.png)
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
98 episodes
When The Pawn... by Fiona Apple
Part of what makes When The Pawn so enduring is how it captures a specific moment in Apple's artistic development. After the raw, sometimes unpolished brilliance of Tidal, but before the more experimental sounds of Extraor...
The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths
What elevates The Queen Is Dead to classic status is its synthesis of seemingly contradictory elements. The juxtaposition of Morrissey's mordant, often devastating lyrics against Marr's shimmering, melodic guitar creates a tension that...
Catch A Fire by Bob Marley & The Wailers
Catch A Fire captures Marley at a crucial moment in his artistic development—already a great songwriter and performer, but still hungry and relatively unknown outside Jamaica. There's an urgency and raw energy to these recordings...
A Night At The Opera by Queen
By the mid-1970s, the idea of "rock opera" had already been explored by bands such as The Who, but Queen's approach was distinctly different. Rather than telling a single narrative across an album, they created a kind of musical theatre where e...
We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions by Bruce Springsteen
What elevates the album beyond mere tribute is how Springsteen connects these traditional songs to his own artistic identity. The political dimensions of the album cannot be overlooked either. Springsteen had become increasingly outspoken in hi...
Jaydiohead by Max Tannone
What's most striking about Jaydiohead is how naturally the two artists' aesthetics merge. On paper, this should have been a train wreck. Radiohead's anxious art-rock and Jay-Z's confident hip-hop swagger represent opposing poles of con...
Waking Hours by Del Amitri
What makes Waking Hours particularly notable is its emotional maturity. While many of their contemporaries were trading in either dance-floor escapism or political sloganeering, Del Amitri focused on the intimate struggles of everyday ...
Coming Home by Leon Bridges
It would be a mistake to view Coming Home purely through the lens of retrospection. What makes it a classic album rather than a skillful homage is how Bridges creates something new within established forms. His vocals — smooth yet subt...
Too-Rye-Ay by Dexys Midnight Runners
What makes Too-Rye-Ay a classic is how it stands at the intersection of multiple musical traditions while creating something entirely original. It respects the past – drawing from American soul, Irish folk, and British pop – while push...
Saint Dominic's Preview by Van Morrison
What makes Saint Dominic's Preview so compelling is not just its musical ambition but its position at the intersection of Morrison's various artistic impulses. The album balances radio-friendly cuts with extended spiritual explorations...
Traveling Wilburys Vol 1 by Traveling Wilburys
This album contains effortless songwriting, camaraderie and pure musical joy, but it’s not an artistic statement. It isn’t an album to take seriously, but that doesn’t mean it’s not infectiously enjoyable. What makes the Wilburys' d...
Cuz I Love You by Lizzo
Cuz I Love You is a record that doesn’t whisper — it roars. It’s unapologetically loud, bold and full-throttle, drenched in saturated colour and volume. Lizzo leans into classic soul, doo-wop, and old-school romance, yet the r...
Gold by Ryan Adams
Gold represents a creative peak for Adams. While he would continue to release prolific and often excellent work in the decades that followed, this album captured him at a moment of perfect equilibrium — his youthful exuberance tempered...
The Great Escape by Blur
If Parklife was a celebration of British life in all its eccentric glory, The Great Escape took a darker turn. Behind the brash, satirical pop of Country House and Charmless Man lay a more cynical and world-w...
Walk Through Fire by Yola
Walk Through Fire is a breathtaking fusion of country, soul, folk, and Americana. Produced by Dan Auerbach, these 12 songs present a fully realised artistic vision, one that embraces both joy and pain, light and shadow – and t...
Nevermind by Nirvana
Nevermind is one of the most influential and culturally significant albums in modern music history. Its impact transcended mere commercial success to fundamentally alter the trajectory of popular music and youth culture in the 1990s an...
Cold Fact by Rodriguez
Sixto Rodriguez crafted a collection of songs that merged folk traditions with psychedelic textures, underpinned by razor-sharp social commentary and poetic introspection. What distinguishes Cold Fact from many protest albums of its er...
Couldn't Stand The Weather by Stevie Ray Vaughan
What makes Couldn't Stand The Weather endure is its emotional authenticity. Vaughan played with undeniable technical brilliance, but his virtuosity always served emotional expression rather than mere display. His struggles with substan...
Mermaid Avenue by Billy Bragg & Wilco
The decision to collaborate on this project was a bold one. Guthrie's lyrics, often steeped in the social and political struggles of mid-20th century America, could have easily been treated as museum pieces, preserved in amber for posterity. In...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
