Shinedown - Episode 7 (Planet Zero)

Our Shinedown series continues as we move onto the band’s seventh studio album Planet Zero.

In this episode, we explore the story behind Planet Zero and Shinedown's decision to create another concept album. We discuss the ideas that drive the record, the band's move towards a more raw, stripped back sound, and how Planet Zero became one of their most political releases to date.

And as always, we will be highlighting and dissecting the Hidden Gems from Planet Zero. Those songs that are overlooked and underappreciated and deserve far more attention than they receive.

Keep an eye out for our final episode in our Shinedown series where we will be uncovering Hidden Gems from Shinedown's most recent album Ei8ht.

For any requests for future episodes, please email: RandM.HiddenGems.Podcast@gmail.com

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 1:33

Hello and welcome to Rock and Metal's Hidden Gems Podcast. I am your host, as always, Daniel Stuckey, and we are here coming to the end almost of our Shinedown series. We've got one album, so one episode after this one, but we're coming near the end of the studio discography of the hard rock band Shinedown, and today we're covering their seventh studio album, Planet Zero. An album that goes very much under the radar. You can see that in terms of the metrics with Spotify streams, but you can also just see that basically on social media forums like Reddit. It's very much an underrated album almost, and one that goes under the radar. It's almost the hidden gem album from Shinedown. We will be covering those hidden gem tracks of Planet Zero as well as you know showcasing those major singles to come off it and tell the story of the writing and recording of the album. But first of all, where have you been on a Shinedown series? If this is your first listen, uh we've covered all of the previous studio releases from Shinedown in the previous episodes on the series, all the way from the first album Leave a Whisper up to Attention Attention, and now obviously Planet Zero. And we will be doing eight in the forthcoming episode. So if you haven't heard those previous episodes, I recommend you do. There will be the odd call back to things talked about in those episodes. If you just care about Planet Zero, then hop on in. Welcome to the pod and hope you enjoy yourself. Now, the Shinedown album Planet Zero was released on the 1st of July 2022. And the release was actually delayed by three months due to vinyl production issues. And that's very much uh I guess a 2022 problem. It's not something you would have had 20 years prior, even though vinyls were released well, well before uh 2002, it would have been 20 years prior. Now, back in 2022 or 2026 when this podcast is being recorded, uh vinyl is pretty much the only physical media you can buy today. You can still buy compact discs, CDs, but generally people are either doing streaming services or they are buying the vinyl for their music consumption. So the fact they had issues with vinyl production meant that Planet Zero overall was delayed by three months. Now, like the previous album Attention Attention, this one is again produced and mixed by bassist Eric Bass. I've said it in every episode. I don't know if it's correctly pronounced bass or bass, but the fact he's a bass player in Shinedown, he's gotta be called Eric Bass. So that's the way we're going. And this was actually recorded uh during the pandemic. So the pandemic remember started in March of 2020. And depending on where in the world you are, it kind of went on for at least a year, year and a half, some places two years. Depends where on the political spectrum your country aligns. I can say in the United Kingdom, it lasted roughly around a year and a half until things started to really open up properly again. And it was during this time that the album was basically written and recorded, and it was done in Eric Bass's newly built studio in Charleston, South Carolina. So I don't know if this was a decision because the actual recording studios they usually use were closed because of the pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic, and this was the band's workaround so they could legally still write and record music. Or if it's just a choice the band made, whether that's for comfort, uh their ability to get their family in and out of that recording session environment, which goes on for a few months for most bands. It's not a quick one-week turnaround, it goes on for a while. For example, in our Nightwitch series, we talked about after once they got broken in and had their success and were able to make these creative decisions, they kind of had their recording studio almost in a wilderness lodge in the middle of nowhere, but it meant they had different log cabins where like the family members could stay with their kids, so they weren't apart from the family during those monthly sessions. And it could have been the same thing here on Planet Zero, or it could have just been the fact they liked Eric Bass's uh home studio, or it could have been the COVID-19 pandemic. You choose which one you think is most likely, but I think it might even be a bit of all of them. It might be a little bit of everything in the punch, if that makes sense. Now, quote from Brent Smith, and if it's the first time joining the podcast, you will learn for each quote. I like to do an accent that's completely unrelated to how the band members actually sound, but hey, I have fun of it. So Brent Smith. This time around, we pushed everything to the front for the listeners, not layering so many things or having a lot of effects or cues or things of that nature. There was a lot of self-doubt, a lot of wondering if I should mix it or not, that type of thing. I had a lot of disdain for it the whole time I was making it, but in the end, I think that's what gives it its edge. So that was lead vocalist and main founding Shinedown member Brent Smith there in his quotes regarding Planet Zero. Now it's worth picking out a few things from that quote, so a few interesting points. For example, he mentions that there's not as much layering going on or as many sound effects going on or cues. And if you listen to some of the previous albums we've recently covered, Attention, Attention, Threat to Survival, which I've said multiple times, is probably Shinedown's weakest album, both from my point of view, and the Shinedown fans generally overall, as well. That's kind of seen as quality-wise the weakest. One of the things that came in with those albums was those sound effects, was those different vocal layering techniques, different music production techniques coming in, and it kind of coincided with bassist Eric Bass producing and mixing these albums. That could be a coincidence, or it could be the actual cause, but it meant the band started getting compared to other more pop rocky bands like Imagined Dragons. And I heavily played on that fact on the episode for Threat to Survival because I think that's where it's most obvious. They came away from it a little bit in attention, attention. They brought some of that hard rock back, but while still keeping a foot a little bit into these musical techniques that they originally brought in for threat to survival, giving it that kind of pop feel. And in Planet Zero, as Brent Smith quoted there, they're claiming that they're taking that out again. Almost like they're listening to fan feedback, because I don't think the shined down diehards loved that side of the band and where the sound evolution was going. Certainly it brought new fans in, but generally the ones that have been there since Leave of Whisper, since the start, or even the sound of Madness and Amaryllis, it wasn't their chosen direction for the band. So it's almost like they took that feedback on board. And I'll let you decide when we start playing some clips. We'll talk about it when they get that context of the musical clip. But when you're listening to it too, have a think. Do you feel like what Brent Smith is saying is true? Have they taken out those sound effects and those layers and cues? And Brent didn't mention it, but also those like electronic drum sounds. Have a think. Have they taken that Imagine Dragons inspiration? I called it a Fallout Boy inspiration as well. Have they taken that out of the sound a little bit? A lot? Not at all. Have a listen for that and see what come up with your own thoughts and opinions, but I will obviously be calling it out as we listen to the clips. Now Brent Smith isn't the only quote we've got for the album Planet Zero. We've also got this quote from drummer Barry Kitch. It was uh holy shit! We're in the middle of a pandemic, everybody hates each other. They're riots, the world is falling apart in front of our faces, and social media is just exasperating this. And Barry Kitch there with his quote is a lovely segue into what Planet Zero the concept of the album is all about. And I use that word concept just like I did on the previous episode for attention attention because this is Shinedown's second attempt overall and in a row at a concept album. I talked about it in the previous episode. Attention Attention was a concept album. That was more about a person who's at their lowest point in their life, and they had journeyed to overcome that. And by the end of the album, the song Brilliant happens, and he's now seeing how he is brilliant or they are brilliant. The person, the character in the story. This concept album is very different. It still has that root of what Shinedown likes to sing songs about, which is about people overcoming themselves, being better people overall. This album takes a part of that and twists it into what society is currently at the time of writing and recording this album, which is during the COVID-19 pandemic. I will say that Planet Zero is probably more of a story in the traditional sense of what a story and a narrative and a plot should be than attention attention. Attention attention felt like more of a sequence of emotions and character development, but no real overall plot other than in the looser sense, really, of the subject matter. In Planet Zero, there is more of a plot. There are 30-second like tracks that solely exist to get this concept, this story across to the listener to tell the tale that they want to tell on this concept album. So there's 20 tracks overall on this album. The most shined down I've ever done in an album. But the reason for that is because half of them are about 30 to 40 seconds in length, and they sound something like this one, which is track 9. Do not panic.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

Please relax, do not panic. This world is not on fire. What you have seen is not reality. As this can be problematic. However, this lunch will pass as it is just a symptom unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

So hopefully you get the context from that clip of what I'm referring to. In attention, attention, it was just song after song after song. And to be honest, unless someone told you it was a concept album, you may not pick up on it immediately. On this album, Planet Zero, that's a bit different. There is clear narrative going on. They've leaned into it harder than they ever did before. And I like it. I like a concept album. There are different elements to concept albums. Some are more like attention-attention, where it's just song after song, and unless someone told you it was a concept album, you may not go looking too deep into the lyrics to work it out. You may just think the lyrical content has a bit of a coincidence about the theming from song to song, and that's about it. And there are other examples where it's plainly obvious. King Diamond loves a concept album. Most of his albums, if not all of his studio releases, have a story, a theming to each one. Abigail being the most famous. And the lyrical content there are so obvious because King Diamond will be referring to characters in his lyrics. He's basically telling a novel, a fictional story with his lyrics. Let's listen to a bit of King Diamond now and him shouting Abigail for you so you can hear what I'm referring to. King Diamond there with the song Abigail from the album. Abigail, the concept album Abigail. And I cut that clip off a little bit before you had King Diamond highly pitched scream.

unknown 13:55

Miriam!

