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Classic Albums. Hosted by Stevie Nix
Not all albums stand the test of time, but plenty do and Australian music critic Stevie Nix will bring one to you each week. He'll cover all eras and most genres and tell you why each record is so revered and, equally, why it deserves to be. And he only uses six songs to do it.
Episodes
79 episodes
Ready To Die by The Notorious B.I.G.
Ready To Die wasn’t just another rap album; it was a cinematic masterpiece — raw, vivid, and deeply personal. Across 17 tracks, Biggie painted a portrait of street life with an unparalleled blend of grit, humour and vulnerability. But ...
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Season 8
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Episode 9
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38:21
Transformer by Lou Reed
Transformer arrived when glam rock was ascendant and the rigid gender norms of the past were being questioned and the album didn't just ride this wave; it helped create it. The album's success brought Reed to a level of mainstream reco...
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Season 8
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Episode 8
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41:10
Lost In The Dream by The War On Drugs
The War On Drugs' third album is one of the most significant rock albums of the 21st century. What began as Adam Granduciel's deeply personal project evolved into a mini-masterpiece that bridged past and present, offering both comfort in famili...
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Season 8
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Episode 7
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38:26
Abbey Road by The Beatles
Released in 1969, Abbey Road is often spoken about as a farewell, though it wasn’t presented that way at the time. What it really represents is a final act of collective will: four musicians whose relationships were badly strained deci...
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Season 8
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Episode 6
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49:20
Gettin' Down To It by James Brown
Gettin’ Down to It is James Brown proving that he wasn’t just a powerhouse performer — he was a storyteller, a stylist and, above all, a man who could make any genre his own. This album sees James Brown not as the Godfather of So...
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Season 8
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Episode 5
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44:12
Automatic For The People by REM
What makes Automatic For The People exceptional is its ability to address the most profound human experiences without platitudes or melodrama. The album arrived at a pivotal cultural moment when AIDS was decimating communities and a ge...
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Season 8
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Episode 4
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39:42
A New World Record by Electric Light Orchestra
Released in 1976, this was the moment Jeff Lynne’s vision snapped into clarity. After years of experimenting with the marriage of rock and classical textures, ELO arrived here with a confidence and cohesion they’d never quite captured before. W...
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Season 8
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Episode 3
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46:25
OK Computer by Radiohead
OK Computer arrived like a dispatch from the near future — a warning, a prophecy, a mirror reflecting our increasingly complicated relationship with technology and modern existence. The album didn't just capture the zeitgeist; it antic...
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Season 8
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Episode 2
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43:16
Are You Experienced by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Released into the heart of the psychedelic era, Are You Experienced announced the future loudly, imperfectly and irresistibly. It captures is a threshold moment. Jimi Hendrix didn’t gently evolve the three-minute song; he stretched it,...
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Season 8
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Episode 1
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47:22
King Of America by Elvis Costello
King of America is an album born out of retreat and reset, following a period when Costello himself felt he’d lost the thread. It feels like an artist stripping everything back to find out what still matters. Even the name “Elvis Coste...
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Season 7
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Episode 10
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53:34
Graceland by Paul Simon
Graceland introduced global sounds to mainstream Western audiences in a way that felt organic rather than exploitative. The conversations about cultural appropriation, artistic responsibility, and the relationship between art and polit...
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Season 7
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Episode 9
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41:55
Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons
The album's power lies in its refusal to play by the rules of either folk purity or contemporary indie rock. These weren't musicians interested in archaeological authenticity or preserving some imagined folk tradition in amber. Instead, they to...
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Season 7
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Episode 8
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47:43
Face Value by Phil Collins
When Phil Collins released Face Value in February 1981, few could have predicted that this deeply personal debut would launch one of the most successful solo careers in pop music history. The album emerged from one of the darkest perio...
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Season 7
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Episode 7
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47:23
The Stranger by Billy Joel
The Stranger permanently altered the trajectory of Joel's career, transforming him from a struggling piano man to a stadium-filling superstar. More importantly, it established him as a serious artist whose work could connect with both critics a...
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Season 7
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Episode 6
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47:20
Us by Peter Gabriel
Us is particularly notable for its deeply personal lyrical content. While Gabriel's previous work often dealt with political themes or character-based narratives, this album turned inward to explore relationships, personal psychology a...
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Season 7
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Episode 5
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50:29
Night And Day by Joe Jackson
Night And Day stood out by offering something sophisticated — a hybrid of styles that acknowledged contemporary trends and also classic songwriting traditions. Jackson's classical piano training is evident in the complexity of his arra...
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Season 7
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Episode 4
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44:34
Bat Out Of Hell by Meat Loaf
Bat Out Of Hell represents a singular moment in music history where ambition, talent and timing combined to create something truly unique. It demonstrated that rock music could embrace theatrical drama and technical complexity while ma...
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Season 7
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Episode 3
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49:10
All Day by Girl Talk
What makes All Day remarkable isn’t just the novelty of hearing Foxy Brown on top of Peter Gabriel, or Big Boi rapping over Portishead, though those moments are undeniably thrilling. It’s the way Greg Gillis transforms these fragments ...
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Season 7
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Episode 2
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43:54
Bitches Brew by Miles Davis
Released in 1970, this double album didn’t just push the limits of jazz; it obliterated them. Bitches Brew is a chaotic, electrifying, and hypnotic masterpiece, fusing jazz, rock, funk, and avant-garde into something utterly transforma...
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Season 7
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Episode 1
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32:03
Back To Black by Amy Winehouse
There are many reasons this album endures, but one is very much Winehouse’s voice. It was idiosyncratic in the way that all the truly great voices are idiosyncratic — immediately recognisable, impossible to replicate, full of an apparently untu...
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Season 6
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Episode 10
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50:10
Blue by Joni Mitchell
What distinguishes Blue from other confessional albums of its era is Mitchell's refusal to simplify her emotions. She embraced what she called "chords of inquiry"— suspended chords that carried inherent questions, that never quite reso...
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Season 6
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Episode 9
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53:51
Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen
Nebraska arrived at a time when the music industry was chasing bigger sounds and brighter production, but Springsteen went the other way. The album’s quiet power came from its restraint. Drawing on the folk traditions of Woody Guthrie ...
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Season 6
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Episode 8
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45:18
Odelay by Beck
What made Odelay a classic rather than simply an impressive album was the tension at its heart. On the surface, it seemed almost aggressively carefree — a sonic playground where nothing was too weird to include and nothing was taken to...
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Season 6
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Episode 7
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47:46
Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson
Red Headed Stranger is a concept album built around an old murder ballad Nelson remembered from his days as a radio disc jockey in Fort Worth and he interwove this dark story with carefully chosen country standards and original materia...
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Season 6
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Episode 6
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56:41
