Episodes
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by Andrew Stuttaford. Andrew needs little introduction as the editor of NR's Capital Matters. Find him online right here at National Review or at @AStuttaford on Twitter/X.Andrewâs Music Pick: Brian Eno
Here he comes, the boy who tried to vanish to the future or the past. Yes, it's time for Political Beats to celebrate one of the most influential musicians in the history of modern recorded sound -- a man who, ironically enough, is at pains to characterize himself as a non-musician. Children of the Eighties and Nineties may primarily understand Brian Eno as the producer who took U2 to megastardom, but his work as a producer is properly only a footnote to his work as a songwriter and (most importantly of all) a conceptualist. Eno first achieved fame with Roxy Music as their "noise man," providing outrageous sounds alongside "treatments" -- electronic reprocessing -- of the rest of the group's instruments. But Roxy Music was ultimately pianist/vocalist Bryan Ferry's baby, and so Eno soon struck out on his own, for a solo career that would bring him into collaboration with some of the best and most innovative musicians of the Seventies as he put out a sequence of four "lyrical" albums which bent the definition of "popular music" well past its breaking point and into the avant-garde. At the same time, Eno was creating an entirely new genre of recorded sound: so-called "ambient" music, written and recorded in such a way as to (per his maxim) "reward your attention without demanding it."This, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg in a career that also includes brilliant songwriting collaborations with Robert Fripp, David Bowie, and Talking Heads among others. All of this and much more are discussed on a episode Political Beats has been waiting to do for eight years: Brian Eno played an enormous role in inventing the sonic world we still live in, and also made some of the most unexpectedly profound and beautiful music while doing so. We are lucky to be joined by NR's own Andrew Stuttaford for this episode, who lends particular credibility to the discussion as a fan from all the way back in 1972, during the Roxy years. Enjoy stepping into another (green) world.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Steve Singiser. Steve is formerly a contributing editor at Daily Kos Elections and now is a contributor at The Downballot.Steveâs Music Pick: Def Leppard
Do you wanna get rocked?
If the answer is yes and the decade was the 1980s, itâs likely Def Leppard was at least partially responsible for the rocking. With two massive albums released four years apart, the bandâs songs provided the soundtrack for a generation.
Pyromania lit the fuse, so to speak, with âPhotographâ bursting through televisions on MTV and with âFoolinââ and âRock of Agesâ cracking the Billboard Top 40 chart. The production skills and songwriting savvy of âMuttâ Lange was key. A de-facto sixth band member, his contributions transformed the group from a solid British hard rock/heavy metal band to one that took over the world with massive pop/rock crossover success. Infinite hooks, layered vocals, processed everything, pre-choruses everywhere -- those are Lange trademarks that helped lure in listeners.
Hysteria followed after a number of setbacks and delays. Drummer Rick Allen lost an arm and Lange initially pulled out of the project due to exhaustion. But once things came together, the album took off like a rocket. âPour Some Sugar on Meâ was the jet fuel to power Hysteria after initial just okay sales numbers. Eventually seven singles were released, including #1 hit âLove Bites,â fulfilling the ambitions of creating a hard rock Thriller.
Unfortunately, guitarist Steve Clark lost his battle with alcoholism shortly afterward. His songwriting contributions and playing style are missed from future releases, though Vivian Campbell has proven to be a solid replacement. Thereâs plenty to love from the first two albums, prior to the bandâs breakthrough, and Adrenalize and Euphoria still contain highlights (we urge you to check out âPaper Sunâ from the latter album).
This is also a story about loyalty. Def Leppardâs line-up has been remarkably consistent through the years. When Rick Allen lost his arm, band members gave him the time to recover and learn to play in a different way. When âMuttâ Lange couldnât produce Hysteria, the band realized the project couldnât move forward without him. When Steve Clark needed help, the band gave him time off and got him into rehab as many times as possible.
The band still is a huge draw on tour because songs as good as these donât die. Listen in, enjoy the tunes and feel free to rock, rock âtil you drop.
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Missing episodes?
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Eli Lake. Lake is a columnist with the Free Press and also a contributing editor at Commentary. Find him online at the Free Press or @EliLake on Twitter/X.Eliâs Music Pick: Stevie Wonder
Itâs time to sing some songs in the key of life as we tackle the amazing and iconic second half of Stevie Wonderâs career. From his emergence as Motownâs first truly singular independent artist in in 1972, with Music of My Mind, Wonder blazed a path through the musical Seventies crossing over successfully into ever musical genre, to the point where Paul Simon infamously thanked him -- when accepting a âBest Albumâ Grammy in 1976 -- for not putting out an album in 1975.Stevie owned the American 1970s commercially and artistically in a way that few other of his era did -- David Bowie is a strange but apposite analogue for his effect on British culture of that era -- and even if he tailed off into pleasant innocuousness from the Eighties onward, his musical legacy is deathless. So once again, thereâs no need for a lengthy introduction to this (refreshingly brisk!) episode: Everybody knows who Stevie Wonder is, and unless you were born or moved here only five years ago, you will spend nearly half of this episode dancing out of your shoes. Isnât it lovely?
