Desert Island Discourse

On the show this week, we tackle the too-short lifespan of your favorite band's favorite band: Big Star. From hanging out down the street to starting a love revolution, come along with us September Gurls as we kick off October. FEATURED Watch the Sunrise The Letter - The Box Tops Feel The Ballad of El Goodo When My Baby’s Beside Me Life is White September Gurls Daisy Glaze Jesus Christ Kizza Me Kanga Roo Love Revolution Femme Fatale O, My Soul Nature Boy

We dive into one of Stephin Merritt’s many side projects, the tongue-twistingly titled “Wasps’ Nests” by The 6ths. FEATURED SONGSWinter in July Falling Out of Love (With You) San Diego Zoo Aging Spinsters Puerto Rico Way When I’m Out of Town

This week, we explore the impeccable pop sensibilities of Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields. How much can one songwriter love the moon? Does Holland-Dozier-Holland need defending? And did she send flowers, or just say she sent flowers? Tune in to find out! Desert Island Railroad Boy 10000 Fireflies Candy The Saddest Story Ever Told Swinging London Strange Powers Born on a Train Why I Cry The Village in the Morning The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure All My Little Words Long-Forgotten Fairytale Washington, D.C. Abigail, Belle of Kilronan I Don’t Believe You I Thought You Were My Boyfriend California Girls You Must Be Out of Your Mind Everything is One Big Christmas Tree Andrew in Drag Your Girlfriend’s Face ’74: No ’93: Me and Fred and Dave and Ted ’14: I Wish I Had Pictures All the Umbrellas in London Papa Was a Rodeo Young and Insane

This week, we discuss the 1971 edition of the Jackson 5’s Greatest Hits, from all-time-great basslines to inappropriate lyrical content. FEATURED SONGS: ABC I Want You Back Never Can Say Goodbye Goin’ Back to Indiana I’ll Be There

Let it never be said that we're not a podcast of the people. Yes, our past few episodes have been deeply entrenched in the kind of hardcore esoterica that birthed a thousand blogspots, but that doesn't mean we can't devote our latest to literally the best-selling musical artists of all time: Michael Jackson (no, we do not recognize The Eagles on our island). Which is pretty hard to do—what's left to be said about the King of Pop? You know Michael Jackson. You know he started as Motown's child star, you know he created some of the greatest singles in music history, you know he was buds with Kevin McAllister. Hell, you were probably born into the world singing "Billie Jean". But now that his music has become the background radiation of the universe, it's easy to forget how he got to that point, and why he was so skilled to begin with. We know his singles by heart, but his albums? Not so much. There's a lot to dig into here. And digging is what desert islanders do best, my friends. So there's plenty of talk

This week, we celebrate the life and work of a recently passed legend: Aretha Franklin. RIP, Queen of Soul.

Woof, are we getting esoteric this week. Merely a fortnight after the self-indulgence of "If I Haven't Heard It, It's New to Me" month, and we're already getting deep in the weeds, covering a wide swathe of a music scene that isn't even huge in its own country. Specifically, we're talking about Japanese Shoegaze, from 2000-2018. For all intents and purposes, shoegaze burned out in the 90's—it was big for a blip, and then quickly became a niche of a niche, the kind of genre beloved by hardcore fans and ignored by most everyone else. But the massive, dreamy guitars of My Bloody Valentine made quite an impact it Japan, planting the seeds for a shoegaze resurgence that continues to flourish. The Japanese shoegaze scene is massive and far more active than elsewhere in the world, quietly churning out some of the best music of the millenium. It's also a side of the genre that Max is obsessed with. Why wouldn't she be—it's the source of dozens of new great shoegaze bands. And while we hope this survey is somewhat

Welcome to the latest episode we've ever posted! Due to several unfortunate circumstances with regards to work and life, we're getting this B-Side in right under the wire. Luckily, before long this will all be dust and no one will notice. Speaking of dust and the ravages of age, welcome to the second installment of Nostalgia Check! In this recurring-but-not-even-a-little-bit-regular special, we each take a band from our youths and reexamine them in the harsh light of adulthood to see if they can withstand it, or if they will simply burn up like so much garbage. This week, we're once again bringing together a pop-punk band and an early-oughts indie darling: Sum 41's All Killer No Filler and Pete Yorn's Musicforthemorningafter. The result is as much an examination of our former listening habits and the strange entry points we take as it is of entirely pleasant if unremarkable pop music. It's basically therapy, but far more public and shameful. Also: the Tender Heart Blenders, your first slice of pizza, and