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Miriam, which is the other character in that story. So you get what I'm talking about, where the concept in Abigail is so crystal clear. And there are different levels to this. You've got Iron Maiden Seventh, Son of a Seventh Son, which I've talked about before, which is bookended by these two acoustic uh little one-minute pieces of music. Seven Deadly Sins. A bookends the start and the end of the album. I'll play a little clip in a moment for those who haven't heard it. And that kind of brings the concept of that album together. But if you didn't have those bookends to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, you would never truly know it was a concept album. It would fall into that attention attention category where unless someone told you, you wouldn't you would be forgiven for thinking that it's just some songs and an album that share similar theming because maybe that's what the songwriters were going through in their lives or what they were researching at the time or what their interests led them to. Now I said I'd play a quick clip, so here it is: the intro for the Seventh Sun of a Seventh Sun album by Iron Maiden.

SPEAKER_05 15:01

Seven deadly sins, seven ways to win, seven holy paths to hell, and you're trying again. Seven downward slopes, seven bloodied hopes, seven are your burning fires, seven your desire.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

The intro for the album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, there, which goes into that opening track, Moon Child. I cut it off before we did. Great track, great album if you haven't heard it. Now, another example of that different spectrum you can go in in terms of telling a narrative in a concept album is from the band Savotage with their album Streets, a rock opera. Yes, they literally put a rock opera into the album title to make sure you knew this had a narrative behind it. This wasn't just your regular run-of-the-mill rock or metal album. I promise this will be the last one we go to before we circle back to Shinedown. But listen to how Savitage do it with their concept album. They leave nothing to chance. It is technically song after song after song. There aren't any 30-second, 40-second instrumental or talking tracks on this album. But there are different introductions and outros to some of the songs. So, for example, listen to the intro to track number two in the album, which is the song Jesus Saves. Great song, by the way. Great band sabotage for very underrated, underrecognized. But yeah, this is Sabotage, track two on the streets, a rock opera album, Jesus Saves.