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Eli Lake. Lake is a columnist with the Free Press and also a contributing editor at Commentary. Find him online at the Free Press or @EliLake on Twitter/X.Eliâs Music Pick: Stevie Wonder
Happy New Year, everyone. 2024 was a mess, 2025 looks to be every bit as much of a mess, and gloom pervades the national mood. Therefore, it is high time for Political Beats to turn to Stevie Wonder and remind ourselves of what real joy sounds like. There's no need for a lengthy introduction to this (refreshingly brisk!) episode: Everybody knows who Stevie Wonder is, and unless you were born or moved here only five years ago, you can name at least six or seven classic hits of his off the top of your head. But Stevie Wonder's career arc is less appreciated, and in this first episode we are joined by Eli Lake to recount the first half of that career, informally subtitled "The Education of Little Stevie." Joining Motown as a preternaturally multitalented (and charming) eleven-year-old blind boy, the next decade found him learning to first survive, then thrive, then drive the Motown hit machine as he learned the ropes. From a happy harmonica-wielding child stealing stage-time from his labelmates on "Fingertips, Pt. 2" to the teenaged hitmaker of "I Was Made To Love Her" to the self-confident young man cranking out one endlessly listenable hit after another, this episode sees Wonder first get lost in the Motown "machine," figure out its inner workings, and then conquer it. On our next episode, he will leave it behind entirely. But for now, enjoy some of the snappiest hits R&B ever recorded, and the beginnings of the greatest musical career to ever emerge from Motown. -
Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Mary Chastain. Mary is a writer and editor at Legal Insurrection. She's also a sometimes contributor to The Hill, Washington Examiner, and Reason, and FEE. Mary is on X at @Mchastain81.Maryâs Music Pick: Stone Temple Pilots:
This is another in a series of episodes (think Daryl Hall & John Oates and The Monkees) in which your hosts believe there is a reputation to be restored or repaired. In this case, far too many people seem to look at Stone Temple Pilots with disdain, dismissing them as third-rate Pearl Jam imitators or a product of an audience that was willing to accept pretty much any/every grunge-type act. This, as you'll find out, was not the case.Or, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is singer Scott Weilandâs troubles with drug addiction and the law. While true, it doesnât in any way devalue his contributions to the band and his status as one of the best frontmen of the decade.
What we have here is a band that shared influences with other artists like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice In Chains and released a debut album, Core, steeped in that sound. Even then, there were indications STP were not quite like their peers. Bassist Robert DeLeo was a major force in crafting the sound and writing the songs. Guitarist and brother Dean DeLeo pulled not from Pete Townsend and The Who, but from the more experimental later-era Led Zeppelin releases, with monster riffs and chords in line with Jimmy Pageâs best work. Eric Kretz was far more than just a time-keeper, adding fills, rolls, and rhythms that were essential to driving the composition.
Purple, the follow-up to Core, has aged wonderfully and is an essential album that helps define the sound of the decade. By then, the band mostly had moved past the sludgy sound for which grunge was known and was beginning to color from a more varied palette. âInterstate Love Songâ is one of the most iconic songs of the 1990s for a good reason. Tiny Music . . . Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop was met with muted reception if not downright confusion. What many missed at the time is rightfully regarded now as an immense step forward, as the band blended elements of glam and psychedelic rock, with hints of Bowie, T. Rex, and the Beach Boys in places.
The remainder of the bandâs catalog provides strong reminders about the talent contained inside Stone Temple Pilots. Despite hiatuses and break-ups, thatâs what should be the legacy of the band. Political Beats now has the receipts to prove it.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Andrew Fink. Andrew lives with his wife Lauren and their five children in Hillsdale County, Mich., and is an attorney, Marine veteran, current state representative, and candidate for Michigan Supreme Court. He's on X at @AndrewFinkMI, and his website can be found here.Andrewâs Music Pick: ZZ Top
No matter how far into the future this show might run, when you stack Political Beats episodes alphabetically, this is the one that always will show up at the bottom. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to turn the spotlight on "That Little Ol' Band from Texas," ZZ Top. Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, Frank Beard. Blues, guitars, and boogie. And, of course, later on, synths, drum machines, and sequencers.Maybe you're like Jeff and your mental picture of ZZ Top is frozen in time around 1983, when Eliminator was soaring near the top of the charts. We're here to tell you you're missing an awful lot from the band. The entire decade of the 1970s featured album after album of incredible music. There's seriously never a misstep.
Early on, you can hear the influence of and influence on other bands like The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. ZZ Top figures out early exactly who they are as a band and refine, refine, refine until perfecting it (we think) on 1979âs DegĂŒello. Billy Gibbons, the groupâs main songwriter, singer, and guitar player, has a style all his own, a unique approach that cuts through each song, even when heâs incorporating the sound of another player.
