Dig Me Out: 70s & 80s Metal

What if one of 1985’s most overlooked metal albums was not from the Sunset Strip at all?

This week, Jay, Tim, and Chip dig into Holland’s 1985 Atlantic Records debut, Little Monsters. The album won an 80 percent community runoff, and it became a first listen for all three of us. Featuring powerhouse vocalist Tom Holland and future guitar virtuoso Michael Angelo Batio, it is a tight 34-minute hard-rock record with equal parts melodic songwriting, technical guitar, Chicago identity, and mid-’80s major-label ambition.

We get into the power-pop instincts beneath the riffs, Batio’s surprisingly disciplined shred work, “Wake Up the Neighborhood” appearing in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, the album’s strongest songs, and why Holland may have needed one more record to find its real commercial lane.

If you love Cheap Trick, Vinnie Vincent Invasion, Enuff Z’Nuff, early Def Leppard, or overlooked ’80s hard rock, this episode is for you.

00:44: The poll result and Holland’s underdog victory

01:40: Holland’s short history and Chicago roots

02:22: Michael Angelo Batio before Nitro

02:37: “Wake Up the Neighborhood” and its movie connection

03:09: The album’s best riffs, hooks, and influences

04:04: What keeps Little Monsters from being a complete statement

04:50: Final verdict

Subscribe to Dig Me Out at digmeoutpodcast.com | Join the community at dmounion.comHave a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.

A Swedish band nobody outside Scandinavia ever heard live sounds like it was mixed by people who actually understood 80s post-punk instead of just imitating it. This episode, guest Darren Leach brings his first pick from the 2000s: Cut City's 2007 debut Exit Decades, a nine-song, 34-minute record that channels Joy Division, The Sound, and early Interpol while arriving a few years after the post-punk revival's commercial peak. We dig into the mechanical-versus-expressive tension in the arrangements, the mix that lets every instrument breathe, and why the album might be missing the one quirky vocal hook that made its peers famous. If you love Interpol, Editors, Bloc Party, or 2000s post-punk revival, this episode is for you.

Highlights:

01:49: Darren introduces Cut City and the album

08:51: The mechanical/expressive dynamic breakdown

19:05: The mix and bass discussion

26:49: What doesn't fully land on the record

33:09: The post-punk revival timeline

37:41: Ratings revealed

Subscribe to Dig Me Out at digmeoutpodcast.com | Join the community at dmounion.com Have a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.

Tora Tora beat Metallica in a poll. That alone should tell you something about how this show works.

This 80s Metal episode covers Tora Tora's 1989 debut Surprise Attack, the surprise winner of a four-way Patreon poll against Metallica's Master of Puppets, Slade's Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply, and Motörhead's Iron Fist. The Memphis band's blend of Judas Priest style riffing and Beale Street blues set them apart from the Sunset Strip pack, and the hosts dig into the record's three singles, its reverb-heavy production, a firsthand tour bus story from 1992, and the band's ongoing reissue campaign and 2019 reunion. If you love Tesla, Badlands, or late-80s hard rock that never quite got its due, this episode is for you.

Episode highlights:

00:00: Poll results and Tora Tora's landslide win

06:35: A 1992 tour bus story from backstage at a Newport headlining show

20:39: What works on Surprise Attack

40:04: The production issue holding the record back

49:43: Final host ratings

Subscribe to Dig Me Out at digmeoutpodcast.com | Join the Board of Directors at dmounion.com Have a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.

Billy Joel in a metal band sounds like a late night joke, but Attila’s lone 1970 album is a lot stranger and heavier than the punchlines suggest. In this episode, we dig into the self titled organ driven proto metal record he cut with drummer Jon Small for Epic Records, from the meat locker cover photo to the stories of audiences fleeing their short lived club sets. We trace Joel’s path from Long Island psych rockers The Hassles to Attila’s Hammond through Marshall tone, then forward to Cold Spring Harbor and Piano Man, asking how one songwriter could pivot from medieval siege riffs to precise piano ballads in just a few years. Along the way we debate whether Attila deserves its “worst rock album ever” reputation, why the first three tracks feel like a lost EP for Deep Purple and Sabbath fans, and what this record might sound like filtered through Fu Manchu or Jack White’s world.

