And welcome back to 35,000 watts, the podcast. My name is Michael Millard. I’m here with Scott Mobley and Keith Porterfield. We are three ex college radio DJs and executive staffers, and we have this little podcast so we can talk about college radio music, college radio culture, college radio stuff. We just put an episode in the can about college radio music documentaries.
That’s pretty cool. That’ll be coming out, or already out if you haven’t listened to that one yet. This time, we’re gonna take you know, we’re usually pretty positive guys, I think, and we usually like to talk about the things that we like and which albums we like best and which one hit wonders we like best and cover songs. This time, we’re gonna take a slightly different tack, and we’re gonna talk about albums that were huge, hugely popular, hugely influential, and that we personally just did not get. I think we have some good candidates for that.
All three are undeniably popular, undeniably well known, college radio artists. The albums themselves were all big sellers in The US for sure, and I think worldwide as well for for all three of them. But in our individual cases, they just didn’t really hit the mark. So I’ll I’ll kick things off with a band, and and I’ll be honest, the band in general is is fits this category for me, not just the album. And, but the album I chose is is Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar, Sex Magic.
So that that is, I guess, kinda seen as their breakthrough album. I mean, they had Mother’s Milk before this came out in the late eighties, and it was I guess, maybe you could consider that their breakthrough. It certainly had, you know, one or two pretty big songs on it. I think it was, it was before my time in college radio and before I discovered college radio, but my sense is that it got a lot of college radio airplay, mother’s milk that is. And then so Blood Sugar Sex Magic comes out in the magical year of ’91 when everything was happening with, you know, Nevermind comes out, Pearl Jam ten comes out, the Seattle scene is booming, alternative quote unquote music is booming, and in the midst of that, Red Hot Chili Peppers, who, of course, are from LA, released Blood Sugar Sex Magic.
And I gotta tell you, I it never there’s not a single song on this album that I particularly care for, and I never really came around to to the album or or the group in general. I’m sure I I I know there are millions and millions and millions of Red Hot Chili Peppers fans. I imagine the next thing I’m gonna say is probably anathema to them, which is that the only song I actually like from Red Hot Chili Peppers is The Other Side from Californication, which I think is the album that most hardcore chili pepper fans say is is kind of the least chili pepper of all the albums. Probably why I like it the most of all the Red Hot Chili Pepper albums. Like, if I had to listen to a Red Hot Chili Pepper album, it would be Californication.
But particularly, the other side is is really the only track that I can honestly say that I, like, I like. Like, I would I would voluntarily listen to that. I involuntarily had to listen to a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers in the day, whether it was in rotation at KTXT, it was in rotation at MTV. You heard it out just out and about. I mean, that album was so huge.
It’s one of those that was just out in the ether and, like, you you just heard it wherever you went. But going through some of the songs, breaking the girl, it never quite got I just despise Under the Bridge. I I cannot I I could go my whole life without ever hearing Under the Bridge again and be so, so happy. Suck My Kiss just nothing about that song really grabbed me. Give It Away is the only one that I again, I can’t say that I like it, and I can’t say that I would wanna voluntarily listen to it, but I, you know, that’s that’s one that if it came up on rotation at KTXT, I wasn’t super mad about it.
Like, it’s I I can see, I guess, the appeal of that one. Band wise, I kinda I guess I kinda have some mixed feelings. I, Flea seems like a a decent enough guy, and he seems like he’s he’s kind of a fun dude. Chad Smith seems like a perfectly nice guy from what I’ve seen, and he seems kinda under the under the radar for the most part. I just Anthony Kiedis throws me the wrong way.
Everything about him kinda just I just they have never really seen him as like that, you know, rock star god that that a lot of people do. Their, you know, their guitar situation has kinda fluctuated. I I guess I don’t really have any problem with John Fosante in particular, and, they had Dave Navarro on board for a little while there, and he’s, I guess, really more associated with Jane’s Addiction, but, I’m kinda neutral on him. But I it’s not that I I hate them. It’s not that I don’t think that they have the right to exist or that I don’t understand why.
I guess people kinda like what they’re doing. You know, they’ve got the funk thing. They’ve got a little like, almost a little bit of hip hop style with songs like Suck My Kiss and Give It Away. It’s unique. I think at the time in ’91, it was it was a little more unique maybe than what was going on with some of the grunge bands that did maybe start to run together a little bit, particularly as the nineties wore on and and some of the copycat bands came out.
So I will give Red Hot Chili Peppers the credit for for kind of representing the LA scene in a different way and for being maybe a little more unique than than some of the other bands that were out on their tier at the time, which honestly was the top tier of alternative music. You know? I think they were as big as any band was in in the early nineties. You know, I chose Blood Sugar, Sex Magic. I could’ve I think that it would’ve been maybe easier to choose one hot minute, but I I I think that’s an easier case to even a even a a fan might also agree with me about one hot minute not being that great of an album.
So that felt too easy. And I think Blood Sugar Sex Magic is is kinda universally loved, it seems like. So that seemed like a better choice for me to just it was huge. It was popular. It was influential, and it just completely flew over my head in every in every possible way.
Yeah. I I don’t even and and this is one where I’m going in not knowing how you guys feel about the band or the album. So I’m I’m curious what you guys think about it, and maybe you can enlighten me and and open my eyes to to the album or the band. Well, I was just gonna say, I think I like them a little bit better than you. They’re not, like, one of my favorite bands or anything.