At the turn of the decade of the 1980s, the band makes what we consider to be a fairly natural evolution. The tones, beats, and rhythms on Eliminator might seem out of place in a vacuum, but not if you follow the contours of the bandâs career. Post-worldwide fame and success is a different story, and one we also tell during the course of this episode.
By the way, this is the longest one-part show in Political Beats history, surpassing the U2 show, which actually makes some sense. The feeling here was we wouldn't go quite so long -- otherwise we would have split the thing in half! But once we got going, there was too much fun being had and too many good arguments being made to stop. All for the benefit of you, the listener.
Theyâre bad, theyâre nationwide. And nowâs the time to discover the full story of ZZ Top on Political Beats.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Peter Suderman. Suderman is the features editor at Reason magazine. He also writes the Substack Cocktails With Suderman, which is about making better cocktails at home. Find him online at Reason or @petersuderman on Twitter/X.Peterâs Music Pick: The Dismemberment Plan
The name might sound like youâre in for a three-and-a-half hour barrage of trendily obscure post-punk music with this episode, and you could not be more wrong. Though weâre not going to lie: The first album and a half from Washington, D.C.âs mid-to-late Nineties indie-rock darlings do feel an awful lot like the twitchily inchoate remnants of the Bad Brains/Fugazi regional hardcore scene of the Eighties with a healthy dose of West Coast Minutemen math-rock thrown in as metric ballast. What they quickly settled into around the turn of the century however, with albums like The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified, Emergency & I, and Change, was not just a genre-defining statement of what âindie-rockâ was supposed to be about during what we now know retrospectively -- and jadedly -- as âthe PitchforkMedia eraâ of rock criticism, but timeless music that can still get a crowd of downcast nerds to start dancing uncontrollably as they muse about that time they too got ruinously drunk on New Yearâs Eve.It is quite possible that (outside of that one Robbie Fulks episode) Political Beats may be covering its most obscure rock group to date with the Dismemberment Plan. Click now, remedy that, and open yourself to a life of dangerous possibilities.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Nick Lowe. Nick Lowe is . . . wait, you donât really need a bio for Nick Lowe, do you? If thereâs any questions about who he is, please take the time to listen to our lengthy Political Beats episode with guest Matt Murray.In an interview that has been months in the making, your Political Beats hosts get the opportunity to spend a little more than an hour with the legendary Nick Lowe. Cards on the table, both of us were a little nervous to be speaking with one of our musical heroes. Nick made it comfortable and entertaining, as if anything else would be expected.
The conversation begins with a discussion about his fantastic new album, Indoor Safari.
The record is a collection of songs from EPs released over the past half-decade or so, many of the tunes re-recorded or slightly changed from the initial versions. These performances are so crisp, so lively. âCrying Inside,â is a perfect example of a top-notch, sublimely written and executed, late-career Nick Lowe song. âA Quiet Placeâ could be the single best band performance on the album. âBlue on Blue,â would fit in alongside anything on The Impossible Bird and the Bacharach-influenced âDifferent Kind of Blue,â truly benefits from the full band arrangement not heard on the version found on the 20th Anniversary edition of The Convincer.
As the liner notes claim, âIndoor Safari isnât a journey back in time -- itâs a journey out of time, to a music that stands the test of any time.â
We begin our chat in the present but quickly move far afield, with discussions about his early career, the thought process that started his âsecond halfâ of music (starting with The Impossible Bird), his songwriting techniques, and a few nerd/fan questions near the end. We hope to have asked a few questions that perhaps haven't been asked before.
Be sure to check out Nick and Los Straitjackets live this fall.
Tour dates are here
(Click on "Show All Dates" to see them all.) If youâre out and about, you might see Scot at the Detroit show and Jeff at one of the Chicago shows. After all, weâre big fans.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with . . . no guest at all! With Jeff moving his belongings to a new abode while also covering the RNC and DNC for National Review and Scot's vacation schedule creating another hurdle, we felt it was time to break the glass on the window marked "VERY SPECIAL EPISODE."For those relatively new around here, we've done two VSEs in the past, both when schedules were getting out of control. One compiled our Best Cover Songs and the other listed our Best Soundtracks. In short, some stuff we wouldn't get to cover in a different way. And, by the way, these are pulled off without a guest.
Thinking in that direction for a theme, we present to you the Most Essential/Necessary Compilations. For Scot, this meant one thing: artists/bands who have produced basically no complete albums worth consideration of a full Political Beats episode, but who have a Greatest Hits/Best Of package that contains absolutely everything you need of the singles. Some people really hate buying hits packages because they want to have the artistic statement made by the full album. But you canât deny there are some collections that are just perfect in their brevity/simplicity. All killer, no garbage album filler to worry about.
