Welcome to Season Six of the Regarding…Series, where Chaz Charles and Greg "Wolfie" Wolfe welcome new co-host Mikey Pastore for a journey into one of the strangest, most ambitious, and most thoroughly bewildering works in David Bowie's catalog: 1995's 1. Outside — The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper-cycle.

And this time, it's personal.

After all, it was Bowie's extraordinary declaration that Lou Reed's Lulu was a masterpiece that helped launch this entire podcasting enterprise. Five seasons later, the gang has finally come around to examining one of Bowie's own great artistic provocations.

What follows is less an album review than an orientation session for a world in which the year is 1999, a young girl has been murdered and transformed into an art installation, and a detective from the Art Crimes division is trying to make sense of it all.

Sound like a good time?

Mikey arrives armed with an original CD and its accompanying Nathan Adler diary. Chaz brings the historical context, the big questions, and a deeply inappropriate Ricky Gervais musical interlude. Wolfie brings skepticism, curiosity, and the occasional need to Google something.

Together, they begin unraveling Bowie's nonlinear narrative, his reunion with Brian Eno, the industrial-rock influences of the mid-1990s, and the unsettling question at the center of the entire project:

When does art stop being art and become murder?

Along the way:

• Bowie, Laurie Anderson, and the Lulu comment that started it all
• The strange inhabitants of Oxford Town, New Jersey
• Detective Nathan Adler, Leon Blank, Ramona A. Stone, and the mysterious Baby Grace
• The CD booklet as required reading for a musical murder mystery
• The internet in its infancy and Bowie's invitation to explore a story without a conventional beginning, middle, or end
• A debate over what constitutes the album's actual opening track
• Three podcasters attempting to establish a coherent methodology for studying a deliberately incoherent work

And somewhere in all of this, the gang actually starts listening to the record.

THIS WEEK'S MUSIC:

"Leon Takes Us Outside" and "Outside" — David Bowie

FINAL VERDICT:

Five seasons spent trying to understand what artists were thinking.

Now we're investigating a murder committed in the name of art.

And we've only just stepped outside.

We listen so you don't have to. Although this time, you might want to read along. So visit the archived interactive Outside website here.

The Show

In this season of Regarding…, the panel tackles KISS’s Music From The Elder one song at a time—testing whether its epic ambition holds up under scrutiny. Alongside the analysis, Scott D. Monroe’s original screenplay tries to turn the album’s abstract mythology into an actual story.

Ambition meets accountability.

GO BONELESS

Certified boneless in the state of Ohio by the Boneless Podcasting Network. Go Boneless. Boneless Makes a Better Podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chaz and the assembled Order of Mildly Concerned Scholars (Wolfy, Scott D. Monroe, Corey Morrissette, Laura Morrissette, and special guest Seb Hunter) gather one last time beneath the shadow of the Rose Citadel.

Not to begin another adventure.

To discover whether the one they've been living was worth the journey.

Because this week isn't really about the finale of Music from The Elder.

It's about what happens after the last page is written.

What unfolds is less a season finale than a long walk home. Scott finally closes the screenplay that has quietly become the beating heart of the season, Seb Hunter lends his voice to the mysterious Elder, and the Fellowship gathers for one final reckoning as heroes are tested, sacrifices are made, old beliefs collapse, and the story KISS never quite finished is finally allowed to find an ending of its own.

Then something unexpected happens.

The conversation slowly leaves the Rose Citadel behind.

The panel reflects on the songs that surprised them, the screenplay that grew into something far larger than anyone anticipated, the friendships forged over eleven episodes, and the strange realization that somewhere along the way...

...they stopped trying to fix The Elder.

They simply learned how to live inside it.

Along the way there are callbacks, laughter, future podcast plans, heartfelt thank-yous, a passing of the torch toward Regarding Slang, and—because no Boneless season is permitted to end with complete dignity—a spirited detour into the culinary significance of Flamin' Hot Boneless Wings.

• Scott D. Monroe bringing his screenplay to its long-awaited conclusion
• Seb Hunter returning as the voice of the Elder
• Final reflections from Chaz, Wolfy, Corey, Laura, and the Fellowship
• Looking back on one of the most unexpectedly ambitious seasons in the history of the Regarding...Series
• Boneless Wings receiving the finale they probably always deserved

What began as an attempt to give an infamous album a fair hearing...

became proof that unfinished stories sometimes don't need to be rewritten.

They simply need people willing to believe there's another chapter waiting to be found. And someone who knows where the car is parked...

The Show

In this season of Regarding…, the panel tackles KISS’s Music From The Elder one song at a time—testing whether its epic ambition holds up under scrutiny. Alongside the analysis, Scott D. Monroe’s original screenplay tries to turn the album’s abstract mythology into an actual story.

Ambition meets accountability.

GO BONELESS

Certified boneless in the state of Ohio by the Boneless Podcasting Network. Go Boneless. Boneless Makes a Better Podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Fellowship assembles one last time before the final curtain.

Not for a quiet conversation.

For war.

This week on Regarding Music from The Elder, Chaz, Wolfy, Scott D. Monroe, Corey Morrissette, Laura Morrissette, Sean McGinity, Debbie and Michael Pastore, Dan and Pang Papathopoulos—and even virtual appearances from Heath McCoy and Kevin Brown—return for the largest panel in the series as Scott unveils the penultimate chapter of his screenplay.

What follows is the most ambitious chapter yet.

Corey awakens blind after destroying the mysterious orbs, only to discover he has begun seeing the world in an entirely new way. The Cat discovers that loyalty has consequences. Terminus Village reveals its tragic past through Sypha's memories. Allies fall. Hidden powers awaken. Philosophies collide. And Mr. Blackwell returns more terrifying—and more unstable—than ever before.

Meanwhile, the panel compares cover versions, discusses the band's late-career what-ifs, and marvels at how an album once dismissed as an infamous misfire has somehow become the foundation for an unexpectedly compelling fantasy epic.

• The largest cast ever assembled for a Regarding season 5 episode
• Corey loses his sight... and gains a different vision
• The Cat's shocking fate
• Sypha's heartbreaking return to her childhood village
• The Fox's final stand—and the ideas that die with him
• Mr. Blackwell arrives like a force of nature
• A screenplay racing toward its final confrontation

I — KISS

Every great adventure reaches the point where escape is no longer the objective.

The only way out...

...is through.

The Show

In this season of Regarding…, the panel tackles KISS’s Music From The Elder one song at a time—testing whether its epic ambition holds up under scrutiny. Alongside the analysis, Scott D. Monroe’s original screenplay tries to turn the album’s abstract mythology into an actual story.

Ambition meets accountability.

GO BONELESS

Certified boneless in the state of Ohio by the Boneless Podcasting Network. Go Boneless. Boneless Makes a Better Podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.