SPEAKER_06 16:35

Hey man, you got a quota? You ain't got nothing? That's okay, man. That's okay. God bless you anyway. Hey, I hope I didn't scare you or nothing like that. I ain't no bum or nothing. I used to live up town once once before, too, you know. No, no, I didn't, really, I didn't. Look at all the cat. You got a minute? You got a minute? Let me tell you a story about this friend of mine. D.T. Jesus. Used to stand for Downtown Jesus. He used to sell drugs and stuff down there. They used to come. We used to call them Detox. Here's one character, one character that made it out of here. Let me tell you about it.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Isn't that just the same as what Shinedown did with their 30-second tracks? And in a way, yes, but unlike Shinedown, Sabotage don't include it as a separate track. If you want to play Jesus Saves today, you have to listen to that opening one minute, unless you choose to skip it manually. You don't have that option. This happens on the introduction to songs and on the outro to songs. And in this case, it's very drastic between the two sections. In some cases, they kind of fade into each other. So you've got one continuous story being told, is what Savotage are kind of going for, and the literally with a rock opera. It's not the only time they've done it, but it's certainly one of my favorite times they've done it. Streets A Rock Opera is a great album. Savotage are a great band. And if you've never heard of Savotage, you're wondering kind of where they ended up being, they actually eventually morphed and formed into the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which you may be more familiar with. They do like a lot of uh classical uh composer covers as well as their own unique stuff, as well as like Christmas stuff. For example, Christmas and Sarajevo is a very big popular track for them. I won't play any now. We'll cover that in a sabotage or trans-Siberian Orchestra series in the future. Let's get back to the Shinedown story first and this album Planet Zero. I've spent some time covering the concept album in terms of what it is traditionally, what it can be, the different spectrums to it, and how it differs from attention to tension and Planet Zero, how they handle it. But what is the story of Planet Zero? What is the concept? Well, the story is there's a character called Siren, who is an AI figure, an artificial intelligence figure in a dystopia that controls the daily activities of the Earth's population, determining what is acceptable or what is unacceptable for people to engage in. And it's basically covering themes of toxic intolerance, pitfalls of social media, mental health issues, political divisiveness, partisan media, and cancel culture, which a band is very much against cancel culture. The original intention was actually for Planet Zero not to be a concept album, but obviously it did form its way into that. And I find this quite clever from the band Shinedown using AI. I mean, AI was obviously in its early infancy when it was being recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was around, but it was just forming. It wasn't as much into popular culture like it is today, as I'm recording in 2026. Now it's absolutely everywhere. It's not just a case of having one model like ChatGPT, for example. Now there's ones just for music, now there's ones just for programming. There's an AI model, it feels catered and tailored for specific needs. Now, back then it would have been the early infancy of ChatGPT. You may have had one or two others, for example, on like your Android phone. I'm sure Apple had their own version as well. But it was in their infancy, it wasn't embedded into a social society as it is today, or in that commercial society and businesses like it is today. So it's clever for them to go there because they're seeing they're ahead of the curve, really, they're ahead of the game. But also using AI as a way to kind of control the narrative of how society has become so segregated. Uh politically, you got the left, you got the right, and it feels like you're either on one extreme or you just don't, your opinion doesn't matter. And you gotta pick a team, you gotta pick a tribe. And if you don't agree with another person's team or tribe, then you know, with them, you can't just ignore the political talk and just agree to disagree. No, you've got to be against them, they gotta be the enemy. It feels like everyone's kind of been segregated in that environment, especially politically, but it happens all over social media as well with different viewpoints. It happens with cancel culture, as I mentioned, where you say something that maybe once upon a time may not have been the correct thing to say it. Right thing to say, but in the 1980s and 1990s, whatever era it was originally written in was seen as socially acceptable. But times change, people move on, people become better people, and in 2026 it's not seen as an acceptable phrase to use anymore, and then you get cancelled for something that back then was okay to say. But we're now in a point where the older generation who grew up in that older era, they see this story and they think that nothing wrong with what they said. We said that all the time back then, everyone was fine. This cancel culture's stupid, everyone's snowflakes, and you got the younger generation who sees whatever phrase was used as wrong, and they're the ones saying everyone else is a bigot, and there's no middle ground, there's no common sense approach. And I think this is what this album is engaging in in how society has kind of lost that ability to come up with their own logic, be sensible, have common sense. You don't need to have tribes and teams that you root for, even when those teams don't say or do something that you actually agree with internally. Um, sometimes that happens and people still blindly agree with that person that they're internally inside, they disagree with, they believe whatever lies are told to believe to kind of cover it up. I'm going on a ramble here, but it's what the band's kind of covering off is how society has got to this place. And I think social media is the one that got us there, and how algorithms control what you see, and therefore you never get the full story anymore. You always get one side of the story that deliberately tries to anger you and rally you up to get uh comments and likes and follows and basically traction so their numbers go up and they can get more advertising money. It's all really a big con, but a lot of people have fallen for it, and that's how society, especially in Western culture, has kind of evolved into. And this is exactly what uh Shine Down are dialing into here with this concept of Planet Zero. They're using AI as the figure that kind of controls everything, but in real life, it may not technically be AI, but it certainly is algorithms, or maybe it is AI to a degree, powering those algorithms, controlling what we see and what we don't see. It's kind of how the internet started as one of the great inventions of the 20th century. And unfortunately, over time has been manipulated into a resource to kind of control what people see, control the narrative, and basically brainwash people into their way of thinking for their own commercial gain. Now, enough rambling from me on society and the state we're currently in when this has been recorded and where we are today. Let's get back to the album Planet Zero. And guitarist Zach Myers advised no reverb was used on this album, and Brent Smith confirmed the sound is way more stripped back and touches on subjects they previously shied away from, and that subject will be the political one. Usually they talk about personal demons, emotions, um, self-discipline, overcoming, being the best person. Now they are talking about society as a whole, which is something they have shied away from. Usually, now they're not. Now they're being a bit more raw and going in deep with it with this concept album. Now, in terms of critical reviews from the media, they're positive. Cryptic Rock, five out of five, a perfect score. Kerrang, four out of five, almost perfect. Louder Sound, four out of five as well. Distorted Sound magazine, eight out of ten, all music three and a half out of five. So there are good scores across the board here. And this is why I talked about at the start why Planet Zero is an underrated album from Shinedown. It is a good album. Everyone looks at Sound of Madness, and rightfully so, it is their best album. They may look at Amaryllis and Attention Attention as well, because they got some big singles off those albums. We're in the era now, we're in the streaming service era when this album comes out. Attention Attention would have been the first album really of the streaming service era for music consumption. But this is the one that's really been released when we're in that consumption now. We're not just starting off with people getting into Spotify and Apple Music and YouTube music and getting excited by new releases on it. Now we've been embedded onto those platforms for years. We got our playlist set up, we've got the algorithms pushing music towards us. So now we're in that cycle of streaming services where we're kind of being told what to listen to. And it's harder now to get your music out there. You can plaster it all over social media, and trust me, Shine Down Doom will be delving deep into that in the next episode for the last or most recent album 8. They will be pushing these singles and this album hard to their followers, their co-followers on social media. But how that fan, that follower, then consumes that music is a bit different to how they would have done it. They would have seeked out the album before, probably pushed it physically back in the day, and even on Attention Attention, they would have been new to the kind of streaming service game. They would have been seeking out the album, deliberately listening to it. Their algorithm might push it back onto them again, but they'll still have that mentality they used to have, where you give albums a few spins, you find the songs you like, add them to your playlist, listen to them over and over. It's a bit different now in that there's so much music to consume. You've got so many bands pushing new music onto these streaming services because they're so easy and cheap to do from the record company's point of view. I mean, there's no physical production costs anymore, like there was back in it. There will still be some. Bands like Shinedown are still releasing vinyl copies, but not at the volume they would have been doing prior. And as such, you got so much more competing for the same fan, the same follower, that they will listen to the song when it's pushed on social media for the first time. They go, ooh, new single by Shinedown. I'll go listen to that. They'll listen to it. They may think it's great, they may think it's average, may think it's bad. But what they probably will not do is generally go straight back and listen to it again. Especially given how music is released these days. The album is released. Storytime coming up. So back in the day, you would have a music video released for your first single for your album. Usually a month or around the time the album is released, that gets plastered all over your TV channels and your radio. And then the album comes out and you buy the album, you listen to the album, and they get those few extra album sales, they'll push a few more singles post-album release, and it also helps gear tickets towards a tour. But the main money coming to the band is from well, it depends on how successful the band is, really. But if you're a super successful band, you'll get a lot of money from those album and single sales. That'll be enough to cover you. If you're not as successful, then you get your money mainly from touring. Now in the streaming service days, bands don't get paid a fair wage like they used to. For example, there is a really old pop group from the UK called S Club Juniors. They were a kid group, they were like, I'm gonna say 10 years old, I'm probably a few years out, but basically they were kids singing kind of like a younger Jackson 5, but this time it's a mix of girls, mix of boys singing the most cheesy pop music you'll ever hear in your life. And they had one or two singles that were pretty successful, and then you never hear from them again. Except roll on a number of years, and a couple of those members of S Club Juniors joined a band called The Saturdays. And the Saturdays were a girl pop group like the Spice Girls and others that have been over the years, like Little Mix. They ranged from the ages of 18 to 26. There was five of them there in total, but a couple of them were originally in S Club Juniors, as I mentioned. Except now they're an adult and not a child. Now, as I said, S Club Juniors had maybe one or two hits at best. They were known, but they weren't really successful, certainly not long-term anyway. The Saturdays were, they released four albums, they had a number one single in the song What About Us featuring Sean Paul in the UK. They had a bunch of top 10 singles and top five singles. They had a really good run, but they had their run in a different era. S Club Juniors was around when everyone was buying physical media. The Saturdays were around when it would have been in that iTunes download era 2008 to 2014 was their last single release. And here's the kicker: those members that were originally in S-Club Juniors, they have come out and said in recent times that they made more money in a very brief period of time in S Club Juniors than they did in the entire six years four album run of the Saturdays. And why? Well, it's because since physical media declined in the music world, bands, artists are paid less and not paid fairly considering what they were doing and making for these record companies that kind of got most of that money. And it's only got worse since streaming services come in, like Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music. They pay even less than what these bands were getting when people were actually buying downloads from iTunes, for example. Sure, the Saturdays would have come into that period as well where people are pirating music with Torrent, LimeWire, Napster, etc. However, you'd could argue that S-Club Juniors were just about in that Napster LimeWire era as well, and it didn't affect them as much. So roll on to 2022 and Planet Zero's coming out. What bands do today, especially the successful ones that's got a big back in from a record company like Shinedown do, is they know now the band they get their money from touring. Sure, they get some money from streaming, but it's pittance compared to what they get from touring. That's they are now bread and butter in terms of their income. So what they need to do is make sure that the brand, in this case Shinedown, is as popular as it can be. So whenever they're doing tours and doing shows, announcing new gigs, they sell out. They don't linger with available tickets because that will be lost income. So what you tend to find now, and they've done this with the most recent album, eight, they will now drop song singles one at a time over quite a long period to make sure that the Shinedown brand is constantly in the news and it's constantly in your thoughts. And the album's almost an afterthought. And because that album then feels like an afterthought, that carries over to the consumer, the listener, the fan. So now they've listened to the single, they don't have this urge to suddenly go and listen to the album months and months later when it actually comes out, they're less excited. Now I will say of Planet Zero as well. The first single is called Planet Zero, we'll come to it in a moment. That dropped in January of 2022. The album itself didn't come out until July, and there was a bit of delay because of vinyl production. But as a consumer and a Shinedown fan, I remember Planet Zero the album feeling like it dropped out of nowhere. They pushed the single Planet Zero and they pushed the single Daylight that also came out before the album was released, but they didn't really push the album, it just felt like overnight, bam, it's there now. So there wasn't this urge to listen to this album over and over again, like the previous Shinedown albums, to give it the attention it deserved. And as a result, it's become, in my opinion, a very good album that's underappreciated and underlistened to by Shinedown fans. And the streams back that up. I mean, you compare the streams for this album compared to what you had on the previous album, Attention Attention, there is quite the gap between like the highest stream songs and the lowest stream songs on both. So the highest stream songs on Attention Attention were in like the 180 million streams. The highest one in here is 86, and it's a big drop off to number 243 million. So the overwhelming positive critical reviews mixed with the streaming metrics kind of back up that the quality hasn't had that fair crack of the whip by fans. It hasn't had that spins that it deserves. And I think it's just because of how we consume music in this new era. Album came out in 2022. I'd say since 2020 onwards. How we consume music now is very different to how we used to consume music in the previous 20 years when Shinedown were releasing albums. And I think that is ultimately led to this album, Planet Zero, being underappreciated, a little hidden gem in itself. Now, I have talked about the concept album, I've talked about why I think this album is undervalued, underappreciated, a bit of a hidden gem. Let's just get to the single, shall we? Let's get to the first single. I said it's called Planet Zero, that's because it is. It is a title track of the album. It came out on the 26th of January 2022, so seven months before the album actually came out. And this one topped the Billboard mainstream rock chart. Remember, that is the chart of Shinedown Hold the Record for the most number one singles of all time on in its 40-plus year history. In the previous episode, I mentioned how they broke that record, and this song Planet Zero adds to that record. I will say this makes them break the record again because the band they previously took the record from was Three Days Grace, and they are still running and they're still cooking, still releasing new music. So they actually took the record back, and then this song Planet Zero gave the record back again to Shinedown, and they traded a few times before Shinedown solidifies themselves in that position, the top spot record holding position. Let's have a quick listen to the song Planet Zero. There, the song called Planet Zero. Now, the music video for that song depicts a dystopian future where cancel culture has taken over. That song very much is cancel culture. You can hear it in the lyrics for the chorus. I think we've reached the ceiling, they're cancelling your feelings, and then a little later on, they're murdering our heroes out here on Planet Zero. Now the band Shinedown have come out and said they're publicly against cancel culture, something they don't like in society, and this is their song calling that out. Shinedown again political! Probably the first time really they've been so open about it. There were other bands around this time that kind of went in that direction, too, the political direction. Alter Bridge being one of them with their album Show Me a Leader. It came out probably a few years before this one, but that was also them kind of getting into that political world where they hadn't been previously or not being so blase and obvious about it. Shine Down Here are doing the same. And this song was nominated for Rock Song of the Year by iHeartRadio, but it didn't win. It lasted this song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Summer. Beating out Shinedown's Planet Zero. I think Planet Zero is the better song, the more interesting song, to be honest with you. I find that Red Hot Chili Peppers song quite boring. I don't dislike the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I'm certainly a fan of their earlier work, Blood Sugar, Sex Magic, and even California Cation, but that song Black Summer There doesn't really get things cooking for me. Not my kind of jam, bit boring for my tastes. Planet Zero, I think, should have beaten that one there. Now, Planet Zero, I didn't mention it, but for the guitar instrumentals, they recorded numerous takes with numerous different guitar amps and settings, but I couldn't find the right sound. And what you hear in the final cut of the record is actually the demo guitar recording. They ended up thinking we can't beat that version, even though we want to, so we're gonna stick with what we've got. We like it, let's go with it. So, what you're effectively hearing on the guitars there is a demo copy. A little bit of Easter egg knowledge for you there. Now, let's go into the second promotional single for Planet Zero. This came out one month prior to the album's release. And there's also topped the Billboard mainstream rock chart, just like Planet Zero did. And there are actually two versions of this song. There's an Amazon original remix that contains added guitars and drums. We're gonna play the Spotify version. To be honest, I don't quite like that there's an Amazon exclusive version who screams of commercialism. If you're serving the song and you're doing it for the art, surely you would just put the best version of the song out there, whether it has more or less guitars and drums. Shouldn't really do something for one commercial gigantic mega company like Amazon than you do for everyone else. You should be serving your fans, whether they're Amazon customers or not, in my opinion. But there are two versions. I'm gonna play the version on Spotify, and that is the track called Daylight. Now, for me that's more of a pop song than a hard rock song. Planet Zero, the song, really was going back to the hard rock root of Shinedown sound. Daylight went back into that poppy sound for me. But yeah, some quotes from Brent Smith about the song Daylight. This is about the human condition. We've got to live, and we've got to live with one another. And that should be something that is celebrated and not tolerated. That's what daylight really represents. It's our humanity. It's an understanding that we're all on this planet together, and we've got to figure out ways to take care of one another. A lot of times, it may just be asking someone, are you okay? Because you could potentially save someone's life just by asking. We can't lose our empathy and courage towards one another or our willingness to pick someone up if you see them on their knees. Because there's gonna be a moment in time when you need someone to pick you up. Now, Kerrang magazine, who gave this album four out of five positive reviews, they described the song Daylight as a unifying ballad that could have been written for pop star Leona Lewis. This pop star Leona Lewis. Now I think there is a slight exaggeration there from Kerrang, but the point I think is valid. Take a different pop artist, take someone like Mumford and Sons. I can imagine that song being written for them. Leona Liu is a bit more too in the RB world for me, but the point I get is a valid point. But Brent Smith had this to say. We didn't want to focus on bombastic elements such as distorted guitars and such. We wanted the intent of the song to be heard. And I completely get that, and I think that is the creative decision that the band went in. And I think that's evidenced more than ever with the chorus. Uh, I played you the chorus, then I played a little bit of the pre-chorus as well, deliberately when I played you daylight, so you could hear the difference because the chorus is actually the softest part of the song. You've just got an acoustic guitar playing chords and Brent Smith singing, and it's hard not to hear the words that they are singing in that section because there's very little going on else in the mix. So clearly a creative decision. I think what Brent Smith said there is also valid, but so is the potential criticism there from Kerrang. Not my favorite song from Shinedown, but I can see why people would like it. It's a decent song, it's just a bit too pop for my realm of taste. Now, let's go into the third promotional single from Planet Zero. This one came out on the 17th of January 2023, so we're going months after the initial album release in July of 2022. And this song is called Dead Don't Die.

