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There’s so much music out there anymore— and so much instantly available for your listening pleasure— that it’s easy for worthy bands, songs, and albums to be overlooked or disregarded. I’m sure all of us have a bevy of forgotten favorites we try to press on out friends and colleagues, and I do the podcast version of that here. I look at three overlooked or underrated albums— Shudder to Think’s 50,000 B.C., Prince’s Lovesexy, and Urge Overkill’s Exit the Dragon. I also highlight a handful of other albums, bands and songs that I treasure, even if they haven’t gotten the recognition I feel they deserve.

Notes: One of the sound clips on this episode features an F bomb, so you've been warned. And believe it or not, it isn't Prince!

I mention in the section on Urge Overkill that I'm not lucky enough to have a vinyl copy of Exit the Dragon. Well...turns out an affordable 30th anniversary version I didn't know about came out in May of this year. I managed to snag a copy after finishing the recording of this episode, and I got it in the mail yesterday.

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1979 was not only the soundtrack of my early adolescence, it was also a year for bracing debut albums, last gasps and new directions for several rock dinosaurs, and a banner year for both great guitar solos and silly love songs. For this episode's deep dive, I have chosen landmark albums by The Cars, Fleetwood Mac, and Gang of Four, while taking several detours to explore everything 1979 can muster.

Notes: I managed to make a few slips of the tongue in my discussion of Gang of Four's Entertainment! I refer to the song "Contract" as "Contact"--not once, but twice! It's never been my favorite Gang of Four song, but come on. Steven Wilson obviously likes the song much more than I did, choosing to include it in his excellent 4 cd compilation of "progressive sounds in UK alternative music" titled Intrigue, released by Edsel in 2023. I also referred to "5:45" as "5:05," which is, um, off by forty seconds.

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Perhaps the band most associated with the "College Rock" gene, R.E.M. navigated a path where they could be true to their artistic impulses and also become indie rock superstars. Join me as I do a deep dive on three of their best albums (Reckoning, Green, and New Adventures in Hi-Fi) while giving some love (more or less) to every album in between.

Note: This episode was recorded late last fall (I wanted to get several episodes recorded before releasing), so some time-related personal mentions will be off by a matter of months. Since R.E.M. hasn't recorded anything new since their breakup in 2011, that doesn't affect much content here.