New Post!: 2019 Artists of the Year!

The Wonder Years

Here we are again for another glorious Artists of the Year countdown. I love it so much and this one is an EXCELLENT one. Great songs, but also songs that point to specific events in the year, which is just what you want in an AOTY countdown, you know?


2019 Artists of the Year Countdown

***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
The Beatles
blink-182
Cast of Hamilton
Fall Out Boy
Gin Blossoms
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
The Mountain Goats
New Found Glory
Pearl Jam
Taylor Swift
The Wonder Years

New Countdown: July 2019!

Matt Maeson

Well, if anything, we could say that July was pretty Sublime. Eh? Eh? But seriously, this is an excellent and fairly quick episode. It's chock full of excellent tunes. Some old, some new, and some new covers of old stuff. Enjoy!


Countdown #407

***Featuring***
AJR
Billie Eilish
Dominic Fike
Half Alive
The Head and the Heart
Lana Del Rey
Lumineers
Matt Maeson
Of Monsters and Men
Panic! At the Disco
Pearl Jam
SHAED
Sublime

Special Countdown: 12 Years of Last.Fm (Part 3) (#30-#21)

Rise Against

It's the end of the month, so that must mean that it's time for another installment of 12 Year of Last.fm. It's a great episode with a wide range of music. Enjoy!


12 Years of Last.fm (Part 3)

***Featuring***
Alkaline Trio
Bad Religion
Dar Williams
Elliott Smith
Frightened Rabbit
Pearl Jam
Rise Against
Sublime
Sufjan Stevens
Thrice
Vampire Weekend

Flashback Countdown #7 (1995)

Pearl Jam (1995)

I'm at Podcon as this is being published and I thought it would be fun to take a look back 22 years to this week in 1995. It was definitely a great week on the chart. Future Grammy Nominees and Hot 100 Top Ten songs abound!

Big thanks to my friend Amity for getting me a copy of the Folk Implosion song!

Enjoy!


Flashback Countdown #7 (1995)

***Featuring***
Bush
The Folk Implosion
Goo Goo Dolls
Joan Osborne
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Rentals
Seven Mary Three
Smashing Pumpkins
The Toadies

New Countdown! Reg Sched Prog

Cold War Kids

Well here we are back again at the outset of a new year! I've made some decisions regarding bonus songs based on how the last couple of episodes of last year felt and so you'll notice more artists listed in the list below. It feels like a good decision.

Enjoy!


Countdown #276

***Featuring***
Cage the Elephant
Cold War Kids
Coldplay
David Bowie
Death Cab For Cutie
Elle King
Flight of the Conchords
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
Pearl Jam
Silversun Pickups
twenty one pilots
Vance Joy
X Ambassadors

Tag!

This post is just so that all the tags go to the right post because I ran out of room. If you have come to this post from searching for one of the bands tagged here, click on the link below to find the appropriate podcast

http://appetitefordistraction.blogspot.com/2015/06/new-countdown-sestercentennial.html

Flashback Countdown: What "5 Years Later" Sounds Like

Barenaked Ladies

Well, it's been 5 freakin' years of doing this podcast. There have been lots and lots of highs and maybe a low here and there. I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon so buckle up! It's the safe thing to do. You should buckle up even if I do stop sometime soon, though.

Enjoy the memories :)




Flashback Countdown #6 (1993)

***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
Bjork
Blind Melon
The Catherine Wheel
The Juliana Hatfield Three
New Order
Pearl Jam
Pet Shop Boys
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Smashing Pumpkins
Urge Overkill

Throwback Thursday: 1995

7 out of the 10 albums on the Top Ten for 1995 made me go "Whoa! And that one is on here too?!" So I figured we'd break from tradition and have a video from each album on the Top Ten. I think you'll agree it was a bumper crop.

10. The Cranberries - No Need to Argue

9. Tom Petty - Wildflowers

8. Aerosmith - Big Ones

7. Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York

6. The Offspring - Smash

5. Eagles - Hell Freezes Over

4. Green Day - Dookie

3. Boyz II Men - II

2. Pearl Jam - Vitalogy

1. Garth Brooks - The Hits

Bonus Tagging

This is just a post to tag all the bonus artist from today's 200th Countdown.