The thing with me and the Chili Peppers is I think that they are a great singles band. The ones you mentioned, the singles off this album, Breaking the Girls, Suck My Kiss, Under the Bridge, Give It Away, are all good songs to in my opinion. I I like all of them. To me, the Chili Peppers, like I said, are a great singles band, but, man, listening to an entire Chili Peppers album is a lot. And especially this one, this one is 17 songs long.
I mean, you know, it just goes on and on. I think, you know, there are other good songs on it. You know, the I like all of the singles, like I said. I also, like, I Could Have Lied. The Righteous and the Wicked is a good song.
The title track is a good song. I feel like if they had put the singles and, like, you know, a half dozen of the other songs on here and made a a shorter, tighter album, they could have had a really good record on their hand. I’m just not a huge fan of their brand of funk rock, and so listening to it for over an hour for 17 songs was quite a slog. And I hadn’t heard this album since it was out back in the early nineties. So, you know, it had been a while for me.
I can understand why it got popular. Like I said, I think the singles are all good songs. I think they are a good singles band. I think with, a Chili Pepper song comes up in the middle of a of a run of songs on the radio or in a shuffle situation or whatever, it’s always fun to hear one of their songs. But, yeah, listening to 17 of them in a row is quite a slog for me.
So, yeah, I don’t dislike it. Such an overstuffed yeah. Such an overstuffed album Right. In my opinion. So, like I said, I don’t dislike it, but I I don’t think I would like it as much as its fans do.
You know, it it is to me kinda solidly okay, but I think it would have been a lot better had it gotten cut down to a more manageable 10, maybe 12 songs. I’m gonna land right between you two here, I think. And I’ll I’ll tell you a little bit about my history with this band. So I was a big fan of their first two albums, Uplift, Mofo Party Plan, and Mother’s Milk. I think what they were trying to do on those albums was be a funk rock band.
Like you said, Keith, like, this is, you know, this is where funk and punk merge maybe or something like that. And they’re really good at that. And there are hints of that here, like, for example, the second track on this album, if you have to ask, that’s a parliament song. And it’s just I mean, it’s even though it’s a little backing vocals and everything, it sounds like a George Clinton song. That’s what they were trying to do when they started, and I really liked that.
This album is where they start to get into a little bit more of what they’re gonna be eventually. You know, there’s a there’s a couple of slow songs here. There’s a couple of, you know, things that you kinda see the transition happening. There are good songs on this record. I I really like the title track, Blood Sugar Sights Magic.
I actually kinda like Under the Bridge and Breaking the Girl. I think those are both a nice little gear ships. I don’t I I kind of agree with you, Michael, that I don’t ever need to hear under the bridge again. But, you know, taking away the million of times I’ve heard between in the nineties and now, I I think that is a pretty solid song. I think it’s produced really, really well.
I don’t know who produced this record, but but there’s some great production on here. Recruitment, actually. Doing some recruitment? Okay. They they wanted to keep making funk rock.
Unfortunately, what this album, I think, ended up creating is new metal. Right. You know, they if you wanna hear great funk rock, the first two Chili Peppers albums, and then you need to switch to Fishbone or Infectious Grooves or something like that. What this album starts and what they kinda do after this before they mellow out on Californication stuff is what Limp Bizkit was. It’s it’s the rap metal fusion thing.
So they get credit for creating that. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but I think you really tapped into what really is the negative of this album, and that is that is way too long. There is no reason for this album to be this long. And, you know, we talked in a previous episode about Smashing Pumpkins and about how they kind of have this signature sound, and after an hour, it starts to drone a little bit. This is that times a hundred.
They have a very distinct sound, and after seven, eight tracks, it really starts to grate on you. And I’ve always felt that way about the chili peppers. The other thing I will add in here, I think this band has three really talented musicians in it, and Anthony Keedis. I kind of agree with you. Michael has never done it for me.
I’ve always found him kind of annoying. I have seen these guys live, I think, three times over the years, once in their heyday, once fairly recently. All three times, they were terrible. They were terrible live, and I can’t I’ve you know, the first time I thought I was a bad night, and the second time I thought, well, maybe I just not catching these guys. I just don’t think they’re gonna live band at all.
And the last time I saw them would have been in the early 2000s in in Houston. They had the unfortunate, fate of having the Foo Fighters open for them and the Foo Fighters at that time would just had like the one album out and they were still real till they knew. After Foo Fighters played, the Chili Peppers had nothing to work with. Like, they were they were just awful. I we I think we left, like, five songs in.
It was so bad. And so if you’re one of those people out there that that thinks this is a great live band, I would love for someone to show me that because I’ve never seen it. And I have seen these guys live many, many times. I’ve always thought they were terrible. So I’m I’m kinda gonna land in the middle here and say that I don’t think this is a horrible album.
I think it’s way too long. And it certainly wears at its welcome. And if you don’t like what they do, which is what it sounds like to me, Michael, that you just don’t like this this groove they’re in, then this isn’t gonna ever work for you. You’re not gonna be able to play it enough to to have it win you over. But I think if you like the first two Chili Peppers albums, there’s a little bit of that here.
It tapers off, but there’s a little bit of that here. There might be something for you. If you’re a fan of Californication and, you know, some of the stuff they’ve done since, there’s probably nothing for you here, honestly, maybe other than under the bridge. This is one that I kind of agree with you that I never really understood why it was so popular, when they kinda just are are, to me, a one note band. You know, that I feel like they should have had about the same career path as Fishbone.
Well, honestly, I think Fishbone should have had Red Hot Chili Peppers career path and Red Hot Chili Peppers should have had Fish Yeah. Because, like, Fishbone is amazing. So it’s not that I’m, you know, a % against Funk Rock or that that idea of trying to kind of fuse those things together. I also am a am a fan of Flea’s bass playing to some degree. I think his he obviously is is very, very good at what he does.