If you love heavy organ, stoner rock, early 70s hard rock, or the weird chapters in big artists’ careers, this one is for you.

Highlights:

01:18 poll ballot rundown;

10:13 legendary negative review;

17:21 Hammond through Marshall breakdown;

24:14 proto metal EP inside the LP;

53:38 dream reissue and cover band ideas.

Subscribe to Dig Me Out at digmeoutpodcast.com | Join the community at dmounion.comHave a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.

A nineteen year old singer, a guitarist who barely wanted him there, and a record that split guitar playing into two schools for the rest of the decade. This week our 90s specialist Jeremy Amend crosses into 80s metal for his first time, bringing us Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force, the 1984 debut that crystallized neoclassical shred into an actual genre. We dig into the mystery of the "J" in his name, Jeff Scott Soto's wild resume, why this album opened the door for Shrapnel Records and guys like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, and whether the two vocal tracks help or hurt the record. If you love Deep Purple, early Van Halen, or neoclassical metal, this episode is for you.

Highlights:

00:02: Jeremy's first 80s pick after years of 90s deep cuts

04:11: The real story behind Yngwie's name change

30:14: Is this the first neoclassical solo guitar album in rock history

35:38: What doesn't work on the record

52:15: Final ratings and poll results

Subscribe to Dig Me Out at digmeoutpodcast.com | Join the community at dmounion.com Have a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.

1976 was supposed to belong to disco, soft rock, and singer‑songwriters. Yet in the shadows of “Disco Lady,” “A Fifth of Beethoven,” and “Silly Love Songs,” guitar bands were quietly rebuilding what hard rock and metal could be. Boston’s basement‑crafted debut exploded onto Epic Records, Thin Lizzy dropped Jailbreak and Johnny the Fox in the same year, and Judas Priest, Scorpions, Rainbow, and Rush started sketching out the next decade of heavy music.

In this roundtable, we go deep into the albums of 1976 that still matter for 70s and 80s metal and hard rock. We talk Kiss’ double‑punch of Destroyer and Rock and Roll Over, the strange transitional energy of Zeppelin’s Presence and Sabbath’s Technical Ecstasy, and the way Ramones, Sex Pistols, and Blondie cracked open a punk and new wave future while classic rock giants were already burning out.

If you love Boston, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Aerosmith, or any corner where 70s hard rock collides with early punk and European deep cuts, this episode is for you.

Highlights:

• 02:30: Billboard’s 1976 snapshot vs the albums we care about

• 12:10: The accidental birth of Johnny the Fox

• 24:10: Kiss in hi‑gloss and raw form, in one year

• 29:20: Gasolin’ and Solid Ground, Scandinavian heaviness in 1976Subscribe to Dig Me Out at digmeoutpodcast.com | Join the community at dmounion.com

On daytime MTV, Bon Jovi was becoming the biggest pop-rock act on the planet. Poison was setting the blueprint for everything pop culture now calls hair metal. At the same time, Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth: were building massive and devoted audiences. These two worlds shared MTV, shared tour bills, and shared fans who were being asked to pick a side. That tension is what makes 1986 unlike any other year in metal history.

The Glam Explosion That Broke Daytime MTV

Here’s what happened between 1984 and 1986: metal expanded beyond just being scary.

After Quiet Riot became the first hard rock band to score a number-one album in 1984, the genre broke into mainstream consciousness. Then the PMRC Senate hearings of 1985 gave the music a problem: it needed to stop being threatening. By 1986, the solution was in the videos. Make them colorful. Make them fun. Start somewhere relatable: a bedroom, a garage, a studio. Then escalate into an idealized fantasy of concert performance. Replace leather and skulls with neon and teased hair. What had been relegated to late-night Headbangers Ball slots now fit the 3 PM MTV daypart. The music and the medium found each other.

Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet is the commercial monument to that shift. Released August 18, 1986, it rolled out singles for nearly a full year after release: “You Give Love a Bad Name” in July, “Livin’ on a Prayer” in October, “Wanted Dead or Alive” the following March, “Never Say Goodbye” in June of 1987. Each one was bigger than the last. The year before, Bon Jovi had been opening for Billy Squier. The key differentiator from their earlier work: the arrival of Desmond Child as co-writer on the two biggest singles, bringing professional hit-making infrastructure to what was already a committed band.

Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In was doing the same thing with less money. Their starting address was Enigma Records, home to They Might Be Giants, The Cramps, Dead Milkmen, and Devo. An underground punk label, not a hair metal machine. Capitol entered the picture later, which explains why “Cry Tough” barely moved and “Talk Dirty to Me” became an MTV staple. Poison didn’t just succeed with this blueprint; they franchised it.

Van Halen’s 5150 added keyboards and landed the best Sammy Hagar-era album in the process. David Lee Roth’s Eat ‘Em and Smile amplified the campy fun of his Van Halen years into a career highlight. Cinderella’s Night Songs made the sharpest glam debut of the year: darker and more concise than anything they’d produce later, before the bluesy detours took over. Jon Bon Jovi helped them record it. That’s how fast the food chain was moving in 1986.

The Thrash Revolution Running in Parallel

Here’s the thing about thrash in 1986: it wasn’t hidden. Headbangers Ball existed. The magazines covered it. Metallica opened for Ozzy on the Ultimate Sin arena tour. But in the daytime MTV ecosystem, thrash was not the default. If you wanted it, you had to find it

Master of Puppets is eight songs long, 54 minutes, and sounded like nothing on daytime MTV or rock radio. It is heavy and precise and expansive in equal measure: a record where the title track alone runs over eight minutes and earns every second. It was Metallica’s third album, the last one with Cliff Burton, and it was recorded without a single thought given to MTV rotation or radio airplay. No videos. No singles. Just the record, and the word that spread through tape trading, zines, college radio metal shows, and the underground networks that thrash metal relied on before the internet existed.

What makes 1986 extraordinary is that Metallica wasn’t alone. Slayer’s Reign in Blood came out the same year: 29 minutes of something faster and more extreme than Master of Puppets, an album that even people who don’t follow Slayer know by reputation. Megadeth’s Peace Sells... But Who’s Buying? completed what might be the single most concentrated year of output from the Big Four of thrash metal: three of the four bands releasing arguably their best records in a twelve-month span. Anthrax didn’t have an album in 1986. If they had, it would have been a clean sweep.

From the German side of the Atlantic, Kreator’s Pleasure to Kill was happening simultaneously: the Teutonic thrash scene developing its own parallel lineage that would eventually be recognized as a pioneer of death and black metal. These weren’t crossover acts. They weren’t on MTV. But they were building the foundation that would outlast nearly everything in the charts.

The thrash revolution of 1986 wasn’t a secret, but it was a deliberate choice. Headbangers Ball ran late. Daytime belonged to Poison and Bon Jovi. You could be into both, but at school you were expected to pick a jersey. Admitting you preferred Master of Puppets over Slippery When Wet was a statement, and not everyone in 1986 was ready to make it out loud.

Legacy Bands: Update or Resist?

Every established metal act in 1986 faced the same question: how much do you change?

Judas Priest’s Turbo is the case study in what too much looks like. Their tenth album added synthesizer guitars and chased the MTV aesthetic in ways that have remained controversial ever since. Some decent songs are buried in there, but Turbo is the canonical example of a decade-spanning band trying on a new identity because the culture demanded it, and not quite threading the needle.

Ozzy Osbourne’s The Ultimate Sin represents a different calculation. The image got teased and colorful. The videos fit the 3 PM slot. But the album had Jake E. Lee playing with a flashy intensity that gave it a musical spine the presentation didn’t undercut. Ozzy reportedly hated it. Others call it his best solo record: a bridge between his 1970s legacy and the glam-era present that actually holds together. When Metallica opened for Ozzy on the Ultimate Sin arena tour, the lineup said everything about where the genre stood. The scariest band in the underground, opening for a legacy act who’d made himself MTV-friendly. The irony runs deep.

Black Sabbath’s Seventh Star was never supposed to be a Black Sabbath album. Tony Iommi assembled it as a solo project with Glenn Hughes on vocals, Eric Singer on drums, and Dave Spitz on bass. The label insisted the Sabbath name go on it. The video for “No Stranger to Love” is keyboard-driven and barely resembles Sabbath because, structurally, it isn’t. What it is, divorced from its title and backstory, is a genuinely interesting record with a remarkable cast. It has been submitted to multiple DMO polls. It has not yet won. It keeps getting submitted.