WE MADE IT TO EPISODE 50 Y'ALL. Can you believe it? We certainly can't—like most amateur podcasts started in times of immense unemployment, we sort of assumed this was going to sputter out after a couple of months. But NO. We've defied the odds, and to celebrate this arbitrarily momentous occasion (counting the B-Sides we actually have something like 78 episodes, but who counts the B-Sides?), we're discoursing about one of the bands that brought us to this accursed island in the first place: Talk Talk Talk Talk are one of those whose reputation wildly varies depending on who you talk to. To most of the world, they're the one-hit new wave band behind that one No Doubt song where Gwen Stefani gets executed; to Britain's most pretentious musicians, they're a legendary art-rock institution; and to everyone who ever recorded with them, they're the devil. But to Andrew and Max, they represent connection, a band that fostered that one of those beautiful moments that this podcast is all about: when a stranger brings

We're coming up on our 50th episode, folks, and it's gonna be a big one—Talk Talk. But we're sensitive folk, and we can't just jump into the deep end—we need to ease into it! And what better way to ease into Talk Talk than by discussing the last album any of its members ever released—Mark Hollis by Mark Hollis. A sort of distant epilogue to the stunning & criminally ignored career of his former band, Mark Hollis' eponymous solo album is the opposite of what you'd expect from a genius coming out of retirement for one last ride. It's not an announcement of return—rather, it actively shuns all attention, every potential spotlight shining right through it, dissipating its delicate calm. In short, it's quiet as fuck. And while Talk Talk were no strangers to silence, they never plumbed the depths of just how quiet you can be before you disappear like this before. So while it's chronologically an ass-backwards way to start our Talk Talk fortnight with the end of their publicly released work, it sonically ma

“If I Haven’t Heard It, It’s New to Me” month is coming to a gorgeous if baffling end as we cover one of the most inexplicably underrated bands this side of The Chameleons: Kitchens of Distinction. Founded in Tooting, London in the late 80’s as a three-piece, Kitchens of Distinction is maybe the most unjustly…

Are you ready to get down and dirty with the lord? Because you know we are—and so is the subject of this weeks B-Side: The Supreme Jubilees. These guys are Andrew's contribution to the one-album wonder side of "If I Haven't Heard It, It's New to Me Month", and boy, they're the epitome of the form. The Fresno, CA. Sextet (two sets of brothers, all cousins) existed for only a couple of years, released an album under extreme duress (they were kicked out of their first studio for being too funky), and were quickly forgotten. Luckily, the tireless crate-diggers at Light in the Attic managed to find that sole document—It'll All Be Over—and put it back out into the spotlight. And thank God they did, because this is something strange and special. The Supreme Jubilees are ostensibly a gospel band, and sure enough the Lord is in just about every word they sing. But musically it's something completely outside what most would consider gospel. It's a collection of funk jams, flirtations with disco, and the fatalistic sl

Hoo boy, this month has taken a dark turn. In the first official installment of this year's "If I Haven't Heard It, It's New to Me" month, Andrew has brought to the table the works of Parenthetical Girls, with the idea that it would spurn an interesting conversation between him and Max. He was right. Parenthetical Girls is the project of one Zac Bennington, owner of the highest cheekbones in the Pacific Northwest, as well as someone whose recently earned the dubious title of Max's Most Hated Musician. A protege of Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart, who produced his first album, Zac started off making lo-fi bedroom music before spiraling into more a direct Xiu Xiu pastiche and, eventually, string-laden chamber pop. He's also a smug asshat whose lyrics jump gayly over the line between provocative and malicious. You can see where some inter-host conflict would arise. But their growth as musicians is a fascinating one, and beneath the terrible personalities are some actually really good songs. They're basically the ind