And it’s interesting that you mentioned kind of the the first two albums and then how that starts to switch. He actually talks about how he was listening to Sonic Youth, I believe, and Kim Gordon’s playing and decided to kinda back off of the slap bass. There’s only, I think, you said one or two tracks on Blood Sugar Sex Magic where he plays using the slap method. He goes to a more traditional bass playing method on this album. I thought he is still, you know, rocking out on it, but he he does kind of change.
And, of course, slap bass is so intricately tied to kind of the sound of those first two albums. A funk. Yeah. A funk in general. It’s interesting you mentioned that because even though it doesn’t have a slap bass line, it doesn’t have that that Red Hot Chili Peppers sound, if you wanna call it that.
Listen to the bass line of Under the Bridge. That song has a fantastic bass line, and that it doesn’t need. You know, it’s a ballad. It could have just been a a sort of a a slow, you know, walking, you know, foundation kind of bass line. It’s not that.
It has this beautiful, like, kind of, you know, melodic bass line under that song. It’s really, really good. This is great party music. It’s great party music. Even if you don’t like the album.
If you’re going to a house party and this album’s on and it’s jamming and people are bouncing around and having a good time and, you know, you get the the kind of rap funk thing going on. Yeah. It’s great party music. And that’s the I think that’s a big reason why they’re as popular as they are, at least were back in in those days. And I will also defend Under the Bridge.
I know it got played out. I know it got played a million times, but that is a beautiful song. It just is. There’s no two ways around it. It’s the production of that song.
It’s the it’s the back vocals and just it’s so it’s so lush, I think, you know, and and it definitely got played out. I think there’s probably a few out there going out, like, with, you know, your same sentiment. I don’t ever need to hear that song again, but take yourself out of that for a minute and really listen to that song. It’s a it’s a really well done track. I will, I will agree the production is great.
Rick Rubin actually does great product. I mean, you know, as as almost always he does. I will also say I absolutely hated Under the Bridge from the very first moment I heard it and never laughed it. I just absolutely do not like that song. It just oh, man.
I don’t know why. I mean, it’s I like other music that’s probably, you know, in the same vein. You know, some of these things are just ineffable. Right? Like, why why not?
We’re we’re we’re getting into this with you guys’ albums as well. I’m sure, like, it is what it is. But, man, yeah, from the get go, I did not like Under the Bridge and and actually every other single of this album, to be honest. Like, I just I Give It Away is the only one that I that I didn’t have a very visceral just dislike for right off the bat, honestly, but the other ones all just left me so cold, and and I’ve never warmed up to them. Yeah.
Californication is okay. Other Side is a is a great song, but it’s it doesn’t even really feel to me like a Red Hot Chili Peppers song, although maybe that’s what they do now. I don’t know. I’m not sure that I listened to anything really by them after Californication. But anyway, Red Hot Chili Peppers fans roast me in the comments.
I’m sure I am sure someone out there is just wanting to, like, punch through their their speaker. I was gonna say through the screen, but we don’t do video on on this podcast. So you’ll have to throw your iPhone in disgust or something. You should all be thankful for that, by the way. Yeah.
Yeah. Nobody needs to see nobody needs to see this. We don’t we don’t need to unleash out on anybody. But, you know, apologies, to Red Hot Chili Peppers fans. It’s just it’s just not for me.
Alright. Who can we offend next? Keith, why don’t you offend somebody and get me off the hook here? Alrighty. I’ve been offending people for fifty some odd years now.
Shouldn’t be too difficult. This one for me, this is not a band or not a a record that I dislike. This is actually it’s a fine album. It’s it’s perfectly alright. But at KTXT at the time, everybody there seemed to think that this album was, like, the second coming of Nevermind or Sergeant Pepper or something like that.
Like, this was the greatest album ever. And what what I’m talking about is Rubberneck by the Toadies. This album came out in ’94. It wasn’t just big on college radio. I mean, it it had a pretty good run.
It got to number 56 on the Billboard two hundred, Possum Kingdom, which was the, the lead single. I actually wasn’t. It was the second single, but it was the big single off it. Got to, number nine on the mainstream rock charts and number four on the modern rock tracks. So this was album was popular everywhere, not just at KTXT.
But like I said, at the radio station at the time, man, people were falling all over themselves about this album. And it’s just it’s just not that to me. It’s a totally solid hard rock record, but I it was not game changing in any way. It was not the kind of, you know, this is what where music is going and what it’s gonna be from now on, which seemed to be, like, at the time at the radio station what a lot of people thought. Like I said, it’s fine.
It’s it’s good. It’s got what I I think two really great longs on it, and I’ll get to those here in just a second. But for the most part, about two thirds of this album is two to three and a half minute long little bursts of just furious guitar rock. And they are all pretty good, but only one of them to me actually, like, totally sticks the landing, and that’s mister Love. And it is one of the two, what I think are legitimately great songs on this album.
Every other song on this album that’s in this vein wants to be mister Love and just doesn’t quite get there. There’s some other good ones. Backslider is pretty good. I Come From The Water is pretty good. All of them are pretty good.
But, man, mister Love is the one that lands. And we played it at KTXT. I don’t recall it being huge for us, but we did run it. We ran Pawsome Kingdom, obviously. That was the, you know, the big one that everybody did and then, like I said, the their biggest single.
