This week, Brian reports back on Ariana Grande’s new album Petal, an assignment that somehow leads us to Train covering Led Zeppelin, the limits of musical talent, and the question everybody should be asking: if you can sound like Led Zeppelin, why would you choose to sound like Train?

From there, we return to the watermelon podcast. I’ve got this little bonne mot for you: AI uses for weedkiller dissemination. The Defamation Train leaves the station with a check in on Mitch McConnell. We discuss the fact that Chinese fortune cookies may be interfering in Tennessee elections. Some might speculate about Cort’s method of advance preparation for this recording because he goes off on a rant. Brian seeks Zen.

In the non-listening section of our podcast Brian reports back from Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. This prompts serious discussion of Matt Damon’s abs, the logistical shortcomings of the Trojan Horse, Robert Pattinson’s qualifications as a douche, and whether a 3,000-year-old story really needed to wait until the final act before the hero started kicking ass.

Brian makes an assignment and has even provided specific listening instructions, because apparently simply pressing play is no longer sufficient.

Finally, we meet this week’s randomly generated show, and it’s bloody disgusting.

Cort’s last assignment to Brian: Ariana Grande – Petal https://open.spotify.com/album/2k4FmEtXR0WiDW0Ac2QArT?si=-aKmFSiFQ4CNv_-gOBcjmw

Brian’s next assignment to Cort: Man/Woman/Chainsaw – Cannonball https://open.spotify.com/album/1yN1NPr6d4TvVJyUyuMHpK?si=D5942BnIQw6H3kfXabVq6A

🎶 Theme Song: "Cyrus Oh Cyrus" by The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

📧 listenerslikeyou2023@gmail.com 📱 @listenerslikeyoupod

This week, Brian sends Cort down the Spoon rabbit hole with both a greatest hits collection and a fan-curated playlist, because apparently one assignment wasn't enough. The result? A discussion about indie rock, gateway albums, and the eternal question: is "pretty good" the same thing as "Will I ever voluntarily listen to this again?"

From there, we wander through new releases from The Strokes and Michigander, the increasingly impossible idea of a universal "Song of the Summer," the cinematic value of terrible shark movies, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, and why some people should really think twice before arguing mythology on the internet.

We also spend a little time with horror movies and great books becoming movies. In a new bit Cort likes to call, “How did Memphis get slighted this week?” we discuss a slight to Memphis barbecue. Finally SPOILER ALERT we finish out with a shocking revelation that there is, in fact, a podcast devoted to the watermelon industry.

Brian’s last assignment to Cort: Spoon - Everything Hits at Once: The Best of Spoon https://open.spotify.com/album/5E4CY0Z7SxuIbsviGBhW4L?si=2iZ8hqOgQZOsGXUjfjf2Ow

Bonus Assignment: All the Weird Kids Up Front (More Best of Spoon) (Spotify playlist) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/60iWAXiwBBUw6kvNz3rcaC?si=6431252835f34b4a (Amazon Playlist) https://music.amazon.com/user-playlists/5257a2ae50224cfca211dab339f643e9sune?ref=dm_sh_X2oaC3LYzdtUdgJgET0ASicZ1&referrer=dm_sh_messages

Cort’s next assignment to Brian: It’s a surprise! But here’s the link: https://open.spotify.com/album/2k4FmEtXR0WiDW0Ac2QArT?si=-aKmFSiFQ4CNv_-gOBcjmw

🎶 Theme Song: "Cyrus Oh Cyrus" by The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

📧 listenerslikeyou2023@gmail.com 📱 @listenerslikeyoupod

Brian reports back on The Age of the Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets, discovering that Alex Turner's side project sounds less like Arctic Monkeys and more like the soundtrack to a 70s or 80s spy film. The discussion wanders through David Bowie, spaghetti westerns, supergroups, and the unposed question: is being called "background music" a bad thing?

Then things take a turn.

Brian unveils the next "impromptu" game dedicated to the guys' apparent inability to correctly identify famous people named Moore. Mistakes were made and hopefully corrected.

