Welcome to the album nerds podcast with your hosts, Andy, Don and dude.
Actually, it's the album haters podcast.
Cause we're doing a career realignment here.
Yeah.
From love to hate.
Redefine the whole thing.
I'm just kidding.
This is the album nerds podcast.
I'm dude.
I got Andy and Don with me.
Andy, how you doing?
How's life?
Doing good, man.
You know, ready to turn over a new leaf.
It's a fresh day on the album nerds podcast.
Already?
The year just started.
You got to start over again.
Oh, you know, it's been a long year so far.
How you doing over there, Don?
Yeah, I'm really sick of Pink Floyd.
Yeah.
Wow.
Man, that would be nice.
You'd have to glom onto some other classic rock band.
Maybe Rush.
I think Rush would work for you.
So yeah, this is the album nerds podcast.
We love albums and the album format and talking about the damn things.
We have a great show for you today.
We're each going to be presenting a career redefining album.
We'll get into that in a bit.
Don's going to be asking us a deep question.
We're going to have some shout outs to some other albums and album related
items that we're digging.
And then of course we'll spin that wheel of musical discovery to find out what
we'll be talking about next time.
This week, it's all about that career redefined.
That's what I'm talking about.
Throughout music history, certain albums have emerged as pivotal moments that
redefined artists careers and sometimes entire genres.
These groundbreaking records often mark a significant shift in an artist's sound,
style, or public perception, propelling them to new heights of success or
artistic achievement.
Today, each of us will present an album that was career redefining.
So this happens, right?
Artists either change bands, change sounds, get sick of doing the same old
thing, maybe it just hasn't been working yet and they change things up or it's a
comeback.
So some kind of easy examples, John Fogerty's center field from 1985, after
all that fighting with a Creedence Clearwater revival and losing publishing
rights to his songs came out with a comeback album that did very well.
Radiohead's Kid A, which just pretty much blew everything up, changed what people
thought of as listenable alternative rock, you know, and Taylor Swift's 1989.
I think that was sort of solidified her transition to a full on pop artist.
Yeah.
So other than those kind of obvious high profile things, what other albums did you
guys think about before making your final choice?
Well, the one I almost went with, but we had talked about it in the past episode.
Yeah, I love this one.
Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation from 1987.
So it's kind of their return to form after a couple misses there during the
mid eighties for Mr. Aerosmith, Mr. Aerosmith.
That's my move.
Yeah.
Johnny, Johnny Smith.
Yeah.
I just had like, dude looks like a lady on it, Angel, Ragdoll.
I mean, a lot of, a lot of big hits, but just a really solid, solid record and
saw them kind of rise to fame there in the, in the early nineties.
I got kind of reinvigorated.
How about you, Don?
What did you find?
One of the first one that popped in my head was, was Johnny Cash.
So in 1994, he did American Recordings.
It was called with Rick Rubin.
And this really was kind of career redefining for him.
I don't know if you ever listened to like his eighties output, it's very uneven
and it gets a bit hokey, you know, lots of like patriotic things in there and stuff
like that.
And I think Rick Rubin sort of brought him back to sort of that, that dark
character, that bad ass.
The man in black.
Yeah.
And so, I mean, the music was very stripped down, mostly just guitar and his voice.
And it was just really well done.
And he ended up doing a few more of those with Rick Rubin before he passed.
Yeah.
My first thoughts were to some live albums from the seventies.
And I know that kind of, is that an album?
Isn't it?
Is it the greatest hits?
Isn't it?
So I veered away, but Peter Frampton's, Frampton comes alive from 1976.
He had been in Humble Pie, a band for those who haven't heard of it from the seventies.
And he had like three or four solo albums that just went nowhere and, but had, had
some following.
So he did this live recording as a double album and Show Me the Way, Baby, I Love Your
Way were two of the big hits off of it.
But just the, the performances were so much more interesting than the recorded versions.
It took off and it completely redefined his career and gave him a huge spotlight for a
short time.
And then after that, all of the studio albums kind of went, well, but that's, that's not
what I went with.
Why don't we get into our actual choo choo choo choices.
You choo choo choose me?
All right.
For my career redefining album selection, we're talking about Beck and his 1996 album,
Odelay.
It's the fifth studio album for the experimental folk artist from Los Angeles, California,
born as Beck David Campbell.
Let's play a little bit from, this is the second single, the lead cut, Devil's Haircut.
Quick question guys, in your mind, what is a devil's haircut?
I'll go first.
Bull cut.
