The Album Show

The Album Show - complete albums with no interrruptions

Relive the magic of listening to albums in full, without interruptions. It's the way they were meant to be heard, the way they were meant to be experienced; track by track, end to end. 

The Album Show aims to recreate those moments, where you totally immerse yourself into the album, the way the artists intended you to hear them.

Hosted by Jeff Cullen, The Album Show airs each Sunday night at 10pm on 88.6 Plenty Valley FM. You can stream it live on www.pvfm.org.au or download the podcast.

"Audience participation is very important to me," said Jeff. The idea for the show generated from audience feedback. "Listeners were excited when I occasionally played albums in full on other shows that I have hosted. No other stations were dedicating time for full albums," Jeff said. Playing the albums complete, as they were intended resonated strongly with listeners. And so, the idea for The Album Show was born.

Through social media, participation with the audience allows sharing of albums and comments between each other as well as Jeff. He includes examples and comments from listeners in his playlist and acknowledges them on air.

"Remember the joy of hearing a great album and sharing it with your friends? That's what The Album Show is all about," said Jeff. "We're all just a community of fans sharing our albums, and hopefully finding something new and exciting."

The "From First To Last" segment asks the audience for the first album they bought, the best album they bought, and the last album they bought. And the results are fascinating. Jeff laughs. " Ha! From The Bay City Rollers, to Cheech And Chong, to Frank Zappa, they reflect not only the personal journey of the listener, but the diversity of the audience in general."

Depending on the length of the albums, the show runs for around two hours. This usually allows for two complete albums, and selected tracks and facts about noteworthy albums. Occasionally, you'll hear three albums. And from time to time, there are special events such as double live albums and all night album marathons.

The engagement with the audience continues on social media, with extended content, such as new album releases, album and artist facts, along with information about the current vinyl revival. The audience are invited to participate with comments and feedback on their own classic album collection. On Facebook you can search for @albumshow and Plenty Valley FM with @88.6plentyvalleyfm. On Twitter look for @show_album and on Instagram you can search for @albumshow.

And what are Jeff's selctions for the From First To Last segment?

"My first album owned is Los Cochinos by Cheech And Chong. Of course, it contains the classic song, Basketball Jones. One of my favourite pieces of trivia is the excellent guitar work on that track provided by the legendary George Harrison," Jeff says with a smile. He continues, "It gets a little bit harder to pick just one Best Album, but I'm happy to bring out Crime Of The Century by Supertramp. Just the eight tracks but each one absolutely essential to the album and I never skip any tracks. That's the sign of a great album." And the last album purchased? "This album kills two birds with one stone. I also do a segment called Bargain Bin Beauties, which are your favourite albums that you purchased for under ten dollars. The last album I bought was Love And Hate by Michael Kiwanuka, a UK artist. This album contains one of the best songs I have heard in years, a ten minute epic called Cold Little Heart. It's beautiful," he said.

You can contact Jeff by email on pvfmalbumshow@gmail.com and let him know your From First To Last list, or just suggest a classic album. He'd love to hear from you.

Losing My Religion by REM

watch the original film clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw

It’s hard to define exactly why this song is so great. How much can a video clip influence our reaction to a song? It was certainly the standout music video of the decade, and remains one of the best clips ever. Like a Hollywood Epic crammed into a few minutes, the song is both majestic in scope and acutely personal, evoking thoughts of loss and failure throughout the ages.

Besides, who can resist a mandolin?

In reading Peter Buck’s liner notes of this song for In Time: The Best Of REM, he said that the band members themselves sometimes do not have a full literal meaning of their songs. They connect with the feel of the song, or the collage of images that the song creates. Sometimes, all that you have is a word, or phrase that triggers an image, which provokes an emotional response in alignment with the feel of the song.

The ambiguous lyrics of Buck and Stipe are often intentional, inviting the listener to explore their own interpretation. Some believe that the song refers to the profound guilt and remorse the singer feels about the disintegration of a relationship due to some untold wrong doing. The phrase ‘losing my religion’ is apparently a saying from the deep south of America, meaning to lose one’s temper, get extremely angry or frustrated, or to feel totally overwhelmed and helpless. This certainly does correspond to the shattered relationship interpretation. However, I still relate to this song in the ‘big-picture’ way.