Iron Maiden’s Somewhere in Time added keyboards lightly and reads today as the last album before the tinkering accelerated. Europe’s The Final Countdown produced one of the most inescapable songs of the decade and an album none of us heard past the singles. The legacy-band class of 1986 is full of acts choosing between integrity and relevance. The ones who chose wrong are instructive.

The Deep Cuts That Shaped Everything (and Nobody Witnessed)

Here’s the version of 1986 that doesn’t show up on year-end lists.

In June of that year, a Swedish doom metal band called Candlemass released their debut album, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, on a label called Black Dragon Records. It did not sell. It did not chart. It was not played on the radio or shown on MTV. It was, by most measurable standards, invisible. What it was doing, quietly and without witnesses, was inventing doom metal as a genre. Every band that has worked in that sonic territory for the past forty years carries a Candlemass debt, whether they know it or not.

Guns N’ Roses’ Live ?!@ Like a Suicide is a different kind of deep cut: a 1986 self-released EP on GN’R’s own Uzi Suicide label, predating Appetite for Destruction by a full year. Some people had it. They read about the band in Hit Parader and Circus, bought the cassette, and wrote the band’s name on their textbook covers. Then they came home from college and the cassette was gone, lost in a couch cushion somewhere, probably worth a lot of money now. That cassette is a small but perfect metaphor for 1986: the thing you knew about first, the object you can no longer find.

The Transformers: The Movie soundtrack connects 1986 to something else entirely: the year metal started showing up in animated children’s films, delivered by Stan Bush, Lion, and members of Kick Axe performing as Spectre General. For kids who saw the movie it was a first exposure to the genre.

Our Picks, Three Different Arguments

Every roundtable eventually comes down to someone having to choose.

Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In. The blueprint for hair metal as a cultural phenomenon. The DIY machine that started on a punk indie label and franchised itself across the next four years. It is not the deepest record of 1986. But it is the one that most completely captures what the year felt like at 3 PM on a Tuesday when MTV was on. That counts for something.

Metallica’s Master of Puppets is the credibility anchor. The last Cliff Burton record. The document of everything Metallica was before the first video and the commercial pivot. Every move they have made since gets measured against this one, and most of them come up short. The underground case, closed.

Ozzy Osbourne’s The Ultimate Sin is the legacy act threading the needle correctly, or at least fascinatingly. Jake E. Lee at full power. Ozzy navigating from his 1970s origin into 1986 accessibility in a way that doesn’t fully betray either. An album Ozzy reportedly hated. A pick none of us saw coming.

That’s 1986.

Episode Highlights

* 0:00: Intro. Why we went back to 1986: the year we were all buying cassettes and picking sides.

* 1:52: The Transformers: The Movie soundtrack as a metal gateway. Stan Bush, Lion, and a very upsetting death for 11-year-olds.

* 4:07: Cassette-buying memories. Where we each were, financially and musically, in 1986.

* 8:08: The PMRC timeline and how hair metal broke onto daytime MTV in 1986, colorful videos replacing darker imagery.

* 11:36: Judas Priest’s Turbo as the prime example of a legacy band adding keyboards and chasing the MTV moment.

* 14:08: 1986 as the greatest single year in thrash metal history. Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, and Peace Sells all released within months of each other.

* 15:02: Walking into Richfield Coliseum for the last 30 seconds of Metallica opening for Ozzy, and genuinely not caring at the time.

* 16:04: Listening to Master of Puppets in secret on the school bus while claiming to listen to Bon Jovi or Night Ranger.

* 17:28: Why Cinderella’s Night Songs holds up: darker and tighter than later work, no big ballad epics, Jon Bon Jovi’s behind-the-scenes role.

* 20:03: Bon Jovi’s rocket-ship year. The full single timeline from You Give Love a Bad Name through Never Say Goodbye, and Desmond Child’s co-writing role.

* 22:49: Seeing Poison open for Quiet Riot at the Cleveland Agora reopening. Studying the Look What the Cat Dragged In album cover beforehand. Expecting at least one woman in the band.