On the other hand, Jeff thought about this a little differently: What compilations helped introduce him to the larger work of a band? And, being a post-punk guy, which collections helped bind together swaths of material you can't find elsewhere?
In the end, as usual, you get two slightly different perspectives on the show. You can decide which one is superior.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Brad Birzer. Brad is the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History at Hillsdale College. He is also the co-founder of and senior contributor at The Imaginative Conservative, and the author of a number of books, including Neil Peart: Cultural (Re)Percussions. Find him online at bradbirzer.com or @bradleybirzer on Twitter.Bradâs Music Pick: Yes
Well, the buses outside don't add much weight to the story in our heads we began in our last episode of Political Beats, so we're thinking we should go and write a punchline; thus, welcome to part two of our discussion of the great progressive rock band Yes, wherein we discuss their career from 1974's Relayer onward to the present day. (Be forewarned -- we pick and choose after the debacle of Union (1991). Fondly remembered: Talk, Keys To Ascension, Magnification and Fly From Here. Not so fondly remembered: erm, Open Your Eyes.)I could offer more prelude than that, but this is one episode where the music will do vastly more explaining than any written exegesis; Yes bounced back after Tales from Topographic Oceans with an album even more abstruse and outwardly difficult, yet light years more compelling. From that point onward and despite countless personnel changes -- up to and including swapping the "Video Killed the Radio Star" guys straight into their band -- the group maintained its unique sound and creative voice throughout the second half of the Seventies in a series of albums that age like casked scotch. (Check out the vigorous defenses of Tormato and Drama ye shall find herein!) Then the group collapsed after a disastrous 1980 tour and seemed to be over . . . until a South African guitarist/vocalist/songwriter named Trevor Rabin entered the picture.
All this and much, much more is covered on an episode of Political Beats that spans from the mid Seventies all the way to the late Eighties without once pausing for breath. Afterwards, we take a breather here and there, but for now? Tempus fugit, my friends, so you should click, because we're off to the races, going for the one.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Brad Birzer. Brad is the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History at Hillsdale College. He is also the co-founder of and Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative, and the author of a number of books, including Neil Peart: Cultural (Re)Percussions. Find him online at bradbirzer.com or @bradleybirzer on Twitter.Bradâs Music Pick: Yes
Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare! We take you close to the edge of the south side of the sky this week as we discuss the early adventures of Britain's answer to all the questions raised by hippies during the Seventies, the New Age of Atlantic: Yes. Yes were one of the pillars of British progressive rock music, but also (perhaps surprisingly) a major commercial success in America long before their peers. They were also a truly singular band during their lengthy heyday; the band underwent endless lineup changes as personalities clashed and artistic visions ran amok, and yet they have always sounded like themselves and nobody else successfully has.Starting with local janitor Jon Anderson on countertenor vocals, Pete Banks on Hendrixian guitar, Tony Kaye on groovy late-Sixties B3 organ, fussily precise jazz drummer Bill Bruford keeping time, and Chris Squire playing a bass so aggressive it intimidates people into crossing to the other side of the street, Yes exploded out of London's club-gigging scene after drawing inspiration from watching a newly born King Crimson play the circuit. Their early style mixed originals -- first halting, then increasingly assured -- with spectacularly imaginative covers of everything from West Side Story to Buffalo Springfield and Simon & Garfunkel. But as Banks was jettisoned for Steve Howe, and then Tony Kaye traded in for Rick Wakeman, Yes ascended from a series of records beginning with The Yes Album and Fragile (1971) to superstardom, with all that entailed: sidelong songs, triple live albums, and extended soaks in the topographic oceans. All set to some of the most inscrutable lyrics but gorgeous music written during the decade.
So turn on your lava lamp and get ready to call over valleys of endless seas as you and I climb crossing the shape of the morning -- it's time to sink into a elevated musical fantasy world created by Yes during this, the first part of their career. We take the story up through Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973); next time around, we'll get a relayer to go for the one without too much drama, but for now click play and enjoy the sound of perpetual change.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Guy Denton. Guy is the co-host of The Wrong Stuff with Matt Lewis, contributor to The Dispatch and National Review, and until recently took Jonah Goldberg's guff over at The Remnant. Find him on Twitter/X . . . nowhere, because he is saner than the rest of us.Guyâs Music Pick: Echo & the Bunnymen
There's really not much to say about this episode other than that it is the greatest and most important edition of Political Beats ever recorded. That's what singer/rhythm guitarist/world-class ego Ian McCulloch would no doubt say about this discussion of legendary U.K. postpunk greats Echo & the Bunnymen, and this time he might have a point, because this actually is one of the show's white whales: The Bunnymen may not have invented, but truly perfected, the platonic sonic ideal of "postpunk" over a series of four stunning records in the first half of the Eighties and if Jeff's use of descriptive superlatives were clipped and collected on their own, it would probably add up to at least a half-hour of raw time.The Bunnymen were originally a drumless three-piece bedsit-room band from Liverpool -- vocalist McCulloch, lead guitarist Will Sergeant, and bassist Les Pattinson; it was the drum machine that was nicknamed "Echo" by fans. The addition of Londoner Pete de Freitas on actual drums in early 1980 immediately catalyzed the band: They launched out of the gates with their debut album Crocodiles (1980) and never looked back. From that point onward, they would play not just a major role, but arguably the defining role, in carving out the sonic world we now think of as "postpunk": fiercely arty, fiercely aggressive, and also fiercely beautiful. McCulloch sounded uncannily like one of his most well-known competitors in the postpunk arena -- U2's Bono -- and the run of work they put out between 1980 and 1987 tracks theirs blow-for-blow and is frankly superior in all respects right up until the end.