unknown 44:17

I will not take care of the dead.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

I think that one goes under the radar a little bit as well because it wasn't one of the first or the second promotional singles for the album. The album itself is a little underappreciated, underrated, in my opinion, underspun by the fans. And as such, Dead Don't Die kind of think is forgotten about a little bit, but it's a great little single there. Great little hard rock track. In my opinion, better than Daylight. It is less streamed than Daylight. And it also, unlike Daylight, didn't get to the top of the US mainstream rock charts. This one only got to number two. But it was also nominated for Rock Song of the Year by iHeartRadio again. But it didn't win. Just like the previous nomination for Planet Zero. This one lost out. This time it lost out to Lincoln Park. And this song called Lost. LinkedIn Parks lost there. Now going back to Dead Don't Die, the third promotional single from Planet Zero, guitarist Zack Myers uh quoted a saying, The song is about Brent, and the people like him. The strong will refuse to give up Ben, but never break human spirit. And Zach described also how the single was unusual because it arrived almost fully finished and didn't go through any major changes, which is uncommon for the band in their approach to writing music. Mentioned before, and nearly every Shinedown episode we've done, they usually like to write 50 to 100 songs for the album, with the exception of the second release, Us and Them, where they weren't allowed because of demands by the record company Atlantic Records. They would have done the same process here, but whereas before they would have really retuned every single song, gone through multiple edits, tried all these effects, these pedals, these different interpretations for different sections. Flip around here, tweet the guitar in, take the drums up here, change the mix in, the production, etc. etc. All the things that goes into writing and recording music. What was originally written here as a first draft ended up being also pretty much the final draft, which, as Zach Mai said, is rare for the band Shine Down in their approach to writing and recording music. Now there is one final promotional single that we gotta get through before we get to the hidden gems of Planet Zero. And this one came out on the 22nd of February 2023. So literally just a few weeks after Dead Don't Die came out, which is typical of the streaming service world. You wouldn't have had that if this was released in 2002 because you'd have to have the music video to go with it, you'd have to push it on all these TV channels. You don't want to get in the way of Dead Don't Die, whether that's with the physical music releases or with the coverage on TV channels like Kerrang TV, SCUS TV, radio magazine coverage, which came out monthly, like Metal Hammer, for example. You don't want to get in the way with that. So you would have done this in 2002, but in 2023, you absolutely can because these days music videos don't have as much effort put into them. Some songs will, like Planet Zero, they put a bit of effort into that one, that song. But generally, they are just lyric videos with the lyrics plastered on the screen, or there could be like a 10 to 20 second clip just played on a loop. The music video isn't as important as it once was. So you don't have to put the effort into that. You don't have to worry about physical media anymore, you don't have to worry about TV channels like Kerrang and SCUS TV anymore and conflicting with different songs from the same band. All this is just going straight in streaming services, straight into the consumer's hands. So you don't have to worry about that anymore. But this one, as I said, came out on 22nd of February 2023, a few weeks after Dead Don't Die. But this one is actually called A Symptom of Being Human.

SPEAKER_09 48:59

You've always been slightly awkward, kinda weird. Upside down and not all here. What's wrong with me and you is crystal clear. Sometimes I'm in a room when I tell you how to see the bill and see my invitation to the lunatic.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