I was thinking the flock of seagulls guy.
I was thinking like the Prodigy guy with the two big horns.
Yeah.
I think a bull cut is the devil's haircut.
He designed that to make people look terrible.
Are you serious?
Like it was a curse.
You sold your soul for this.
All right.
So Odelay, it's a pretty stark shift in sound from Beck's previous album, Mellow Gold,
which had the hit Loser on it.
If you guys recall that song was kind of popular in college radio.
Get crazy with the cheese whiz.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
Cheese whiz.
Yes.
This album went much more of an avant-garde sort of direction and much more of a focus on hip hop.
Thanks in large part to production by the Dust Brothers.
Yeah.
And it really served as a kind of a breakout point for him commercially.
It became pretty popular on the radios and award shows for the next few years here.
My clickbait headline for Beck's Odelay is dystopian space poet Hanson is ready for primetime
after spending his time in the Dust Brothers boutique.
Yeah.
I mean, at the time I remember hearing these cuts on the radios or as the singles were being released.
And I just felt exciting and kind of revolutionary to me as a young kid.
You know, I wasn't exposed to a whole lot of hip hop or electronic music at the time,
especially on the radio.
Wasn't that prevalent?
And this was really mixing that with, you know, rock alternative sound that I was familiar with.
And yeah, I did have kind of like a goofy personality too, or it is just kind of weird and strange.
But as a kid, I thought this was great.
And coming back to it, I was really surprised how well it hold up.
And it was still pretty interesting and kind of adventurous listening, I guess I would say.
Yeah.
I mean, so the sort of excitement, the energy that turntablists and DJs bring and sampling brings, right?
And particularly in this case, because the production by the Dust Brothers who at the time
were probably best known for their work on the Beastie Boys, Paul's boutique, which is just loaded
with energy and we did talk about that album not too long ago on the show.
Then you apply the 90s slacker mentality to it, which I think is what Beck brings.
I kind of like, oh, whatever.
I don't care.
You know, kind of vibe to this energetic sound.
It's sort of a weird mix.
It is a weird mix.
Yeah, Beck is like kind of a weird anomaly.
Like he seems like a nerdy little dude, kind of like a dweeb who does seem kind of
disinterested in his own music, but then he puts out this like really bizarre, creative stuff
that doesn't seem at all related to who he is as a person.
Hipster.
Yeah.
Let's hear another cut from the record.
This one is later on.
It's kind of one of the more folky tracks that kind of ties back to his roots called Ramshackle.
So that's the final cut on the album.
It was actually originally recorded during some previous sessions he had done with
producers, Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf.
Rothrock of Schnapf.
It's the Bond brothers, right?
Yes.
I think they are.
The Bond something or other.
Yeah.
But anyway, those sessions were abandoned once Beck decided to work with the Dust
Brothers, but this is a track that ended up on the album, obviously, very different.
So there's no sampling on that.
Just Beck's guitar, bass by Charlie Hayden and percussion by Joey Warinker.
The song was initially titled Marty Robbins as a tribute to the country music legend.
Just kind of shows you Beck's kind of diverse influences.
But it's more of that kind of like 90s hipster salvation army shopping.
Oh, okay.
I know what you mean.
Man, bitter grunge dude here just can't deal with this mid 90s rock.
No, it was the vibe at the time, this sort of secondhand store vibe within pop culture.
That was like the next step after the grunge thing.
Yeah.
It became cool to celebrate square things.
Yeah.
It was a weird time.
The lyrics are about a downtrodden character who perseveres in the face of hardship.
Anyway, my clickbait headline for Odellay is Turntables Meet Flannel on Enigmatic Mid 90s Gem.
So I mean, dude already kind of made this point.
I think it was sort of the mixing of that alternative rock vibe with Turntables,
with sort of the DJ attitude.
Thinking about it now, I wonder to what extent this might have influenced kind of that new metal,
because you're taking rock and it's like we now have permission to use turntables and to scratch with rock and roll.
Play them on Dust Brothers.
Yeah.
And some of the songs to me do sound like they could belong on Paul's boutique,
although I mean, his rapping style is different.
But I do think there's a lot more Beck on this than Dust Brothers.
I think the Dust Brothers sort of probably re-energized him or kind of,
I would say inspired him to explore new sounds.
But those like fuzzy lead guitar lines are sort of mixed throughout the album.
It's very Beckish.
Yeah, it's a very, it's a signature Beck move, I think.
All right, why don't we play another cut from the record here.
