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Welcome to the Album Nerds podcast with your hosts, Andy, Don, and Dude.

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Parumpa pum pum.

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That's some drum.

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Alright, it's the Album Nerds podcast, I'm Dude.

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I got Don with me, Andy is still on safari,

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son of a bitch,

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searching for the perfect albums out there in the world.

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But Don's here, I guess we'll have to settle for that.

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How you doing, Don?

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Good, just my hair is clean.

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I just washed my hair with some Pert Plus.

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That's gonna be really hard for anyone at the top here to grasp.

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Hang on with us, folks.

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You'll get the joke in a few minutes.

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Alright, so this is the Album Nerds podcast.

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We love albums, the album format, talking about them,

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marinating in them, getting all delicious.

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But we've got a great show for you this week.

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We're each going to bring an album to the table to discuss that features,

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and this is a broad kind of definition, legendary drummers.

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Don will also be asking us a deep question.

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We're gonna have some shout outs to some albums and album related items we're digging.

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And then we're gonna spin that wheel of musical discovery to find out what we'll talk about next time.

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But this week, it's all about them Rumpa Pum Pums, bands and their drums.

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People have literally been playing drums for centuries.

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Drums made with alligator skins have been found in Neolithic cultures in China,

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possibly dating back to 5500 BC.

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Drums and percussion now play an important role in modern music,

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establishing rhythm, dynamics, atmosphere and melody.

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And some drummers are celebrated not only for their technical prowess

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and innovative techniques, but also for their contributions to the sound and styles of their bands.

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Today, both of us will present albums that showcase legendary drummers.

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And this is, this would be a very open topic where a lot of people could easily disagree on who are legendary,

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who belongs on the list.

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So we're going to try and go through some of those that we thought are,

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you know, most notable, let's just run through them a little bit.

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This was such a hard thing to decide on.

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It really was more about show dynamics and what might make interesting conversation than who's the best.

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Well, of course, John Bonham, legendary drummer of Led Zeppelin.

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You should check out Led Zeppelin 4 for a good taste of that.

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Stuart Copeland from the police.

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Check out Synchronicity, some kind of reggae vibe and new wave there.

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Phil Collins, he can go back to the days of Genesis with a trick of the tail.

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He'd also go into the 80s.

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Yeah, I think he gets forgotten about his great drumming because of the singing and the whole,

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you know, nice guy routine, but great drummer.

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Well, the most famous part of In the Air Tonight is the drums.

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Have you heard of Gene Krupa, was like a big jazz big band guy played with Benny Goodman?

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Didn't he steal the princess in Mario, Mario Brothers?

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Mario Brothers, no. That's, that's Koopa, I think.

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Ah, King Koopa, yes. Sorry.

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Yeah. My bad.

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But if you want to find, you know, some of his stuff, the jazz rhythms of Gene Krupa from 1955

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is pretty good. Have you heard of Ringo Starr?

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Yes.

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From a band called?

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Called?

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The Beatles.

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He's kind of actually an underrated drummer.

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I think he gets sort of dismissed because of the quote unquote simplicity, but it was what they

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needed.

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Yeah. Zach Starkey.

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Abbey Road, you know, in the end, the drum solo there.

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Richard Starkey.

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What did I say, Zach? Oh, that's a son of a bitch.

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Do you want to make me look like an idiot?

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You're not an idiot. It's okay.

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Okay. Steven Morris of Joy Division in New Order is known as the human drum machine.

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Sure.

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Yeah. That's how precise he is.

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If you want to hear some of him.

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They used the drum machine and just pretended.

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No, it sounds like that. Yeah. So check out Joy Division's Closer from 1980, their final album.

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And Clyde Stubbefield is the legendary funk drummer for James Brown. Actually, there's a song

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called Funky Drummer that's been sampled a bunch of times in the world of hip hop. Who else?

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Well, we got Keith Moon, explosive drumming for The Who. We recently talked about Who's Next,

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where he just goes ape shit. Jazz legend Buddy Rich, masterfully captured on the Roar in 1974

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with his own big band. Ginger Baker. I wanted to do a Blind Faith album potentially today.

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Influential blues rock, psychedelic rock drumming with Cream. Best exemplified probably on Disraeli

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Gears. Dave Grohl from Nirvana and Foo Fighters and a bunch of other projects. Obviously you can

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hear him on Nevermind. Tony Williams, who we talked about on the show. Jazz fusion drummer.

