During the "be-twix-mas" period of 2023, hosts Tim and Ollie catch up to discuss what artists, both new and old, they have recently discovered.

What makes a punk rock band decide to make a concept album? This is the central question that Tim and Ollie explore in this episode on Green Day's phenomenal seventh album "American Idiot", released in 2004. Up to that point, Green Day were one of the most successful pop-punk bands to emerge from the Bay Area scene in the 1990s and became hugely popular following the release of their major label debut "Dookie" in 1994, with quirky hits such as "Basket Case". Over the course of the next few albums however, their commercial fortunes and musical relevance went into steady decline, generating tensions within the band and a crisis of confidence. In true punk fashion, the band ripped it up and started again, taking a more collaborative approach to song writing that resulted in a 9-song-rock-opera, telling the story of a disaffected American teenager on a journey of destruction and self-discovery that acts as a wider parable of American society. Commercially and critically, it represented a second coming and won over a whole new younger audience who could identify with the themes of teenage angst. Whilst commonly associated with the wider anti-Iraq War/anti-George Bush movement, the album holds up incredibly well and remains just as relevant now as it did 20 years ago. Join Tim and Ollie on their journey to discover just who is the "American Idiot".

Recorded during the Christmas holidays, Tim and Ollie broke from tradition and looked instead at a recent release from 2022, Arctic Monkeys' "The Car". Initially formed at school by Alex Turner, Matt Helders, Andy Nicholson and Jamie Cook in 2002, Arctic Monkeys rapidly broke onto the UK indie-rock scene in the mid-2000s following a grass roots level hype that had built up through playing many local gigs in Sheffield, where free copies of demo CDs were handed out to fans who ripped the tracks and file-shared them online. Their debut album "Whatever People Say I am, That's What I'm Not" (2006) broke records with its commercial and critical performance, immediately making them the hot new favourites. But their trajectory since then has consistently been one of continuous evolution, often losing old fans and gaining new ones along the way. Initially going heavier and gloomier with "Favourite Worst Nightmare" (2007) and "Humbug" (2009), then they went more polished and commercial with "Suck It and See" (2011) and "AM" (2013) until most recently, by going more lounge-jazz, experimental and science-fiction via their hotel-on-the-moon concept album "Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino" (2018). Their latest effort very much continues this Alex-Turner-as-crooner direction, doubling-down on a cinematic sound that could easily be the score to any spy thriller film from the 1960s. But has this new direction come at a cost? Has the band simply become a vehicle to support an Alex Turner solo project? Have they released one polarising album too many? Join Tim and Ollie as they take a ride in The Car to explore the band's new album as well as their incredible, unpredictable career.

Formed by frontman Josh Homme, Queens of the Stone Age became the most commercially successful band to emerge from the Palm Desert Scene in California in the 1990s. Homme previously served as the guitarist in Kyuss, the most notable of the "stoner rock" bands known for combining heavy metal, psychedelia, blues, punk and grunge into a potent cocktail of bass-heavy riffs, sludgy grooves, melodic vocals and free-form jamming. As this tag suggests, these bands were often fuelled by illicit substances, particularly marijuana, LSD and magic mushrooms. Once Kyuss split up in 1996, Homme started hosting "The Desert Sessions", which became a creative hub for him and other Palm Desert musicians to write and instantly record countless songs. It was from these sessions that Homme put together the band's eponymously-titled debut album in 1998, a DIY job that was critically praised for evolving the Palm Desert sound. Having drafted in ex-Kyuss members on drums and bass, Homme's next step was to release "Rated R" in 2000, a sonically more experimental album that explored themes of addiction, overdosing, drug-induced paranoia and heavy comedowns. Despite controversy over the drug references, the album performed well critically and commercially, with lead single "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" charting highly in both the US and the UK and planting the seeds for success via their behemoth third album "Songs for the Deaf" two years later. On this episode, Tim and Ollie explore go on a bad trip and explore fear and loathing in Palm Desert to understand the making of Rated R.

1989 was not a good year for Paul "The Modfather" Weller. Having split up his second band The Style Council after being dropped from the label Polydor, he was found himself in the musical wilderness and had to restart all over again from scratch. Weller returned to his hometown Woking and rediscovered his love of 1960s R&B, creating headspace for him to write new material which he would then road-test on a painstaking tour of small clubs and venues around the UK. Releasing his first single "Into Tomorrow" in 1991, initially under the banner of "The Paul Weller Movement", it charted well enough for Go Discs! to offer him a record deal, allowing Weller to release his eponymously titled debut album as a solo artist the following year in 1992. Dropping the previously political lyrics of The Style Council years in favour of more personal themes and inflected with jazz tones influenced by the nascent Acid Jazz scene, this album would mark the beginning of the third, most enduring and arguably most successful phase of Weller's career. On this episode, Tim and Ollie explore the story behind this landmark album, get "on the jazz" and try to answer Weller's question: is our future far?

Ask anyone to name the first song that comes to mind when they think of Razorlight and they will probably say "America", their 2006 smash hit from their eponymous second album, released the same year. Not only would this prove to be both their creative and commercial peak, but it would also overshadow their earlier work from their debut album "Up All Night", released in 2004. Whilst nowadays when people think of Razorlight, it's their second album they remember most, it's easy to forget that their first album reached no.3 in the UK album chart, spawned four Top 40 singles (most notably "Golden Touch") and went four times platinum. Unlike the more polished and pop-driven sound of their second album, "Up All Night" was a raw effort that combined the sonic edge of The Strokes with the punk spirit of The Libertines. It may not be the record they're remembered for but it firmly planted them into the British indie rock scene of the early 2000s. On this episode, Tim and Ollie mark the beginning of Season 2 by exploring the band's origins from the "Dalston Set", their troubles in the studio, the explosion in their public profile and their difficulties touring in America.

Eagle-eyed listeners of the podcast may have noticed by now that most of the albums reviewed to date are also the third albums of each of the respective bands! While this might seem by design (and therefore the podcast should be renamed to the "The Third Album Podcast"!), in reality it's actually a happy coincidence and one that perhaps reflects the special place a third album has in the history of a band. Having happened upon this pattern, hosts Tim and Ollie therefore recorded this bonus episode to find the answer to the question: what's so special about the third album?