This was the lead single.
It's called Where It's At.
That was a good drum break.
Yeah, a genre bending anthem of sorts, paying homage to the two turntables and a microphone
sort of talk of early hip hop and b-boy culture of the 80s.
And also it included some samples from some educational film from the 70s called Sex for Teens.
But that that Warlitzer riff is Beck's.
Kind of bridged that loser sound with the
sounds of Odellay. I think that's probably why it was the lead single.
And that was a good drum break sample comes from 1989 song by The Frogs called I Don't Care
If You Disrespect Me Just So You Love Me.
I love that title.
Do we know where Let's Make It Out Baby comes from?
Is that from that educational video?
Could be, I don't know.
I can only find what I could find.
My clickbait is a little bit more
I can only find what I could find. My clickbait headline to describe the album.
Odellay turns a lo-fi loser into an alt rock nerd god with a little help from the Dust Brothers.
Y'all.
Yeah, G-A-W-D.
I don't want to be sacrilegious up in here.
So this transformed him from a one hit wonder, which is really the trajectory I think most people thought he was on
to a superstar, really.
I mean, kind of a tastemaker in music after that.
It's like a buffet of sounds.
Sometimes golden corral, others old country buffet, but mostly ponderosa.
Is ponderosa the high end of that scale or the low end of it?
I think it's the lowest of the...
The blandest.
And that's kind of like, yes, there's some fun stuff here, but it's not unenjoyable.
I do like it.
It's just, it doesn't elicit much emotion in me.
And I don't know if it's supposed, maybe it's not supposed to.
Did you feel things from this or was it just more of performative, like watching an installation of an art project?
Yeah, I mean, it's...
I mean, because it's so groove based, I guess.
So I just end up wiggling my head and tapping my feet.
Yeah, I mean, that last song, the Ram Shackle, I guess moved me a bit.
But I think you have a good point.
But yeah, Ram Shackle and then probably my favorite track on the album is Jackass.
And the B-side, the acoustic version, Strange Invitation, I always liked that song quite a bit.
And that felt a little more coherent, a little more connected to emotion.
I like those moments.
I wish there were more of those moments on this record, I guess.
Yeah, so I wouldn't say that I love it or hate it.
I'm just kind of agnostic on it, if that makes any sense.
It's...
I'm sort of on the fence.
After all these years, I still don't know what to make of Beck.
It's interesting that he went on to create some very, I would say, poignant folk rock records.
Those I enjoy.
Within 10 years or so.
Whereas this does feel kind of more impersonal.
I would agree it's a little more...
Like looking at a piece of art, I think is a good analogy.
Not that art can't be personal, but this does feel like maybe it's something a little more alien than a lot of his other art.
Yeah, I think comparing this to Paul's boutique a little bit,
which does have these big personalities and these big sound.
This has a big sound and I like it back as being more like the anchor that kind of holds this record steady.
His voice, I guess, in terms of the mix.
Yeah.
It's kind of dry.
There's not a lot of flavor to his voice.
It's very consistent.
And I think that works pretty well when you have so much going on around him in a kind of a messy way.
Yeah, I think it's a different kind of concoction than we've had in the past.
And I think it's for that, it's pretty interesting.
And yeah, I still enjoy it quite a bit today.
You haven't heard of Ode to Lay.
Definitely worth a listen, I think, in my opinion.
Yeah, available on all the usual streaming platforms.
Before we continue our journey through career redefinition,
why don't we hear from our friends over at the Six Picks Music Club?
Hey there, I'm Dave.
And I host Six Picks Music Club with my two buddies, Jeff Rowe and Russ.
We talk about six songs on a playlist that meet a theme to a topic that we've already decided on.
Just real quick, do you meet themes?
Do you meet them?
OK, no, I don't know.
I guess that what's the...
Russ, can I get a ruling on the verbal phrase, meet the theme?
Jeff, I don't know.
I'm not fluent in the spoken word.
People just don't say meet the theme.
They say fit a theme.
And every week we talk about six songs that fit a theme.
All right. OK, fit a theme.
Guys, we're going to have to re-record this.
Ah, f*** my d***.
OK, and Dave, don't forget, it's Six Picks Music Club, not your dark web pod,
Sex Picks Booty Grub.
Boy.
Yeah, so go check out the Six Picks Music Club.
So for my career redefining album, we're going back to March 1969
to Dusty in Memphis by Dusty Springfield.
Dusty in Memphis.
So this is the fifth studio album by the English singer,
born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien.