* 25:22: Poison’s DIY punk ethic and their unlikely starting home on Enigma Records alongside They Might Be Giants and The Minutemen.

* 27:56: Candlemass’s Epicus Doomicus Metallicus: doom metal’s invisible ground zero, released June 1986, heard by almost nobody.

* 30:07: The Guns N’ Roses Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide EP story. Buying it before anyone knew who they were, writing GN’R on textbooks, and losing the cassette after college.

* 32:11: Queensryche’s Rage for Order as a musicians’ landmark, more influential among players than general audiences.

* 34:43: Black Sabbath’s Seventh Star. The Tony Iommi solo album the label forced into being a Sabbath record, and the DMO poll it keeps losing.

* 37:44: Vinnie Vincent Invasion: Poison taken to its extreme. Pink guitars, pop DNA at maximum volume, and a singer switcheroo from Robert Fleischman to Mark Slaughter.

* 45:08: Buying King Diamond’s Fatal Portrait out of sheer fear, based only on a magazine photo with no MTV and no internet.

* 52:30: AC/DC’s Who Made Who: three new songs, six repackaged tracks, Maximum Overdrive tie-in, and the question of whether it needed to be a full album.

* 56:13: The connections bands bucket. Hurricane, London, M.A.R.S., White Tiger, Rough Cutt, Black ‘N Blue: albums bought for who was in them, not what was on them.

* 1:03:36: Rough Cutt’s “Take a Chance” as an all-time genre standout hiding inside a mediocre album.

* 1:07:29: We each name the one album that defines 1986. Three picks, no overlap.

* 1:21:07: Chip’s poll plug for CJSS’s Praise the Loud. Cincinnati power metal. David T. Chastain. Still waiting for its DMO moment.

* 1:24:07: Outro.

Have a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.

In 1988, a straight-to-VHS satanic panic horror film called Black Roses went nowhere fast. The movie itself is, by any honest assessment, terrible: bright red fake blood, rubber monster suits, Vincent Pastore as a concerned father, and a teacher who kills a possessed student with a tennis racket. What the film left behind, almost accidentally, was a soundtrack worth arguing about.

The musicians behind the fictional band Black Roses are King Cobra's core lineup: Marcie Free, Mick Sweda, Carmine Appice, and Chuck Wright. They show up alongside Lizzy Borden, Bang Tango (in their first commercial recording ever, predating Psycho Cafe by a year), Tempest, Hallow's Eve, and a second King Kobra lineup featuring Johnny Edwards, who later sang for Foreigner. Metal Blade Records put full-page ads in every metal magazine. The CD now sells for $50 to $300 on Discogs. Patron Keith Miller paid $100 for his.

This week, Jay, Tim, and Chip work through whether this is a hidden gem, a curiosity, or something more complicated: a record that does not fit the artist album model or the showcase compilation model, and lands somewhere between the two.

🎧 Listen to the episode on DigMeOutPodcast.com

Episode Highlights

Intro (0:00): Poll reveal. Black Roses wins a four-way race at 30.4%, beating Venom, Death Angel, and Marry My Hope. Patron Keith Miller spent $100 on the CD to make this happen.

6:23: The movie. Jay watched it on Tubi: satanic band, small-town teacher, monster from a speaker, tennis racket murder, Vincent Pastore, an open ending where Black Roses heads to Madison Square Garden.

14:07: Is it fun-bad or just bad? Jay: "Worst movie I've ever seen." Taken completely seriously, no camp wink at the camera, zero budget.

17:45: The Keith Miller subplot. An actor named Keith Miller appears in the film's credits. Running gag: he is possessed, much older than we realize, a satanic demon.

20:07: Rock Invasion. Carmine Appice's drumming is most audible here; a conventional anthemic verse gives way to a minor-key trippy middle section nobody expected.

22:27: Two versions of King Cobra on one record. The Black Roses band is the Marcie Free/Mick Sweda/Carmine Appice lineup; "Take It Off" is King Kobra with Johnny Edwards, who later sang for Foreigner.

26:34: Paradise (We're On Our Way). Power ballad that divides the hosts: sounds like Winger or Stan Bush's "The Touch," overly positive, no edge.

30:10: Bang Tango's first commercial recording. "I'm No Stranger" predates Psycho Cafe by a year. Joe Leste's name is spelled differently in the liner notes.

