The Album Years podcast

On Spotify and other places one listens to podcasts. I'm pretty obsessed at the moment. Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness (you probably know who they are) are insightful, analytical, and intelligent. And funny at times. I highly recommend listening if you haven't already!


From Steven Wilson's website:
On The Album Years podcast, long term friends, collaborators and music nerds Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness regularly meet online to discuss and bicker about their favourite music released during the golden album years, which they reckon to be from around 1965 to the end of the millennium. Each episode focuses on a single year picked at random. At the end of each episode they pick their personal favourites and the album they think had the most long-term impact on music. Can you guess which albums Steven and Tim will pick from 1980, and what would be your favourite albums from that year?

1979 gets two full episodes - what a year!

Thanks for sharing this, always looking for good music-related podcasts. Their names aren’t familiar?

Just listened to their first episode, “1980”. You didn’t mention they were British....which definitely affects their choices. For example, nice to hear them discuss ‘return of the duritti column’.

Steven Wilson lead the band Porcupine Tree (whose TP entry I swear I'm going to get around to updating), has several excellent solo albums, has made a cottage industry of doing 5.1 surround remixes and remasters for a whole host of artists (King Crimson, XTC, Yes, etc.), and is a major music nerd. His old buddy Tim Bowness is his partner in the band No-Man (who actually predate Porcupine Tree, but are considered a side project at this point), runs the Burning Shed label/distributor, and also has several excellent solo albums (which I'll get around to covering at some point).

I don't listen to podcasts, but I've been thinking about giving this one a shot. Wilson talks it up on his social media and website all the time.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2021 12:12PM by Michael Toland.

They haven't recorded an episode since Nov. Their goal was to cover all of the years from 1965-2000, but they didn't too far. I was happy to see they spent TWO episodes covering 1979.

It's back:

Details.

Yup! I listened a few days ago. I'm glad they are back.

And we come full circle....

Listening to the 1971 episode, they praise Kevin Coyne, a singer/songwriter I have zero knowledge of.

Going through the used vinyl bins, I come across an affordable copy of Coyne’s live ‘In living black and white’ which I decide to nab.

Looking at the album’s back cover, who do you suppose wrote the really nice liner notes? Kudos Ira!!

I just listened to the first episode, which covers 1980. Music nerdia deluxe. I appreciate that they decided not to cover stuff like Bowie's Scary Monsters because they feel like it's been done to death. I'm checking out More Specials, Common One, McCartney II (which I owned back when it came out, but haven't heard since then and long ago disposed of), Seventeen Seconds (or at least "A Forest," which I don't think I've ever heard, believe it or not), A Black Box (by Peter Hammill, one of those guys I keep telling myself I'm gonna really delve into and never seem to get around to) and The Return of the Durutti Column as a result. I should be working on a feature story due in about a week, mind you, but now I'm down the rabbit hole Wilson and Bowness have dug. Damn you, you bastards.

Michael Toland Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A Black Box (by Peter Hammill, one of those guys
> I keep telling myself I'm gonna really delve into
> and never seem to get around to)

Hammill is quite intriguing. His catalog is pretty massive, especially when adding the Van Der Graaf Generator albums to the mix. As with any artist so prolific, there's a lot of average material, but there is also a ton to admire. His voice is pretty incredible.

I have several Hammill (all from the 70s) and VDGG albums, but haven’t listened to them in years, except for digging out Nadir’s Big Chance a couple of months ago. And I hadn’t heard of A Black Box until now. I streamed the first three songs and I’m all in. His solo discography is intimidatingly deep, though.

Ha... welcome to the club! Those bastards will indeed send you scurrying down unfamiliar rabbit holes.

Because they’re British, they tend to mention quite a bit that’s not in my wheelhouse.....but sounds like it should be. The fact that they don’t play ANY sample clips makes it even more intriguing. Looking forward to hearing their new episode on 1981.