But aside from that, you know, you got those, like I said, six or seven really kinda short guitar rockers. And then there are a handful of songs that break the mold a little bit, those being Possum Kingdom, Away, Tyler, and I Burn. Again, one of those to me is is legitimately a great song, that being Tyler. Tyler, to me, is the best song on this album, and it’s not close. It’s easily the best song on this album.
And I what I one thing I do remember from the college radio days back when I was the music director, we were running this album. We’d gotten through with Possum Kingdom. It had kinda had its big run, and we were we weren’t playing Tyler. We were running that one. And I got a call from whoever their rep was, their music, rep at the time.
And they were pushing another song. I’m pretty sure it was Away because that ended up being the the third single off this album. And so I told him, well, you know, it’s a good song, but we’re already playing Tyler. And I remember the guy being like, Tyler, oh, that’s kind of a an interesting choice. And, you know, that’s, not one we would really have thought about.
We were a a CMJ core fifty reporter at the time, and so I used to always look at everybody’s lists on the core 50 reporters in the CMJ magazine. And wasn’t long after that that I started seeing Tyler pop up in other places. And then not long after that that Tyler actually got released as a single. So I was always kinda proud of the fact that, we kinda scooped everybody on Tyler. I think we were playing that a little bit ahead of everybody else.
So I’m gonna I’m gonna take a little credit there, pat myself on the back that I was on that one a little bit before. I think everyone else was. But, yeah, to me, easily the best song on that on that album. The entire album is pretty good. There’s not it’s not terrible.
There’s not any bad songs on it. There’s nothing I would skip over if I was gonna listen to it. It’s just a solid rock record. It’s just not anything more to me than a solid rock record. And as I said, at KTXT at least, I don’t know if it was this way at other college radio stations, but at KTXT, you know, people were falling all over themselves about this album, and I just it just never was that for me.
I never got it. I never understood quite why people thought it was as good as they obviously thought it was. So mark your calendars because I’m about to 100% agree with Keith for the first time ever. This I I had a lot of thoughts when you brought this this record up, and and and this album’s heyday was sort of I think it came out while I was at KTXD and blew up right after I left, so I kind of missed the the hype on this album, but I do remember hearing a lot about it. It’s funny.
I was, for some other reason, some other show we were doing or something, I looked up the most underrated albums of the nineties, and hundreds of albums come up on those lists, but two pop up on there consistently. One of them is I am an elastic firecracker by tripping Daisy. The other one is this album. And my thought when I saw that was, well, both those albums, in case of both those albums, they may be underrated nationally. If you lived in Texas in the early nineties, those albums were not underrated.
They were very possibly overrated. When it comes to the Toadies, I I always kinda liked them, but I never liked them enough to really get into them in in a big way. I thought they were kinda derivative of some other stuff. I thought they were just sort of, like, hammering home what everyone else was doing at the time. I never really thought they were all all that, I guess.
Possum Kingdom is a is a good song, but I don’t think it it deserves to be on the pedestal that it’s on. It’s still played like crazy on the rock stations around here, and and you still hear people talk about it. It’s a good song, but it’s not it’s not that song. It shouldn’t be as iconic as it is. I agree with you wholeheartedly that if there is a song on this album that should be iconic, it’s Tyler.
That song is fantastic, and I I loved it from the second I heard it. I think the, what they are doing vocally in that song is just amazing. Like, the way the vocals kind of build to a scream along with the music and just everything about that song is is damn near perfect. And then, you know, the the other the other songs in this album I really like. You you mentioned Mr.
Love. That’s a great song. I really like that one. And I like I Come From The Water as well. That was the other one that I that I wrote down as as one that I really enjoyed.
So so, yeah, I am in complete agreement with you on this. I think this is a fine album. I think it’s it’s good. But I think it was, at least in our circle at that time, very overhyped. And I’m I’ve never been able to really put my finger on the whys of that.
It’s it’s perfectly serviceable. It’s a good rock record, but it doesn’t need to be mentioned in the same breath as some of the albums it gets mentioned with, I think. It’s funny that you mentioned the vocal on Tyler. I I think Todd Lewis is a fine vocalist. I think he’s kinda limited in what he can do.
But that song in particular is just perfect for what he does. It works better than anything else on that album. It’s it is that song was meant for him to sing it for sure. Yeah. I agree.
Tyler’s far and away the best song on that album. And and not just the best song on that album, but a just a very, very, very good song, full stop. I think that our perception of it is is a little different because of, like, Scott mentioned, you know, they’re they’re a Fort Worth band. For us in Lubbock, you know, not really having a local music scene, the DFW scene was probably the closest thing we had to a local music scene. So we embraced the Toadies, the Tripping Daisy, Hagfish, those bands that were coming out, you know, Tabula Rasa.
Those those guys are all in the film, by the way, or all except for Tripping Daisy. Tiny bit of an awkward situation in that I I interviewed Toadies for the film, but I mean, KTXT, we embrace him as a local band. And so I think we gave them, you know and they came to Lubbock and played shows. And so I think there was definitely a perception of them being, you know, some home like hometown hero types thing happening so that everyone really got behind them. And they’re they’re very nice people.
When they came for the interview, they were great, which is why I I reached out to him for the film. So in all of those senses, they are good people who made a really good album, and we really embrace that at KTXT. My thing with the album is that I think Possum Kingdom is one of the weaker songs on the album, personally. Like, Possum Kingdom isn’t a song that I really care that much about, but it has such a big impact culturally, like, even to this day like Scott said, I was just watching, you know, there’s a new marvel movie coming out called Thunderbolts. There’s the first trailer they did had the pixies in it.
