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What’s the sweet spot between challenge and comfort? This week we tackle Journey’s 1980 anthem “Any Way You Want It.” After knocking Mark down a notch because of his taste in early-oughts literary fiction, Nichole relates this song to the so-called arousal and flow theories of motivation. Mark explains the simple rhythmic trick that helps make this song have such a driving beat: pushing the downbeat. Come for the arena rock, stay for the Atari talk! Other music heard in this episode: Thin Lizzy - “The Boys Are Back in Town”, Journey - “Who’s Crying Now”, Journey - “Ask the Lonely”, Journey - “Stone in Love”, Journey - “Don’t Stop Believin’”, Kendrick Lamar - “These Walls (feat. Bilal, Anna Wise, and Thundercat)”, Maroon 5 - “Sunday Morning”, Data Age - “Journey Escape Gameplay Music” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting https://discord.gg/xdN4XCdtxU or thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How long can the pop stars survive? In this episode, we debut our first ever NTM draft game! Welcoming back two all-star guests, Bree Thomas (“Mariah Carey Girl” from episode 60) and Chris Fafalios (from Punchline, One Hit Thunder, and episode 76), we each battle to build a team of former child music stars trapped on a deserted island! Who’s the responsible one? Who’s going to keep the morale high? Who might eat the rest of the team? Listen to find out, and then head to the Discord channel and vote for who had the best draft! Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting https://discord.gg/xdN4XCdtxU or thelorehounds.com  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Here in season 3, we’re starting a new feature! Once per month, we’ll be turning back the clock and showcasing an episode from our back catalog! This month, we callback to one of our favorites from Season 1! Wait, was “Undone” really the most popular early Weezer song? In this epic episode we unravel Weezer’s 1994 hit (in some universes, at least), “Undone - The Sweater Song.” After discussing the hosts’ history with the band, Mark follows a thread of connection between some of the iconic elements of the song and older - much older - kinds of music. And Nichole finally gets Mark to understand what this song seems to really be about: depression. To hear more of Nichole’s story, check out the episode “Burnt Toast” from the Scissors N Scrubs podcast from March 2023. Other music heard in this episode: Weezer - “Say it Ain’t So”, The Rentals - “Friends of P”, Wheesor - “Undone - The Sweater Song”, Weezer - “Africa”, Weezer - “Perfect Situation” - Richard Berry and the Pharaohs - “Louie Louie”, René Touzet - “El Loco Cha Cha Cha”, Metallica - “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”, Robert Johnson - “I Believe I’ll Dust By Broom”, Mead ‘Lux’ Lewis - “Honky Tonk Train Blues”, The Jimi Hendrix Experience - “Purple Haze”, The Beatles - “Taxman”, Garbage - “Supervixen”, Jet - “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting https://discord.gg/xdN4XCdtxU or thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Are the voices in your head auto-tuned? We start season 3 off with bang with Brtiney Spears’ 2007 electro-pop hit “Piece of Me.” Mark takes us through how the melodic outlines of this track’s robotic backing vocals help shape the song’s pacing. Nichole comes in hot with some fancy terms, looking at Britney’s challenges through the diathesis stress model. She also shares some unresolved anger over the 1991 coming-of-age drama “My Girl.” Other music heard in this episode: Britney Spears - “Gimme More”, Britney Spears - “Toxic”, Britney Spears - “Alien”, Britney Spears - “I’m a Slave 4 U”  Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting https://discord.gg/xdN4XCdtxU or thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What words do we overuse? What happens if Taylor Swift were to write lyrics to our theme music? The circle of what exactly? In this final Sidetrack of Season 2, we celebrate the end of an era by quizzing each other! Who’s coming out on top? We wrap by asking each other some earnest questions about our expertise, some of which might lead to some future episode topics. Season 3 starts next week! Music heard in this episode: Antonio Vivaldi - Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, ‘Spring’ (La primavera), I. Allegro (Baroque Festival Orchestra) Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