32:13: Me Against the World. The best song on the record by a clear margin. Used twice in the film. Already had a video before the movie existed.

36:03: Take It Off (King Kobra). Johnny Edwards, later of Foreigner. Jay: "Could have been a Gene Simmons song."

41:40: Trick or Treat comparison. The 1986 Fastway soundtrack as a contrast: bigger budget, theatrical release, now retroactively a Fastway album. Future episode pairing suggested.

44:38: Carmine and Pink Floyd. While filming in Canada, Carmine walked into a record store and heard himself on A Momentary Lapse of Reason for the first time. Nick Mason had a hand injury; Floyd called Carmine for "Dogs of War."

47:07: Bill and Ted comparison. Black Roses falls between a cohesive all-artist album and a showcase compilation, satisfying neither. Hosts rattle off both Bill and Ted soundtracks from memory.

53:20: Dance on Fire. Jay: "I kept singing Bon Jovi's 'In and Out of Love': same cadence." Could have had a Headbangers Ball video.

Outro: Verdicts delivered. Keith Miller shoutout.

Subscribe to Dig Me Out at digmeoutpodcast.com

Join the community at dmounion.com for polls, picks, and deeper dives.

Have a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.

Gang of Four’s Entertainment! is the moment post‑punk stopped being a scene and started sounding like a threat. This 1979 debut didn’t just tweak punk’s formula—it rewired it, turning guitars into percussion, bass into a funk‑driven anchor, and lyrics into a full‑frontal critique of capitalism, modern life, and what it even means to be “punk” in the first place.

In this episode of Dig Me Out, Jason, Tim, and Chip dig into how Entertainment! won a razor‑thin community poll over The Damned, Lone Star, and Throbbing Gristle, then unpack why listeners still fight for this record decades later. They trace the band’s tangled history (from Jon King and Andy Gill’s art‑school origins to ever‑changing lineups), break down the album’s knife‑edge guitar work and robotic‑yet‑human rhythms, and explore how songs like “Ether,” “Damaged Goods,” “At Home He’s a Tourist,” and “Anthrax” smuggle political theory, biblical references, and literary nods into two‑to‑three‑minute agit‑funk blasts. Along the way, they connect the dots from late‑70s Leeds to 2000s dance‑punk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Local H, and beyond—asking what it really means for a rock record to be influential, not just influential‑sounding.

If you’re into post‑punk, punk, or art‑damaged guitar music that actually swings, this one’s for you. Fans of Wire, Public Image Ltd., The Clash’s more experimental side, and 2000s bands like The Rapture, Bloc Party, and Franz Ferdinand will hear exactly where their favorite angular riffs and dance‑floor grooves came from.

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Episode Highlights

• 0:00 – Intro – How a community poll pitted Gang of Four against The Damned, Lone Star, and Throbbing Gristle, and why Entertainment! edged out the win

• 5:12 – Setting the stage – Late‑70s Leeds, art school punks, and how Gang of Four stitched punk, funk, reggae, and dub into something new

• 13:30 – “Ether” – Opening track breakdown: rhythmic knife‑edge guitars, politicized lyrics, and the groove that anchors the chaos

• 20:45 – Rhythm as revolution – Why the band treats guitars and vocals like percussion, and how their subtractive choruses flip rock song structure on its head

• 27:10 – “Natural’s Not In” & “Not Great Men” – Capitalism, bodies as “good business,” biblical and literary references, and the link to Manic Street Preachers‑style lyric nerdery

• 34:30 – “Damaged Goods” – The band’s de facto anthem: from angular verses to that stripped‑back chorus, and how it became a template for generations of bands

• 42:05 – “At Home He’s a Tourist” & “5.45” – Melodica lines, TV‑age dread, and the way the record feels both 1979 and weirdly timeless

• 50:20 – “Anthrax” – Dual vocals, anti‑love‑song energy, and how the band turns noise, rant, and groove into something iconic

• 58:40 – Influence and aftershocks – From Flea and Red Hot Chili Peppers to The Rapture, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Local H, and Run the Jewels sampling “Ether”

• 1:06:15 – Does it still work front to back? – The guys debate the 40‑minute runtime, favorite cuts, what they’d trim, and whether Entertainment! is best as full album or curated gateway

• 1:13:50 – Final verdicts – Where Entertainment! lands in the Gang of Four catalog, why it’s still required listening, and who this record is really for

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If you love digging into the stories behind post‑punk, late‑70s rock, and the records that quietly rewrote the rulebook, hit follow and subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes. Dive deeper into past shows, reviews, and polls at digmeoutpodcast.com, and if you want to help pick which albums we tackle next (and vote in the kinds of polls that put Entertainment! on the table), join the Union at dmounion.com.

