This week we break from our normal random selection from the Rolling Stone 500 best album list to pick up and have a listen to a favourite from one of our hosting team. It might be from the list, it might not - but it's definitely an album that we think is worth talking about.

For the first special episode in an occasional series we have the selection of Apollo Audio studio owner and splendid guitarist / singer Billy Hills.

White Pony is the third studio album by American alternative metal band Deftones, released on June 20, 2000, through Maverick Records. It was produced by Terry Date, who produced the band's first two albums, Adrenaline (1995) and Around the Fur (1997). It marked a significant growth in the band's sound and is considered a turning point in their history in terms of experimentation, incorporating influences from post-hardcore, trip hop, shoegaze, progressive rock, and post-rock into the alternative metal sound for which they had become known.

White Pony is Deftones' highest-selling album to date, and it became their first platinum record certified by the RIAA on July 17, 2002

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A glorious album or an "over-hyped piece of shite". The critics were divided but what do the Apollo crew think of The Stone Roses? And as for Van Morrison, our guest host this week definitely thinks you can have too many horns, even if there are only two.

The Apollo Audio Podcast is recorded at Apollo Audio in Hertford, hosted by Billy Hills, Miles Mitchell and Martin Lumsden. This week we are joined by special guest host Sid O'Brien.

Produced, recorded and edited by Martin Lumsden.

A Froody Music Production

www.froodymusic.com

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the podcast, it's the debut album from Big Star and the sixteenth (albeit delayed) from Bob Dylan.

In the words of Rolling Stone "Big Star produced a style that foreshadowed the alternative rock of the 1980s and 1990s. Before they broke up, they created a "seminal body of work that never stopped inspiring succeeding generations"

John Rockwell of The New York Times hailed The Basement Tapes as "one of the greatest albums in the history of American popular music." Rolling Stone's Paul Nelson called its contents "the hardest, toughest, sweetest, saddest, funniest, wisest songs I know"

But did we agree? Join us every week as we pick two albums from the Rolling Stone magazine list of the 500 Best Albums of all Time and debate the reasons why we think they deserve a place on our playlists or should be left on the shelf.

The Apollo Audio Podcast is recorded at Apollo Audio in Hertford, hosted by Billy Hills, Miles Mitchell and Martin Lumsden.

Produced, recorded and edited by Martin Lumsden.

A Froody Music Production

www.froodymusic.com

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We had a bit of a chat about things arising from the Grammy Awards on Sunday 3rd April

The Apollo Audio Podcast is recorded at Apollo Audio in Hertford, hosted by Billy Hills, Miles Mitchell and Martin Lumsden.

Produced, recorded and edited by Martin Lumsden.

A Froody Music Production

www.froodymusic.com

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"...the most inventive piece of song-writing to have appeared on record in a considerable time". That's what they were saying about David Bowie's fourth studio record Hunky Dory back in 1972 - and that was before he really hit the heights with Ziggy Stardust in the following year. The clues are there, but the flame haired alien alter-ego hadn't yet had that transformative appearance on Top of the Pops. Does that mean the best is yet to come for our listening pleasure on our trawl through the Rolling Stone 500 list? There are two albums higher up, including the aforementioned Rise and Fall, but this one faired pretty well in our assessment this week.

Our second album this week was described as a "remarkable experience, as aesthetically and emotionally rewarding as any work of music I can think of." I'm not sure our experience 30 years on was quite as revelatory...listen in to find out how much we really don't know about the history of hip-hop.

The Apollo Audio Podcast is recorded at Apollo Audio, Hertford and is produced, recorded and edited by Martin Lumsden

A Froody Music Production.

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bad Girls (25th April 1979)

The Boston-born Donna Summer was the Queen of Disco by the end of the Seventies — but she wanted more. With her double-vinyl epic Bad Girls, she set out to conquer every corner of pop music in the name of disco, along with her longtime producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. “Hot Stuff” was her rock anthem, while “Bad Girls” found the sweet spot where the toot-toot meets the beep-beep. The underrated highlight: “Sunset People,” her post-Steely Dan snapshot of L.A. malaise.