The second trailer they did had Possum Kingdom in it. It is a huge, huge song. I was watching, For All Mankind, which is an Apple TV show that that’s, an alternative history of what would happen if if the Soviets had won this the race to the moon, and then, you know, it splits off into this alternate history. When they get to the nineties, the signifying song that they use that we’re in the nineties now is Possum Kingdom. Like, it is it has a much larger cultural footprint than you would than you would think for a for a song that wasn’t even necessarily you know, this wasn’t a a smells like teen spirit level song, but it was it was huge.
It it was definitely huge. It was big on MTV. But for me personally, not not my favorite song on the album. I love Tyler. Love miss mister love.
Backslider, great. A couple other songs are are solid. But but, yeah, it I I’m in the middle on it. I it’s not one that I think of as being, like, a top 10 of the nineties for sure, kinda album and maybe not, you know, necessarily a top 20 album of the nineties, but it is one that I think, you know, for the DFW scene, for the Texas music scene, it it stands out a lot higher. I think, you know, if you were to do a top five bands of the nineties in Texas, it would be hard to to not choose the Toadies because because the album is is good enough and the cultural imprint of Possum Kingdom is big enough that I do think you have to acknowledge that.
So then after this album, they record another album that that gets rejected by the the label, which is why there isn’t really a follow-up to this album until much, much later. So they missed their window of being able to, I think, build on top of Rubber Neck and build their legacy so that we see Rubber Neck almost in isolation. I don’t think anybody I don’t think many people even know about the Tony’s next album, which is Heaven Above Hell Below, I think is the name of it. If you listen to it, you’ll see that they were kinda trying to go for they were trying to really push beyond the limits of of what you hear on Rubberneck, and they were much more experimental on that one. If you kinda work backwards from it, you do see a little bit of of that in Rubberneck where they were pushing a tiny bit against the edges of of grunge or alternative rock at that time.
I think Tyler’s probably the best example of of them stretching a a little bit further. But even Possum Kingdom musically, I think, is is a little more interesting than a lot of the other grunge stuff that was coming out. That said, I can see where you’re coming from because of the giant imprint it had on us in Lubbock and and on us and as, you know, Texas music fans because they were they were around a lot. They did a lot of shows. We certainly gave them all the airplay you could possibly give an album at that time.
So, yeah, it’s it’s interesting that Possum Kingdom became as big as it did. I I think Tyler deserves to be that song. That it would not surprise me at all if Tyler had become the cultural juggernaut that that Possum Kingdom kinda became, but it didn’t work out that way for whatever reason. That said, shout out to the Toadies. I I still love you guys, and thanks for being in the film.
But, I I wanted to to mention this because I I think it there’s a thing to this. You know, you guys on a on a previous episode had mentioned, b blew something breakfast at Tiffany’s. That song was one that blew up nationwide years after it was a hit around Lubbock, Texas. So by the time that song blew up, we had all heard it a billion times, and we’re kinda over it, honestly. On some level, maybe not at that high level, but on some level, that’s what happened with Possum Kingdom two.
When that song started blowing up, I was a year into hearing it all the time, you know, and I think maybe that’s where my my memories of it sort of fade out, you know, and and maybe are a little less whatever. I I think Possum Kingdom is a fine song. You’re right, though. It’s I think if I was given this album and said, you know, pick pick a single off of this, I I wouldn’t get to that one. I’ve you know, it would be number seven, number eight, something like that.
But it is you know, for some reason, it worked on people. But, yeah, it was one of those that by the time it got its due on a on a big scale, I I was over it. You know? And, you know, much like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, although maybe not quite that bad. I will also, echo Michael in saying that these are really good guys, and and Gal and Lisa Umbarger’s case.
We I did meet them at a show they did here in town. We got to interview them. I didn’t do the interview. I can’t remember now who did, but we KTXD got an interview with them, and I did get to meet the band. And you’re right.
They are really nice people. So I don’t wanna slag off their work too much, because they are they are they were really great to meet. Alright. So that’s two albums we’ve, alienated and and angered two fan bases now. We might as well go for the trifecta.
Scott, who are we gonna piss off next? I’m gonna go for the biggest gang of all. I’m coming after U2. Oh, boy. So so the album I chose is U2’s Octon Baby.
I I’m gonna back up a little bit and and tell you kinda where I land on this this band and this album. So, I have never loved these guys. I always kind of appreciated them in their early years. I thought they definitely had a unique sound. They definitely had, you know, something going on.
It just really was never for me. And they have they have songs that I like and and over the those early albums. But, you know, overall, I was just never a huge fan of these guys. When the Joshua Tree happened and and blew up, I appreciated that album for the moments on it that worked for me. You know, I always really like Bull with the Blue Sky, and then, you know, I’d I’d Where the Streets Have No Name is fantastically produced, you know, and there there’s a lot of stuff of good things to say about the Joshua Tree.
But I never really understood the hype on this band. So I have to add in here that, you know, for a band that I really don’t like that much, I have seen these guys live so many times. I think I have seen them live six or seven times. There are bands I adore. I haven’t seen live six times.
So, and and the way it happens is I always kinda fall backwards into seeing you two live. But anyway, that the the reason that’s important to this story is I was taken to see them on the Joshua Tree tour in Austin, Texas. It was a fine show, but what I noticed about it was they were performing on a barren stage. There was no backdrop. There was no sets.
There was nothing. It was a bunch of stacks on a stage with chords running everywhere. The microphone had a chord. All the guitars had chords. You know, Bono tripped at least four times, like, running around tripping on chords.
