Tape Spaghetti

In this special edition of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake wrap up  and run down their favorite albums of 2025…. and, as usual, a whooole buncha other stuff.

From revelations about their own streaming habits, strong opinions on production choices and pedal chains, a victory lap on year one of Tape Spaghetti, and oh yeah, spotlights on the guys’ picks for the best albums of the year, this one is a journey of deep-dives and nostalgia bombs that touches on Euro-country, lush indie rock, and a surprise posthumous appearance from Waylon Jennings.

Whether you’re into metal, pop, country, indie, or “whatever the heck this is,” don’t miss this one.

What if we told you that the biggest electronic album of all time started as a complete flop?

In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake tell the unbelievable story of how Moby’s Play went from career-killing failure to a global phenomenon thanks to the most shamelessly brilliant licensing plan ever executed.

After alienating his fans with a hardcore punk passion project and getting dropped by his U.S. label, Moby was broke, discouraged, and convinced his next record would be his last.

When Play arrived to almost no sales he figured he'd been right... until his team hatched a wild idea: say yes to EVERY licensing request. Coffee commercials?

Yes. Car ads? Hell yeah. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Where do we sign? Soon every track—every *single* track—from the album appeared somewhere, creating a slow-burn cultural takeover and eventually pushing Play to 12 million sales worldwide.

It’s a one of a kind tale of artistic desperation, shrewd copyright strategy, and the moment Moby became the accidental king of commercial syncs.

Remember the feeling of being a kid and encountering an album cover that you just *knew* you weren’t supposed to be looking at? On this week’s Tape Spaghetti we’re turning that feeling up to 12 as Scott and Blake dive into the flat-out shocking world of controversial album art.

From covers that got bands banned in department stores, to designs that sparked lawsuits, protests, and panicked parents, the guys explore infamous cases of musicians pushing the visual envelope (literally).

Why have certain covers triggered outrage while others slipped under the radar? How do taboos shift from decade to decade? And why do artists take the risk of marketing shock value?

Scott and Blake reflect on their own experiences discovering “forbidden” records and debate whether today’s digital music world has lost something by leaving provocative album art behind. This one’s not for the squeamish or easily icked…. 

Is elevator music... evil?

In this week’s Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake go on a tour through the highly unlikely, slightly dystopian history of Muzak – the music nobody loves, but everyone hears.

Born from military experimentation, electrical engineering breakthroughs, and a dream to make Americans more productive through calibrated background sound, Muzak might sound aimless, but it was designed to manipulate and control.

Workers alternately found it calming or patronizing. Counterculture movements mocked it. Ted Nugent tried to destroy it. Yet, Muzak survived long enough to infiltrate elevators, the White House, NASA missions, and grocery stores everywhere.

The guys trace its legacy all the way to modern lo-fi playlists and “music for airports,” proving blandness has a surprisingly colorful past.

What happens when one of the biggest bands in the world takes on its industry’s Death Star?

In 1994, Pearl Jam was willing to find out. On this week’s Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake revisit the grunge-era showdown that pitted a group of scrappy rock idealists against Ticketmaster, the ultimate corporate monolith.

Having locked down every major venue in America, Ticketmaster strangled fans with specious “service charges” and squeezed bands with exclusivity contracts.

At the height of their popularity, Pearl Jam demanded fairer prices and more transparency. They even attempted to bypass Ticketmaster altogether by playing public spaces – but ultimately they had to put up with shady politics, convoluted permitting, and the reality that they were losing millions in revenue.

How did Ticketmaster go from a scrappy Arizona startup to a money-printing monopoly? In a world where we *still* pay $45 in convenience fees, this one hits home.

We all know we have to tune our guitars… but we don’t usually think about *why* we tune the way we do.

In this weeks’ Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake do just that, in a discussion fit for a tin-foil hat. For instance, what if we told you that tuning your guitar was actually part of a Nazi mind-control plot? Or that certain frequencies align us with the universe and balance our “water memory?”

Or what if we told you…. that’s all nonsense, and that the real story might be even MORE interesting than any conspiracy theory. From 19th-century pitch wars and Verdi’s preferred frequencies to how A440 became the global norm, the guys trace how a simple standard turned into a cosmic conspiracy.

Come for the mind control jokes, stay for the surprisingly nerdy and super relevant music history lesson.

This week on Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake head to Malaysia for perhaps the darkest story in Southeast Asian pop history: the twisted tale of Mona Fandey.

Once an aspiring starlet, Fandey’s talent didn’t take her very far – but her transformation into a self-proclaimed shaman gave her access to some of the most powerful figures in Malaysian politics.

Her promise to deliver power and success through magic led to a windfall of cash, notoriety, and ultimately, a gruesome murder that shocked the entire country.

Through it all, Mona smiled for the cameras and claimed she would never die… even as she was being led to the gallows.

This one’s got everything: music, mysticism, money, and murder, all wrapped up in a story that’s too strange to be fiction. 

The name’s Spaghetti. Tape Spaghetti.

This week, Scott and Blake go undercover into the glamorous, brassy, and occasionally super weird world of James Bond music.

After Monty Norman’s jazzy/surfy 1962 theme became the sonic blueprint for every espionage movie ever, each successive Bond theme played a pivotal role in shaping one of the world’s biggest franchises.

Decade over decade, a chronological hotlist of pop stars participated – and some, including Johnny Cash and Alice Cooper, just missed the cut. Tune in to find out how Shirley Bassey nearly blacked out belting “Goldfinger,” why “Live and Let Die” might be ten songs stitched into one, and how Adele’s “Skyfall” returned the canon to epic prestige.

Best listened to in an Aston Martin while wearing a tux.

There is gangsta rap, there are murder ballads, and then... There is Chalino Sánchez.

When Pete Seeger sang the lyric “This Land Is My Land”—then dared to prove it.