I can see why she...
Shortened it.
Yeah.
Born in 1939.
So she already had a successful career as a pop singer,
having some pretty major hits.
But she signed with Atlantic Records, who was Aretha Franklin's label.
She really was interested in kind of reinvigorating her career
and kind of boost her credibility as a soul singer.
She ended up working with Jerry Wexler, R.F.
Martin, Tom Dowd and conductor Jean Orloff on this record
recorded in Sound Studios in Memphis.
Let's hear probably the most famous cut.
This is Son of a Preacher Man.
Sounds really familiar.
I've heard that recently.
Yeah.
So we did talk about that on our soundtracks episode,
because of course it appears in Pulp Fiction.
Son of a Preacher Man was written and composed
by American songwriters John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins.
And they had Aretha Franklin in mind.
But I never trust these things.
Supposedly Franklin turned it down
because she believed it was disrespectful to her father,
who was a preacher.
Oh.
Yeah.
OK.
Anyway, my clickbait headline for Dusty in Memphis is,
British pop queen goes walking in Memphis.
Walking in Memphis.
Yeah, so I guess Wexler and Springfield's idea for the album
was to record kind of more pop compositions,
but with that sort of southern soul rhythmic feel.
I think it was a successful venture.
It's kind of funny, though.
Actually, most of her vocals actually
came from a session in New York, not from this famous Memphis
studio.
I've heard that, too.
Yeah, but she got the feel of Memphis.
And she did end up using the sound studio musicians.
The Memphis Boys had worked with Wilson Pickett and Bobby
Womack and King Curtis.
And the backing vocals you hear are
from The Sweet Inspirations.
Well, let's hear some more.
This is Windmills of Your Mind.
Let's walk along the shore and leave their footprints
in the sand.
Is the sound of distant dreams?
So yeah, a haunting song about inner turmoil,
when those being used as metaphors
for uncontrolled thoughts.
And the lyrics kind of evoke feelings
of being trapped in these obsessive loops.
It was originally written for the Thomas Crown
Affair movie soundtrack.
And I won an Academy Award.
And then Jerry Wexler wanted Dusty to record it
for her album.
But she didn't really want to originally.
But she was kind of talked into it.
And it did end up charting on the Billboard charts.
So she didn't sing this originally, then?
No.
It was sung by Noel Harrison for the Thomas Crown Affair.
Really?
Me clickbait headline to describe the album.
Matey.
The original heartbreak queen who taught Adele
how to make you feel every word.
Soulful, folksy, and sadly sensual.
We got a British lady who goes to America to record
and learns how to find her soul and use the blues,
similar to what we talked about with Adele before.
It's the Adele story.
I thought of this being the Adele 1.0.
I kind of feel like she's very similar in that.
I mean, their voices obviously are different.
But I think it was unusual at the time for a British lady
to be a soul singer in America.
And it was kind of unusual when Adele broke, too.
So.
Even the look is similar, with the big eyelashes
and the blonde.
It's a very pleasant album.
Lots of swelling strings and lilting voice.
Very emotionally charged.
So kind of a bit of a palate cleanser
after the high energy, low energy mix of Beck's album.
So just more steady.
There are no surprises here.
And that's sometimes kind of nice.
Well, let's hear some more.
Breakfast in Bed.
Breakfast in bed.
You don't have to say I love you.
That's like borderline naughty.
It is.
This whole record is like a little bit borderline.
Yeah.
I kind of like it.
That song was written by Eddie Hinton and Danny Fritz.
Features the line we heard there.
You don't have to say you love me.
Which was a reference to one of Dusty's hits
a few years prior of the same name.
My clickbait headline for Dusty at Memphis
is Dusty Sounds Right at Home in this soulful and sultry
classic.
Sultry.
How is the price?
It's kind of sexy, this record is.
Both in terms of her delivery and also
in terms of the subject matter, which is largely focused
on love.
But I would say the more physical side of that
relationship or that connection with people.
Yeah, I remember the line when she's like,
I'm like a beast.
Remember that?
It was surprising to listen to.
But speaking of that, I think it's
the right kind of sexuality.
I think she's empowered.
She's not objectifying herself.
Right.
No, yeah.
Yeah, it's very much on her terms, I would say.
So I guess the record as a whole definitely
has some gospel roots.
I think it's much more prevalent on a handful of tracks here.
Actually, the two that we've featured so far,
Preacher Man and Breakfast in Bed.