And yet from our American perspective (and nearly 40 years after their heyday) Echo & the Bunnymen are often treated as a curious footnote from the world of Eighties music, obscure Brits who recorded That Song You Know From That Movie Soundtrack. They were the furthest thing imaginable from it: one of the most endlessly compelling and rewarding groups of a decade positively exploding with great music. We weren't kidding when we said there isn't really much to say about this episode, because the music will speak more eloquently than any words can. Bring on the dancing horses, and seal your pact with the Dark Mistress of Fortune underneath the killing moon. Perhaps it was your fate -- up against a will -- all along. Click play and never stop.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Joshua Treviño. Joshua works and writes at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and spent the entire 1990s listening a lot to Matthew Sweet.Joshuaâs Music Pick: Matthew Sweet
For listeners of a certain age, just the name Matthew Sweet will evoke a particular memory, and itâs likely one that involves heartbreak. Breaking through with the power-pop masterpiece, Girlfriend, Sweet channeled the inner thoughts and emotions of Gen-Xers everywhere and married them to killer hooks and melodies. Of course, his career is more than just that.Matthew Sweet bridges the gap between sweet, melodic power pop and the edgy alternative rock sound of the 1990s, leveraging the guitar work of Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd on his best music. His influences are clear -- you hear some Beatles, sure, but also influences of Big Star, the Byrds, and even Neil Young in the guitar tones.
His run of albums from Girlfriend to In Reverse (or roughly 1990â2000) is what we focus on in this show, though additional time is spent on his first two solo efforts and some of his later-career output, particularly the trio of Under the Covers albums recorded with ex-Bangle Susanna Hoffs.
Itâs great music and for many, including one co-host, itâs essentially brand-new music for the ears. They say nothing is certain in life, but we can guarantee you 100 percent fun when you tune in for this Matthew Sweet edition of Political Beats.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Tom Nichols. Tom is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author ofThe Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, with a new second edition out soon. Find him on X/Twitter at@RadioFreeTom.Tomâs Music Pick: Boston
This could be our first episode that is longer simply by listening to the entirety of the band's actual discography. Even if true, we still think you should choose Political Beats!Boston is an unusual band, sui generis in many ways. To begin with, Boston is really one guy: Tom Scholz. Okay, Okay, he probably couldnât pull this off without the voice of Brad Delp. And our guest is quick to point out Sib Hashian has some nice moments on drums on the Boston debut album. But Scholz wrote nearly all the songs, he developed the guitar sound, he spent years in his basement perfecting that debut album.
And what a debut it was. You know every song here and all but one remain in heavy rotation on classic rock radio stations across the country. It was the biggest-selling debut in history for about a decade after its release. âMore Than a Feeling,â âPeace of Mind,â âForeplay/Long Time,â and âHitch a Rideâ continue to soundtrack summers annually.
But what do you do for an encore? And how do you evolve that sound, if at all? These are some of the questions we kick around throughout the show. It's always a blast to be joined by a guest who actually lived through the release of some of the music we are discussing. Tom gives a needed and appreciated perspective on Boston and the impact the music had on the rock world.
Weâll talk until youâre feelinâ satisfied and are prepared to walk on to another episode. Grab your Rockman amp and plug in to Political Beats.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Jay Cost. Jay is the Gerald R. Ford senior non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of, most recently, James Madison: Americaâs First Politician. Find him on Twitter/X at @Jay__Cost.Jayâs Music Pick: The Kinks
Havenât we done these guys already? We sure did! But this is the part of the Kinks' career we didn't do any real justice to back six or seven years ago when Jay first joined us for our comically brief discussion of the Kinks' Seventies career.We remedy that here, for the second part of our grand Kinks retrospective (covering everything from 1969's Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire onwards) sheds light on an era of their career that has been largely forgotten, but which contains much of their greatest music. From the conceptual ambitions of Arthur, Lola, and an entire passel of early-to-mid '70s concept albums that are usually more mocked than listened to (wrongfully so, we argue), the Kinks reclaimed stardom, promptly kicked it right back to the curb in order to do concert/stage production hybrids for a few years, and then with superb 1976 Sleepwalker went right back to climbing the album and singles charts. And all throughout it Ray Davies's lyrical vision -- singular in both its profundity and also its occasional cheerful mundaneness -- guided the group through a series of records that, while no longer discussed as much as their classic Sixties era, were extremely popular in their time and justifiably so.