You can find the episode HERE

One Year, 100 Albums: #28 Pearl Jam "Vs."

Pearl Jam Vs., 1993

First albums are often the rawest album in a band's catalog, but for whatever reason, this sophomore album is the rawest, hardest rocking album the band has ever done. I know it's supposed to be about conflict, and boy does it deliver on adherence to a theme.

If you only know Pearl Jam from the radio, you might be SLIGHTLY aware of the bitchin' guitar solos present in a lot of their songs, but I'm not sure you can know the levels of bitchin' they achieve without listening to the first song on the album, "Go"

The best thing that I ever did with regards to PJ was purchasing a bootleg live album (from their Official Live Bootleg Series, of course) and just immersing myself in that. I picked out an album with as many songs that I knew that I loved and then sat back and let the songs that I'd never heard before wash over me. After a while, it seemed that most the "new" songs that I loved from the live album were from Vs. and so when I bought this album, it was no big surprise that I loved it as much as I do.

It has rockers like "Go" and "Animal" and "Rats", quiet reflection in "Daughter" and "Elderly Woman..." and "Indifference", and a lot of incendiary political stuff on tracks like "WMA" and "Glorified G". It also has the closest thing to a Bruce Springsteen song that PJ has ever done in terms of feeling the need to get in your car and drive away from your troubles and start over ("Rearviewmirror").

If you only buy one Pearl Jam album in your life, this one is an EXCELLENT choice. It encapsulates every good quality that the band brings to the table.

Pearl Jam had a longstanding policy against making music videos and I couldn't find a satisfactory live video. So here's 3 songs! If you have a favorite Vs. era live video, post a link in the comments!

Pearl Jam - Animal
Pearl Jam - Rearviewmirror
Pearl Jam - Indifference

You can buy Vs. at Amazon, Amazon MP3, and iTunes

New Countdown: Hey things went according to plan!!!

Foster the People

Well, I accomplished my goal of getting this one done a day early so that I can go to my concert tomorrow night. Very stoked!

I hope you enjoy this one!


Countdown #186

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Dar Williams
Foster the People
Gnarls Barkley
Imagine Dragons
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Pearl Jam
Vampire Weekend
Young the Giant

New Countdown: Not Letting a Measly Snowstorm Keep ME From Procrastinating!

Pearl Jam

Well, I had a bunch of time to do this, with the snow storm and everything, but, of course, decided to wait until the last possible moment to actually record most of it. I know some things go better if you're under pressure, but I mean, come on! :)

I can't do that again next week because I'm going to a concert on Saturday night! If you're interested in knowing more, you literally have to wait through the whole episode to find out details. So just forget I mentioned anything and then when I bring it up, it'll be like "Oh yeah! I *was* interested in that!"


Countdown #185

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Dar Williams
Foster the People
Gnarls Barkley
Imagine Dragons
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Pearl Jam
Vampire Weekend
Young the Giant

New Countdown: If I Didn't Know Any Better, I'd Say We Were in 2011 Again....

Bastille

MAN, I hope "Pompeii" makes it to July 14th. I don't even care what the number generator says that week. I know exactly who gets the picture at the top that week!

This one starts off super new and then settles into some of the songs we know and love.....although I suppose that's not entirely true. There are new songs and not new songs. Bonus songs and not bonus songs. Just like always. Enjoy!

Countdown #184

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Foster the People
Gnarls Barkley
Imagine Dragons
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Pearl Jam
Vampire Weekend
Young the Giant

New Countdown: OOOON Time!

Cage the Elephant

It's rather late, but I'm really proud that this is going to go up at it's regularly scheduled time slot tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you next week!

Countdown #183

***FEATURING***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Gnarls Barkley
Imagine Dragons
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Pearl Jam
Twenty One Pilots
Vampire Weekend
Young the Giant

New Countdown: Have no Fear! The COUNTDOWN is here!!!

