Shut up, already. Damn! Prince was one of the most interesting popular artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and Sign o’ the Times from 1987 was the culmination of one of the most interesting periods in a career full of interesting periods. After various circumstances caused him to abandon a double album (Dream Factory), and other circumstances caused him to abandon a single album (Camille) that he didn’t plan to release under his own name, he initially tried to release a triple album before Warner Bros. made him cut it down to a double. Sign o’ the Times (the resulting double album) has its fair share of hits, yet it’s also messy in a way that appeals to many critics and fans but has also left many people puzzled by some of Prince’s decisions. This episode’s panel has three outright fans of the album (John, Mike, and Rich) and one moderate skeptic (Ben), and this combined with the album’s sprawl results in a lengthy but incredibly dense discussion. Prince was somebody who could appeal to many different people for many different reasons, and in this episode we make a case for why he’s worth digging into beyond a handful of ubiquitous radio hits.

Shut up, already. Damn! Prince was one of the most interesting popular artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and Sign o’ the Times from 1987 was the culmination of one of the most interesting periods in a career full of interesting periods. After various circumstances caused him to abandon a double album (Dream Factory), and other circumstances caused him to abandon a single album (Camille) that he didn’t plan to release under his own name, he initially tried to release a triple album before Warner Bros. made him cut it down to a double. Sign o’ the Times (the resulting double album) has its fair share of hits, yet it’s also messy in a way that appeals to many critics and fans but has also left many people puzzled by some of Prince’s decisions. This episode’s panel has three outright fans of the album (John, Mike, and Rich) and one moderate skeptic (Ben), and this combined with the album’s sprawl results in a lengthy but incredibly dense discussion. Prince was somebody who could appeal to many different people for many different reasons, and in this episode we make a case for why he’s worth digging into beyond a handful of ubiquitous radio hits.

A quick State of the Podcast update and info on our release schedule for the rest of this year.

Amanda has been fascinated with murder ballads for many years, so in this episode she's telling you (and Ben and Mike) all about them! This isn't an exhaustive overview of the genre, just the backstories behind a few great songs. From a couple of murdered girls in 18th-century England to a stolen hat in 20th-century America, these tragic stories have been transformed into compelling songs that we're still singing today.

You might think we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel by choosing The Present for our annual Moody Blues episode, but that’s not true at all. Even though the band themselves hated it, and it’s quite polarizing among Moody Blues fans, all of us here at Discord and Rhyme think it’s terrific. As with Long Distance Voyager, you need to be prepared for the ultra-slick ‘80s production, but underneath that gloss there are some top-notch Moody Blues songs and super great instrumental details, including Patrick Moraz’s keyboards. If you’re a The Present skeptic, we hope you’ll listen to this episode and end up convinced that it’s a truly great album.

Discord & Rhyme kicks June off with a feel good hit of the summer. Join Dan, Mike, and Rich for a ride through Queens of the Stone Age’s 2000 sophomore release Rated R, an album that seemed like a refreshing antithesis of mainstream rock trends at the turn of the millennium. Building off the desert rock DNA of Josh Homme’s previous band Kyuss and infusing elements of psychedelia, pop, and punk with a healthy sense of creative, quirky arrangements, Rated R endures as one of the most exciting hard rock albums of the 2000s.

Whether you’re a fan of ‘60s jazz, ‘70s funk, ‘80s electro, or things inspired by any of the above (or you just watched a lot of Sesame Street growing up), the music of Herbie Hancock has probably affected your life in some way. So Mike thought it was time to take us all on a good old fashioned head hunt. 1973’s Head Hunters redefined the course of Hancock’s career, was enormously influential on music as a whole, became the first jazz album to ever go platinum, and to this day remains a blast to listen to. If you’re a rock fan who’s long been intimidated by jazz, this warm, funky, colorful album just might be the one that captures your head.

Nick Drake was an outstanding artist: a gifted songwriter, a wonderful singer, and one of the greatest guitarists you’ll ever hear. But his personality was entirely unsuited to the world of popular music, and his art didn’t gain the popularity it deserves until decades after his death. Ever since he unwittingly helped Volkswagen sell cars in 1999, more and more music lovers have discovered his beautiful sincerity, and he’s more popular now than ever. Amanda, Mike, and Rich are among Nick Drake’s many fans and we’re here today to talk about what makes his music so special.

In this episode, Phil takes Discord & Rhyme further down the spiral with an album that is a harrowing descent into one man’s decaying psyche. If that sounds like a blast, you’re in good company with the millions of people who bought Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral in 1994. It’s one of the bleakest, most pitch-dark albums to ever achieve massive commercial success, and it still sounds great in 2025, owing to the coherence of Trent Reznor’s sonic vision and ingenious production by Flood. Reznor has gone on to become an Oscar-winning soundtrack composer in the decades since this album, but it still stands as one of his signature achievements, and Phil has invited Rich and Mike along to talk about an album that, from top to bottom, sets out to make you hurt. Now doesn’t that make you feel better?

Rich, Ben, and John answer a super-sized mailbag of listener questions, with subjects including jukebox musicals, James Bond themes, songs that give them the happy chills, sample-based hip-hop producers, the usual suite of Moody Blues questions, and a philosophical discussion on how we all listen to music and how this has changed as we've gotten older. This episode also features an interlude on experimental music from Producer Mike, and a listener-submitted puzzle!