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Emergency is the album we talked about and I would recommend checking that out if you want to hear

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some great jazz rock fusion drumming. Good one. Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

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Three players in that band. Go check out Electric Ladyland. They make so many sounds with three

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people. Danny Carey from Tool. Lateralis. There was a lot of really great drumming on that album

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in the progressive metal space. And then Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater and other projects

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like the Winery Dogs and tons of other stuff. I wanted to do talk about his complex poly rhythms

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and everything like on Metropolis Part 2, Scenes from a Memory from 99 or any of the other Dream

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Theater albums, but it's so overwhelming. I feel so under qualified to talk about them because I'm

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not super familiar and I would piss a lot of people off if I said something wrong because

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their fans are a musicians band. Yes, their fans are as precise as they're playing. So yeah,

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there's so many more that we didn't talk about, but there's just so much recorded music.

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There's bound to be a lot of legendary drummers out there. So why don't we get to our picks

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and get this show on the road. You choo choo choose me. So my pick for a legendary drummer

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is Neil Pert of the band Rush. Born Neil. There's the shampoo joke. Yes, Pert. There it is.

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Sorry you had to wait so long for the punchline to make sense. Neil Elwood Pert was born in

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Hamilton, Ontario in 1952, joined Rush in 1974. He first appears on their second studio album,

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Fly By Night from 1975. Went with the album Moving Pictures from 1981. Here's the first cut

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of the album, Tom Sawyer. That's some rapid drumming. This is. So Tom Sawyer was developed

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from a poem by Pai Dubois, originally titled Lewis the Lawyer, Luis the Lawyer. Neil Pert,

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so the drummer is also the lyricist for the band, which is pretty cool. So Pert basically

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transformed the song into an anthem about individualism and rebellion,

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kind of drawing inspiration from the Mark Twain character, Tom Sawyer. Yeah, I mean,

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you're getting a taste of his drumming there. It's precise. It can be complex.

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They actually call him the professor because he's in corporate.

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Just like you. Yes.

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Pai Dubois.

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Is it Dubois?

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So fancy.

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So early in Pert's career, he was more just into hard rock. So he was inspired by the likes of

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Keith Moon and Ginger Baker and Bonham. But as time went by, he started to emulate jazz

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and big band musicians like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. I was watching some Rush documentary,

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I forgot the title of it, but Pert ended up becoming a pupil of this jazz instructor,

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Freddie Gruber. And he just started over with his drumming technique and it made him better.

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So however many years later, he was still trying to be better.

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You want to get some Neil Pert all up in you?

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Here's another cut. This is YYZ. Or in Canada, it would be YYZ, right?

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There you go. I was just about to correct you.

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Wow. It's like going a hundred kilometers an hour.

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I'm sorry. I don't know my kilometers at all. I don't know what a hundred is. It could be very

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slow. I'm not sure. YYZ is an instrumental piece. YYZ is actually the IATA Airport Identification

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Code of Toronto Pearson International Airport. When the range finder or whatever, it broadcasts

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in Morse code YYZ. So the song is actually in the time signature of that Morse code,

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which is just so... I wanted to pick this song because it's the drummiest,

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obviously it's instrumental. But I saw that fact about it and I was like, darn, it's going to take

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this. There's no question. But yeah, that's another cool thing about Neil Pert and Rush in general,

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is they tend to step away from the simple four, four time signatures and go all over the place.

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I think sometimes he's not even hitting on the beat, but it still works. Anyway, my clickbait

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headline for Moving Pictures is, a modern day drummer mean mean fills, rushes moving pictures,

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gives Don chills. I would prefer if you try to Getty Lee style.

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A modern day drummer mean mean fills, rushes moving pictures, gives Don chills.

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That's how you do it. There you go.

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Yeah. So just talking more about the album in general, it's a slow shift that was happening

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for Rush. They were moving away from the progressive rock and having shorter songs and just a more

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mainstream sound. But there's still a lot of progressive going on. So they really strike a

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balance on this and the album was a huge hit. And lyrically, it's not quite as goofy.

