sportsalcohol.com podcast (music)

After a three-year hiatus to get our heads right, the SportsAlcohol.com pop-music contingent is back to talk about new discoveries, legacy acts, favorite albums, and more as we go through 2023 in music, featuring Boygenius, Olivia Rodrigo, Caroline Polachek, The National, Belle & Sebastian, and... Joe Jackson?! Join Rob, Sara, Marisa, Jesse, and Jeremy as we try to make sense of our fractured and internet-addled music landscape!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastMusic2023.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 11:16am EDT

It was a weird year for everything, including music. But that didn't stop the SportsAlcohol.com crew from getting together (virtually) to discuss some of the artists and albums we listened to a lot this year, including Phoebe Bridgers, Waxahatchee, HAIM, Fiona Apple, and Run the Jewels -- plus thoughts on Taylor Swift, a bunch of random reissues, how our listening habits changed, and more!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastBestMusic2020.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 3:01pm EDT

In the long-awaited, long-delayed conclusion of our 1999 Albums saga, Marisa, Jesse, and Magnetic Fields expert Ben take a look at the band's most acclaimed and best-known work. But is it actually their best album? Ben's complex answer may surprise you!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast69LoveSongs.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 10:34am EDT

In one of our popular recurring episodes, the SportsAlcohol.com gang gets together for a selected journey through the Billboard Hot 100 Songs of twenty years ago -- that's right, it's Billboard 2000! Which atrocious pop-country songs make the list? Where in the evolution of Destiny's Child and Britney Spears do these charts find them? Who has TWO of the top three songs of the year?!? Listen in to your favorite ex-DJs and find out!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastBillboard2000.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 6:15pm EDT

Following an A.V. Club Q&A about favorite-ever mixtapes, the SportsAlcohol.com mixtape braintrust got together to reminisce about our mixtape past: tips, tricks, mishaps, and more from a different era of music consumption. So root around your closet, fish out your favorite, and listen along!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastMixtapes.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 6:29pm EDT

Our belated 20th-anniversary tour of notable 1999 records marches on as Rob, Jesse, and Sara discuss Sleater-Kinney's change-of-pace record The Hot Rock, in the context of the band's career and their 2019 change-of-pace record The Center Won't Hold! What does it mean for Sleater-Kinney to change pace, turn down the guitars, or possibly sell out? LISTEN IN AND FIND OUT!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast1999Sleater-Kinney.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 1:02pm EDT

Our 20th anniversary series on the albums of 1999 continues well past the 20-year date with our 21st-birthday-and-change celebration of Keep It Like a Secret by Built to Spill. Are BTS (no, the other BTS) hippies? Hobos? A jam band? We get into these questions and more on our latest bite-sized indie rock episode!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastBuilttoSpillKeepItLikeaSecret.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 2:20pm EDT

Continuing our ongoing 20th-anniversary celebration of assorted albums from the year 1999, we GET INTO IT about one of Beck's less universally beloved records, the party bomb Midnite Vultures. Who thinks it's Beck's best album? Who vehemently disagrees? And how do we define "serious"? Mix bizness with Rob, Jesse, Marisa, Ben, and Derrick to find out!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast1999AlbumsMidniteVultures.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 11:41pm EDT

Our play-through of 20-year-old albums continues with a double feature, as Marisa, Jesse, Rob, and Randy talk about The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner by Ben Folds Five and Utopia Parkway by Fountains of Wayne, two stylistically disparate records that nonetheless come from a similarly nerdy, suburban place.

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast1999AlbumsBenFoldsFoW.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 11:40pm EDT

Continuing our look back at some of the most interesting and beloved albums of 20 years ago, Rob, Sara, and Jesse talk about Fiona Apple's second album, commonly referred to as When the Pawn. How does it hold up two decades later? Was Fiona ahead of her time? Is this world bullshit? LISTEN AND DISCOVER!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast1999AlbumsWhenthePawn.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 2:06pm EDT

As 2019 winds down, SportsAlcohol.com is looking back... to 1999 again! In a series of shorter, sweeter mini-episodes, we're dedicating individual discussions to some major albums from 1999 that mean a lot to us, then and/or now. First up is Emergency & I, the classic third record by the Dismemberment Plan. How did we love this album then and how do we love it now? Listen and learn, indie rock nerds!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast1999AlbumsEmergencyAndI.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 1:46pm EDT