Returning Dig Me Out Union patron Josh Page is back from Australia with his second pick, and this one is geo-locked to his home country for most of the world. The Hummingbirdsformed in Sydney in 1986, signed to rooArt Records (the label founded by INXS manager Chris Murphy), and recorded their debut loveBUZZ in 1989 with producer Mitch Easter, the same man behind R.E.M.'s Murmur and Reckoning. The album hit ARIA #31, the single "Blush" reached #19, and they went Gold in Australia. Outside Australia, almost nobody has ever heard it.

Jay, Tim, and Chip dig into the record with Josh, covering the intricate boy-girl vocal harmonies that draw comparisons to early R.E.M., The Lemonheads, Throwing Muses, and Belly; the punchy drumming that gives jangle pop some actual weight; and the Lemonheads connection most fans don't know: Robin St. Clair and Nic Dalton co-wrote "Into Your Arms" during this era, Evan Dando recorded it, and it became the biggest hit of the Lemonheads' career.

Timestamps: 5:05 Band history and Mitch Easter connection | 6:09 The Lemonheads origin story | 14:19 "Alimony" | 19:17 "Get On Down" | 28:51 "House Taken Over" (and the unauthorized house remix) | 38:48 "If You Leave" | 42:08 Verdicts

The hosts split 2-1, and the community voted 80% Better EP. Head to digmeoutpodcast.com to listen to the full episode and share your take.

🎧 Listen to the episode on DigMeOutPodcast.com

Episode Highlights

Intro: Blush: loveBUZZ opens the episode exactly how it should, no preamble, just the single.

1:11: Josh Page returns from Australia: back with his second patron pick, and this one isn't on US Apple Music.

2:37: The album title before Nirvana: loveBUZZ got its name before Nirvana broke, then the Australian industry came knocking for "the next Nirvana."

5:05: Band history: from Bug-Eyed Monsters to a Gold record: started in 1986, signed to rooArt (INXS manager's label), Mitch Easter producing, "Blush" hit ARIA #19, 40,000+ copies sold.

6:09: The Lemonheads connection: Robin St. Clair and Nic Dalton co-wrote "Into Your Arms" while he was filling in for her; the Lemonheads turned it into their biggest hit.

9:03: Into Your Arms (The Lemonheads): clip played to illustrate the co-writing story; this is a Lemonheads track, not a Hummingbirds song, written by St. Clair and Dalton.

13:08: What works: the harmonies: three to four interlocking voices, women singing low, men singing high, more complex than The Bangles and closer to the Mamas and the Papas.

14:19: Alimony: originally an EP single smuggled onto the full album; Chip and Jason both flag it as a standout.

19:17: Get on Down: aggressive rhythm and hooky drum fills give this jangle pop record some actual weight underneath.

22:52: Hollow Inside: multiple hosts call it a keeper; plays during the open what-works discussion.

28:51: House Taken Over: called a "shoegazy dirge" by Jason; Josh reveals a rooArt executive secretly remixed it as a house track for the UK market without telling the band.

33:27: Miles to Go: Chip calls it "half a song"; it builds to a cinematic crescendo and just stops; all four agree it is the wrong album closer.

38:48: If You Leave: deep, moody female vocal with a Stevie Nicks vibe; Josh and Tim agree this should have closed the album instead.

42:08: Verdicts: the hosts split 2-1; the community voted 80% Better EP; the minority position won the popular vote by a wide margin.

Outro: Blush: loveBUZZ opens the episode, and it closes it the same way.

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Join the community at dmounion.com for polls, picks, and deeper dives.

Have a lost or forgotten album that deserves the spotlight? Suggest it here.