In Our Nineteen-Nineties

Das Efx's Dead Serious is one of those albums from the '90s that was incredibly influential for a very short time, but what a tiggedy time it was. But if inferior rappers were openly stealing from Das Efx, a host of emo and pop punk bands might not have even realized they were stealing from Placebo's self-titled debut album well into the 2000s.

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This week's show sets out to shatter all your illusions. We reveal that the title of the Church's follow-up to the beloved Starfish is not a reference to doing heroin, and that the Reading in the Sunday's debut album title has nothing to do with books.

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We return after numerous home studio difficulties with a new episode featuring two albums that couldn't be farther apart. First there's Promenade, Neil Hannon's extremely mannered followup to the Divine Comedy's break out album, Liberation. Then there's the second coming of Mick Jones' post-Clash dance rock band, Big Audio Dynamite. The Globe is a fun snapshot of early '90s British rave culture, and we'll answer the question of just how much TB-303 filter knobs were abused in its creation (the answer might surprise you!).

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WE'RE NOT DEAD! However, some new gear purchases did necessitate a complete teardown and rebuild of our recording studio, and getting this episode edited and posted did just got lost in the shuffle of cables and hardware.

We start this long awaited (?) episode by taking on Jane's Addiction's beloved Ritual de lo Habitual, a very '90s clash of transcendent music and troubling lyrics about doing heroin with your high school girlfriend. Then we venture into the no less troubling or smack-filled world of the Tiger Lillies and their more cartoonish, if no less disturbing, take on the world's gutters.

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This week we examine Moby's Play, a landmark in electronic music whose legacy turns out to be as fraught as its creator has turned out to be in his...proclivities. Then we re-evaluate Stick Around For Joy, the possibly underrated and definitely over-European final record by the Sugarcubes.

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In our second obligation special, we're back with four more records that couldn't really carry a full length segment, encompassing some of the best and worst of what the '90s had to offer.

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On our first official episode of spring, we look at new beginnings. Jeff Tweedy strikes out on his own after the breakup of Uncle Tupelo, with Wilco's debut, A.M. Then we go back to the early '90s for Ride's shoegaze milestone, Nowhere.

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We return after some much needed time off with No Doubt's troubled breakout album; and because we love a good contrast, Switchblade Symphony's first experiment with their goth/industrial/classical hybrid sound.

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For our first Valentine's Day episode, we had to cover Stephin Merrit's magnum opus, 1999's three disc set, 69 Love Songs. Over 20 years later, does this sprawling effort live up to its reputation as a hipster classic? That's what we hope to discover this week as we dig into the funny, the miserable, and the beguiling of this collection.

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This week it's the real Brits vs. the fake Brits. Radiohead and Material Issue both had somewhat unassuming debuts (the massive worldwide success of "Creep" aside), but one would go on to become the most famous rock band in the world while the other would go on to record "Kim the Waitress."

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