A Quick Personal Note: if you've been keeping up these past few weeks, you've probably noticed some issues with the episodes lately. While the artists have been universally fantastic (and, I think, the discourse has mostly kept up), our audio quality has varied wildly, we've been putting up episodes late, and I've been neglecting summation duties. It sucks, and we're deeply sorry to our regular listeners for that. Life has been pretty chaotic lately, with major shifts in jobs and living situations (all good!), and in the midst of all of that it's been difficult to keep up the level of production quality we aim for. This episode, on Max-Favorite One Album Wonder Life Without Buildings, is a step in the right direction, but the audio quality on Andrew's track is still a bit rough and, due to an un-undoable editing mistake, there's like a minute cut out of the beginning (nothing important happened in it, but it's an awkward jump). I still think it's a good episode in spite of that, and for what it's worth things

It's a shorter episode this week, but, much like the woman who inspired it, it packs a wallop far outside its diminutive size. That's right, this week we're talking about the other five-foot assassin—Neko Case. And it's packed with all the animal violence and subversive masculinity you'd expect. Neko Case has been in music for nearly 25 years now, from her humble beginnings drumming for Vancouver punk bands to her current status as one of the most respected songwriters of her era. But in spite of her impeccable lyricism, musicianship, and genre-hopping experiments, she's been somewhat marred by the abominable "alt-country" tag for her whole solo career—which is why, up to this week, Max had never heard of her. So thank god Andrew was enthusiastic enough to bring her to the island, because her discography is one of the most fascinating we've ever picked through. After two albums of relatively straight-forward county, Neko Case gradually transformed into a strange, surrealist poet, someone who could adopt Nic

Jackie Shane is really really good.

Sorry for the late episode, pithy description forthcoming, but the gist will almost certainly be along the lines of "hey y'all did you know that Nina Simone is in fact very, very good?" Something like that.

When was the last time you celebrated The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill? It's been two decades since Ms. Lauryn Hill released her first and, as of today, only solo studio album, and outside of some occasional appearances and a rich history of misused samples (including Drake's execrable new single "Nice for What"), it's rarely something that enters contemporary music discussion. It feels like one of those albums you're more likely to find on Greatest Albums of All Time lists than in anyone's discman, to which we loudly exclaim: fuck that. 20 years on, as Lauryn Hill gears up for an extensive tour, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill remains one of the most vital, complex, and unique debuts in music history, a dense document of faith, heartache, and motherhood with a fire and wisdom that belie the age of the woman writing it (she was 23 at the time). It set the tone for all pop and R&B music for decades to come while still sounding entirely original, even today. It's really great, is what we're saying, even if

Lord, has there ever been a musician as eclectic, iconic, and utterly her own thing as Björk Guðmundsdóttir? We're talking about an Icelandic poet who recorded her first album at age 12, has worked with everyone from Michel Gondry to Timbaland, and is still best remembered for wearing a swan back in '01. Her discography is a vast, complex, and intimidating landscape, packed with clubland tributaries and avant garde vocal experiments. She can swing from heartbreaking to absurd in a single syllable.  She's really cool, is what we're saying.  Luckily, we have a brand new island visitor here to help on our Björk-venture: musician, dog owner, and dear friend Gabrielle Smith (of Ò and Bellows fame). With her help, we tackle a body of work as intense and difficult as it is funny and heartfelt, picking through experiments and masterpieces and complicated feelings to find our personal desert island albums (which turned out to be awfully difficult). It was way more fun than that sounds. Also: masters of unlocking, st

Man, the past was weird, huh? When frosted tips were cool and we all thought George W. Bush was the worst we'd ever get? Such innocent, naive times. Well, at Desert Island Discourse, one of our many mission statements is to reveal the truths of the past in the harsh light of day, and it's with that intent that we're introducing a new segment for the show: Nostalgia Check. In these episodes, Andrew and Max will be revisiting the CD wallets of their tween years to see how they hold up, one album at a time. This week, we're covering Smash by The Offspring and Give Up by The Postal Service. The bands couldn't be more different; The Offspring were vanguards of the pop-punk boom of the mid-90's, whilst The Postal Service's lone album is responsible for ushering in the soft boy era of the early-oughts, leaving a million Garden State's in its wake. But they both speak to the core of this series, in that they're both perfectly designed to appeal to the young and angsty. Whether you're the kind of angry, bullied skate