us with one of the best albums in the history of rock. It is, to quote the bespangled one, a total blam blam. 

So what do you do if you have it all? The jaw dropping cat-like sexual allure, the universe-cracking enlightenment of the drugs, and the effortless swagger of the rock'n'roll; exuding poetry, lust, mystery and an irresistible smile that suggests you ARE love, life, death and everything in between? Well we started a podcast. But you could just as easily be one of rocks most enduring icons and be Jim Morrison. Ride into the storm with us as we take a desert drive through the history of The...

This week we cut the hair of slacker king Pavements (arguably) greatest album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (it is so good they had to name it twice, argh!). Is it a chilled out concept album about living the range life in California or is it a not so veiled attack on 90s alternative rock bands and the scene itself? Kick back while we do a track by track analysis of the album, discuss the chilled out recording technique that made this album a laid back indie rock classic and chart the career,...

Before they were the one of the biggest bands in the world, Metallica were the biggest metal band in the world (sorry Maiden), and while they still remain one of the biggest names in the stadium game, they are unarguably the most important US metal band of all time. Paying the world a service by spearheading the movement that fought tooth, nail and beer tab to destroy poseurs and the hair metal polluting the stages and airwaves, these guys not only played faster and harder than most, they...

This week's musical category is….. Damn. (Note to self, never finish a sentence you can't finish). We love talking about big, bad classic rock, pop and indie records, but we've really taken a sharp turn into left field here and "quirky" just ain't gonna cover it. Ariel Pink: one of the biggest names in home recording in the last ten years. Part of the beauty is that ten years ago that last sentence wouldn't have made any sense. And much like this man's music, that's kind of the idea.  Is it...

We may outnumber the White Stripes here at Chez  Album Club, but there's no way one could possibly outgun them. Not only one of the shining lights of the New Rock revolution at the beginning of this century, the truth is this brother and sister duo (just kidding, we've actually done our research) were louder and heavier than most of their peers. And certainly more confounding a proposition. Straight outta Detroit, these candy striped retro charmers, had minimalist slabs of caveman fuzz, slick...

To our highly trained ears, the subject of this weeks eipsode, Elvis Costello, sounds a lot like.... well, Elvis Costello. That's all I got. There really isn't anyone like the second most famous Elvis in the music industry. Long before this consummate and staggeringly prolific musician was making really serious grown up music like jazz, opera, lounge, blues, he was a staggeringly prolific purveyor of wirey post-punk power pop with hooks for miles and one the best rhythm sections in popular...

This week The Album Club is repping our little corner of the world because we haven't "gone local" since we discussed The Avalanches in Season 1. However, we chose not go for the obvious old school big fish such as ACDC, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, or The Saints (there'll be time for all of those, friends!) or even the more contemporary bright lights such as Tame Impala, Jagwar Ma or Courtney Barnett (these too. Boy, are we gonna be busy!). Instead, we thought we'd fly the flag for one of...

There was a lot going on in rock n'roll in 1968. The White Album and Electric Ladyladyland  (to name just a few) were re-shaping the contours and reach of the genre and things were moving pretty fast. So it was a hell of a head-scratcher when Ray Davies and his merry bunch  slowed things right down. Eschewing all that cutting edge modernity for a retreat to the Village Green, with all its traditional quaintness and bucolic serenity, The Kinks lit a pipe, donned tweed elbow patches,...

Hola esses! There's a reason this album never fails to make those "Best punk/hardcore albums of all time" lists.... uhh... it's because it's one of the greatest punk/hardcore albums of all time. Venice Beach's finest cholos were shrouded in folklore and infamy from the get go, with rumours of gang affiliation and violence. Rumours, may we add, the band were all too happy to keep alive. We love a band with a great story, angle, cast of characters and ethos here at The Album Club HQ; and these...

A podcast about Queens of The Stone Age's third album

We didn't want it to be like this. Nor did any of us expect it. We'd kind of been putting off covering Soundgarden for The Album Club, not because we weren't fans; Seattle's finest are well rooted in our collective venn diagram. We just wanted to save such a rich dish for later; the promise of delayed gratification. Sadly for us and for anyone else who loves the 90s' fiercest and most beautiful alchemists of bullish Sabbath riffs, Eastern Zeppelin flair, and Black Flag stomp, all pushed into...

Love her or hate her (or just scared of her), Courtney Love defiantly smeared her lipstick all over the 90s as one of rock's most outspoken malcontents. Equally blessed and cursed by preconceptions about her marriage with 'that guy', she never got a real shake in her own right. Or maybe she got too much? We try to figure this out in as we go through the almost comically picaresque story of Hole's leader and what led to the creation of this rager of an album, a track by track walk-through, and...

This week we get our latex, synths, pinions, drills and other assorted machinery to cover one of the 90's most successful and hard hitting rock bands. We grind through the history of the industrial movement, pull levers to take a peek at the man behind the curtain, give our feedback on all the songs on this smash album, before hammering through the nuts and bolts of what happened next. This one gets noisy. 

After setting our guitars and world's on fire last week, The Album Club takes it down a gear for a leisurely country drive in this episode. To say that Nick Drake was underappreciated in his lifetime is as much of an understatement as it is criminal to underestimate the man's talent. We sift through the short, mysterious, difficult and ultimately tragic life of one of last century's unsung recluse folk heroes. It's not all doom and gloom though; as we wind our way through the album's...

For an artist that defied categorization as brazenly as he did in his short time on this planet, it's pretty awesome that Jimi Hendrix continues to be one the key cultural touchstones for many of the great tenets of Rock'n'Roll. The look, the creativity, the originality, the showmanship and, sweet mercy, the effortless plucking of otherworldly sounds from the haze both re-invented rock guitar and simultaneously terrified his megastar peers. We go through his humble beginnings and the making...

This week we mix it up a bit with an interview with one of the best and most prolific songwriters of the decade, Tim Presley - aka White Fence. We talk to Tim about his career in music, from his start in Bay Area hardcore punk band The Nerve Agents in the 90s, into becoming frontman for Californian neo-psych band Darker My Love, his time in The Fall, his transition to White Fence, his collaborations with Ty Segall, his current band Drinks and his solo work. We discuss music today, the LA...

Yeah, it was gonna happen right? Part three of our self-imposed Seattle Tetralogy, Pearl Jam get the Album Club deluxe massage this week. It was kind of a toss up between any of the first three records really, but Vs. won out. Why? Well, much like Nirvana's 'In Utero' this is a band, at the height of their unimaginable success/hype deciding who they want to be and perhaps more importantly, who they do not. Refusing to simply go with 'Ten (Pt.2)' ('Eleven'?), they defiantly spat this monster...