A lot of the album has the kind of this,
I used to say, more of traditional 60s pop
orchestral accompaniment, right?
Yeah, I mean, Windmills probably fits that bill.
Yeah.
That sound to me is just, I don't know,
it just sounds so just kind of blah, kind of beige,
just kind of filler in the background.
Doesn't really speak to me a lot in terms of the emotion.
But thankfully, you have her voice, which does handle
all that heavy lifting.
Yeah, I mean, Windmills, I like that track a lot.
But I didn't really feel it fit into the album as well
as maybe as the rest of the songs here did.
In terms of having that soul aspect to it,
it felt a little more poppy.
But yeah, as a whole, I did really enjoy this.
It was really the first time I've
listened to her in any length.
And yeah, a really great voice and so much personality in it.
And I really enjoyed it.
OK, so Dusty in Memphis made Dusty Springfield a soul legend.
Check it out.
Excuse me, I'd like to ask you a few questions.
It's time for Deep Questions by Dom.
We're going to redefine this question segment.
Redefine Deep Questions.
Well, so outside the world of music,
what other people have redefined their careers?
I was struggling on this one, guys.
I relied on the internet a little bit
to provide some information for me.
There were a couple of surprises on that I'll share with you guys.
Do you guys know the film director Ang Lee?
Remember him?
Sure, yeah.
Country Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Brokeback Mountain, I believe.
Yeah, in a weird Hulk movie.
Yeah, in a terrible Hulk movie, yeah.
He was a stay at home dad for like six or seven years
before that, taking care of his kids.
Wow.
Which I appreciate jumping right into film directing somehow.
Pretty big change.
And then Terry Crews, man.
I did not realize.
I knew he was a big jacked guy.
He played in the NFL sparingly for a couple seasons inside of Lick.
Terry likes football.
You got to watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine for that to land.
Terry loves that.
Funny guy.
I like him.
You'll see the one in the Old Spice commercials.
Oh, yeah, he did those too.
But he was also in Idiocracy as the President Camacho.
It's President Camacho.
Oh, god.
I love it.
Dude.
My mind went to several things.
Like I thought about pulp fiction reviving John Travolta's career.
But what I really thought about was Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Talk about career redefining, right?
So he's like the master.
Yeah, starts off as a bodybuilder, can't speak English,
becomes Mr. Olympia, manages to weasel his way in the movies,
and then gets the Conan the Barbarian, makes him a movie star.
Then after decades of being one of the top box office draws,
he quits and becomes the governor of California.
California.
And then after that, goes back to acting and does hit movies and Netflix series.
Smokes a lot of cigars.
He does smoke a lot of cigars.
But I mean, that's a lot of career redefinition
throughout this man's life.
So there's a documentary series about him on Netflix that I recommend.
It's just called Arnold.
And he's heavily involved in the storytelling of it.
So I think he had a hand in the making of it.
But it's an interesting story.
Starts at the beginning all the way to the present time.
It's not a tumor.
What have you got done?
Well, as a child of the 80s, there's so many young actors
that were in sitcoms and stuff that just kind of disappear.
But I guess it was late 90s or early 2000s.
Suddenly Jason Bateman was back, which I was very happy about.
The show Arrested Development.
And then pretty much since then, he's been on a pretty good role with Ozark.
Lots of movies.
That podcast.
Oh, but don't forget, he did have a win as a young man
when he starred in Teen Wolf 2.
Where for some reason, the sport of choice was college boxing.
Which does not make any sense.
It's sweaty, sweaty wolf.
OK, well, what other people have redefined their careers?
Let us know.
Hit us on the socials, Instagram, and Facebook.
Or leave a comment on our website, albumnerds.com.
All right, so Tom Petty, American singer, songwriter,
and guitarist, chorus leader of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Also Mudcrutch was another one of his bands.
And the Traveling Wilburys.
He sold over 80 million records in total.
Do people know who Tom Petty is?
I can't think of it in the background.
Just making sure.
You never know.
OK.
But Full Moon Fever was his first solo album released in April of 1989.
Featured contributions from his Heartbreakers bandmates
and Traveling Wilburys collaborators.
And produced by Jeff Lin as well.
Bit of a creative departure from the Heartbreakers.
A little more reflective of his influences growing up.
Probably more kind of your beatily sort of rock and roll.
I mean, he was just working with George Harrison.
So what do you expect?
Why don't we start off with my favorite track on the album,
I Won't Back Down.
Hey, I will stand my ground.
I won't back down.
Those backing vocals are so Jeff Lin.