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Right. Well, it's not a concept album. It's thematic, right? The connections are the

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philosophical and introspective lyrics, but the Moving Pictures is like a collection of these

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distinct tracks. But they're all storytelling, largely. So there are little stories. So that's

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why I think Moving Pictures, where it's kind of these little films throughout the course of the

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album. This is probably my favorite Rush album, which makes me not truly a Rush fan most likely.

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But it's the one I enjoy the most just because it's got a lot of the elements I like, but not

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overdone as some progressive rock can be. Yeah. There's a lot of reasons to listen to it. So,

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I mean, you can just listen to it for Neil Peart's drumming, because it's incredible.

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However, Geddy Lee's bass playing, because those two things work together so well,

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not to discount Alex Lifeson's guitar work at all, but the interplay between the bass and the drums

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is amazing on so many of these tracks. I don't know. If you look at Neil Peart's lyrics,

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just on the page, they're kind of awkward, but Geddy Lee just has a way of delivering them.

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So they're sort of smooth. I don't know, all the lyrics to Limelight and stuff, they're not what

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you would normally find in a pop song. No. But it works and it's still catchy.

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All right. Well, let's hear some more. Here's Red Barketta.

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This song tells the story of a young man who visits his uncle's country home,

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and he discovers a hidden outlawed sports car. Like this is in the future or something, right?

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Yep. The thrill and freedom of speeding through the countryside, outmaneuvering futuristic vehicles.

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It's basically, in the late 70s, early 80s in movies and television, car chases were the thing.

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And this feels like the car chase scene in the movie.

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Isn't that how Rick Allen lost his arm? Oh, yes.

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Speaking of drummers.

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Of drummers, yes. Def Leppard's drummer, who continued to be an excellent percussionist

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after he lost his arm and now uses his feet in one arm. But this song, it really explores

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freedom, rebellion, nostalgia. But Neil Peart's drumming mirrors the narrative, the emotional arc,

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and enhances that to make it a more, I mean, on the surface, it's kind of like, yeah, how many

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times, little deuce coop, you know, how many times have we heard car songs, but there's something

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unique about the sound and the way they tell the story. My clickbait headline.

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Moving pictures, the ultimate soundtrack for your next existential crisis.

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I mean, there's all this human experience, personal freedoms, like we just talked about,

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introspection, navigating technology and evolving world. And they're not, like I said,

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they're not interconnected concept album wise, but they definitely tell stories and it's good stuff.

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This album, very enjoyable. And the drumming, obviously, this guy is legendary. Like I think

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indisputably legendary, not like genre specific legendary.

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Yeah. And you get the sense that he could play anything. I mean, he could play any genre. So,

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you know, just kind of going through the album highlights, you know, of course, Tom Sawyer

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and Limelight were the records that you'll hear on classic rock radio. I just, I love the guitar

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solo on Limelight and the camera eye is kind of more in that traditional progressive rock vein,

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10 minute long thing. Yeah. You got to do one on an album like this,

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for the progressive rock fans that they had, you know, you've got to have one epic on there.

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Yeah. Yeah. Like for me, one of the more interesting moments was actually at the end,

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Vital Signs. It blends reggae rhythms with rock and electronic elements, which to me is very

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reminiscent of The Police, which kind of came around this time. But it sounded police-ish to

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me because I'm probably more familiar with The Police than I am Rush. Great closing song. I never

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really hear anyone talk about that one. No. You know, did you know that Getty Lee's name is Gary

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Lee, wine rib, and that Getty is his nickname because his grandma had a Yiddish accent and it

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sounded like Getty? Getty. It's like Lou Getty. And it stuck. Yeah. Nice. All right. Well,

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I think this is a great record. We already have a Rush representative in the Album Nerds Hall of

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Fame, 2112, but I'm going to nominate this one. This album has everything, so it still has that

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like progressive, you know, nonsense that I like as great musicianship, but it's also, I mean,

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it's pretty tight. It's still basically three or four instruments, you know? So it's, yeah, it's

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just a classic album. So definitely belongs in the Album Nerds Hall of Fame. What do you think, dude?

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I'd say yes as well is the example of, you know, kind of that crossover, like you mentioned,

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album where it steps more into the limelight of hard rock rather than progressive rock. And

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they balance it really well. And there's legendary songs on here, legendary drumming, legendary bass

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and guitar playing. So yeah, I'd say absolutely. Okay. Well, so I guess we'll have to wait for

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Andy's vote and the audience's vote. But, you know, for now, Rush Moving Pictures is off to a great

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start. Check it out. It's great balance of progressive and modern rock with stellar musicianship from 1981.