Everyone has an opinion about the Doors - whether you think they’re transgressive and mind-blowing, or you find them silly and overrated, or - like Ben - you just think they made some killer music. With invaluable help from Amanda, Dan, and Mike, Ben makes the case that the Doors’ 1967 self-titled debut album contains more killer music than many people realize. It might even blow your mind a little, too.

It’s taken us nearly seven years, but the time has come. Midnight Oil, one of Australia's quintessential bands, is probably best known for its tireless political activism as expressed through hits like "Beds Are Burning" and "Blue Sky Mine," as well as the on-stage acrobatics of their 6′4″ frontman, Peter Garrett. But behind the sloganeering and agitprop, the Oils are a fiendishly creative and charmingly oddball band, and their 1982 Australian breakout album 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, recorded at a make-or-break moment for the group, was when they first really landed on their unmistakable aura. Rich has been an Oils fan literally since he was a teenager, and he’s called in Ben and returning special guest Dave Weigel to deconstruct 10 to 1 and all of the power and the passion that went into these incredible songs.

Discord & Rhyme continues its slow walk through the world of Post-Rock with an examination of the 1996 album Millions Now Living Will Never Die by the Chicago-based group Tortoise. John has been fascinated by the concept of Post-Rock for many years (even if many of the acts associated with it, Tortoise included, rejected it as a useful descriptor), and a large part of this fascination stems from a love he has had for this album for over 20 years. In this episode, John, Mike, Rich, and Dan try to make sense not only of how one should define one of the most ambiguous genres out there, but also of why an instrumental album in that genre (possibly), mostly lacking clear traditional melodies and traditional song structures (the opening “Djed” is 21 minutes by itself), is clearly one of the best albums any of us have ever heard. Regardless of whether Tortoise is Post-Rock, Prog, both, or neither, this is an album worth learning about, and Discord & Rhyme is up to the challenge.

If you only know Talk Talk for their ‘80s night staple “It’s My Life,” you might well wonder what an experimental weirdo like Mike is doing hosting an episode about them. However, if you know a little more about their strange and fascinating career trajectory, it makes perfect sense. The sparse, atmospheric Spirit of Eden couldn’t be more different from Talk Talk’s synth-pop origins or from anything else in the musical landscape of 1988, and it more or less doomed the band’s career when it came out, but the sound of rock music in the 21st century wouldn’t be the same without it. Listening to Spirit of Eden is an experience that’s almost impossible to relate by means of such quotidian devices as “words,” but Mike, Phil, Rich, and John are all going to try anyway.

Due to some technical difficulties, we had to push back our Talk Talk episode, so to fix the hole in our schedule we are talking about the Beatles again! We've discussed covers of Beatles songs before, but there are millions of them so there will always be more to talk about. We're covering a lot of sonic ground in this episode, with a few songs we all love and a few that are more polarizing. Also: important information for Apple users regarding Patreon, some information about listening on Spotify, and more!

We all know that Elton John is a top-tier singles artist, but he is also a top-tier albums artist. His run of nine albums from Empty Sky in 1969 through Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy in 1975 may very well be unmatched in modern music history. It was really hard to pick one to talk about on Discord & Rhyme, but we settled on Honky Chateau because it’s the perfect encapsulation of what Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin were best at (and worst at). Full of incredible musicianship, amazing singing, stellar arrangements, and awkward lyrics, this is an album that’s almost guaranteed to win over anyone who is still skeptical of Elton John.

Well, sit right down, my wicked son, and let us tell you a story, about the subject of this year’s Discord & Rhyme holiday episode: the Pixies! (Or technically, just Pixies.) Hailing from Boston, the alternative rock quartet dealt with mounting intra-band tension with little to nothing to show for it financially, leading bandleader Charles Thompson (alias Black Francis) to break up the band via fax in 1991. But the band’s critical stature gradually grew to gigantic proportions in the ‘90s, as their albums influenced bands like Pavement, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, Weezer, and especially Nirvana, who built an entire movement out of the classic Pixies “quiet-loud” formula. When they reunited for a reunion tour in 2004, they found, much to their shock and awe, that their songs had grown into anthems. Their 1989 album Doolittle is arguably the peak of their original run, featuring songs that could plausibly fill an arena without sacrificing their scrappy indie energy, so join Rich, John, and Dan as they sail away on a (festive) wave of mutilation.

Discord & Rhyme are taking a trip to Canterbury, England - UNESCO World Heritage Site, home of the Canterbury Cathedral, and birthplace of prog-rock legends Caravan. Springing forth from the rich Canterbury scene, Caravan created a style of progressive rock that managed to be complex while retaining a real sense of warmth. The group is not particularly well known outside of progressive rock circles, but Phil has loved them for a long time, and he’s excited to talk about the group’s most famous album, In The Land Of Grey And Pink.

We're departing from our usual format for this episode. Everybody needed a pick-me-up, so instead of discussing an album, we're talking about songs: specifically, the songs that make us love music. Some of these are the songs we loved as little kids that built our musical foundations, and some of them are illustrations of specific things we adore. We went all over the map for this one and had a great time, so please enjoy the episode and tell us the songs that make you love music.

Discord & Rhyme goes to the movies! This Halloween we're ringing in spooky season by exploring the work of filmmaker and musician John Carpenter. Best known for introducing the world to Michael Myers with the horror classic Halloween, Carpenter has built a solid filmography as a director while also providing his own distinctive musical vision with his scores. The 2017 career-spanning collection Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998 features fresh recordings of some of his most recognizable and beloved soundtrack work. Join Dan, Mike, and Rich as they slightly drift from the usual Discord & Rhyme format to indulge their movie nerd obsessions.