You know, that yellow sort of sound.
So that track is an anthem of resilience and defiance,
co-written with Jeff Lin.
And it's great for any time you're facing any challenges.
It's a nice kind of mellow yet psych up song.
George Harrison is on backing vocals.
And it feels like maybe he's doing a little guitar there.
I don't know.
Just kind of that kind of sounds like him.
But who knows?
Yeah, I wonder if that's Campbell or Harrison on that.
Good question.
Interestingly, in 2015, Petty and Lin
were credited as co-writers on Sam Smith's Stay With Me
due to a similarity between the songs.
Did you guys hear about that?
No.
So it's not a ripoff.
But there were so many similarities
that it was ruled that they were owed some creative piece.
I just think that's funny how that happens.
Can you sing the Sam Smith version?
Stay with me.
That's what he sounds like to me.
Mike Click made that line to describe the album.
Full moon fever, Tom Petty finally
got comfortable with being Tom Petty,
and the world was better for it.
There's such an ease and confidence in this
compared to the early Heartbreakers albums.
This was just making songs in the garage of his friends
and bandmates.
And it turned into a real album.
It kind of reshaped who Tom Petty was in the pop culture
and in music.
For me, it was the moment where he became a cool badass.
I'm not quite sure why, but I remember thinking, hey,
I thought of him as some old dude,
and I didn't after this.
Yeah, I definitely put him on the map for me too
at this time period where I started
noticing pop-up on the radio.
I wasn't aware of his earlier output.
And this guy sounds pretty cool for an old dude.
Pretty fly for a white guy.
All right, why don't we listen to another track.
This one is Running Down a Dream.
The trees went back.
Me and Dale were singing a little runaway.
I think that's probably my favorite Tom Petty song.
I really, really enjoy that.
It seems to me about his career as a musician,
maybe looking back at your career as a musician,
or maybe what inspired you to get on this path.
Yeah, he would have been about 39 or something,
like 30s at this time.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, he references a song from the early 60s
by Dale Shannon, possibly listened to growing up.
I don't know.
I know I did.
Did you?
Yeah.
I used to be on all these radio all the time, that song.
Michael's big headline for Full Moon Fever
is, for a struggling artist about to go out in his own,
Petty released what has to be the most accomplished,
star-studded, and successful debut solo record ever
recorded.
That's a pretty nice way to start your solo career.
I mean, got George Harrison and Jeff Lynn helping you out
behind the scenes.
Yeah, he made some powerful friends there in the Wilburys.
Apparently, most of this was recorded before that,
but he was already part of the gang.
Yeah.
Roy Orbison, too.
I mean, can you imagine learning from those guys?
Some pretty good friends to have.
I was not familiar with this record.
I hadn't really listened to it before.
All the way through the A-side is just like,
I almost thought this was a great hit album at first.
I was like, wow, there's so many just bangers on here,
well-known songs.
Yeah, but I think the B-side is where
I was really convinced at how confident Petty sounds here.
Just very sure of himself, very mature songwriting.
And the delivery, he just always sounds
confident is the best word I can come up with.
Every lyric just has a little bit of force behind it.
Yeah, I found this really compelling.
Even the goofier songs like, You're So Bad and A Mind
Without Heart of Its Own and Zombie Zoo,
I guess, which is kind of goofy.
Zombie Zoo.
I found those all really interesting.
Well, what's funny about Zombie Zoo is it's just like,
this is where you can tell he's a bit of an older dude, right?
Because it's about 1980s youth culture
and the flamboyant fashion trends.
Zombie Zoo apparently was a real club Petty visited
in Los Angeles at one point, but just this zoo
full of these creatures wearing these weird outfits.
Yeah.
Kids.
Yeah.
Children makers.
Youths.
Who let them zombies out that damn Zombie Zoo?
All right, why don't we listen to one more track.
This one's called All Right for Now.
Sleep tight, my love.
May God watch over you.
Don's got tears flowing down his face.
I do.
Yeah.
So that's basically like a lullaby, right?
Or a goodnight message to a loved one.
I'm pretty sure that's just one guitar, which if it is,
it's pretty impressive.
I love that folk sound, the finger picking.
It's probably the softest and I guess quietest
moment on the record.
Yeah, but it's also kind of what I like about it
is it's just his voice.
And prior to this album, I always kind of
thought he just sounded like a Bob Dylan clone.
But maybe it's that confidence that he gained over the years.
Or maybe age.
It doesn't sound like that.