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Rush's Motion Pictures. All right. Before we answer Don's deep question, let's hear from our

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friends over at the Worst Podcast on Mars. I'm Amanda and that's Evan. Say hi, Evan. Hi, Evan.

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And we're the hosts of the Worst Podcast on Mars. This is the podcast that talks music. And on

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Fridays, we work our way through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of 200 definitive albums.

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I do a bunch of research trying to figure out why it's on this list. And on Tuesdays, we do smaller

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episodes that are not part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list. And Evan, well, he just literally

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shows up. So if that's what you're into, please find us on Apple Music or Spotify. But not Mars.

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Yeah. But not Mars. Wow. Two shows a week. Yeah. Wish we had that kind of energy. All right. Question

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time. Excuse me. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Now it's the time on the show where I

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ask a deep question. When we first talked about legendary drummers, the first one I thought of

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was Animal from the Muppets. Yeah, I thought of that too. So I started thinking about some of the

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fictional bands and artists out there. So what are some legendary fictional artists?

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Animal drum? Yeah. So there's so many and I probably forgot a bunch, but there's the Wonders.

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The O'neaters. That's the Wonders.

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From that thing you do, which we reference all the time, Don and I anyway. Eddie and the Cruisers.

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Which are an interesting one though, because they had a real band. John Cafferty and the Beaver

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Brown band made all the music for it. So that band had hits for the first time, kind of a Bruce

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Springsteen-y deal, but it was attributed to this fictional band in the movie that unfortunately is

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not the best movie. There's Steel Dragon from Rockstar. And again, the art singing that stuff

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didn't get total credit. But the cavemen on Flintstones, they sang, we're going to rock all

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day. We're going to rock all night. We're the cavemen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That was

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made in the sixties. So I think that was like a Beatles riff, but yeah, just a lot of fun stuff

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like that. Gemini holograms that we brought up on our last episode more than once. We've definitely

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mentioned the Brady Six and the Silver Platters a bunch of times. Right. The Brady kids put out

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actual albums. That's true. They're real. Just like the Monkeys. Yep. Yeah, that's true. The

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Monkeys were made in a laboratory, but then became reality. Good band too. So I mean, I think the

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rock and roll answer is Spinal Tap. Of course. Yes. It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.

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But a related group from the movie, A Mighty Wind, right? It's kind of like a Spinal Tap,

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but it's in the world of folk music. It's really a fun movie, but the same guys from Spinal Tap are

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in this group called the Folksmen, which is pretty good. Oh yeah. You mentioned the Flintstones. Do

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you remember in the Jetsons, there was like an Elvis type character named Jet Screamer. Yeah,

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Judy was like a big fan. Eep op ork ah ah. That's it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. What does Eep op ork

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ah ah mean? I love you. That's right. That means I love you. Okay. Well, what fictional artists do

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you enjoy? Let us know. Hit us up on Instagram, Facebook and threads, or leave a comment on our

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website, AlbumNerds.com. And don't forget to tell the special people in your life, Eep op ork ah ah.

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I went a little bit off the beaten path, get it? Drums beating. And a band that, you know,

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this is going to be more genre specific in the legendary status of the drummer. I went with

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Slipknot and their 2004 album, Volume 3, The Subliminal Verses. Slipknot formed in Des Moines,

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Iowa in 1995. So rock and roll hotbed. Yeah. My neck of the woods. They're known for their

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distinctive image with the masks and the jumpsuits and which I think did detract from the music,

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at least for me at the time. I'm like, these guys are clowns. One of them actually does wear a clown

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mask, but I didn't even give them much of a shot. They've had a lot of lineup changes. There's a

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lot of guys on this album. Corey Taylor on vocals, Mick Thompson, Sean Crayanne, Craig Jones,

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Jim Root, Chris Venn, Paul Gray, Joey Jordison, Sid Wilson. But Joey Jordison's who we're going

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to be talking about today. They released their first album in 1999, self-titled. Iowa was the

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follow-up. Very heavy. The drumming on it is incredible, but it is not very accessible for a

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listening experience for an hour. It is brutality. So that's why we went with Volume 3. So why don't

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we jump in and listen to a little bit of the big hit of this Rick Rubin produced album, Duality.

