The Spin-ter Wonderland season is upon us! Get ready for a head-to-head bracket elimination of your favorite holiday hits with our annual NAUGHTY OR NICE Competition! We've selected fourteen songs by artists we've covered on the podcast in the last year and pitted them against one another to determine who comes out on top, based on YOUR VOTES! From Frank Sinatra's crooning Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas to Lady Gaga's Christmas Tree, we've got a blend of new tunes and familiar favorites in the running this year. The Beach Boys' Little Saint Nick is also looking for redemption after underperforming a few years back. Will Fall Out Boy's Yule Shoot Your Eye Out remain our champion??

James & Connor are back to talk about their holiday traditions, previous Naughty Or Nice contests (including the tragic and complicated elimination of Wham! and Last Christmas a year ago). We'll play memory games about Connor's scores and units, learn about each of these seasonal staples, and compete against each other with our own brackets to break a years-long tie. Then we'll end the episode with a new memory game that might end up with James on the naughty list after all!

Thank you for another great year! Which of these holiday songs were your favorites? Would your bracket have matched the final score? Are there any artists we've covered with more deserving Christmas classics? Let us know on social media, and follow us into 2026 next week wherever you get your podcasts!

We're heading to the Land Of Sweets this week and reviewing The Nutcracker ballet, an annual seasonal staple around the globe! The 1892 ballet proved to be Pyotr Tchaikovsky's swansong, serving as a capstone on a composing career that brought Russian music to western audiences. Today, the ballet brings in more than $50 million in annual ticket sales to support dance companies and education... but what made it so popular in the first place? Sure, it features iconic songs like the March, the Russian Dance, and the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy, but the remarkable history of The Nutcracker goes deeper than we realized!

James & Connor are talking holiday traditions! We look at the ballet's striking stats, meet Connor's (actual) 5'11" nutcracker Nick and the world's LARGEST functional nutcracker, and talk about some idiosyncrasies between different adaptations of the ballet. We'll explore Tchaikovsky's legendary career, from the 1812 Overture to Swan Lake. The Mixtaper has lost his head with some 19th-century Fact Or Spin tidbits about superstitions, giant bees, and grand theft Celesta during the Waltz Of The Dastard. Then we learn what sugar plums actually are and share our thoughts on the plot, characters, and music that make up this Christmas classic!

Have you seen The Nutcracker live? What's your favorite version of the ending? Have you ever had a sugar plum?! And... how do you decorate your tree? Let us know in the comments or on any of our social media! See you next week for our own tradition-- the annual Naughty Or Nice competition!

It's All Blues this week as we review and rank Kind Of Blue, the revolutionary instrumental modal jazz album by the legendary Miles Davis! Davis and his sextet (full of icons like John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley) abandoned the idea of chord progressions and studied scales, with minimal rehearsal. The result is a five-track improvised album that "changed the language of music." Its songs have become staples in the jazz canon, to the point that a certain chord is named the So What chord because it's so recognizable from this album. We'll talk about Miles' storied life and fluctuating career that led to his 1959 masterpiece... and then figure out why he later dismissed it as "warmed-over turkey."

James and Jazzy Connor talk about bearing Davis' torch into the future! As our resident trumpeter, Connor is quite familiar with Miles Davis. We learn how puffed up he can get. The Mixtaper is freestyling Fact Or Spin with tales about a vow of silence, a mysterious good Samaritan, and a Presidential Mix-Up that ended up Kinda Red. Then, get ready for a five-course meal as we examine the album track by track. Whether you're a decadent soup or an arugula dressed in regret, there's something on this album for every appetite.

How's this jazz album sit with you? Are there other foods you'd put in your five-course meal? Let us know if hard bop and modal jazz is music to your ears in the comments or on social media, and be sure to give us a follow! It's all no charge-- there are no Freddie Freeloaders here! 

It's like paradise spread out with a butter knife! This week we wanna scream "EUREKA!" with the colorful third record from Canadian sibling band Mother Mother! Ryan and Molly Guldemond noticed a striking lack of powerful melodic rock and set out to make the music they wanted to hear. After becoming British Columbia's next big thing (and releasing the future viral hit Hayloft), the band pushed high-concept emotional rock to infectious levels with tracks like Oleander, Problems, and their first charting hit, The Stand! This self-made creative endeavor stands out from the rest of the band's discography with its sleek, polished romp through internal turmoil.