It's like his own style was fully
established by this point.
I really feel like he's a grown up on this record.
Maybe that's like the big redefining moment.
He's a grown man.
The Heartbreakers were kind of aggressive in some ways.
Kind of have like a punk rock or garage rock edge.
And now he's like an elder statesman
of classic rock or something.
Well, the alternate title for this album was Grown Ass Man,
but they didn't think it would fly.
Is that true?
In other words, no.
Of course it's not true.
It almost could be.
Well, my clickbait headline for Full Moon Fever
is Jeff Lin uses petty to complete takeover
of the late 80s legacy rock sound.
Yeah.
So beginning with George Harrison's comeback album,
Cloud 9 came in 1987.
That was a collaboration with Jeff Lin.
Of course, the Traveling Woolberries.
Sure.
Yeah.
Roy Orbison.
Roy Orbison, mystery girl.
So it's just that some people call it the Wilbury sound now,
but it just has those layered vocals, that shimmering guitar,
and just that polished radio friendly sound.
But I think even the records he didn't produce,
like Rod Stewart, Forever Young, that all kind of feels
sort of Jeff Lin-y.
So he did have a mini takeover of the non-glam rock
of that time period.
And I think this is a fantastic record.
I mean, literally any song could have been a single or a hit.
Yeah, I completely agree.
It's a masterpiece.
One wonderful moment in the album
is when he has that interlude where he's like,
hello, CD listeners, and suggests
that they take a little break while vinyl listeners
and cassette listeners flip the tape or flip the record.
That was back in that transitional period
of the new formats.
But other songs we can't forget to mention,
Free Fallin', the opening track.
Everybody knows that one.
You're So Bad is just so bad.
Dylan shows a little bit.
A little bit.
Tom, your Dylan is showing.
But yeah, I mean, I think this is a classic and a career
redefining album, a generational redefinition for these folks
that came up through the 70s and 80s.
And I'm going to nominate it for the Album Nerds Hall of Fame.
Full Moon Fever redefined Tom Petty's career.
And it proved that creative risks
and that leap to making a solo project
could lead to unprecedented success and lasting impact.
So it's a yes for me.
Gentlemen, start your engines.
So you would take this over Wildflowers,
is that the consent?
I wouldn't.
I wouldn't take it over Wildflowers.
They're very different albums.
But there would be no Wildflowers had there not
been Full Moon Fever.
So I think this was the first step forward
into him sort of doing things outside of the Heartbreakers.
I'm just wondering if we got room for two Petty's in the hall.
Of course we do.
Don't be petty.
I will say yes.
I did really enjoy it.
If that's not making it personal, then I would say yes.
Otherwise, no.
This is for posterity, bro.
No, it's really great.
I did enjoy it.
Well, I guess my pick doesn't matter anymore.
But we'll make it unanimous.
I'll say I'll give a resounding yes.
All right.
Walk to the zombie zoo.
That's what we should call our podcast.
Don Petty, Full Moon Fever, Album Nerds Hall of Fame.
Go listen to it.
Can you dig it?
Well, it's time to talk about other things
we've been digging.
Did anything redefine your week?
My week has been redefined.
Yes, yes.
I have a couple of things here in my little knapsack
that converts from a backpack to a sasho
to over the shoulder kind of situation.
You are fashion forward, brother.
Yeah, you know.
First one for me is from a Dublin-based,
I guess they call it punk rock group, called Skinner.
They have a new album out called New Wave Vaudeville.
I don't know the title.
Let's play the song with that.
I like it.
Yeah, this is the product of a guy, my name
of Aaron Corcoran, inspired by the New York City no wave
scene in the 70s and 80s.
Oh, totally.
Yeah, sounds pretty interesting, but I'm enjoying it.
Last one for me is from a South African singer and dancer
by the name of Moonchild Salini, I guess how you'd say it.
That sounds Italian.
In high school, I knew a girl named Karma Cloud.
It's almost as good.
And the name of the record is Full Moon.
I guess you had full moon fever.
Yeah, we're doing a moon thing going on here.
Let's play Scramble Ducks.
Oh, baby, I hear you.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
I'm T.I.
Black spice, and I'm hot like ice.
I'm T.I.
That does not sound like Frazier.
Call this music future ghetto funk.
Pretty interesting, in my opinion.
What you been digging on, Don?
Well, I found an Americana band called The Devil Makes Three.
They've actually been around since 2002.
They're from Santa Cruz, California.