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So that was the lead single of the album. Themes of, well, self-inflicted pain

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as a form of defiance and control. Corey Taylor himself said that the message is kind of about

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struggling on making difficult decisions and using that metaphor of this persistent headache.

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The drumming, double bass patterns, dynamic fills, drives the song's relentless energy and

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that rapid footwork and precise rhythms are really what makes the drumming on this fun to listen to.

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Joey Jordison will briefly get into it. Nathan Jonas Jordison, powerhouse drummer. He died in

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2021, unfortunately, but has that high energy approach, extreme metal punk and hard rock all

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blended into one blast beats, double bass drumming, complex poly rhythms, pushing boundaries.

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And when I first heard Slipknot, that was the first thing I noticed was the percussion.

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Just being out of control. Some of his influences are Dave Lombardo from Slayer,

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Lars Ulrich from Metallica, John Bonham from Led Zeppelin, Vinnie Paul from Pantera. I guess he

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also listened to some jazz drummers like Buddy Rich, but Don, new to the knot?

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Yeah. I mean, I've heard of them. I remember the song Wait and Bleed. I remember seeing the video

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and the masks and stuff, but I didn't pay much attention to them. I also, I remember Stone Sour,

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which was Corey Taylor's other project. But yeah, this is the first one I've listened to all the

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way. And yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, it was still a bit long. I mean, it was about 60

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minutes and it is very intense, so it can be a bit much, but yeah, it was, they changed it up a lot.

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There was a lot of melody on this record, which was kind of surprising to me. And I think that's

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kind of what this album is known for is sort of a movement in that direction.

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You can only do the same thing for so long. And it's hard when you're a band that tours

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relentlessly and then you're recording an album and expectations are high and you don't want to

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do the same thing over and over again. So with that in mind, why don't we jump into Three Nill,

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which I think probably leans more into the angry side of things and the less acoustic,

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which we do get some of that on the album as well. But let's listen to Three Nill.

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I love the drums on this one. I mean, I do think that there's some legendary drumming on this

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record. Three Nill's a term for an embarrassing defeat, reflects its themes in the intense

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lyrics about public humiliation and defiance. Right, because in football, right, if you lose

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Three Nill, you suck. That's right. The lyrics express frustration with being the subject of

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ridicule. There's lines like, I'm sick of being the butt of a cosmic joke and I don't get the punch

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line. Kind of like the Neil Peart joke at the top of the show. And it's just very aggressive track

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and Joey Jordison's rapid drumming and fills and snare hits help drive that energy. My clickbait

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headline, Slipknot's Volume Three is the perfect storm of intense heavy metal and unexpected

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melodic butality. That's my word. Butality. You should coin that because I don't know.

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Somebody's going to use that. You know, the album as a whole with the melody that they work in.

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And I think some of the more alternative sensibilities of Stone Sour kind of get worked

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in here. And there are beautiful moments and there's more clean singing. And for me, this was the

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entry point. The first two albums, I liked Iowa, but it was just a little too much for me at that

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juncture of my life. And this was, you get a few breathers, you know? And I like that. It's a

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pivotal album in the discography and Joey's drumming does not disappoint. All right, so why

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don't we move on to the next track? Let's check out The Nameless.

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I thought for sure you'd go for one of the more ballad-y songs. You would think that, but I do

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think maybe what I enjoyed most about the album was the thrash. And I guess I've- Don, what's

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happened to you? What is this? I've slowly acquired a taste for the thrash. But that song actually,

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so The Nameless, it mixes those thrash elements. There are some more emotive and quiet parts of

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just that track. But the album as a whole does that a lot. There's a lot of the loud and then

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soft, kind of like System of a Down does, that kind of thing. Who also Rick Rubin produced,

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I believe he worked with them as well. But yeah, The Nameless features lyrics

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about control, obsession, and duality again within relationships. Yeah, I think Corey Taylor's a

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pretty good metal vocalist. Yeah, I agree. He's got some range and he's got the raw, but he also

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has the nice melodic. Yeah. I mean, I'm a metal fan, but this is the kind of vocal I like. I like

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that mix of clean singing and then hard- It doesn't need to be a sing song, clean singing,

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but when it's just growling for an hour, that's the metal that I have a hard time getting into,

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which is a lot of what's going on now. That's what Andy often brings to us.