James & Connor Connor learn about Quadra Island, talk about the Greek & gold rush origins of the album title, and explore why the band became TikTok famous in the early 2020s. The Mixtaper will blow our hair and ears away as he belts out four supposedly-true facts about anthropomorphic metronomes, cover art cosplay, and a new type of magnet that fans took a bit too far. Will the album Carve A Name into our hearts, or will we have to Getaway to something new? Eureka might just awaken a new bad habit for Connor...

Let us know if you'd bring your own Mother to Mother Mother! Have you ever been poisoned by oleander? Are you.. some sort of butter knife hater? Chime in down in the comments and on social media!

If you've lived your whole life before the First Light, you better check out Hozier's latest LP, Unreal Unearth! James & Connor are reviewing the "Unaired" edition of the album, with seven bonus tracks including Too Sweet, his biggest hit since Take Me To Church! This concept album inspired by Dante's Inferno takes us down circle by circle, vice by vice, so seamlessly that you'll forget you're in the middle of the descent. Through moving songs like Francesca, All Things End, Butchered Tongue, and Eat Your Young, Hozier explores our relationship to darkness, power, and human connection through his well-sifted lyrics and unique creative lens.

We'll dig into Hozier's Irish roots, from a small hometown to the country's national choir, and discover his rise from starving artist to folk pop sensation. We refamiliarize ourselves with the mythology behind the Divine Comedy, reminisce on the popularity of Take Me To Church, and gear up for Thanksgiving before The Mixtaper brings us his Hoziest facts to date! Twitter stalkers, lead pants, and a well full of digestive biscuits (for the land) await us in Fact Or Spin! Then we'll discuss the whopping 16-track record and its accompanying EPs in their entirety! Will this hellish descent rise above the competition?

Let us know which EP songs you think should have made the album! Did we get close on pronouncing "uiscefhuaraithe?" If this podcast felt like Hozier's yell, let us know in the comments and on social media.. and be sure to follow along through the holiday season! Happy Thanksgiving!

You know him, you love him, You've Got A Friend In Him... It's Randy Newman! This week we're exploring his sardonic, sarcastic wit as we review and rank his commercial breakthrough, Sail Away! After years as a hit songwriter behind the scenes and a false start to his own recording career, Newman turned his greatest hits into a studio album full of social commentary that still resonates today. From the frolicking Simon Smith And The Amazing  Dancing Bear to the rollicking You Can Leave Your Hat On, this songsmith and his piano crank out hits faster than you can say "satire."

We'll trace Randy's roots to a family tree that's full of talent (the most Oscar-nominated family tree in history, actually). We'll talk about the rocky road into recording, the artists whose covers paved the way, and more! Then we reminisce about our favorite Newman-scored films, talk about his career in score, and find out how he broke his Oscar drought! The Mixtaper is bringing a roster of four supposedly-true Friends of Randy Newman, from athletes to archeologists to... literal dancing bears. From Major League to Monsters Inc., Randy Newman's music has shaped generations of entertainment... but how will this solo record fare in our rankings? Tune in and find out!

We wouldn't have nothin' if we didn't have you-- tell us your favorite Randy Newman-scored movie! How does his hard-hitting satire resonate with short people? Rednecks? Politicians?? Tell us your take in the comments and on social media!

Almost 200 weeks ago we explored Thirty Seconds To Mars' 2017 record America and... let's just say it didn't go well. For the Year Of Redemption, we decided the band needed a second chance so we're back to talk about A Beautiful Lie, the band's sophomore record that really solidified their arena rock sound. Jared Leto sings and screams his way through some of the band's all-time classics like Attack, The Kill, and From Yesterday. Their lyrics pull back from cosmic generality and hone in on the angsty, intimate side of the human experience. Bartholomew Cubbins is also back in the picture and we'll talk about some of his directorial feats, including a climate change documentary and a music video from the Forbidden City!

James & Connor reminisce on Episode 33, talk about cotton candy grapes (and yes, the ear), and then learn more about 30STM's early days before The Mixtaper enters the scene with Beautiful (Potential) Lies about pyramid schemes, cult islands, and ambitious zero-G promotion in Fact Or Spin! Then we'll take a look at this top-heavy rock record and decide whether it reigns supreme. Will Thirty Seconds To Mars blast off to redemption, or are they doomed to be one of our lowest-scoring bands of all time? 

Did our 30STM takes get a little too hot? Is there an even better record we could have chosen? And... do you like cotton candy grapes as much as Connor does? Okay.. the answer to the last question is "no," but check in with us in the comments or on socials about the rest! Follow us for more album reviews and rankings every week!