We pretty much wrap up our discussion with Give The People What They Want (1981), so if you have to be a big Think Visual! fan, then this episode may disappoint you. But we doubt it. Because Political Beats is proud to have finally given the latter era of the Kinks their proper due, and in a way that we hope will make several new fans. Click play, sit back in your old rocking chair in your Shangri-La, and enjoy.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are with guest Jay Cost. Jay is the Gerald R. Ford senior non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of, most recently, James Madison: America's First Politician. Find him on Twitter/X at @Jay__Cost.Jay's Music Pick: The Kinks
Haven't we done these guys already? We sure did! For the first (and possibly last) time, Political Beats has done something unprecedented and gone back to cover an artist for the second time. Why? Because frankly, our original Kinks take was Episode #7 (we're up to #130 now, seven years later), and we didn't know what we were doing with the format yet, didn't do the discussion justice, and frankly this should have been a two-part episode.So now it is! Jay was great with us back in the day -- except for the part where we had to cut short the discussion because he had to pick up his kids from school -- so we've invited him back to do proper justice to Ray and Dave Davies, eternally warring brothers who fronted a band that started as the most mindlessly brutish of all the British Invasion '60s hitmakers ("You Really Got Me," "All Day And All Of The Night," "Tired Of Waiting For You," "Till The End Of The Day" -- all rockheaded classics) and then rapidly transformed into one of the most curiously intellectual bedsit-room British bands in history, as quintessentially "English" in the late Sixties and Seventies as The Band was effortlessly "American." The music during their early phase (discussed this week -- part two coming soon!) transforms from hitmaking international singles to insular, intensely well-written melodic and lyrical miniatures about English eccentrics and English life -- the sort of music that was destined to fail commercially in its moment but which later became (and remains) the subject of endless musical, emotional, and intellectual fascination. Join us then, as we take a second, far juicier bite at the apple and chronicle these glorious early years of growth for the Kinks, culminating in The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968), an album all about the seductions, perils, and aches of nostalgia. Later on, after this point, the Kinks would reemerge into the world at large, cultivating a massive international (and specifically American) fanbase during the Seventies and Eighties with a very different kind of music. But for now, get ready for stories of session men, insufferably perfect schoolboys, ugly urban tube stations at dusk, and utterly phenomenal cats as we take you back to the mysterious era known as "decline-phase late Sixties Britain" and discuss the last of the good old-fashioned steam-powered bands.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) with guest Mike Long. Mike is a (very) occasional writer for National Review and was one of the originals back in the early 2000s as NRO was launched. Heâs the author of the non-fiction bestseller The Molecule of More and its sequel coming in fall of 2024.
Mikeâs Music Pick: Joe Jackson
After running through Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe/Rockpile, it was only a matter of time before we got to covering Joe Jackson. As an artist, Jackson frequently is grouped into the "angry young man"/Pub Rock category with the aforementioned artists. However, as we discuss on the show, there's an incredible depth to his songwriting and arrangements that quickly busted him out of whatever box critics might put him in.
Jackson came out of the gate hot, with two releases in the magical year of 1979, Look Sharp! and I'm the Man. They could be parts one and two of the same album. These are the ones that lump him into the Costello/Parker/Lowe movement but it's a sound he rarely returns to again. Every single song is a winner. From here would come some of his best known songs â âIâm the Man,â âItâs Different For Girls, and âIs She Really Going Out With Him?â
By 1981, he took a massive detour from the rock/pop world with Jumpin' Jive, a collection of covers of 1940s swing and big band songs originally performed by Louis Jordan and Cab Calloway.
Night and Day was released the same year as Elvis Costelloâs Imperial Bedroom and it, too, is a bid to be taken very seriously as a songwriter. Like Elvis's effort, it's a complete success artistically and even moreso commercially. "Steppin' Out" earned Grammy Award nominations and reached number six on the charts. "Breaking Us in Two" reached number 18. It's a cosmopolitan, big-city record.
The rest of the 1980s would find Jackson stretching his wings and dabbling in jazz, Latin rhythms, classical â if you name a genre, he probably has a song in it (OK, perhaps not metal). Albums like Body and Soul, Big World, Blaze of Glory, and Laughter and Lust didnât sell nearly as well as previous efforts but kept fans happy. After 1991, however, he wouldnâtrelease another non-classical studio album until 2000's Night and Day II. Why? Take it from the artist himself:
"After the Laughter & Lust world tour ⊠I had real bad writer's block. I couldn't even listen to music. I just lost it, totally. It was awful."