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Yes. What do you call that stuff? The not grind core or something or what is that? I can't remember.

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I call it Cookie Monster singing, but- Cookie Monster.

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So my headline for volume three, the subliminal verses is Jordison drive slipknot through new

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metal magic. New metal. Yeah. I'm not sure if they, I mean, I guess they belong in that category,

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sort of just the time period, but- The time period, I guess. And then they also did have the DJ.

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There are scratch sounds and stuff, but I like how little it's just part of the percussion.

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There's not a moment where Corey Taylor's like, kick it DJ so and so. It's not in that vein. It's

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just part of the noise. And I like that. Yeah. I mean, I want to say more about Jordison,

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but I do find it hard to talk about drumming just because it's probably the instrument I

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know the least. It was actually funny listening to some of the tracks. Sometimes the drum is hard

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to pick out because everything's in unison. So like the power chord and the bass, it's all,

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but it's all just so fast. But then you get the fills and that's all you get. Oh, there is.

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Yeah. Yeah. And he's amazing. But I mean, the whole album is intense. Even the choir at a

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moment still have that intensity. And I think that's why it works. They're not just thrown

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in power ballads or something. They fit with the mood of the album. Yeah. It's not Gary

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Charone and Nuno Bettencourt sitting with acoustic guitars singing more than words.

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Yeah. And there's good, so beyond the drumming, I think the guitar work is good. So I guess it's

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Mick Thompson. Is he like number eight? They're one of those groups that like numbers their people.

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Didn't like De La Soul do that or somebody? Yeah. They had the plug one, plug two, plug three.

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Yeah. Cause it was which plug on the soundboard were they. So they were, you know, the guy that

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the microphone one was plug one. That's how they got their nicknames. Which track am I when you,

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when you edit the podcast? You are three. Here, plug three. But anyway, so Thompson and Root,

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you know, they seem to play well together. So love the guitar and the lyrics are really good.

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You know, Before I Forget has some, some cool lyrics, kind of like Limelight. It's their,

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it's their version of, of Rush's Limelight, you know, dealing with, you know, pressure and fame.

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They won a Grammy for that song. Yeah. Nice. And then, you know, kind of, I don't know if they're

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sort of anchors of the album, but Vermillion and Vermillion part two. I enjoy those. Yeah. So that's,

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I don't know, kind of like obsession kind of stuff. Yeah. Being obsessed with somebody. And then I

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think in part two, it's the realization that you're not getting that person. Yeah. It's very brooding.

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Yeah. So there's definitely disappointment, angst, anger beneath it. It's not like girl,

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you know, I love the smell of your hair. It's not, it's not that kind of thing. Yeah. A couple of

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the album highlights for me were Circle, which does have some acoustic moments. Yeah. It's haunting

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kind of, and it's an inner turmoil, cyclical nature of life. But then it gets pretty heavy.

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I like that. I like it when a song goes back and forth. And the song I almost picked to highlight

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drumming is The Blister Exists, which is just a great gruesome name for a song, but lots of

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rapid double bass patterns and just so much energy. So yeah, I think they deliver a great metal album

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here. And I know it's, you know, for Slipknot fans, it's a divisive one, whether or not it's,

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you know, because it was the sellout album where they changed their sound. But I think it's to

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their benefit. I think it's why they're still around, honestly, if they hadn't made that turn

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and worked with Rick Rubin in The Mansion, where they recorded this same place as Red Hot Chili

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Peppers and a lot of other bands. This album stands as a defining moment for Slipknot. It blends that

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relentless aggression with the melody and Jordison's drumming is central to that. And his drumming is

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not just a cornerstone of the album, but a key element in its enduring sound and legacy. And

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I can't believe how long ago it is that that came out. 20 years. Yeah. So check out volume three,

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The Subliminal Verses by Slipknot, whether you've heard it before or you're not, you know, you've

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never really listened to Slipknot. I think it's probably a good entry point. And then you can go

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back and break your neck banging your head. So check it out. Can you dig it? Can you dig it?

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Okay. So we've been, you know, living in the world of drumming and drummers, but, you know,

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did you have a chance to dig anything else this week? Yes, I did. And it was pretty easy because

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I kind of mentioned it last week. Fontaine's DC came out with a new album on August 23rd.

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They're Irish post-punk band, energetic sound, poetic lyrics formed in Dublin in 2014. We have

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talked about them on the show. Why don't we check out a little bit of the track favorites.

