The Beaten Track

You find us this week deep in the world of lost albums. What sort of gems will we find hidden deep in the musical underworld? Joe and Louis take you through the world of unreleased, rumoured, and little known albums, focusing on the stunning solo recording of Sibylle Baier that was released over 35 years after being recorded. Oh, and there's also some awful quizzing at the end.

Well, it's that time again. It's our 40th episode and this week we're ranking the albums of the Smiths. Six albums in total make the grade with 4 studio albums along with the compilations Louder Than Bombs and Hatful of Hollow. Which will come out on top? Will their be some disagreement? What difference does it make?

Did you notice we were gone? After a week with no episode and thousands of unhappy fans we're back with some new and pretty great music. St Vincent's Daddy's Home draws on 70s sounds and New York landscapes to create another stellar album from the pop wizard. Louis and Joe take you through their favourite tracks and some Will Ferrell based quizzing.

Get get get get got got got got. Louis and Joe turn the attention to the world of Death Grips and their acclaimed debut The Money Store. Following their pack-a-punch mixtape Exmilitary, the Sacramento based group released this frenzied, chaotic, and pretty spectacular album. Elsewhere Louis manages to slide in a mention of the Fall and Joe provides some quiz questions on hackers.

This week we reviewed one of Louis' favourite albums and a stone-cold classic from one of music's most iconic figures in popular music. It has become clear we needed an androgynous, bisexual, alien rockstar to save us from our pandemic apocalypse, so we felt it only right to discuss Ziggy and his bandmates, the Spiders from Mars. 

It's a Podcast about Broadcast. In today's episode, Joe and Louis talk all about Dream Pop outfit Broadcast and their atmospheric 2000 debut, The Noise Made By People. The Birmingham based band triggered our interest in Brum's music history and thus, Joe was put to the test on his knowledge of many exciting metal, new wave, and britpop bands.

There is a lot going on in this week's episode as we discuss a collaboration between Billy Bragg and Wilco, who teamed up to put music to some of folk legend Woody Guthrie's unheard lyrics. If that wasn't enough, there's mentions of Ingrid Bergman, Walt Whitman's niece and Christ as a presidential candidate. And despite all this we still manage to squeeze in some nonsense quizzes. 

Join us this week as we return to that long-forgotten format of discussing a genre and one of its landmark albums. Post-hardcore represented a shift from the rigidity of the hardcore punk scene towards more melodic and experimental sounds. At The Drive In produced some of the most notable work of the early 2000s scene, in particular their frenetic and incredible Relationship of Command. Louis and Joe take you through the genre and the album and as always, round it off with some dodgy quiz questions about John Wayne westerns and drive-in cinemas.

Well, it was only a matter of time before we entered the wonderful and frightening world of The Fall. Join us as we discuss everyone's favourite cult band and their quiet and unassuming leader, Mark E Smith. We focus on their 1986 record Bend Sinister, delve into some of Mark's great quotes and discuss the 'Indie News' of the week.

This week's album comes from a hallowed year for music. Xiu Xiu's Forget was released in 2017 and marked a more accessible point in their experimental catalogue. In the episode, we discuss some of the standout tracks from the album, Louis fails at another of Joe's trivia quizzes, and the 'Uppy Downy Side to Side Higher or Lower Pitchfork Album Reviews' quiz returns.