It's guitarist Pete Bernard, upright bassist Morgan Eve
Swain, and guitarist and tenor banjo player Cooper McBean.
The album's called Spirits, and this is the title track.
In this house now, too many spirits in my head.
Whoa, whoa, Raggy.
Too many spirits in my mind.
Gross.
Yes, that album comes out next month.
This is the only track available so far.
Also, kind of in the Americana spirit or country treatment,
we've got Ringo Starr, famously from I
can't remember what band he was in.
Some Jefflin Projects or something.
So yeah, so Ringo Starr is back with his 21st solo album,
if you can believe that.
Wow, that's a lot.
Yeah.
So it's mostly a country album.
The songs are written by T-Bone Burnett,
features appearances from Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle,
Luscious, and Lark and Poe.
And the album's called Look Up, which kind of makes sense,
because he's a star, right?
So you look up.
Here's a song called Time on My Hands.
I turned my collar up, kept my eyes turned down.
Sounds kind of like Ringo and Willie Nelson have merged.
I like it.
Yeah.
Full country.
Pretty much just like anything Ringo does,
I'll probably enjoy it and then kind of move on with my life.
Right.
Wow.
Poor Ringo.
What are you digging, dude?
Whenever this band, Tremonti, puts out an album,
I really enjoy it for about a week,
and then I accidentally forget about it.
We'll see if that's the case here.
Tremonti just put out an album called The End.
We'll show us how.
Tremonti is a heavy metal band founded by Mark Tremonti,
the guitarist for Creed and Alter Bridge.
But it's him singing, and it's his kind of metal-ish project.
Why don't we listen to a little bit, One More Time.
One more time, yeah.
It's really all about big guitar sounds.
Think it's a guitarist just getting to exercise that muscle.
And these albums always have the same kind of vibe,
but they're fun to listen to for a little bit.
We'll have to check it out.
Yeah.
All right, so I'm also digging a record
that I stumbled upon years ago while flipping through the $3
bin at a record store.
And the cover just got me.
It's this dude holding a masquerade ball mask,
and has a little pencil mustache, and a big pompadour.
The artist is Mink DeVille, and the album
is called Coup De Gras from 1981.
It's a shift in the band's lineup and sound, more of a du-wop,
rock and roll, Bruce Springsteen-ish inspired sort
of sound, but with some Latin rhythms.
So let's listen to a little bit of Love and Emotion.
But then you love, love and emotion.
Is that a chord?
It's kind of John Cougar-ish.
Yeah, a little bit, yeah.
It's almost a Zydeco thing going on there.
When I picked this up, I just had
to hear what it sounded like, because I don't think Spotify
was the full deal yet at this point.
And I put it on, and it wasn't terrible.
I was expecting it to be terrible,
and it was a fun listen.
And I pulled it out and dusted it off a couple of weeks ago.
And yeah, go check out Mink DeVille.
I mean, what the hell?
Why not, right?
Guest accordion by Weird Al Yankovic.
Well, what are you digging?
Let us know.
Join us on the socials, Facebook, Instagram,
and threads, also on our website, albumnerds.com.
It will be a discovery of extraordinary value.
All right, well, what's about that time on the show,
and I reminded of the great American singer
and author Henry Rollins.
He said, I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention,
to not be like your parents, to not be like your friends,
to be yourself, to cut yourself out of stone, like Rollins.
Wow.
With that in mind, let's bring out my friend in yours,
Wodbot, to see what we'll be talking about on next week's
episode.
Success in the music industry can mean massive sales
or groundbreaking artistic growth.
Next time, you will be diving into sophomore albums
that soared past their debuts, proving that the second time can
be the charm in achieving greatness.
So sophomore successes, that's interesting.
A lot of times, the second album is the make it or break it
sort of thing.
And then the second album is the make it or break it
sort of thing.
A lot of times, the second album is the make it or break it sort
of situation for artists, at least back
in the days of big record labels.
It's like the album nerds, the second episode was the best.
No, it wasn't.
Maybe 200 in seconds was the best.
Still working on that one.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, what's your favorite second album?
What else are you listening to?
Email us at podcast at albumnerds.com.
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So please subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite podcast
app.
Thank you so much for joining us on the Album Nerds Podcast.
We will catch you next time with those sophomore delights.
Wow, that's a creepy as fuck.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
Catch you next week.
And I'm free, free falling.
Guess we had a comment somewhere.
Yeah.
I know Tom Petty, and sir, you are no Tom Petty.
Lloyd Benson reference.
Boy, oh boy.