Note: This interview was recorded before the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests.

This week, TV legend Shawn Ryan (creator of The Shield, SWAT, Timeless and more) takes me back in time 30 years to talk about the debut album by The Beautiful South ‘Welcome to the Beautiful South’. Shawn talks about discovering music in the pre-internet age, the lineage of the Beautiful South in cult heroes The Housemartins, the contradictions between the albums’ sound and lyrical content, the controversial album cover and how the album served as a bizarre soundtrack to the Rodney King police brutality and aftermath in 1991. Plus we talk about how Shawn has used music in his TV projects, discovering new music through his work, the music he loves to write to and why Coldplay earned his respect on The Shield.