They were everywhere. And so at that moment, I remember thinking, okay, that’s what people like about them. They’re raw. They’re minimalistic. They’re doing this themselves.
You know, there’s no there’s no trickery or overproduction here. They’re just who they are. And that’s the appeal. It’s not for me, but that’s what people like about them. And, you know, right after that rattle and comes out, I think rattle and is a wildly underappreciated album.
It the the new stuff on it is good. The live stuff on it improves on all those songs that, you know, in their non live versions. I think they’re better live than they are recorded. That one’s neither here nor there. But even Rattle and has this sort of, you know, it’s just us.
We’re out on the road. We’re being influenced by these different sounds from America, you know, all of that. So I’m not a fan of the band, but I’m on board with that’s who they are. These simple guys doing simple music that works for people and blah blah blah. So then comes Octung Baby, which takes all those things I just said and throws them right out the window.
This is this is the most overproduced, polished, slick album maybe ever. So I just didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand how these people who adored this band that was known for doing that is suddenly doing this, and now we’re all cool with that too. And there’s a lot of other factors here that sort of played into that, you know, we’ve talked in the past about pretentious douchebaggery, and Bono is their king. And I remember when the video for The Fly came out, and he’s wearing those stupid glasses, and, you know, just everything about this album was rubbing me the wrong way as it continued to get more and more and more popular.
And I could never get anyone to explain to me why we were okay with this wild shift in who they are and what they do. Now that said, 20 year old me was a much different person than the me now. Things like doing pretentious stuff in your videos and getting famous on being this raw minimalistic band and then doing this album. Things like that really irked me back then. And so I really kind of rode my hatred for this album for a long time.
Cut to thirty years later, I’ve seen U2Live five more times. And I have started to appreciate some of the songs on this album for for what they are, which is there there’s some really, really well written and good songs on this album. I particularly like I’m not gonna go through all of them, but I particularly like until the end of the world and who’s gonna ride your wild horses. I think those are both fantastic songs. Unfortunately, you know, I have to watch Bono sing them, but the you know, there there really is some good stuff here.
So I’m sort of here to back off on what has been a a long a long time of of really dismissing and and sort of putting down this album. But I will still say, all of that said, that I still don’t get it. I still don’t get why this album blew them up the way it did when it was such a departure from what they were known for, famous for, and good at. Even though that wasn’t for me, this certainly wasn’t for me at the time. And I I never understood why their fans were just so willing to embrace this complete shift.
And the other thing I’m gonna add here is, the last two times I saw you two live was the show they did at The Sphere here in Las Vegas, which from an audio visual perspective is hands down the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. But my reaction both times I saw at that show was this would have been so much better if they didn’t insist on doing Octung Baby in its in its entirety. If you haven’t seen the set list from those shows, it’s Octung Baby, all of it. One song from Unforgettable Fire, two songs from the Joshua Tree, and one, maybe two from rattle and then all of Octung Baby, and then a few of the new songs like one, two, three, 14, and all that stuff. They really should have taken the opportunity to make that show at the Sphere a career spanning retrospective of all of their music.
It would have been so much better. So what was, hands down, the most incredible audio visual thing I’ve ever seen was brought down a couple pegs by Octung Baby. You know, it’s, I didn’t I didn’t feel the the need for them to do that. A few of these songs would have been fine. So long story short, I didn’t get this album when it came out.
I still really kind of don’t get it, although I will back off a little bit and say that I think it’s much better than I gave it credit for back in the day. But it’s still for an album that sold 18,000,000 copies and launched this band into the stratosphere in popularity, I just don’t hear it when I listen to this album. I don’t hear how that happened. So I know there’s at least one YouTube fan sitting on the other side of this microphone, so I’ll let you guys chime in. Yeah.
That’s right. There is one. And and for my money, this is this is the last great U two album. I think their career splits easily in half. It’s Octung Baby and everything that went before.
That’s where I’m a U two fan, and then there’s everything that’s come since then. And there have been good songs on all the albums since then, but nothing like the first half of their career. My experience with this album is is a little different because I was expecting something different. You know, that was kind of the buzz when before the album came out. This this was gonna be like a radical departure and and can be something completely new for you too.
And then the first single was the fly, and it’s still the fly is still my favorite song on that album. I love that song. And so when it came out, I wanted there to be 12 songs that sounded like the fly on there, and that’s not what Octung Baby is. It is a departure from what had gone before. I think if you look at it now kinda in the context of the rest of their career, it doesn’t seem as radical a departure as it did at the time because a lot of the rest of their career kind of has followed along, you know, on those lines.
But when I first got it, I was disappointed in it. I I didn’t like it as much as I thought I was going to based on the fact that I thought it was gonna be, you know, like I said, a big departure and 12 songs that were kinda I don’t wanna say punky, but, you know, the the guitar driven kinda interesting rock that is The Fly. And it’s not that. It has some other songs that kinda sound like that on it, but it isn’t that in general. Over the years, I have completely come around to really embrace this album.
I think, like I said, it’s one of their best. Pretty much everything on it works for me. Although, I do both, like like, both of the songs that you, mentioned, Until the End of the World and Wild Horses. I think the lyrics on Wild Horses are a little silly, but, a lot of Bono’s lyrics are a little silly. So, it won’t hold that against him.
Yeah. This to me, like I said, it’s the last great YouTube album. I I there’s not anything on it I would change. The only blemish on it to me at all, and it’s not a serious one, but I am not a fan of Mysterious Ways, which was probably the biggest song off of this album. If if, Gunned Ahead, I had to take one song off of this album, it would be Mysterious Ways.
