On episode of 14 of Broken Records, Remfry and Steve get down and dirty with Liz Phair, the American singer-songwriter's 4th studio album from 2003 (originally aired on Riot Act #97 on 12th June 2020).

Despite the album debuting at #27 on the Billboard 200, the album came under a lot of criticism from frosty critics who didn't seem to be able to grasp the concept that, sometimes, women are horny.

At Metacritic, a review aggregator site, the album holds a score of 40 out of 100. Many decried Phair for "selling out", and she became a "piñata for critics", according to The New York Times. The newspaper's Meghan O'Rourke titled her review of the album "Liz Phair's Exile in Avril-ville", and complained that Phair "gushes like a teenager", having "committed an embarrassing form of career suicide." Matt LeMay from Pitchfork rated the album a 0.0 out of 10, stating, "it's sad that an artist as groundbreaking as Phair would be reduced to cheap publicity stunts and hyper-commercialized teen-pop."

But was such criticism phair?

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It's lucky number 13 as Remfry and Steve take a look back at the seventh studio album Black and White Rainbows by British rockers Bush (originally aired on Riot Act #96 5th June 2020). 

Both our hosts have a soft spot for the early days of Bush, with Steve rating their first 2 records and Remfry repping for the first 3. But by album seven, both parties had moved on to other things and what with this marking the first Bush album since frontman Gavin Rossdale's stint on The Voice, things do not bode well. 

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It's a grotty old time on Broken Records as Steve and Remfry delve through the arse end of modern history's worst records. And this week, it's the turn of UK Punk Rock Donny Tourette fronted throwbacks Towers of London, with their debut album Blood, Sweat and Towers (originally aired on Riot Act #95 29th May 2020)

The album was heavily influenced by Sex Pistol's Never Mind the Bollocks and Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction. Sonically, the songs contained on Blood, Sweat and Towers are played in a loose punk rock style. They're also absolutely dreadful. 

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For our 11th Broken Record, Remfry and Steve delve into the MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 by American singer and rapper Lauryn Hill (originally aired on Riot Act #94 on 22nd May, 2019).

The performance comes from her 2002 MTV Unplugged special recorded on July 21, 2001 at MTV Studios in Times Square, New York City. Hill abandoned the hip hop sounds of her debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) in favor of folk and soul songs she performed with an acoustic guitar. The songs were interspersed with spoken interludes about her personal and artistic struggles.

When MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 was released, it received mixed reviews and modest sales. Most critics found Hill's performances self-indulgent and repetitive, while some appreciated the album as a bold and sincere change in artistic direction. The album has since received retrospective acclaim by critics who have praised the album for being unique and bold. 

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Steve and Remfry are in a particularly silly mood as they look into the the debut album by RPA and The United Nations of Sound, an alias of Richard Ashcroft, who released United Nations of Sound (originally aired on Riot Act #93 15th May 2020) . 

Released on 19th July 2010, it received generally scathing reviews from critics on its initial release, with a score of 39/100 on critic aggregate website Metacritic. 

Contains the debut of Steve's Lennon/McCartney impression as well as his meltdown over 'Captain Rock'.

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Remfry and Steve are in icky territory for Broken Record number 9 as they tut tut tut at Slick Dogs and Ponies, the third studio album from American garage rock band Louis XIV (originally aired on Riot Act #92 8th May 2020). Slick Dogs and Ponies was released on January 29th 2008 to largely negative reviews. PopMatters said that 'Louis XIV has a considerable amount of work to do for listeners to regard them as more than aimless glam-rock fetishists' whilst Pitchfork said 'the slightly more dynamic Louis XIV only give you testosterone-fueled rock at its least appealing extremes: heedless lust or, arguably even more repulsive, cheesy balladry' and Slant Magazine really dug the knife in, when they simply and succinctly summarized it as 'soulless at its core.'

We call it a 'boring, smutty piece of shit.'

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It's another big artist's work that Steve and Remfry will be consigning to the Broken Records abyss, as they take a look at 2008's The Cosmos Rocks, the sixteenth studio album by classic rock royalty Queen (originally aired on Riot Act #91 1st May 2020). 

It was the first studio album of new material from the two remaining members of Queen, Brian May and Roger Taylor, since 1995′s Made in Heaven and received pretty mixed reviews. According to critic review aggregator Metacritic, the album received an average review score of 42/100. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian gave it two out of five stars, stating, "the lyrics were stupid, trite, a bit offensive and bound to have an undermining effect on whatever musical efforts they put behind it". Conversely, PopMatters gave it a 7/10 review, stating, "Paul Rodgers breathes new life into Queen, while still keeping the band's tremendous legacy intact as they soldier forth with new material into the 21st century". Mojo gave it three stars, stating, "Occasionally they stumble, as on the clunky 'Warboys.' But with Rodgers imperious, Queen's second coming is vindicated".

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For our fifth Broken Records (originally aired on Riot Act #88 10th April 2020), Steve and Remfry delve into the confusingly titled One, the second album by British House music trio Dirty Vegas. One garnered generally negative reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 35, based on 8 reviews, making it the worst-reviewed album of 2004.

Steve Lowe of Blender heavily criticized the group's AOR tracks filled with earnest lyrics and Richard Marx-like production, concluding that “If this exhaustingly awful album repeats its predecessor’s success, the world will seem more confusing than ever.” The Guardian's Dorian Lynskey also panned the overall work of the album, “At best, it suggests Duran Duran indulging their U2 fantasies. At worst, the brain scrabbles for comparisons. The post-millennial Bruce Hornsby? Mike & The Mechanics go to Ibiza? Frontman Steve Smith delivers lyrics that he presumably made up on the spot in the voice of a man who rolls up the sleeves of his sports jacket. One's sole redeeming feature is that its title helpfully informs reviewers how many stars to give it.”

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