But it wouldnât stay that way! Beginning in 2003 with Vol. 4, Jackson would release a string of records that showed he still know how to write a song.
By the way, all of us have musical blind spots, and Joe Jackson was one for Jeff. Come along for the ride as he discovers the many layers of this talented performer and writer.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Hannah Rowan. Hannah is the managing editor of Modern Age. You can find her on X at @Hannah_Cristine and read her review of Debbie Harry's memoir here.Hannahâs Music Pick: Blondie
Here's another artist we get to cross off the list of long-awaited episodes. Both Jeff and Scot have been hot to do Blondie for years and it has nothing (okay, relatively little) to do with the attractive woman fronting the band. Itâs the music that means so much, even after all these years.Blondie, as Jeff argues, is perhaps the quintessential new wave band, but they started by paying tribute to girl-group sounds and garage rock of the '60s on the bandâs first record. From there, singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein, the two leaders of the group, led Blondie through a wide variety of styles and genres. The band was as comfortable playing power pop and new wave as they later would be incorporating disco, reggae, and even rap into their sound. Blondie recorded four number one songs -- "Heart of Glass," "Call Me," "The Tide Is High," and "Rapture" -- and you couldnât quite stick any of them inside the same box.
And we canât escape the visual aspect. Itâs impossible to separate what you see from what you hear. Debbie Harry was a striking figure to lead the group. And Blondie was a band that was deliberate in how it presented itself -- from album covers to stage apparel to making videos for every song on a record, which predated the MTV-era by a good half-decade or so.
The timeframe for the band's brilliance is relatively short and we spend very little time on the post-reunion work (apologies to fans of Pollinator). But what was created at the end of the 1970s truly stands the test of time. The music, in many ways, pointed forward toward what we would hear throughout the decade of the 1980s.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Eric Kohn. Eric is the Director of Marketing & Communications at the Acton Institute. Check him out on Twitter at @iEricKohn.Ericâs Music Pick: Huey Lewis & the News
Do you believe in miracles? Yes! After years of lobbying, Jeff has proven that anyone will fold, given enough time and pressure. Here is the Huey Lewis & the News episode of Political Beats.Those of you with us for a while will know that the band is a favorite of Scot's while Jeff previously has taken any opportunity to vow never to cover Huey and the boys on the show. Well, recently he had a change of heart (Track One, Picture This) and we wasted no time in finding a guest. Did we end up talking for three hours about Huey Lewis & the News? Of course we did. Did we change Jeff's mind? Listen and find out.
Scotâs love of the band started at a young age, and much of his knowledge of the early story of the bandâs history comes from a mass-market paperback that he still has to this day. Huey Lewis & the News: A Biography is a 142-page chronicle of the rise of the band and its origins on the San Francisco music scene. Itâs out of print, obviously, but check your local used bookstore for a copy.
Huey Lewis & the News essentially was the merger of two big local Bay area bands -- Clover and Soundhole. Huey and keyboardist Sean Hopper played in the former, while drummer Bill Gibson, saxophonist/guitarist Johnny Colla, and bassist Mario Cipollina in the latter. Clover (sans Huey) were perhaps best known for being Elvis Costello's back-up band on My Aim Is True.
The band then picked up a 21-year-old kid in 1979, Chris Hayes, to play lead guitar and were off. The next year, 1980, brought the little-noticed self-titled debut. Here's the thing: It's quite good! This album, and the early sound of the band, is the commercial follow-through on the wonderful music made by the pub rock artists of the U.K. This record is heavier on Mario's bass than later entries, but those trademark backing vocals are there from the start. It didn't sell. At all.
The next album would be make or break. Huey's face alone is on the cover. Harmonies are tighter. Little did they know they had an ace in the hole: a song written by Mutt Lange. "Do You Believe in Love" would explode to #7 on the charts. The band had a hit. A follow-up would be tougher. Three other singles from Picture This failed to break #36, though one, âWorkinâ for a Livinâ,â has endured as a blue-collar anthem.
The band went back to work with a taste of success and a thirst for more. The mission for the next album was simple: every song a hit. Easy, right? With Sports, they pretty much pulled it off. You know virtually every song on this album, including âI Want a New Drug,â âThe Heart of Rock and Roll,â âIf This Is It,â and more. There was no thematic goal other than producing hits. Synths, drum machines, massive hooks -- whatever it took. Outside writers? Sure! A strength of the band was taking other's material and making it sound like their own, as they did on âHeart and Soulâ and âWalking On a Thin Line.â
Sports was a monster. Massive headlining tours followed. Two major projects before the next album would drop. First, Huey would take a lead vocal spot in "We Are the World,â filling in for Prince. Second, some work on a little film called Back to the Future and the bandâs first #1 hit in âThe Power of Love.â
Huey Lewis & the News is on top of the world. But 1986 is approaching and a new album is due soon. One problem: No one hears a single. One of the engineers calls up Chris Hayes at home and says, "Chris, we need a hit."