I I don’t understand that one, why it quite got as big as it did. But, but overall, yeah, I think this is a fantastic album. And I saw him on this tour. I saw one of those, Sphere shows as well. These songs come across really well live for me.
I do. I take the other the other side on this one. I think this is a a really good YouTube record, one of their best. And, and I really, still even to this day, like it probably better now than I did even at the time it came out. So I am I’m very much not a YouTube fan.
Bono absolutely rubs me the wrong way as he does a lot of people, I think. But he’s tough to get past. And and this era of Bono where he was, you know, he had a character called the fly when he put on the glasses, he became a different character. And I could do without all of that crap. Like, that that did not speak to me.
It did not work on me, and and it it made me it reinforced my dislike for you two when this album came out. So I really it’s not that I I hate song like, where the streets have no name is a perfectly good song. I will follow. You know, there’s songs they have songs that I appreciate or, like, I wouldn’t turn them off if they came on, but I don’t have any I I I never bought a YouTube album. I never was a YouTube fan.
I’ve never seen them live. When, Octume Baby came out, I wasn’t interested. Didn’t really care that much about it. I heard Mysterious Ways a lot. Then, obviously, we started playing some of the songs on on KTXT as well.
I don’t know that we really pushed U2 that hard because they were so big that I don’t I don’t know that we really played a ton of them, but I they were in rotation at KTXT for sure, and that’s probably where I was exposed to them. That said, I think it was ’97 or ’98. For whatever reason, I completely came around to Octung Baby. It’s the only still, it’s the only YouTube album in my library. It is the only album I really know front to back, and enjoy front to back.
And again, there’s you know, like I said, they’ve they have songs from the Joshua Tree and and all the way back to Boy era that are are perfectly fine. They have some songs that have come out since that are that are fine, but I don’t really know the albums that well or and I certainly don’t own them. I actually really, really, really love Octombaby now for what for some reason. And then maybe that’s the problem is that someone like me actually really got into Octume Baby, but I wasn’t a fan of what they were doing before. So, a, I didn’t have any preconceived notions of what they should be or what they shouldn’t be or, you know, what what changes would make me like them more or less.
I really just kind of ignored it when it came out because I didn’t think I would like it because I didn’t think that I liked U2, not maybe realizing how different it was. And and I just never really gave it a a shot as an album. I actually always kinda liked Mysterious Ways, oddly enough. So I’m I’m kinda on the opposite side of this from from both of you guys in that way and that I like the album and the song that I do like that got me into it was, in fact, Mysterious Ways. I love the guitar line.
I I I think it’s a great really catchy song. I my favorite song on the album, I think, is Acrobat. I really, really like Acrobat, but the ones you guys mentioned as well. It it definitely is a is a very cohesive album. I think it it, plays really well front to back as as, like, a a body of work, shall we say.
Very different, obviously, like you said, from from Radland Home and from Joshua Tweed, what and what came before probably kinda does inform what what happens after this, but they they never hit this high again with with this particular kind of incarnation of of their sound. But, yeah, I I actually really everything about this album kinda works for me other than Bono’s personality, and some of the lyrics. But I I really I like I the production is is fantastic. I think some of the guitar sounds and some of the things they’re doing are are just really interesting to me. I can kinda say in retrospect now, it does stand out from some of the other music of that era.
I was thinking it was it was more ninety three ish, so maybe that isn’t as true. But, you know, in a in a world of a lot of grunge music and and as, again, as as the grunge copycats came along, this one does stand out, obviously, as being, you know, different from that. So that that helps it, I think. But I but that’s an argument that I’m that I’m making in hindsight, so I can’t I can’t super stand by that. So you guys may not feel that way, but I guess it’s the YouTube album for the non YouTube fan.
Maybe maybe that’s the problem is if you’re a u two fan, you may like every other aspect of their career, but this may stand out as kind of a outlier. And to me, it was the one album that really got me into them and that I that I really enjoy pretty much every every song. It’s it feels to me like a really solid album front to back. Does you two deserve to be on the tier that they were on or are are on? You could definitely argue that on on both sides, and I’m sure we’ll have people that agree with agree with that and disagree with that.
But but, yeah, that’s that’s kind of my take. I I am not the maybe not the best person to ask, but, yeah, I I actually think that’s their best work and and definitely my favorite YouTube album for sure. I think, Keith, you mentioned something interesting that, you know, you didn’t particularly like it when you first heard it, you know, and maybe that was common amongst the YouTube fans. You know, if you if you were a big fan of the Joshua Tree or even rattle and humm for that matter, this is such a wild departure from that that I think maybe it maybe I I wasn’t alone in being rubbed the wrong way by it. It’s just everybody else gave it enough listens to let it come around, you know?
And, I I wasn’t willing to do that. This album did have some big sort of mainstream singles singles on it that I think wouldn’t be on their fan base. Mysterious Ways obviously is the best example of that. And it’s a fine song. It’s catchy.
And, you know, you mentioned another song, the lyrics being kinda dumb. Mysterious Ways is definitely that. You know, that’s fifth grade poetry at its finest, but but it is a catchy song. It’s a good song. I I don’t know.
I really think, you know, when I when I I went back and listened to the whole album again, and obviously, like I said, I saw the Sphere show, so I’ve seen this performed live a couple times now and stuff like that. I really don’t think my issue although I would have said at the time my issue with this album was the music and and all that stuff. I don’t know that it was that as much as it was them. It was their image and the way they were marketed, and just the way that they had sort of built this fan base off of something and then completely abandoned it. Just everything about it rubbed me the wrong way to where I think I wasn’t opening my ears to this album.