If there's one thing the editorial core of SportsAlcohol.com knows, it's not so much sports, or alcohol, but popular culture of the late 1990s. In what has now become an annual tradition, Rob, Jesse, and Marisa scour the Billboard Hot 100 for all of 1999 and discuss certain key selections (not specified ahead of time, but chosen on the fly by Marisa). Travel back to '99 with us and decide if you like girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastBillboard99.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 11:54pm EDT

In addition to our group discussion of our site's Best Songs of the 2000s, Rob, Jesse, and Marisa sat down so we could talk about Rob's particularly arduous list-making process, and address some more quirks of our group list. A must for all of you fastidious music nerds out there!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastBestof2000sBONUSROB.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 11:16pm EDT

After pulling together 20-plus ballots from various writers and music fans to form our definitive list of the BEST SONGS OF THE 2000s, the SportsAlcohol.com podcast crew convened a small panel of those writers to talk about the list: what we thought of the final product,  the songs we love and the songs we hate, as well as how we constructed our individual ballots. Join us for a sometimes-contentious, always entertaining look back at a decade of disparate pop music!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastBestSongs2000s.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 9:05pm EDT

In conjunction with the release of the new They Might Be Giants album I Like Fun and our list of the best They Might Be Giants songs of all time, TMBG superfans Jesse and Marisa were joined by fellow TMBG superfans Alan Scherstuhl and Karen Han for an in-depth discussion of this cultishly beloved indie rock band. We talk about how we got into the band, how the new record stacks up, and our listmaking methodology, among many other TMBG-centric topics. A must for any and all equally obsessive TMBG fans!

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastTheyMightBeGiants.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 10:19pm EDT

Sometimes you just record a podcast episode out of pure indie-rock geekery. Founding editors Rob, Marisa, and Jesse are nuts for the U.K. indie rock act Los Campesinos! so on the occasion of their new album Sick Scenes and their recent North American tour, we got together, along with relative newbie Sara, saw their show in Brooklyn, and had a wide-ranging conversation about the band, our favorite songs, our baseless speculation about their personal lives, and if indie rock circa 2008 really was so special. Indie rock fangirls and fanboys everywhere may relate.

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastLosCampesinos.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 11:31pm EDT

We can all agree that 2016 was a garbage year, but did any albums, songs, or musicians manage to save it for us? Rob, Sara, Marisa, and Jesse got together to figure out whether Beyonce, Radiohead, or the return of A Tribe Called Quest, among others, could salvage 2016 via songs.

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast2016inMusic.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 8:56am EDT

Opinions that fly in the face of widespread cultural and critical consensus: everyone's got 'em, and your friends at SportsAlcohol.com are here to indulge them. Rob, Sara, Marisa, and Jesse got together to talk about which substitutions they'd make in the pop music canons -- which albums they think are secretly inferior to other, less acclaimed albums by the same artist. We talk about Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, U2, Sleater-Kinney, the Stone Roses, Radiohead and other sacred cows of rock.

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcastPopCanonHotTakes.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 3:34pm EDT

The music nerds of SportsAlcohol.com get on the microphone to talk about the best music we heard in 2015, plus some of the worst.

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast2015inMusic.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 7:41am EDT

SportsAlcohol.com recently assembled a list of the 90 Best Songs of the 90s. After the list was finalized, seven of us got together to discuss our individual lists as well as how they affected the master list, and our general memories of 90s music, from alternative hits to indie rock to representations of rap and R&B. Featuring passionate opinions, a lot of laughter, and some crosstalk, this is our biggest episode yet.

Direct download: SportsAlcoholPodcast90sMusicList.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 12:02am EDT

SportsAlcohol.com founders Jesse, Sabrina, and Rob were joined by Sara from Boston to see Sleater-Kinney on their reunion tour. The next day, they reminisced about how great the show was and their history of going to shows. 

Direct download: SportsAlcoholConcertNostalgia.mp3
Category:music -- posted at: 2:59pm EDT

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