Imagine Dragons and Kendrick Lamar at the 2014 Grammy Awards

Late again. It's beginning to feel like 2010, based on how awful I've been about the punctuality of this podcast. What can I say? Sometimes, life gets in the way. But this isn't going to derail anything so don't start getting those worries in your pretty little heads.

As it happened, being late allowed me to do more immediate Grammy coverage than I would have been able to do if I'd tried to report from NEXT Sunday. So I guess that's a blessing in disguise.

This countdown has a lot of bonus songs in it, very few of which I planned beforehand. It's not as much as LAST week's, but it's still a lot.


Countdown #182

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Blink 182
Cage the Elephant
Imagine Dragons
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Pearl Jam
Twenty One Pilots
Vampire Weekend
The White Stripes
Young the Giant

New Countdown: Yeah, It's Late. But I think You'll Forgive Me

Young the Giant

Ok. Hi. So I know that everyone was super disappointed not to see the new countdown up yesterday, but the truth is that we were doing some major cleaning around the house and when I looked up, it was WAY later than I thought, and it was just not going to work to stay up putting this together

BUT I think you'll be ok with it. What I'm saying is that this countdown is literally CHOCK FULL of countdowny goodness so I feel alright with putting it up a little late. Enjoy! See you in about 100 minutes!

Countdown #181

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Fitz & the Tantrums
Imagine Dragons
Linkin Park
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Pearl Jam
U2
Vampire Weekend
The White Stripes
Young the Giant

New Countdown: Welcome Back, Welcome Back, Welcome Back!

Arctic Monkeys

Welcome back to another year of AFDAT10C's! Haha. That looks ridiculous. I used to read the magazine Star Wars Insider and Anthony Daniels who played C-3P0 had a column in which he used that kind of initialism all the time and it referred to things from like lots of articles prior and was both funny and aggravating.

......

Welp, enjoy the episode! ;-)

Countdown #180

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Fitz & the Tantrums
Imagine Dragons
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Pearl Jam
Vampire Weekend
The White Stripes
Young the Giant

New Countdown: Jingle Bell Alternative Rock

Cage the Elephant (Christmas Edition)

I don't think it's possible to convey to you how excited I was to be able to find a picture of the band on the blog post's "cover" (which, as always, was randomly selected) with a Christmas tree on it. I guess miracle really do happen.

This was a fun one. What am I saying? They're all fun!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you get everything you wanted. And I'm not just saying that with regards to Christmas.

Countdown #179

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Barenaked Ladies featuring Michael Buble
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Fitz & the Tantrums
Imagine Dragons
Linkin Park x Steve Aoki
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Panic! at the Disco featuring LOLO
Pearl Jam
Wilco

New Countdown! Powering Through!

Fitz & the Tantrums

Well, I really thought this one wouldn't make it up on time. Not that it's a big deal, but I always am a little out of sorts when I don't get the podcast up on time. Tonight was a typical case of distracted procrastination, so I guess I only have myself to blame.

It's a fun countdown this week! And it's the penultimate countdown based on the weekly charts of the year! How did the year already evaporate?!

I hope you enjoy this one!

Countdown #178

***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
DJ Earworm
Fitz & the Tantrums
Imagine Dragons
Linkin Park x Steve Aoki
Lorde
The Neighbourhood
Panic! at the Disco featuring LOLO
Pearl Jam
Wilco

New Countdown: Who Will Get the Grammy??

Arctic Monkeys

The Holiday Season is upon us and I think we're definitely feeling it around my house. The Christmas shopping is done, I believe, and so all that's left is assembly. I hope that you're all having lovely Decembers as well.

New music continues to roll in to the countdown and it was definitely a breeze to introduce these songs! So much to discuss! Enjoy the episode!

Countdown #177

**Featuring**
Arctic Monkeys
Bastille
Cage the Elephant
Fitz & the Tantrums
Imagine Dragons
Linkin Park x Steve Aoki
Lorde
MS MR
Panic! at the Disco featuring Lolo
Pearl Jam
Wilco