"Stuck With You" was what he came up with, and it was the lead single for Fore!, which would also hit #1 & sell 3 million+ copies. That said, Fore! is a bit of an odd duck. Fully half the songs were from outside writers, including the album's other #1 single, âJacobâs Ladderâ (written by the Hornsby brothers)
Next? Well, whatever the band wanted. And what they wanted was not necessarily commercial in nature. A socially conscious effort full of eclectic musical themes, Small World. As far as I've read, the band loves this album. They got to stretch their legs as musicians. They had earned the right to make a project of their choosing. The record-buying public was not impressed. Small World barely scraped 1 million units in sales. The band did have one last bullet to fire at the charts. âPerfect World,â a song written by Alex Call, a former Clover bandmate of Huey and Sean, hit #3 and clearly sits aside their best.
Afterward, the band had some well-earned time off. In the time span, though, the rock world was changing quickly. Huey & company dropped the weirdness of the last album and returned to the blueprint -- rock, R&B, a love song, and a tune by Mutt Lange. All on Hard At Play. There would not be another album of new material for ten years. Four Chords and Several Years Ago, an album of 50s-era covers, came in 1994.
Plan B, an album of new material, arrived in 2001, followed by Soulsville, a Stax covers album, and finally 2020âs Weather. The last record was released following Hueyâs diagnosis of MĂ©niĂšre's disease, an inner-ear disorder, which means he can no longer hear music frequencies or hold vocal pitches. The result is no touring and no more new music from the band.
It's sometimes hard to hear Huey Lewis & the News on the radio. Living on that weird line between rock and pop in the 1980s means there's not a great format for those songs now. It's a catalog well worth further inspection, though. You won't regret spending three hours with us and the band.
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Introducing the Band:
Your hosts Scot Bertram (@ScotBertram) and Jeff Blehar (@EsotericCD) are joined by guest Rory Cooper. Heâs a partner at Purple Strategies, a corporate reputation and advocacy agency in Alexandria, Va., a former George W. Bush and Eric Cantor aide, and a longtime Republican strategist. Heâs on Twitter at @rorycooper.Roryâs Music Pick: Simon & Garfunkel
If you enjoyed Political Beatsâ episode on the solo career of Paul Simon with Rory Cooper from a year and half ago, then kick right back after the Labor Day weekend and start feelinâ groovy while listening the epic George Lucas/Peter Jackson prequel extravaganza that is our discussion of Simon & Garfunkel! Yes, Rory has returned to discuss a pop duo formerly known as âTom & Jerry,â whose music dominated both American and U.K. airwaves in the late Sixties.With three #1 hits, nine more top 20 singles, two #1 albums, and their names attached to one of the decadeâs most beloved films, we think it likely that youâre already somewhat familiar with Simon & Garfunkel. But this, like our Paul Simon episode, is the rare episode in which neither of your two esteemed hosts were actually deeply familiar with the albums (as opposed to the radio hits). How could this have happened? All is explained while we are rejoined by Rory Cooper, a guy who knows all the stories and loves Paul Simonâs music so much he named his kid after one of these songs.
In this episode, we explore the origins of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel as schooldays choirboy friends in Queens, their brief âteen idolâ phase as Tom & Jerry, and their -- rather awkward -- rebirth in the early Sixties as folkies on a Greenwich Village scene that resolutely disdained them for purported inauthenticity. Simon & Garfunkelâs 1964 debut album flopped so badly that Simon went to England and Garfunkel simply went back to school, until a Columbia producer desperate for a hit overdubbed electric backing onto a forgotten song from that debut called âThe Sound of Silence.â
And the rest is history. Simon & Garfunkelâs career resumed in a haste as âSound of Silenceâ hit the top of the charts in January 1966, and what followed was a series of increasingly assured acoustic folk/pop/rock hits that culminated by the late Sixties in immortal and gnomic songs like âMrs. Robinson,â âAmerica,â and âThe Boxer.â From being a pale imitator of Bob Dylanâs âintelligent folkâ music, Simon & Garfunkel had evolved into a different, singular sound, anchored around Garfunkelâs peerlessly pitch-perfect high tenor voice and Simonâs insistently rhythmic sense of guitar-work and arrangement.
Although the pairing did not -- and could not, for many reasons -- last long, it ended in a supreme achievement: Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970), a record whose commercial dominance and omnipresence in its day has been exceeded only by its subsequent critical reputation. And that was it; Garfunkel left for an acting career, and Simon for a solo one. (A brief reunion in the early Eighties went nowhere.) And that was for the best: They will forever be remembered for going out on the highest possible note. What happened next has already been discussed, but for now, enjoy the groovy Sixties and Paul Simonâs orthogonal, acutely self-conscious place within them as we count the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, all gone to look for America.
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