This is more than a song about one or two people. It is a song of many, of mankind, and our collective relationships. This song speaks to me about loss, regret, failure and its implications for the future on a grand scale. As Humanity splinters and cracks along the forks and cross roads, both discovered and created, this is the soundtrack that accompanies the footage of the wrong path taken. This the tune Judas was humming two thousand years ago when he and Jesus hatched their ambitious plot together. When Einstein ran from The Fat Man and a Little Boy in Manhattan, he was found cowering in the dark, clutching a compass and a violin, and whistling this tune. And in some parallel universe Stephen Hawking screams this song with rage and fury, at the difference between what is, and what could be.

This is monumental defeat on the big stage. Whether you are facing up to the loss of a loved one, or knowing you will never face the one you love, or spending your final moments staring down the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, this is the deep sense of loss and remorse over potential unfulfilled. This is the realisation that you have nothing left. You can neither give nor receive. Everything you believed in has been proved not only to be false, but a total sham right from the start.

Losing My Religion is one of those rare songs where everything converges and meshes correctly. A song where the lyrics, the singing, the music, and the visuals are all aligned in perfection. The story is told that Buck purchased a mandolin, which led to the melody, which lent itself to the phrasing of the chorus. Stipe then completed the lyrics in five minutes, a subconscious streaming on paper, and later recorded the vocal performance on the first take. The Indian/Renaissance video clip is visually stunning and is the secret ingredient that brings out the flavour of everything else in the song.

When everything blends so smoothly, and fits so perfectly, well... Perhaps religion has been found.

Golden Brown by The Stranglers

Golden Brown might be about heroin, a gorgeous black woman...or toast. Take your pick. Quite possibly, it’s about one man’s infatuation with a heroin addicted, dark skinned beauty, who has the munchies for toasted muffins. Whatever meaning it has, it provides us with a perfect counterpoint to the rest of the punk movement, and its remains and offshoots.

Who would have thought the harpsichord could be so cool?

When most of the punks were still moaning about no future, or burning effigies of Margaret Thatcher, The Stranglers turned 180 degrees, and added some musical legitimacy to what had become a fairly predictable and boring movement.

The Stranglers are no strangers to doing things differently. Shunned by some for being musically educated, and shunned by others for being educated in general, they defied the critics, which included a sometimes apathetic music press, and maintained a healthy and respected following well into their fifth decade.

They were there when punk rock’s rocket launched, and rode in its wake. And they survived when that rocket turned out to be a missile and self destructed. The Stranglers had enough variance in their repertoire to be able to walk away relatively unscathed. They are one of those bands that have always been thereabouts. Whilst not leading the charge, they were always in the thick of the battle, and earned their stripes.

With an impressive 16 original albums to their collective name, they have kept themselves in the mix with fans across all continents, which a string of hits, like Peaches, Always The Sun, and Skin Deep. All still get regular airplay some thirty years later, but none so much as Golden Brown. Whether they like it or not, it has become their signature tune. And there is nothing wrong with that.

With numerous line ups, The Stranglers have remained true to the original punk ethos of originality and free spirit. That ethos became lost with the endless repetition of snarling guitar bands with three chords and a pose that pandered to an ever hungry public that devoured anything thrown at it labelled punk, and a music industry increasingly manipulated by fashionistas and consumerism. This is why Golden Brown stands proudly amongst the best punk songs of the period, and holds it’s own with the best rock songs of any period.

Golden Brown works extremely well on many levels. As a simple listening pleasure it is magnificent. It delivers a measured balance of melancholy melody and composition, with a wistful vocal performance. In the tradition of all great songs, its meaning lies buried deliberately between the literal and the metaphorical. For those wanting to dig a bit deeper it yields further riches.

Whether it is about addiction, or obsession, it is that desire for something, or someone, that provides so much joy and pleasure, if only temporary, that you know can only lead to pain and suffering. In the cold light of day, you know you need to stop, and move in another direction. But the heart is the trump card. The heart knows exactly what to say, those sudden persuasive whispers to the subconscious. Emotion rules the day, and the heart chips away, until Logic becomes a true believer, an ally in self deception. That’s the sad truth about obsession. As addiction strangles the life out of the addict, the addict only feels the warm embrace of the object of his desires, his one true love.

Underlying these sinister overtones is incredibly beautiful music. The choice of harpsichord is inspired. The guitar break is understated elegance. It is very seductive and compliments the lyrics perfectly, right through to the hypnotic mantra on the fade out.

This song may not be of much use as you face your own personal struggle, but it is one to savour when you come through the other side. It is a song to reminisce with, safe in the comfort of either victory or defeat.

Won or lost – you have survived.