If I would, could you? This week, our hosts do another over-the-top deep dive to close Season 2, this time focusing on the dreary 1992 grunge epic “Would?” by Alice in Chains. Nichole takes us through the stages of the transtheoretical model of change, looking through the lens of recovery from addiction (sadly relevant to both the song’s namesake Andrew Wood and Alice in Chains lead vocalist Layne Staley). Mark offers another tongue-in-cheek term paper, this time deconstructing this song’s odd chord progression with the tools of so-called Neo-Riemannian music theory. A (maybe) helpful tonnetz diagram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonnetz Other music heard in this episode: Alice in Chains - “Sea of Sorrow”, Alice in Chains - “Angry Chair”, Alice in Chains - “I Stay Away”, Alice in Chains - “Agains”, Alice in Chains - “Down in a Hole”, Alice in Chains - “Hollow”, Alice in Chains - “Heaven Beside You”, Jerry Cantrell - “Leave Me Alone”, Primitive Radio Gods - “Standing By a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand”, Mother Love Bone - “Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns”, Candlebox - “Far Behind”, Donald Crockett - “Whistling in the Dark (performed by Xtet)”, Danny Elfman - “Spider Man Main Title”, Alice in Chains - “Whale & Wasp”, Nirvana - “In Bloom”, Alice in Chains - “Man in a Box”, Pearl Jam - “Black”, Alice in Chains - “Bleed the Freak”, Alice in Chains - “Got Me Wrong”, Soundgarden - “Black Hole Sun” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

106 - Sidetrack - Season 2 Mailbag 4 Are Alanis Morissette and Lauryn Hill two sides of the same coin? This week, we have one more chance to open the mailbag for Season 2! This batch of inquires hits on such controversial topics as Nichole’s accent, whether we should talk about musicals, mono-cultural tragedies, the new record by The Strokes, and whether the Beatles stole from Batman. We’re always sticking to the hard-hitting journalism here at NTM… Music heard in this episode: Jeremy Jordan - “She Used to be Mine”, Sara Bareilles - “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, Awaken A Cappella - “Gravity”, The Beatles - “Till There Was You”, Linkin Park - “The Little Things Give You Away”, My Bloody Valentine - “When You Sleep”, Coldplay - “Yes”, Club Nouveau - “Lean on Me”, Lauryn Hill - “Everything is Everything”, “Weird Al” Yankovic - “Such a Groovy Guy”, The Beatles - “Taxman”, Jimi Hendrix - “Foxy Lady”, Neal Hefti - “Batman Theme”, The Strokes - “Going Shopping”, fun. - “Some Nights”, The Strokes - “Hard to Explain”, Rage Against the Machine - “Bulls on Parade”, Rage Against the Machine - “Killing in the Name”, Daft Punk - “Instant Crush (feat. Julian Casablancas)” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Were you one of those people who loved group projects back in school? If so, you must be the social loafer! This week we synergize with The Eagles’ 1976 country-rock gem “New Kid in Town.” Nichole talks about creative collaboration in a conversation that ranges widely, from interpersonal conflict to podcast co-host dynamics and classroom assignments. Mark homes in on the brilliant pattern of key changes in this song that shows this band was more than just fist fights and back-stabbing. For visual learners, the key scheme to this song goes like this (the capital letters are major keys and the lower-case letters are minor or dorian keys): E - c# - E - c# - E - G - e - E Other music heard in this episode: Linda Ronstadt - “Rock Me On the Water”, Linda Ronstadt - “In My Reply”, The Eagles - “Ol’ 55”, The Eagles - “Nightingale”, The Eagles - “Is It True?”, The Eagles - “Train Leaves Here This Morning”, The