Lords Of Loud

Firsts can be great and glorious. They can also be dank and disastrous. Most often they are probably a little embarrassing and filled with naivety. In this, the season finale, the Lords reflect on their firsts and what deep truths they reveal... shamone!

Reaction to the first Hidden Gems literally destroyed the Internet. Sorry about that. Back online now with each Lord offering up tracks they love that the others have never heard of. Or have. Doesn't matter. There's a lot of music out there and lot of out there music. US soft rock, UK dance, Aussie grunge and of course Swedish prog. Kick out the gems! We hit a rich seam of lost gold and keep digging.

In the annals of conflict, many outstanding stoushes come to mind: the Romans vs Carthagians in the Battle of the Metaurus; Joan of Arc vs England in the Siege of Orleans (1-0); Coke and Pepsi’s fight for Supremacy in Tooth Decay. This episode explores the heated struggle for the souls of ‘90s youth that occurred in another classic rivalry: Blur vs Oasis.

Put up the volume! The Lords dissect the phenomenon of the one hit wonder. Likes, dislikes, and head scratchers. At first only a few rise to the surface but more and more are uncovered as we go. Some like long-lost friends standing beside you at a gig, others like some vile presence putting 'My Sharona' on the jukebox. As always one Lord's wonder is another Lord's blunder. I'm looking at you, Astley!

How’s the saying go? “A flame that burns twice as bright, will burn baby burn, disco inferno”...? Something like that. The Lords don their welding masks to peer at the greats who, however briefly, shone so much they singed your eyebrows and made you see spots for days.

The act letter is 'L' and the subject is 'music'. The Lords have researched their favourite tracks 'about music' by artists whose name starts with L. Well, most of them have. Despite this, the carefully thought-out premise holds up beautifully on it's first of 26 long episodes. Post-match debate embedded for real-time podcast concept deconstruction. Featured: LL Cool J, LCD Soundsystem and, of course, the world-famous Gordon Lightfoot. It's a Lupe Fiasco!

The Lords pick and choose their way through the lolly shop to make a mixed bag of their favourite musos. Gee willikers, is everyone in for a treat! But what really happens if you mix your grape Skittles with caramel buds? Is it truly a taste sensation or just a stomach ache waiting to happen?

What songs just hit you right in the feels, always have done and probably always will? What tracks have you just got to crank? What songs make you weep like your bunny got shot or bliss you out beyond reason? Is it the song itself or an association, or both? Life events impacting or just a sound that speaks directly to your inner you? We all have many and they seem to get better with age.This episode is the first of what may be a multiple-sided concept album called Goosebumps: tracks that rock our souls*.  

The Beatles’ album “Abbey Road” is having its 50th birthday and all its friends are invited to the party. But has time been kind? The Lords whisper behind its back and ask: is it justified in strutting round like a Silver Fox or does the nose hair badly need a trim?

In case you've missed our central disclaimer, the Lords have absolutely zero qualifications on which to base big pronouncements about music. We have even less right to define popular albums of social and cultural significance. And yet, in this episode we dive right in to do exactly that. What's going on? Well one of the lords both loves and hates The Most Important metal album of the 90s. Very predictably another lord whips his pistols out. Weirder though, the discussion starts to carve out a genuine pattern to the albums deemed important in our lifetimes. And Ben has some to name too ; )

The journey continues as we push through Al’s closet. In a surprising development, there are a number of quite listenable and reasonable song choices on the other side. But as the Lords reach out to take another bite of Al’s Turkish delight, the distant tinkling of Balkan dance music signals that not all is as it appears.

By all rights you should love this band or adore this performer, but there's just nothing there. Friends recommend them and you've given it your best, but it's just not working out. It's not me, its you! The Lords name and shame the acts in their musical wheelhouse that never make it to their iPods. Who broke a favourite genre? Who flaunts misplaced credibility? Who was too small for 'the big four' and who is the big fat toad at the bottom of the rock garden? Like a stepchild from that affair with your cousin, this is the act you just can't learn to love. Thanks to Peasant Chris Young for suggesting this episode :)  

The deluded despot, Lord Ben of Beatlestan, has forced the other Lords to listen to Paul McCartney’s solo work to convince them of Macca’s genius. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to also listen to the songs to see if they make the grade. Mission Impossible? No. Not even Mission Implausible. It’s Mission Impaulsible!

Words don’t come easy, but who gives love a bad name? The Lords offer up their favourite wordsmiths. The mercy seat is awaiting over troubled water so goodbye yellow brick road ... like a virgin! 

These songs were in the Lords’ ears when they were shot down over Hanoi. The way the Lords looked at it, these songs are your birthright. They’d be damned if any popular music station gonna put their greasy commercial hands on your birthright. So they hid them, in the one place they knew they could hide something: their asses. And now, dear listeners, they give these songs to you.

What was your first rock show? Where were you and who were you with? The Lords cast their minds way back to the first shows they attended. Memories of legends such as Elvis Costello, Motley Crue, U2 and The Umbilical Brothers. Besmirching ensues! Also featured: bad clothing choices, rubbish crowds and getting starstruck from up close and from way up at the back.

It's been a long and winding road, but it's time for the final. The Lords review the group winners, assess a few more wild card contenders, then score the fab four themselves. Maths, sociology, conjecture and desperation are thrown into the mix to convince Lord Ben The Beatles are anything less than musical perfection. Game on!

Remember that kid at school who maintained their baby face and hairless armpits until late teens? And then suddenly sprouted, thrusting upwards and outwards, oozing excretions and secretions like a swamp in spring? In this episode, the Lords nominate such specimens in the musical domain.

School's in as Professor Kev delivers his first lecture on the enigmatic band 'The Fall'. We'll discover if Mark E Smith ever did wear arseless chaps on stage and most importantly, did he ever finish painting his new house?

Eyes lock across the room. Both feel the chemistry, the heat, the tingling at the back of the head. Will they be lovers or enemies? They lock together, wrestle and tangle, swap licks. One wants to call in their friends, one wants to go it alone. Who comes out on top? The Lords watch as the UK meets the US.