• eighth studio album
• Bad Girls reached atop the US Billboard 200, where it stayed for six weeks: for one week on June 16, 1979, and then for five consecutive weeks, from July 7 to August 4, 1979
• Harold Faltermeyer, songwriting (Hot Stuff) – best known for composing the "Axel F"[2] theme for the feature film Beverly Hills Cop, an influential synth-pop hit in the 1980s. He also composed the "Top Gun Anthem" for the feature film Top Gun and the music for the Chevy Chase Fletch feature films, Fletch and Fletch Lives.
• Producers - Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte
• It has sold over 4 million copies worldwide

Heaven or Las Vegas (17th September 1990)

Cocteau Twins were Scot goths who helped invent the dream-pop aesthetic that ruled U.K. indie during the Eighties. Heaven or Las Vegas is their arrestingly beautiful pop peak, despite being released as the band itself was in turmoil, largely brought on by guitarist Robin Guthrie’s drug addiction. Somehow, they created something wholly transporting; Elizabeth Fraser’s celestial soprano works like a vocal Rorschach test, gorgeously floating over Guthrie and Simon Raymonde’s magic-hour instrumentation.

• sixth studio album
• peaked at number seven on the UK Albums Chart and number 99 on the US Billboard 200, becoming the band's most commercially successful release, despite most of Fraser's lyrics "[emerging] in alien tongues", which she sums up as "laziness" and "bad diction"
• bassist Simon Raymonde later formed Bella Union record label

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the show this week we discover an artist for (mainly) the first time and are mainly surprised and delighted by our introduction to Fiona Apple. Plus we flip back to the golden era of Hip-Hop and the era defining sounds of Eric B. and Rakim with the general consensus that we prefer what they inspired over what they created.

Every week we listen to two classic albums from Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Best Albums of all Time, and decide if we think they deserve their place and if we'd be recommending to future music lovers.

The Apollo Audio Podcast is recorded at Apollo Audio Hertford and is a Froody Music Production. Recording and post production by Martin Lumsden

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's debut albums from both our artists this week, and we find out we're a bit of a sucker for some neo soul but rock guitars we maybe only want in conjunction with some MJ.

The Apollo Audio Podcast is recorded at Apollo Audio Hertford and is a Froody Music Production. Recording and post production by Martin Lumsden

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join Billy, Martin and Miles as we take a tour through the Rolling Stone Magazine 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Did they get it right, and what might we have been missing out on?

On this week's episode we discuss the first of two Grateful Dead albums released in 1970, and the 1992 debut from Rage Against the Machine. Once again the votes are split, and the early 70's is not coming out of this well so far.

On the other hand, we may have identified our top album of the pod so far.

The Apollo Audio Podcast is recorded at Apollo Audio studios in Hertford and is produced and edited by Martin Lumsden

Froody Productions 2022

Drop us a line at [email protected]

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It might not seem like we've been away but actually it's been about 3 weeks since we've been together so future episodes will be almost live. An even better opportunity to get involved and join us on our voyage of discovery through the Rolling Stone Best 500 albums of all time.

This week it's local boys The Zombies (from Hatfield and St Albans) and Dusty Springfield. Which of these impressed, and which was perhaps surprisingly underwhelming?

The Apollo Audio Podcast is recorded at Apollo Audio studios in Hertford and is produced and edited by Martin Lumsden

Froody Productions 2022

Drop us a line at [email protected]

Don't forget to let us know your nominations for the best album of all time - be prepared to defend your choice, we may be asking questions! Or drop us a voicemail

New episodes every week.

Check out the studio at www.apollo-audio.co.uk for details about recording, rehearsal, tuition and upcoming events

The Apollo Audio Podcast is Froody Music Production. Production and editing by Martin Lumsden.

www.martintheproducer.com

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-apollo-audio-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.