So that was the final and fourth promotional single for Planet Zero, A Symptom of Being Human. And I'm quite surprised that wasn't the second one in place of Daylight. I think the band probably assumed that Daylight would be the bigger and more successful song, but a symptom of being human is the highest stream track on this album. And as I said earlier, it's around 86 million streams, which is quite a gap to second place, which is then 43 million, which is the song Planet Zero. The song Daylight is actually third in that list with 32 million currently. So Symptom of Being Human is clearly Shinedown's big hit from this album. This one is got that realm of pop about it, absolutely. But unlike Daylight, it's also got that realm of rock ballad about it. There's more going on as rock for me than there was ever on Daylight to get that Leona Lewis comparison from Kerrang. This I feel like could have fitted on a few Shinedown albums. If it was on the earlier ones, I think the song could be there, but it would sound a bit different because the band were a different band back then. For example, if it was on The Sound of Madness or Leave a Whisper, it would just sound probably more drop-tuned. But since Amaryllis onwards, I think the song could have featured on any of them. It's a catchy song, it's a good song, it's a very shined down-y song, especially with the lyrical content as well. And it's actually written about Brent Smith's struggles with mental illness and the social stigma that surrounds mental health in general. This wasn't initially released to the mainstream rock radio charts, it was instead released initially to the hot idol contemporary radio chart. It was the first single since If You Only Knew, which remember came out on that third album, The Sound of Madness, to enter the Billboard Pop Airplay chart. And this one, Symptom of Being Human, released number 19. So it's really breaking through for the band a little bit with this particular song. There's also a pop remix of the song that wasn't released uh originally on the album. Based on some of my earlier comments on this podcast episode, you can probably guess my personal opinion on having a pop remix of one of your songs. But here's a quick uh play of the pop remix of a symptom of being human, and I'll come back and give my opinion anyway. So that is the pop remix of a symptom of being human, and the main thing I think that separates that into a pop remix is the drums. It's very much a pop electronic drum kit. Now, I personally think the album version, the rock version, is far superior. I'm sure most of you listeners agree too. Where my gripe kind of is with this sort of thing is that you should be serving the art form of the song. If you think the pop remix sounds better, then just put it on the album. And if everyone thinks you're making a pop album, then become a pop artist. If that's where your opinion drives your music. If you think the original version of Made the album is better, the rock version, stick with that. Why try and do this extra pop remix? Who is that actually serving? It should be the best version of the song that you, the artist, thinks of, and you should stick to that and be uh disciplined and decisive in your actions rather than doing these off-the-cuff versions. Yes, it can be a bit fun, but when you're trying to go into the pop world, it just screams of trying to be more mainstream, get more followers, more fans, break through, try and get more of that monetary money, rather than doing it for the art form of the music. It feels more commercialism and more manufactured than what you'd usually expect from a rock or metal band, in my opinion. And as I say, if you prefer the pop remix of that song, more power to you. But I think the band should have put their preference on the album and then just ignored any other remix versions. Yes, you can have different kinds of original demos, for example. Maybe there was a remix that was kind of close to being what you preferred, but it just goes as like a B-side to the single. But uh, go out of your way to release a pop remix. I think that's a bad form, in my personal opinion. Now, we've gone through all the promotional singles for Planet Zero. You know what's next, right? You know what we do next on this podcast? We do the hidden gems from Planet Zero. That's right. I've got two hidden gems for you this time on this album. Planet Zero, two songs that are underappreciated, underplayed, under-respected, recognized, all the terms. And this first one is track number two on the album. And considering what track number one is, just being a 20-second concept album interlude little piece, this really is the opening track to the album, and I'm surprised for that reason that it's even eligible for hidden gem track territory. But based on the fact it's not a promotional single, and the Spotify streams are well below that of the other songs on the album, it's eligible, and it's gonna be one. My first hidden gem, track two, no sleep tonight. That is a kick-ass start to the song No Sleep Tonight, right there. It comes in hard, heavy, up tempo, it comes in with this punk and thrash vibe, but very much in that hard rock realm, the shine down round their DNA. It sounds cool, it's in your face, and it's the opening track to the album, technically track two, but it's the opening song to the album Planet Zero, and it really does kick that album into life. And I'm really, really surprised that this is so low down on the streaming platforms in terms of volume of streams, because even if Shinedown fans, casual fans, uh don't like this song, when it's the opening song to an album, you usually find that automatically gives it a higher number of streams than the majority of the other songs on the album because that's where the album starts. That's where people start their journey to listening, in this case to the album Planet Zero. They all start there, they may get through a couple of songs and give up. They may listen to the entire thing in its entirety. That's just what happens. You know, you're going on a car journey, you don't start the album from track 10, you start it from track one. And for those reasons, I'm just genuinely surprised it's solo in a streaming service, isn't therefore eligible for hidden gem territory. But also, I'm surprised that the band hasn't ever really played the song live. They don't play it live today, and from what I'm reading online, they had never really played it live on a Planet Zero tour either. You'd think it'd be the opening track. I can see how maybe they'd go with Planet Zero instead because it's the first promotional single and it kind of kicks off the idea of a Planet Zero with the lyrical content. But this is the opening track to Planet Zero, and usually when bands are touring the album, they usually open that set with the first track from the album. The one that kicks the album into life and therefore the tour into life. That doesn't happen here for Shinedown. I think that's another reason why it's lower streamed and just the way people consume music these days. I think it's clear that people are adding the promotional singles to their personal playlists as opposed to just spinning the album from start to finish. And you also wonder then if they're gonna be promoting Planet Zero the song more as their like in your face opening song to a set kind of record. Why wasn't that the opening song to the album? Well, that'll come down to the fact it's a concept album, and they need to tell a story and the opening track. To tell that story can't be Planet Zero. It has to be No Sleep Tonight. And I'm glad it is. It's a better opening track to the album than Planet Zero would have been. Planet Zero is a good track as well, don't get me wrong, it's some good blues riffage in that track in a hard rock style. But No Sleep Tonight has that punk and thrashness to it, the energy, the up tempo hard rockness to it, that it really kicks the album into gear and gets your ears going, gets you in the mood for the rest of the album to come. Now, before we talk about the meaning of no sleep tonight, which is not too deep if I'm perfectly honest, let's get into the track again. Listen to some more. Let's get to the chorus. Let's get back to it. No sleep tonight, my first hidden gem from Planet Zero.

SPEAKER_09 59:11

No sleep tonight!

SPEAKER_02 59:15

Speaker!

SPEAKER_01 59:17

The chorus there for no sleep tonight. We'll circle back to the chorus a little bit when we listen to it for the second time in a moment. First of all, let's talk about the song meaning for no sleep tonight. I said we'll talk about it after that previous clip we just played. And I said at the time as well, it's not too deep of a meaning, but it's very much a punk meaning about resisting authoritarianism and fighting back against societal control and manipulation. So it's basically sticking it to the man, which is very much a thing in punk and in some subgenres of metal. For example, Rage Against a Machine built an entire brand off that, but it's also very much a thing of punk. Whether that's punk from the 70s and 80s or punk from more modern day era, they tend to focus on challenging regime and control and being that free spirit. And that's kind of what's happening here. We're challenging the authoritarianism and fighting back against societal control and manipulation, as I've already said. See, not too deep a meaning, not too deep lyrical content or prose here going on with by Brent Smith, but the lyrical content that is there, the theming that is there, obviously suits the concept story of Planet Zero, but it also fits that style of they've gone for the punk thrashy hard rock style. They've gone for for this particular song. Now we're gonna play back into verse two. Now we've listened to verse one and chorus one. Now we're gonna listen to verse two and chorus two, and we'll talk a little bit about it as well. But uh, don't just listen to Brent Smith on this clip because this song in particular in Shinedown's back catalogue really does showcase guitarist Zach Myers and also drummer Barry Kirch. So listen out for the drums, listen out for the guitars, listen to what they're doing as well as just Brent Smith being forward in the mix with his vocals. Listen to the whole piece as a whole because Zach is riffing and Barry is hitting with those drums as well. He's going hard and heavy and fast. So let's get into it. Verse two on no sleep tonight.