Eagles - “In the City”, The Eagles - “Love Will Keep Us Alive”, The Eagles - “Visions”, The Eagles - “Victim of Love”, Don Felder - “Victim of Love”, The Eagles - “Try and Love Again”, The Eagles - “One of these Nights”, Wolfang Amadeus Mozart - “Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545, I (Ingrid Haebler, piano)”, Joe Walsh - “Life’s Been Good”, The Eagles - “The Last Resort”, Poco - “Bad Weather”, Bobby Darin - “Beyond the Sea”, Taylor Swift - “The Life of a Showgirl (feat. Sabrina Carpenter” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Wait, does it need to be either rock or opera to be a rock opera? As Season 2’s final guest, we welcome podcast luminary John Lorehound for a fun conversation about concept albums. Mark’s ready to go with a custom categorization scheme, Nichole comes armed with the required Hozier and Taylor Swift mentions, and John’s ultimately just here to give an angry rant about one of his favorite albums. Tune in for a conversation that gets to some surprisingly deep places. Music heard in this episode: Ian Gillan and Murray Head - “The Last Supper” (from Jesus Christ Superstar), Rage Against the Machine - “Down Rodeo”, Taylor Swift - “The Tortured Poets Department”, Paul Simon - “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”, Pink Floyd - “Eclipse”, Beyoncé - “Texas Hold ‘Em”, Jessica Darrow - “Surface Pressure” (from Encanto), The Beatles - “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, Frank Sinatra - “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”, Frank Ocean - “Lost”, Taylor Swift - “August”, The Beach Boys - “Do You Like Worms (Roll Plymouth Rock)”, Queens of the Stone Age - “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire”, Lauryn Hill - “Doo Wop (That Thing)”, Hozier - “I, Carrion (Icarian)”, The Flaming Lips - “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1”, Mark Popeney - “After the Bomb, Love” (USC Thornton Symphony), Coheed and Cambria - “Blood Red Summer”, My Chemical Romance - “Sing”, NOFX - “The Decline”, De La Soul - “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’ (feat. Q-Tip & Vinia Mojica)”, Liz Phair - “Never Said”, Radical Face - “Ghost Towns”, Green Day - “Homecoming”, Janelle Monáe - “Tightrope (feat. Big Boi)”, Melanie Martinez - “Soap”, Dana Howell - “Analogamelan”, Muse - “I Belong to You (+Mon Coeur S’Ouvre a Ta Voix)” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Is it true that what is meant to be will be? This week, the hosts nod their heads to Lauryn Hill’s 1998 anthem of empowerment “Everything is Everything.” Nichole explains how this song is a great representation of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy’s Hexaflex model and… that’s a lot of fancy words, you’ll just need to listen! Mark shows how this song’s catchy chorus keeps changing, never quite settling on its own identity. After winter must come spring… but it’s August now, so slow your roll. Other music heard in this episode: Lauryn Hill - “Joyful, Joyful”, Lauryn Hill - “Who Got the Flo”, Fugees - “Ready or Not”, Lin Manuel Miranda - “Helpless”, Lauryn Hill - “To Zion (feat. Carlos Santana)”, Lauryn Hill - “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”, Lauryn Hill - “Tell Him”,  Lauryn Hill - “Freedom Time”, Lauryn Hill - “Mystery of Iniquity”, The Bruce Lee Band - “Gerry is Strong”, U2 - “Where the Streets Have No Name”, Lauryn Hill - “Consumerism” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What better way to travel cheaply than listen to a great song? This week our hosts build one more list for Season 2, this time about their favorite songs about places. Nichole’s list is a little longer than Mark’s this time, but does quantity mean quality? Listen to be transported and find out! Music heard in this episode: Jesse L. Martin - “Santa Fe” from Rent, Jeremy Jordan - “Santa Fe” from Newsies, Journey - “Lights”, Addison Groove Project - “Love and Happiness”, Dropkick Murphys - “I’m Shipping Up to Boston”, Suzanne Vega - “Tom’s Diner (DNA Remix)”, Taylor Swift - “So Long, London”, The Postal