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Little Curie for Diana. I feel like we could really bond over this record.

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I think we could. We could just let's launch a zoom, stare into each other's eyes and listen

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to it together. Yeah. So a little bit different than what I had been soaking myself in the blood

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of Slipknot for the week. So I needed a little break and this was perfect for me in that case.

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And the album explores futuristic dystopian themes based on Japanese manga, Italian cinema,

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and films like phenomena, phenomena, phenomena, phenomena, phenomena, phenomena.

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Do you have more Muppets? Yes. But they've widespread critical

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acclaim for the album so far in their sonic evolution. So go check out Fontaine's DC. Have

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you listened to that one yet, Don? I listened to like the single or the first couple of songs

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that were released before the album, but I haven't had a chance to check out the whole thing yet, but

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I'm ready for it. Next up, I like to do a vinyl record on one of these picks here. And it's one

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I grabbed in the spring of this year and haven't talked about it yet. It's a limited edition reissue,

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remastered, repress in the color yellow, 180 gram of Automatic for the People by REM.

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Here's a little bit of drive. Again, another break from Slipknot and even from Rush.

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Yeah, this album was originally released in 92, melancholic, introspective, themes of loss,

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nostalgia, societal change. It's kind of an orchestral and songs like Everybody Hurts a Man

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on the Moon are the ones I think are remembered the most. Yeah, my favorite is actually the closing

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cut, Find the River, just a really beautiful song. Yeah, it was nice, kind of licking my wounds and

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listening to those two albums. What about you? What you been digging? I mentioned it months ago,

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but it's finally come out, the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds called Wild God.

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This is the opening cut, Song of the Lake.

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Once again, I'm being serenaded by Count Dracula.

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So this is their 18th studio album and typical, particularly of the last few records, themes of

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grief, redemption and joy. There is some uplifting stuff on here. So, it's not all just sad and

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depressing, but he's really been on a great run. I mean, I really feel like his last four or five

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albums have been really great and this one's really good. I had not listened to it yet. I'll

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check that out this week. Nice. And another one, this was brought to my attention listening to the

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Broken Record podcast. Hundred Watt Heart is basically a side project for the guy that's

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been the lead guitarist for the Roots since the early 2000s, Kirk Douglas.

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Michael Douglas' dad? Yeah, I think he's actually, is it Kirk Douglas? Oh, it's Captain Kirk Douglas,

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I think is how he goes. Yeah. But anyway, so an album, this goes, actually it's from 2022

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called New Unknown. Sounds pleasant. Yeah. It's got a cool mood and vibe to it that I like.

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Sometimes my brain is weird and these odd images or phrases come into my head and I haven't heard

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this at all, but I was going to say it sounds like brushing your hair music. I don't know what that

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means, but that's what popped up in my head. I could see that. I don't have hair. Anyway,

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well hopefully soon we'll find out what Andy's been digging, but let us know what you're digging.

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Join us on the socials, Facebook, Instagram and threads. Also on our website, albumnerds.com.

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It will be a discovery of extraordinary value.

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Well, it's about time on the show when I'm reminded of the great Walt Whitman who said,

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beat, beat drums, blow, bugles, blow through the windows, through the doors,

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burst like a ruthless force. That was kind of Christopher Walken issue.

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With that in mind, let's bring out my friend and yours,

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the Will of Musical Discovery and see what we'll be discovering next time.

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Sometimes bands break up, artists retire or tragically pass away and the final album that

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they recorded can take on even more meaning. Next time you will be exploring those final albums.

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Choose carefully. Final albums. Yeah, so a lot to think about there.

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We're probably going to be getting into some classic album territory, probably some well-known.

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Hopefully it won't be our final episode.

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Who did the best final album ever? What else are you listening to?

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Leave a comment on our website or email us at podcast at albumnerds.com. You can follow us on

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Facebook, Instagram and threads at Album Nerds. Also, please subscribe, rate and review on your

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favorite podcast app. If you want to support the show, you can do so via PayPal at albumnerds.com

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slash support. Thank you so much for joining us on the Album Nerds podcast. We'll catch you next time

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with some final albums. It's the final albums. A Monday warrior, mean, mean strides. I push my

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fingers into my eyes. That's a mashup. All right. See y'all.