unknown 1:01:22

No sleep tonight.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

Did you hear how much in the pocket both Barry and Zach are? And bassist Eric Bass will be there too. He's just quieter in the mix compared to the main guitars from Zack and the drumming from Barry. But they're very much in rhythm with each other. They're playing alongside each other, they're complementing and harmonizing with each other the rhythm and the guitars, especially in that post-chorus little section there with the snare drum on Barry and the rhythm picking from Zack and Eric, I guess, on the bass guitar. He's there doing the same as well. It's all in harmony with each other, it's all in the pocket, they're all synced up. You've got to be a very tight band. I'm usually playing for a number of years to get that kind of connection and chemistry with your other band members to get that tightness between you and Shinedown, obviously, fall into that category. This lineup, particularly, has been together since the touring days of the Sound of Madness, and officially since Amaryllis. Because if you remember, on the tour for Sound of Madness, the album, there were two guitarists, not one, since the next album afterwards. Amaryllis has only been Zack Myers doing all the guitars himself. Now, especially in that verse, verse 1 and verse 2, it's the same. The way that guitar riff is kicking off with Zack Myers on guitar, it's I said it's quite punk and thrashy, but that is very thrashy, very thrash metal, which is a different tone. It's a bit lighter in tone than what you'd get from your likes of Megadeth and Metallica. But change the guitar tone slightly, put a different vocalist in there, other than Brent Smith, someone who's got more of that raspy thrash metal vocal style, and that could be a Metallica song for me. Chuck James Hetfield in there, change the guitar ramp under tone, maybe put some pedals in there, drop tune, maybe, and I think that could be a Metallica riff verse. And I love the fact that Shinedown have gone there for the opening track here in Planet Zero. I talked about it on the Threat to Survival episode, how they kind of came away from that hard rock route, took too much of the pop influence, too much of that Imagine Dragons sound coming into the mix. And yes, they changed that a little bit for attention to tension. But if you're in any doubt kind of what they were going for, how they see themselves for Planet Zero, this is them telling you opening track, yes, it's track two, but opening song on Planet Zero, they're telling you we are still a hard rock band that can kick ass. When we need to, we'll have our little moments in your song where, yeah, we may still dip into that pop realm. You kind of heared it with the single daylight. But overall, we're still a hard rock kick-ass band. And I can attest to that because I've seen Shinedown Live twice, and both times they definitely focused more on that hard rock sound and those kind of songs over the more poppy era songs, like Threat of Survival was full of. Now the chorus is very shinedown as well. We come away from that punk and thrash a little bit in terms of the guitars and the chords being played. We bring more back that kind of shine-down DNA for their hard rock choruses. Soaring arena rock choruses, we bring up the lighter tones that add the power. Brent Smith adds the power with his vocals. The difference here is Barry Kirch on the drums. He's still giving you that punk thrashy beat. He's kind of doing almost a half time blast beat with the pace he's kind of hitting a bass now. Not quite as fast as a blast beat, so it's not quite that for you, like you get in black metal, for example. But he's doing like a slower tempo version of it, but still for shot. Down, and this song is still very, very high tempo. And as such, it still keeps that root of the song in that punk thrash realm. It still has some of those parts to it. We don't completely deviate away from the style for the chorus. Now, we're gonna get into the breakdown that comes in after the second chorus. This song is only two minutes 30 seconds in length. It tries to kick your ass hard and quick and then move on. Which sometimes is all you want from a good kick ass hard rock or metal song. So we're gonna listen to that breakdown, come back and talk, and then we'll probably play till the end of the song. So, our first hidden gem again, no sleep tonight. Different here, it still comes into that finale final chorus, like all Shinedown songs do, but this time it goes on a little bit longer, and the way it changes, it comes in with this guitar melody that is reminiscent of the kind of melodies you get on guitars from power metal bands like Strato Varius and Dragon Force. You've still got that root of the Shinedown DNA and the rhythm and the bass chords and the background behind that guitar melody, but you get in this new kind of fusion genre from that you don't usually get from Shinedown coming into the song and making it sound unique for the band and their back catalogue. And it sounds really great, and Zach Myers is killing it here on a guitar as well. He comes in with like a guitar solo, something you don't usually again get in Shinedown songs. Usually the breakdown will just be a riff, some vocal lines, and it will come back into the final chorus. This time we got a big guitar melody, which is really raising the roof, and then you got this little guitar solo going on around the melody from Zack Myers, and it just sounds so, so cool to my ears. And the entire section, it just lifts the entire song as well. It kind of gives this epic, heroic kind of guitar melody to the piece of music that is no sleep tonight. And then the second half of the breakdown, it all transitions very smoothly and feels like it all has its place. But if you kind of listen to each section of the breakdown in isolation, they would sound quite different. We go from this power metal styled guitar melody into these kind of breakdown stop start answer question sections with Brent Smith coming in with the vocals, and this is a bit more of a punk section then for me, with the guitar chords playing these power chords effectively, but in a very stop-start nature says dun dun and in between you got Brent Smith belting out these very anti-authoritarian punk kind of vocals, both in terms of the lyrical content and the vocal delivery. They both scream punk to me and say, Don't trip! Speak up! No sleep until they hear us! It's very much sticking it to authority in terms of the lyrics and what they're saying, but it's shouted at you. We are raising our voices to the rooftops, shouting back at the people trying to control us and tell us what to do. That is so punk. You sometimes get this in thrash as well, but thrash does share some elements with some more hardcore, heavier punk. They do have some. If there's a Venn diagram, there'd be some little bit of overlap for certain sections of Thrash and certain sections of the punk metal or hardcore punk genres. So it makes sense to me. But we come back into that punk section. We shouting at the rooftops, we're telling you that we're not gonna listen to you, we're going to speak up, and then we're gonna come into the final chorus, which I'm going to play for you now, so we finish until the end of the song for no sleep tonight.

unknown 1:10:41

Speak up!

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

No sleep, but we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

No sleep tonight. Now, I don't know if you noticed, it's quite quiet in the mix, but I said to listen out for Zack Myers on guitar on that track there. And in the final chorus, there is a little guitar solo coming from Zack. It's quiet in the mix, it's not loud and obvious like you get from other rock and metal bands, but it is there, and it's rare for Shine Down to do a guitar solo. So I think it's important to call it out. And I love the way as well it ends with that intro and post-choral section where the guitar and the drums are just in sync and uh almost sounds like a little machine gun they're going for. It's a cool rhythm, it's in your face, aggressive, and I love it. And that is our first hidden gem from Planet Zero. We've got one more to go, but before we get to that second hidden gem, there's one kind of honorable mention. So there was a debate whether I would include this as a third hidden gem, whether it would replace the second hidden gem. No sleep tonight. The first one was locked in. That was never a risk of coming out. But there is this other song on Planet Zero, track number 17, that almost made it in. In the end, it's a few too many million streams for me to feel like I'm being fair calling it a hidden gem. I think it just comes outside of that hidden gem territory. It's a few more million than what our second hidden gem track will be. I'll get to that one. But in terms of the balance on the album and how top-heavy in terms of volume of streams it is compared to the rest, it was just a little over that threshold for me. But I'll give you a quick clip of it anyway because it's not a promotional single, it is an album only track. And it's track number 17, my honorable mention, the Saints of Violence and Innuendo. Deliberately played a longer than normal clip there because if I just played the chorus, which is usually the memorable part of the song, the bit everyone remembers, where the song title is sung, where you kind of go to to recognize songs. It sounds so different to like the verse in the intro, which is a lot more of your standard hard rock riffage going on there. And the chorus has got a little bit more of that space theme, and remember the album's called Planet Zero. It's got literally a picture of the planet on the cover of the album. You've got this AI voice, this artificial intelligence voice doing these 30s talking over these 30-second clips in between songs and the album. That's the concept of the album, remember? So you can understand why you get this kind of space futuristic kind of feel for the chorus with some of those keyboard effects going on in the background. We're not here to talk about the Saints of Violence and Innuendo. I just wanted to explain why you had a longer clip so you can get a better feel and some more context of what that song is about. So if you like it, you can go and listen to it in your own time. We're gonna move on to our second hidden gem track on Planet Zero. This one's a bit different in style to our first hidden gem track, but it does have more Spotify streams than our first hidden gem track. And our second hidden gem track from Planet Zero is track number five Dysfunctional You Suicide, suicide, one, two, three.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:27

Maybe these drugs are addicted to me. Can you hear me in? Is there an dyslexia about the shape I'm in yeah, they really don't The breathing rap So pack your bags and even low paint the ones that kept you afloat The intro there for Dysfunctional You, our second hidden gem from Planet Zero, the album.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:04

Now I'm quite surprised this was in Hidden Gem Territory. I remember the song from when I first heard Planet Zero. I'm surprised it wasn't a promotional single. It's quite high up on the album track list in terms of actual songs, ignoring those 30-second concept album interludes in the album. So I was quite surprised. I think Shinedown love as part of their promotional single releases to support their albums and their tours. They love to have that lighter song. Sometimes two of them, sometimes more, but they love to have one or two of those usually four singles to be that lighter one in touch, not the heavy rock one. That'll be the first one. Then the second one's gonna be our lighter in tone one. And I was surprised that dysfunctional you wasn't chosen for that. Instead, they went for the song Daylight, which, as I've already talked about, isn't one of my favourites. I think Dysfunctional U is a better song in Daylight, as is their fourth other single as lighter in tone or symptom of being human, which is done very well in terms of the streaming sites for them as well. Dysfunctional U, I think, if it was a promotional single plastered all over social media by the band and their different platforms, I think this would be up there with a symptom of being human in terms of those streaming numbers. I think it is a good song. I think it fits that bracket and that sound that some people gravitate towards Shinedown 4. And it's got that lyrical content meaning as well. It's very human, very relatable that people love Shinedown 4. I'm going to do a Brent Smith quote for you in terms of the meaning of the song Dysfunctional You and what it's all about. So Brent Smith, over to you, buddy. Oh, we've been discussing mental health for the better part of 20 years. We were talking about it when it wasn't something that was ever talked about. With dysfunctional you, we wanted to send the message that we're all dysfunctional in some way, and it's okay to embrace that and to ask for help when you need it. Quote direct from vocalist and main songwriter Brent Smith, then I couldn't have summed it up better than Brent myself. So yeah, basically, it's just about doesn't matter how dysfunctional you are, in what way you're dysfunctional. In the first verse, they talk about suicide, they talk about drug addiction, they talk about dyslexia, there's other areas where they're talking about imaginary friends. In some words, anxiety as well. Self-doubt. Basically, it's picking up all kinds of mental health illnesses. Whatever you've got, it doesn't have to be the kind of mental health we talk about today with things like anxiety and depression. It could be something something you are born with. You could be like neurodiverse, you could be on the spectrum, whatever it is, could be schizophrenia, it doesn't matter, it's not your fault. You are being you and you being dysfunctional, you like all of us are being dysfunctional. We are all dysfunctional together, and you should own it and be proud of it. It's such a shined down message to send, and that's what this song ultimately is all about. Now, regarding the intro I played in a short clip just to introduce the song, a couple of things to cover up before we listen to some more. You've got this uh repeating uh kind of melody. It's quite basic and simple, but it's catchy, it's got a rhythm to it, it's not just notes for notes' sake, and it does get stuck in your head, and it's easy to get a rhythm with the drums along with that, it's easy to get some vocal lines to kind of harmonize and rhythm with it as well. And I want to point out you heard it in the first clip, maybe you didn't take note of it, but there's a part where Brent Smith with his vocals, he hits the same lower note as that little four-note melody line. He comes down to it on like the last word of a line, and he's so perfectly in tune and at the same tone, same pitch, that it just feels louder on that one note when they're on the same level. It doesn't do it every line. In fact, let me I'll play you a quick clip of it in a moment so you know what I'm talking about. But because it's on a lower note, a lower tone, deeper note, it sounds a little bit of eerie as well, and then it comes back into these happy melodic notes that everything else in that clip was doing. Let's have a quick listen to that one little short clip of the note, just so you know the context I'm referring to.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:56