And, you know, and I now that I have, you know, like I said, I I think they’re all really great songs on it. And I think overall, it’s it’s fine. But I just I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact that that this is you know, I I think if you two disappear tomorrow, this is the album they’re gonna be remembered for. And I’m just I don’t know. I would I would take the Joshua Tree over that any second.
But but you also mentioned, you know, that they they announced that this was gonna be this radical departure. Apparently, they were very upset at the reception of Rattle and Home, which I know a lot of their fans really hated when it came out. I’m not sure why. Maybe maybe it’s because it had previously released stuff on it or whatever. You know, it didn’t feel like a new album.
It felt like kinda like a, like, half a new album, I guess. But I I always kinda like that album. I don’t know. But, yeah, I think maybe all those things kind of thrown in the pot and stirred together just led to, you know, I was never gonna give this album a shot. And now that I have, and I’ve gotten a little older and some of that stuff doesn’t bother me anymore, and I have given it a shot.
I can say it’s gone from a zero to a six for me, but I I still don’t think it’s the the masterpiece that it’s it’s advertised as. You know, this was I looked it up, and this was on the 2,012 Rolling Stone greatest albums of all time list, which, you know, obviously is subjective and whatever. But it’s like number 71. It’s it’s way up there. And I believe it is the highest u two album on that list, which I I guess, Michael, you would agree with.
I I think I think their hardcore fans might disagree with that. I don’t know. I mean, what did you say, Keith? It would I feel like I’m the outlier. Yeah.
Yeah. I don’t know. Keith’s probably the best. I I would say Keith got a way in. Where where would you what would you say is YouTube’s best album?
What’s the album they should be remembered for if they fell off the planet tomorrow? The Joshua Tree. And it’s not close. For me, it’s not. I yeah.
Joshua Tree is by far the best album. As a casual fan, I completely agree with that. That’s the that’s their signature album. That’s the album that sounds like you too. You know?
And then this album just isn’t. But I I would I would probably even take Unforgettable Fire and War before I would take Octung Baby, but Octung Baby would be next. It would be probably my fourth, you know, choice if I’m ranking the the YouTube albums. The thing about this album is, you know, I said I was disappointed. I still liked it when it came out.
I think part of the reason why it’s got the the the radical departure on sound, though, is that, you know, these these were famously hard sessions for these guys. Like, this band almost broke up during the Berlin sessions when they were working on this album, and there was some tension between, I think it was Bono and the Edge both who wanted to go a little more kinda in the radical direction, and, Larry McMullen and Adam Clayton want to stay with kinda what they did. And I think what you ended up getting before the end of it you know, I said my disappointment was that it was not as different as I expected it to be. I think what ended up saving the band and probably kinda even saving this record from maybe its worst, you know, overindulgences was that tension in the band that they were able to kinda pull it back and put some more kind of YouTube ish songs on there and make it sound a little more like what they normally sounded like, even though it’s got, you know, kind of the departure on some of the sounds and some of the song structures and all that stuff.
So I think maybe they both needed this album, not not just to kind of advance their career, but, you know, to stay together and continue to have a career. And I think that tension possibly is why it turned out, you know, as good as it did. And then they embraced all their worst impulses on pop. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, they went too far. I I was just gonna say, though. Like, I was just gonna say before anyone thinks that I’m sitting here saying I like the guitar driven u two over the electronic u two, I think Numb is one of their greatest moments in recording music. I just love that song. I don’t know how the fans feel about it or whatever, but that that song makes me so happy.
I I really like Numba. I I see it as just like a complete, you know It is. It’s a it’s a total, you know, outlier in their catalog, but man, do I love that song. Like I said, all of their albums post our tongue have good songs on them. Have some of them have great songs on them, but I don’t think any of those albums stick together the way that our tongue and everything that came before it do.
Alright. So we’ve alienated a good 75% of our audience now. I think between Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, and the Toadies covers, like, a lot of our our local Texas folks. So, yeah, I think we’ve I think we’ve angered enough people for now, but, you know, we need that, what do they call it in the world? The social me we need that engagement as they say in the social world.
It’s, it’s kinda like the, you know, any press is good press. So if we’ve pissed people off and they comment in our social media, then then we’ve done our job. So so we’re true podcasters now. We weren’t really we weren’t really pushing those buttons before, but now we’re now we’re working into the world of, yeah, trying to get people to to engage. Honestly, though, I am curious.
You know, we I’m sure we have Red Chilli Peppers fans and YouTube fans, and and I know we have Toadies fans, in our group. We have we might have the Toadies themselves. Sorry. Sorry. Our bad.
No. I you know, and, again, I I don’t think it was, any of us said that we didn’t like the album, but, yeah, it had a huge impact in in Texas. And and you know what? Good for them. They still tour, by the way.
They still have a great fan base. Like, they still, have shows all over the place as all all three of these bands do. So maybe we don’t know what we’re talking about. Who knows? But, yeah, let us know.
Actually, I’m more interested. I think finding a defense of any of these bands would actually be pretty easy. I’m more interested, in what in bands that you did not get. So if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re like, oh my god. Yeah.
Everyone and their dog loved this album, and I hate it. That’s actually what I’m more interested in hearing. So let us know what albums you did not get that that everyone else seemed to, and, maybe we’ll do this again, depending on, how angry people are at us after this one. We’ll see. Tell me your favorite band.
I’ll put some on this podcast for you. Yeah. Right. So thanks for tuning in, everybody. We appreciate it.
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