Service - “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight”, David Bowie - “Life on Mars”, Ben Folds - “Jesusland”, Belinda Carlisle - “Heaven is a Place on Earth”, Marc Cohn - “Walking in Memphis”, Bruce Springsteen - “Streets of Philadelphia” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What would it take for you to join a cult? What if the leader looked like Lenny Kravitz? This week, we break down the 1993 retro rocker, “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz. Nichole takes the messiah-energy of the song’s lyrics and describes the methods cults use to control their followers. Mark focuses on the more technical side of the song, observing the cool way the song’s bluesy riffs and melodies shift around by key. Listen if you got to, GOT TO KNOW! Other music heard in this episode: Live - “Lightning Crashes”, Heart - “Barracuda”, Rage Against the Machine - “Killing in the Name”, Steely Dan - “Peg”, Tears for Fears - “Head Over Heels”, The Eagles - “Life in the Fast Lane”, Queen - “Killer Queen”, Lenny Kravitz - “It Ain’t Over ‘til it’s Over”, Lenny Kravitz - “If You Can’t Say No”, Lenny Kravitz - “Always On the Run”, Otis Rush - “All Your Love (I Miss Loving)”, The Beatles - “I Want You (She’s So Heavy”, Lenny Kravitz - “Mr. Cab Driver”, Lenny Kravitz - “American Woman”, Toto - “Rosanna”, Goldfinger - “Here in Your Bedroom”,  Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How are we still doing this thing? To celebrate our 100th(ish) episode, we’ve brought in a heavy hitter: returning guest David from the Lorehounds. David picks our brains about our first two seasons, talking topics like our friendship, what we’ve learned from podcasting, conversations with our listeners, and why musicians always pretend to know albums they’ve never heard. Here’s looking forward to 200! Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What did Uncle Joey do to make someone this mad? This week, our hosts tackle Alanis Morissette’s 1995 breakup anthem “You Oughta Know.” Mark tries to draw a straight line between the intensity of Alanis’s emotions and how unhinged the song’s rhythms are… before taking an opportunity to majorly over-share on mic. Nichole takes us through the four levels of anger…. the higher the better? Other music heard in this episode: The Clash - “Should I Stay or Should I Go”, Juice WRLD - “Used To”, Fran Jeffries - “It Had Better Be Tonight”, Bruno Mars - “I Just Might”, Alanis Morissette - “Your House”, Alanis Morissette - “Too Hot”, Alanis Morissette - “All I Really Want”, Alanis Morissette - “Everything”, Alanis Morissette - “Underneath”, Dua Lipa - “IDGAF”, Carole King - “It’s Too Late”, Chappell Roan - “My Kink is Karma”  Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

No Stairway? Denied! In this week’s episode, Mark and Nichole share some artists they really love… by sharing some songs they really don’t love by those artists! Please let us know what we got wrong in the Discord or at [email protected]. Music heard in this episode: The Beach Boys - “Please Let Me Wonder”, The Beach Boys - “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)”, Stockard Channing - “There are Worse Things I Could Do”, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John - “You’re the One That I Want”, Michael Jackson - “Will You Be There”, Michael Jackson - “Heal the World”, Justin Bieber - “Love Yourself”, Luis Fonsi - “Despacito (feat. Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber)”, Dave Matthews Band - “Too Much”, Dave Matthews Band - “Crash Into Me”, Olivia Rodrigo - “All-American Bitch”, Olivia Rodrigo - “drivers license”, R.E.M. - “Orange Crush”, R.E.M. - “Stand”, Queen - “Somebody to Love”, Queen - “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Blink-182 - “Dumpweed”, Blink-182 - “All the Small Things”, Sublime - “Saw Red (feat. Gwen Stefani)” Send us your thoughts at [email protected] Nevermind the Music is part of The Lorehounds Network. Join the Nevermind the Music Discord channel by visiting thelorehounds.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy