The Album Years

Giving overviews of the years that in the duo's opinion define the era of ‘the classic album’, Season Two opens with 1981. Taking in Post-Punk, Electro-Pop, Metal, Progressive, Jazz and more, in this edition Wilson and Bowness discuss artists as diverse as Japan, A Certain Ratio, Rush, Grace Jones, Rupert Hine, OMD, Pat Metheny, Iron Maiden, Magazine and others...

2001, a music odyssey! Tim and Steven venture into the 21st century and, against expectations, they like what they see. Good Lord, it might even be a Golden Age! Artists discussed include Radiohead, Opeth, Bjork, Tool, Elbow, Mercury Rev, Brigitte Fontaine, The Caretaker, Prefuse 73 and Prefab Sprout (with a special shout out to Paddy MacAloon's beard).

The boys' time machine lands in 2006 and the fresh fields of 2001 seem to have become neglected and funky (and not in a glorious James Brown kind of way). Artists discussed include Scott Walker, The Who, Thom Yorke, Joanna Newsome, Arctic Monkeys, Sparks, The Flaming Lips and more. Elsewhere, the fractious duo fiercely debate the merits of Marmite. Yum? Yuck?

Steven and Tim find themselves marvelling at the greatness of what they’d assumed was a typically flat mid-1980s placeholder year. Talk Talk, The Smiths, Peter Gabriel, Arthur Russell, Miles Davis, Metallica, Momus, XTC, Prince and many an Album Years drinking game favourite are discussed. We also discover that Tim saved a man from drowning while listening to Depeche Mode, and Steven forever associates Peter Hammill’s Nadir’s Big Chance with vile pink medicine...

As Noddy Holder keeps on reminding everybody, "It's Christmas!!!". So to celebrate instead of the usual format this episode finds us looking back, and discussing the general state of the physical album based music industry. To help us in this endeavour we are joined by special guest Paul Sinclair, the founder of influential music website SuperDeluxeEdition.com...

Steven and Tim return with 1978, a year so rich with significant albums ripe for discussion it looks like it’s going to require 4 episodes to get through them all! Part 1 takes on board Tim's suggestions for 'guilty pleasures’ (a notion which Steven strongly objects to), and the non-stop rise of the New Wave goes interstellar.

Steven and Tim return with 1978, a year so rich with significant albums ripe for discussion it looks like it’s going to require 4 episodes to get through them all! Part 2 of The Album Years' investigation into 1978 continues with some of the more established guard, including The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, 10cc, Warren Zevon, Elton John, Neil Young, Queen and more.

Parts 3 and 4 to follow!

Six months after they left it dangling, the boys return to 1978...

Another epic two-parter as the no-man duo take on 1983, a year where bright young things and old curmudgeons alike are on creative fire, even if there’s still a lot of space for honourable eccentrics. 

Buy The Album Years T-shirt (Graphite)

Buy The Album Years T-shirt (Classic Olive)

Another epic two-parter as the no-man duo take on 1983, a year where bright young things and old curmudgeons alike are on creative fire, even if there’s still a lot of space for honourable eccentrics. 

Buy The Album Years T-shirt (Graphite)

Buy The Album Years T-shirt (Classic Olive)