From there it's on to Memphis radio nostalgia, why podcasts have apparently become television, Lionel Messi's remarkable World Cup run, the economics of MLS, and Brian assigns Cort a double spoonful of Spoon.

Cort's Last Assignment to Brian: The Age of the Understatement — The Last Shadow Puppets https://open.spotify.com/album/2y3Rm0cT1xbf2NoTQwKv99?si=u7DCZPL7R-CojeASyerW7g

Brian's Next Assignment to Cort: Everything Hits at Once: The Best of Spoon https://open.spotify.com/album/5E4CY0Z7SxuIbsviGBhW4L?si=2iZ8hqOgQZOsGXUjfjf2Ow

Bonus Assignment: All the Weird Kids Up Front (More Best of Spoon) (Spotify playlist) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/60iWAXiwBBUw6kvNz3rcaC?si=6431252835f34b4a (Amazon Playlist) https://music.amazon.com/user-playlists/5257a2ae50224cfca211dab339f643e9sune?ref=dm_sh_X2oaC3LYzdtUdgJgET0ASicZ1&referrer=dm_sh_messages

🎶 Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus — The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

Cort reports back on World Party's Goodbye Jumbo, an album he somehow already knew by heart despite being convinced he'd never heard it before. Brian makes the case for Karl Wallinger as one of pop music's great overlooked craftsmen, and the conversation wanders into college radio, movie soundtracks, and whether some albums simply refuse to age.

From there: TV recap podcasts, comfort television, the strange appeal of The Big Bang Theory's ever-expanding universe, LeBron's next destination (obviously Memphis), the triumphant return of the missing "E" in the Elvis sign, Fox's purchase of Roku, and why some things are just... oozing positivity.

Brian’s Last Assignment to Cort: Goodbye Jumbo, World Party https://open.spotify.com/album/0NHOAAAuzEglpm88igZi1a?si=ky9Vz4aWS-K_EGFteXaBYw

Cort’s Next Assignment to Brian: The Age of the Understatement, The Last Shadow Puppets https://open.spotify.com/album/2y3Rm0cT1xbf2NoTQwKv99?si=u7DCZPL7R-CojeASyerW7g

Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus, The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

Brian reports back on Gigi Perez's At the Beach, In Every Life, and the verdict lands somewhere between appreciation and exhaustion. Which songs are keepers? Which songs leave Brian and Cort wondering whether they've accidentally wandered into an entirely different album. Along the way they discuss what is possibly Spotify's most baffling artist bio, and Brian develops a strange guilt complex for the most Brian of reasons.

There's also a discussion of music fans. Has fandom become a soulless, bullying soufflé of entitlement?

Cort gives a genuinely heartfelt tribute to the late Anthony Stewart Head (yes, Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and that leads to an unexpected detour through Chess, "One Night in Bangkok," and the surprisingly musical Head family.

The conversation wraps with World Cup fever, hydration breaks, the foreign team receiving the most American experience while visiting America, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Bonnaroo, and a new assignment from Brian that he boldly declares to be a genuine masterpiece. Oh! And the Random Podcast Generator bit may have finally paid off.

Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus - The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

Gigi Perez's At the Beach, In Every Life - https://open.spotify.com/album/4fULdU3VoqC0M1IHhVTAQ4?si=qooSV-rTRoKrU1M-xdcDgA

Brian's Assignment to Cort: Goodbye Jumbo - World Party https://open.spotify.com/album/2V2L3lPqjL9L2bS3tqvZ4S

Cort reports back on his assignment, Hope We Have Fun by Mt. Joy, and, thankfully, the answer appears to be yes. The album sends the guys down a rabbit hole of favorite tracks, genre-hopping bands, Nathaniel Rateliff connections, and the increasingly rare experience of finding an album that simply makes life a little more enjoyable.

From there, things proceed exactly as they always do.

Mt. Joy leads to Winnie the Pooh, which leads to copyright infringement which leads to setting aside Jerry Rafferty somehow, and that of course leads to an extended detour into profanity, and whether some words are more useful than others.

Meanwhile, Brian gives us the skinny on Chelsea's latest footballing misery, which of course just leads the guys back to one of their favorite topics, the ongoing reality television arms race between Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Traitors, and whatever fresh nonsense producers are cooking up next.

Along the way: turkey burger recipes, soccer jerseys, Huey's burgers, emotional intelligence podcasts, Russian folklore, and the unsettling realization that these two guys can spend nearly an hour talking without ever once staying on topic.

In the end, Cort assigns Brian At the Beach, In Every Life by Gigi Perez, proving once again that no matter where the conversation wanders, the assignments must go on.

🎶 Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus — The Flying Scrub Jays

https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

Last assignment: Hope We Have Fun by Mount Joy https://open.spotify.com/album/3r5ik8QohUa56zacmEyAdb?si=bqneLkeVQl-7lxMzEloJ-Q

Cort's Next Assignment to Brian: At the Beach, In Every Life by Gigi Perez https://open.spotify.com/album/4fULdU3VoqC0M1IHhVTAQ4?si=oOOhuqGrQLWRKBsU_wEeuw

The assignment was American Football’s LP4. The episode is, somehow, four days of Brian having no internet, a severed wire, a locked neighbor’s gate, and a customer satisfaction survey that would not let him rate the one person who actually helped.

We promise we talk about the album too. Briefly. Before the rant takes the wheel. Somewhere beneath the Comcast fury lies a real, perhaps even earnest, conversation about Midwest emo, math rock, the Kinsella brothers, and whether Morrissey accidentally possessed an Ohio band’s lead singer.

Also somewhere in there we cover: Memphis movie geography, King Sorrow, Scream 7, Send Help, the Dennis Miller-to-Bill Maher pipeline, and a randomly generated podcast Apple has apparently classified as “cricket.”

Last Assignment: American Football (LP4) https://open.spotify.com/album/3fhKJU3nUfduKj9YhEAoGf?si=ATD7kNzIQ5e6N1p4intVXw

New assignment: Mount Joy, Hope We Have Fun. https://open.spotify.com/album/3r5ik8QohUa56zacmEyAdb?si=bqneLkeVQl-7lxMzEloJ-Q

Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus, The Flying Scrub Jays. https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

May Madness reaches its conclusion. But before the bracket chaos resumes, Cort reports back on GOLDSTAR by The Sophs. The album slowly wormed its way into his brain through catchy hooks that took their sweet time arriving, strange charm, and lyrics that demanded he actually pay attention. Brian, meanwhile, continues his campaign to promote emotionally damaged (or damaging) indie bands to the masses.

Which brings us to…

Noah Kahan’s new album The Great Divide, family dysfunction as musical genre, and Cort’s emerging theory that too many modern albums are hiding their best material in the back half like they expect listeners to complete a homework assignment before earning the payoff.

Then there’s the unfortunate return to a certain marriage podcast, which we cannot name because we genuinely do not remember the name even though Brian actually listened to it.

And then: the bracket.

May Madness Part 2 finally crowns the greatest band with a color in its name. The Sweet 16 becomes the Elite Eight, then the Final Four, as Cort makes a series of deeply subjective rulings that are nevertheless final, binding, and entirely within his sole discretion. Some decisions are carefully reasoned. Others may qualify as crimes against music history.

All of it leads to a shocking conclusion that may haunt this podcast forever.

By the end, one band survives. Whether justice was served is another matter entirely.

Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus by The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

Brian’s Assignment to Cort: GOLDSTAR by The Sophs https://open.spotify.com/album/7mTtyluyCS8hY97tqZDpoc?si=byI8fTtWSc23BLFvdF-oHA

Cort’s Next Assignment to Brian: American Football (LP4) https://open.spotify.com/album/3fhKJU3nUfduKj9YhEAoGf?si=ATD7kNzIQ5e6N1p4intVXw