Is there anyone there?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:59

I'm hoping you heard it there with me, and you don't think I'm just making stuff up. There were a line there you just heard, the line being, can you hear me in there? Is there anyone there? Two lines. Uh the first time he ends in the word there, and can you hear me in there? He's close to it. He does he but he goes deeper, but he doesn't quite get there. He's like half a step up. Only a little bit. He's still in tune, it's deliberate, it's not out of tune, he just doesn't quite match the same note of the melody. But in the next line, is there anyone there? Or not last word, there. He comes down that spiding little bit more, and he's bang on the money with the melody note in the background. He's bang on it, and it just goes. It's subtle. I don't want to say it goes boom, it's subtle. It's a little bit there. It's one of those things that will hit you, and you won't even know it's hitting you. Just gives you a slight little and then it's back into the rest of the tone, the rest of the music, the rest of the atmosphere that the song is giving you, which is very an upbeat song, really. It's lighter in tone than like the heavier rock stuff, for example, no sleep tonight. But it's still happy in its tones, in its melody, in its atmosphere. Still got those going for us. It's not necessarily a sad song, it's about uplifting those people who feel dysfunctional because we are all dysfunctional. Let's get back into dysfunctional you.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:30

Gather all your hopes and dreams. And go on and be a dysfunctional snap. Like still to play some more trap, never skip.

SPEAKER_10 1:24:01

You well remember staying on your lines, so introduce them to the wonderful dysfunctional yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:12

So we listen to the pre-chorus and the chorus there. Couple of things to point out. In that pre-chorus, you got some nice backing vocals going on there, and I believe those backing vocals are from Eric Bass, the bass guitarist. I believe he's kind of doing this strip back, deeper toned, almost spoken word version of what Brent Smith is singing in that pre-chorus. But it's in tune, it's absolutely in tune, it's a strip back acquired in the mix, and it's there to add a deep bass resonance tone to the mix, and it absolutely works for me, and it makes it feel really warming. I get that warm feeling from it. And then you go into the chorus, and one thing to notice we've gone through verse one pre-chorus and the first chorus, and you know the thing we still don't have yet in the song, and it came in right at the end of that clip. Drums, Barry Kirch. Barry Kirch hasn't played a single thing yet. He comes in right after that first chorus, and it changes the whole feel of the song. It's still kind of happy and uplifting, it's still got that, but it's so much bass coming out of Barry Kirch's bass drum. You listen to it now in the next clip I play you. It's boom. Boom. It gives it a completely different feel. It really brings it up, adds to that rhythm, and it's not just Barry Kirch and the drums that come in for the first time here. It's also the bass guitar of Eric Bass as well. You know, he's doing the backing vocals, I believe, in the pre-chorus as well. So it's not the first time for the man Eric Bass to come in, but it is for his instrument, the bass guitar, and bass guitar and drums. They're known to be a combined rhythm tool together. Usually the bass should be in the pocket with the drums. It's all about the rhythm with those two instruments, so it makes sense that those two come in together. And I listen for it, yeah. Listen to the difference and the feel you get from the song. I get vibes of like a 90s alternative rock scene from this song, from this section, once the bass and the drums come in with it. I imagine I'm alone in that feel. We all have these different memories and emotions and things to link back to. For me, I get that from this part of the song. Don't know why. I can't pick a band out from that scene that makes me feel that, but I do get those vibes, and I wonder if any of you listeners do too. So let's get back into a dysfunctional you.

SPEAKER_10 1:26:45

The wonderful dysfunctional you're not.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:00

About the drums and the bass with Eric Bass and Barry Kirch coming in at the start of verse two in a different vibe that gives this whole song. And I hope you felt it then because it really does lift it an extra gear, an extra level. And also, when the pre-chorus comes in after verse 2, it's very subtle. But notice Barry Kirch and his drums, he moves to some open symbols, some open hi-hats, etc., some trash symbols, and it just raises it again. It just lifts the whole piece up, which is kind of what you want to do in a song like this when it comes to the pre-chorus and chorus. You want to lift everything up because this is meant to be the happy, kind of empowering song for everyone that thinks it dysfunctional, learning that other people in the world are dysfunctional too, and you should be proud and own it and be the true you. Therefore, the chorus has to lift up, and those open symbols do that. And while listening to that clip, I think I worked out why I get those 90s alternative rock vibes from the song, specifically from the United Kingdom scene. And I think it's because that drum sound that Barry Kirch uses, specifically the sound of the bass, and also the rhythm as well as playing. I'm sure it's a personal comparison and not one that'll be shared by others, but it reminds me of the band Placebo.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:28

A friend with rest and rest friendly distressed and weed.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:37

I know the song I just played there from Placebo Pure Morning is very different to Dysfunctional U in both lyrical meaning and in tone, atmosphere. The whole lot is very different. I am also aware that the snare drum sound in that particular placebo clip I just played you is vastly different to the snare drum that Barry Kirch is playing on Dysfunctional U, but I just get that kind of vibe and atmosphere and genre fusion slightly coming into Dysfunctional U when that bass guitar and drums come into the song on verse 2. That's the kind of beat I'm feeling. That's why I get that 90s alternative rock comparison a little bit. I appreciate it's probably my opinion only, but I wanted to share it with you, my listeners, anyway. Let's get into the breakdown for dysfunctional you and give that a quick listen. Let's go back to Shinedown, Dysfunctional U. The breakdown for Dysfunctional You there. It's a short breakdown. It's not as vast as no sleep tonight in how varied and different it can be and what it can do to the song. In fact, in this one for dysfunctional you, there's not a lot has changed. The vocal line and melody has changed from Brent Smith. He's the main one leading this as a breakdown interlude rather than just verse 3. Because the drums and the bass from Eric Bass and Barry Kirch, they haven't changed. They're still doing the same beat from the verses, and you've still got this melody of the boom boom boom boom. It's still there, it's quieter in the mix and less obvious than at the start of the song. But it's kind of been playing throughout, really, and it's here again in the breakdown. But it's just a cool little breakdown just to kind of lift everything up again a little bit before we come into the final chorus. That's the purpose, is to lead into that final crescendo chorus. We don't have some massive key change here, like you do in some pop songs, for example. But there is a little bit of pop coming into the song, especially with the hi-yeah. That kind of get the crowd going, get the crowd all singing in unison. Don't need to know the words because there are no words, we're just gonna go hi-that kind of thing. You know, it's a little pop hook they brought in here, but with the bass and the drums I've talked over and over about, which is really what drives me towards dysfunctional you, as well as that catchy just four-note melody, boom boom, bam, bam. Those two things just kind of drive the whole piece for me, and that's kind of what brings me in. This is a hard rock song, it's lighter in tone, but it's not one of the pop kind of lighter tone songs that Shinedown have done in their catalogue. Those drums still base it firmly in that rock realm for me. And as I've suggested to this song, Dysfunctional You, it's not a prog rock classic where it's changing tones, dynamic timbers, changing keys, time signatures. It's not going up and down, yin and yang. It's not doing that. This song has one purpose, and in my opinion, it does that purpose really, really well. Let's get back into it. Let's finish the song, the second hidden gem from Planet Zero. Let's finish off dysfunctional you. Now, before we wrap up that song, I just want to read out the lyrics, especially to the chorus. Because I think the lyrics are quite powerful in this song, especially for what they were going for and what they're trying to do and to motivate those people who have self-doubt and have these mental health issues, and to just be yourself, be the dysfunctional self, because we're all dysfunctional, we're all the same, you just don't realize it. Here's the chorus and go on and be a dysfunctional self. Life's too short to play someone else. Because being normal is just a trap, but you're never so gone that you can't turn back. So go on and be unpredictable, shatter the glass when it's half full. The audience has waited all this time. You're well rehearsed and you know your lines. So introduce them to the wonderful, dysfunctional you. A few great lines there. I love the line, shatter the glass when it's half full. So many people who they're trying to reach out to in this particular song, see life as glass half empty, not full. And it's just saying, Don't just get a half full, shatter it when it's half full. Really burst through the scene and be the true you. The two other lines that are kind of connected for me, although there's different placements in the chorus. The second line, life's too short to play someone else, and the line further into the chorus towards the bottom, you're well rehearsed and you know your lines. Both of them leading into the idea of you don't want to be someone else. Don't put on this mask and pretend to be someone you are not. Be the true you. And I think both are pretty powerful. Not just a case of being the true you as well. That last line I read out, you're well rehearsed and you know your lines. That can be just about as well seeking help. For example, there are people out there who suffer with mental illness and depression specifically, but they don't tell anyone about it, especially the male population. They act notoriously stereotypically, don't talk about their feelings, it's kind of been bred into them from a past culture, that that's not the manly thing to do, so they don't do it, and therefore they just say the same lines they've rehearsed for years and years and years, and they don't seek help, and then they go down a downward spiral. So this song ultimately is about accepting your true self, but I also feel there's that little underlying tone there as well about being a true self also means seeking help when you need it. Powerful, powerful lyrics for me in dysfunctional you. Another reason why it reached my hidden gem status. Now, there is one thing I'm gonna call out towards the end of that clip, and I'm gonna play it again for you as well. In earlier Shinedown episodes in this podcast, I called out how in the earlier albums Brent Smith shows off his vocal range and his vocal power more, especially in songs like 45, I dare you, the cover of Linuxkin at Simple Man. He really belts that especially towards the end of the song as a big crescendo. He really, really shows off that range, and it's what drew me to Shinedown originally. Barry Kirch said is what drew him to the Shinedown project as well. Remember, he was there from Album One, so it went a popular band when he originally joined and became one of the earlier members. It was Brent Smith's voice. Didn't just draw those band members and myself, it also drew Atlantic Records to his previous band, Dreve. Remember, they initially signed Dreve because they heard a demo tape. They loved Brent Smith's voice, and they signed him basically just off that. They brought Dreve in, they tried to work with, I believe, Desmond Child to try and write some songs. Uh, Brent Smith learnt loads from the project and that process. However, ultimately, Atlantic Records gave Brent Smith an ultimatum. You stick with Dreve, and you're no longer under our banner, Atlantic Records, you're no longer signed by us. Or you can leave Dreve, form a new band, and we'll sign you to like a developmental deal, and then that ended up being Shinedown and whether the path of Brent Smith chose. We discuss all that in episode one on this Shinedown series. And when discussing all about this topic in earlier episodes, especially those first three albums, I would say, I mentioned how later down the line, as we get into the more recent period and how Shinedown sound evolves, Brent Smith gets to a point where he stops serving himself. He never really fully served himself. He's obviously belting out these notes in 45 to serve the song, because he thinks that's where the song needs to go and where the song's most powerful. And I love it when he does that. I think that is a great trait to have, and it's what drew me to Shinedown, as I've said. But as he gets on, he serves the song more rather than I'm gonna say in quotations himself. And this is an example. I think if dysfunctional you was written in one of the earlier albums, I think at the end of this chorus, you're gonna have Brent Smith belting out on a high note, really full of power. He's gonna be belting out the words dysfunctional you. I can't do it, but I'll give you an imitation of poor man's one and be something like dysfunctional yeah! I made up the melody. It may not fit with what's actually on the song, but I think you'd get something like that, but in a higher tone, because Brent Smith has a bigger vocal range than me and more power too. Instead, you get this. It's a very different Brent Smith. Um, I think in Dysfunctional U, what he ends up doing kind of works. But I do miss Brent Smith belting out those notes. I do miss it when he really goes full force towards the end of the song and really raises the roof in a very, very rock way. Now that brings us to the end of Dysfunctional U, but also the end of our coverage of Planet Zero. My thoughts on Planet Zero is, as I've mentioned already on this episode, I think it's a very underrated Shinedown album. It's come through in a period in their careers where they've kind of reached that point that most bands reach where they have their classic albums, the ones they're known for, with the songs they're known for on, and then they release new material, and then only the dieharders really listen to it. For whatever reason, everyone else has kind of moved on to other bands, newer bands, whatever it is. And you get this with, for example, Metallica, the biggest metal band in the world. How many non-Metallica fans, just metal fans in general, can name you songs off, for example, Hardwired to Self-Destruct? That's not a bad album, but no one can really name you songs off that album because everyone's still listening to the Black album and Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning, etc. etc. And I think Shinedown kind of reached that part of their careers with Planet Zero where the Shinedown dieharders have listened to it, but the people who casually listen to Shinedown, listen to a song here in their playlists, remember the older albums for nostalgia for whatever reason. I don't think they have really given it enough spins or any time at all to really get into the album. And it's a shame because it's a good album. And to be honest, y'all put myself a little bit in that category, in that I'm a Shinedown fan, have been for years since, as I mentioned, when I first heard uh I Dare You, which is on the second album, Us and Them, and the newer stuff I wasn't as much of a fan of. And when Planet Zero came out, I listened to it as it came out, and I kinda liked it. But it's so much music material in the world, so many new bands, so many bands releasing new material that I already like, that you kind of gave it a spin and then you're quickly on to the next thing because with Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube music, your streaming services, there's so much music at just a click of a button away. It's so easy to go seeking that new thing, that new sound, or to go back into that nostalgic chamber where you put the headphones on, close your eyes, listen to music from your childhood, your teenage years, your college years, your university years, the years when your child was young and they've all grown up. The things that bring you memories are nostalgia. Sometimes you just go and listen to those. And then these kind of albums, as a result, kind of fall to the wayside because those nostalgic years will be albums like The Sound of Madness and songs like Second Chance and the song Sound of Madness itself, Devour Enemies, etc. etc. They'll be the kind of ones I listen to then rather than No Sleep Tonight, Planet Zero, Dysfunctional You, Dead Don't Die, etc. etc. And I think that's where this album has ultimately landed. The streaming numbers kind of back that up compared to the other previous Shinedown albums. A couple of songs that would be uh respectable in terms of their streaming volume compared to the previous albums, but it still wouldn't have been top, nowhere near. The top songs on the previous album, Attention Attention, they're getting 160 plus million streams. The top songs on The Sound of Madness, their classic breakthrough album, they're in like the 350 million streams. The last song on that album, which isn't a promotional single, wasn't a hidden gem, call me. That's got 160 million itself. And then the highest stream track on Planet Zero, a symptom of being human. That's only got 86 million. There's a big drop-off then to second place, as I've already discussed on this podcast episode. So, taking into account my opinion on the quality of songs on this album, as well as the media's opinion with their critical reviews, they were all very positive. You can see why I think this album is slept on by hard rock fans or Shinedown fans as well. Now that wraps up this episode on Rock and Metal's Hidden Gems podcast. I'm your host as always, Daniel Stuckey. This is our coverage on our Shinedown series on Planet Zero. We've got one episode left to cover. It'll be a little different to the previous episodes because the album we're gonna cover, the most recent one called Eight, it only came out on the 29th of May 2026. And as I'm recording this, we're in 2026 now. When I started the first episode of this series, that album had only been out for 48 hours. So what does that mean? Well, that means things haven't had a chance to settle in terms of streams, in terms of what's popular and what's less popular, and therefore, what is a hidden gem? So what I'm trying to say is on the album 8, I've got almost a free-for-all bar couple of tracks for what can be a hidden gem. So basically, I'll be going through a bunch of songs of that album that I think are great, and therefore are all hidden gem territory because the album hasn't been out long enough for it to come out of hidden gem territory to be received and loved by Shinedown fans and others alike. So it'll be a bit of a different episode, but it will be our final episode on a Shinedown series. We will then switch to our other format. If you're new to the podcast, we have two formats here. The one you've been listening to today on Shinedown, where we pick that monster successful mega rock or metal band, tell their story and their discography in order and cover off those hidden gem tracks from each studio release. We also have another format where we cover the hidden gem band, those bands either in the rock or metal genre that are underloved, underappreciated, and deserve more adoration and acclaim and reputation than they do have in the music world. So we've done two series already on that format. We've done one on the most creative band I've ever listened to, the Diablo Swing Orchestra. Highly recommend checking that out if you've never heard of them. We've also done one of Northern Islands Answer to Classic Rock, The Answer. And we will be doing a new band in that format after the next Shinedown episode, the final one in the series. And then after our hidden gem band series, we'll move back into this format, but only on a different band. And we'll be going a bit heavier, likely. We've done a few series on rock bands like Shinedown and the Hard Rock Realm. We're gonna be switching it back to the metal world. So I hope you look forward to that. If you haven't listened to our previous complete series on Iron Maiden or Nightwish, recommend you do if you like what you hear today. Even if you're not a fan of either bands, maybe you'll discover a hidden gem that you now love. Or maybe you just want to hear the story of the band, because that can be fun to listen to for history reasons as well. As I said, I'm your host, Daniel Stuckey. This is Rock and Metal's Hidden Gems Podcast, and I hope to see you in the next episode. Our final episode on Shining Dead where we cover the final most recent album 8. Hope to see you there. Bye bye.