PODCAST · music
The Curmudgeon Rock Report
by The Curmudgeons
A loud-mouth retired rock critic and a cranky expat rock obsessive discuss, analyze and just plain old argue about rock ‘n‘ roll: the old stuff, the new stuff and why it all still matters.
Episodes
-
The Saga of Grunge Part 6 (1992)
In which The Curmudgeons look back on perhaps the grunge phenomenon's most fascinating 12-month period. Nirvana's Nevermind overtook Michael Jackson's Dangerous as the top-selling album in the U.S. on January 7, 1992. The paradigm shift for popular music could not have been starker, and the…
more -
The Greatest Two-Hit Wonders of All Time
In which Curmudgeon Arturo reveals and discusses our choices for the best couplets of hits from specific artists. Notice we say the best, not the most popular or ubiquitous or cheekiest. So no Smash Mouth and no Men Without Hats. In their stead, though, are artists like Gerry Raftery, Gloria...
-
The Glory of Glam Rock Part 2 (1973-1974)
In which The Curmudgeons continue their revisitation of the marvelously strange but often gorgeous rock subgenre we call glam rock. Last episode, we covered the genesis of glam rock via the artistic genius of Marc Bolan, David Bowie, guitarist Mick Ronson and producer Tony Visconti. We also…
more -
The Glory of Glam Rock Part 1 (1970-1972)
In which the Curmudgeons tease out our hair, wear tons of makeup and celebrate the most sensual, most decadent brand of rock 'n' roll ever conceived. The glam rock of the early 1970s was an outgrowth of the 1960s psychedelia in which the vibes shifted from a mind trip to a soul trip, one in which...
-
The 10 Greatest (Original) Wrestling Entrance Themes
In which The Curmudgeons get funky like a chunky monkey, if you will, and show off their knowledge of the music of professional wrestling and how it adds to the over-the-top pageantry of one of our shared beloved pastimes. The goal of a wrestler's theme music is two-fold. First, the audience…
more -
The Saga of Grunge Part 5 (1991)
In which the Curmudgeons commune with their once-and-forever inner 16-year-olds to celebrate the most important cultural shift of our lives. And indeed, that shift happened when both of us were 16 years old. The fall of 1991 unleashed pure magic into our lives when Nirvana's Nevermind, Pearl…
more -
1991...The Year in Music (Up To Nirvana's Breakthrough
In which The Curmudgeons revisit the most popular and epic music from most of the year they both turned 16 years of age. Why most? Because on September 24,1991, a whole hell of a lot changed. That was the day Nirvana's Nevermind hit record-store shelves (remember those?). Before then, the world…
more -
The Parallel Universe All-Stars Present...Kurt Vile!
In which The Curmudgeons share their reverence for one of modern indie rock's most singular and iconoclastic talents. Kurt Vile has worked hard from his native Philadelphia for nearly 20 years now to build for himself an idiosyncratic, shamanistic style that melds folk, psychedelic, classic rock...
-
The Saga of Grunge Part 4 (1990)
In which The Curmudgeons revisit the year before grunge exploded into the mainstream. And 1990 was indeed a really important year for the development of our beloved genre. Mother Love Bone was on the cusp of hitting it big until frontman Andrew Wood, a beloved figures in the Seattle scene, died…
more -
Kendrick Lamar - The Last Hip-Hop Genius Standing
In which The Curmudgeons express deep appreciation for how Kendrick Lamar both honors and respects hip-hop as an artform and continues to move it forward--even as the rest of modern hip-hop stagnates, suffers and embarrasses. We cover the span of his entire career and analyze each of his official...
-
Fela Kuti...A Legacy
In which the Curmudgeons express awe and amazement over the musical innovation and rebellious spirit of one Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti. Already an established jazz-fusion bandleader in his native Nigeria, a nearly year long stay in Los Angeles in 1969 exposed Kuti to the thrilling sounds of that era's...
-
The Saga of Grunge Part 3 (1989)
In which the Curmudgeons meditate on the year in which grunge as a movement officially entered the universal rock consciousness. The Seattle rock scene in the mid-to-late 1980s was defined by a bunch of smart, ambitious wiseasses who were in a virtual competition with one another to find the…
more -
Van Morrison 1968-74...A Legacy
In which the Curmudgeons revisit and marvel over one of the most amazing streaks a performer has ever had in the long history of this thing we love called rock 'n' roll. Belfast native Van Morrison enjoyed chart success early on in the mid-1960s with the hits "Gloria" and "Brown Eyed Girl" but…
more -
Why Greta Van Fleet Is...Shit!!
In which The Curmudgeons explore the work of the worst rock band of the 21st Century...so you don't have to do all the work yourself! Seriously, this is a public service we're doing here. Greta Van Fleet is a quartet from a small town in Michigan that did an admittedly great job of studying the...
-
The Saga of Grunge Part 2 (1988)
In which The Curmudgeons set the dial back to 1988, when grunge started to become a real thing with real buzz and found itself no longer contained to just Seattle. Mudhoney kicked ass and triumphed in the U.K. with the gargantuan single "Touch Me I'm Sick" and their awesomely heavy debut EP...
-
The Parallel Universe All-Stars Present...Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
In which The Curmudgeons introduce you--again--to your new favorite band. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club spliced the neo-psychedelic swagger of bands like The Brian Jonestown Massacre with the rawkin' menace of the Stone Roses, Oasis and other British bands to offer a maximal yet poignant vision of...
-
The 15 Greatest Break-Up Albums of All Time
In which The Curmudgeons show love for artists that are, well, falling out love. A great break-up album takes the listener on a journey through the complicated layers of our humanity and our very souls: Love, anger, betrayal, heartbreak, grief, forgiveness, false hope, celebrations of new love,...
-
The Saga of Grunge, Part 1 (1985-87)
In which The Curmudgeons revisit the goofy yet ambitious and thrillingly original dawn of grunge music. Unbeknownst to some, the story of what became the dominant mainstream brand of rock 'n' roll in the 1990s dates back to 1984, back when the Seattle area was cold, rainy, gloomy and also a…
more -
Al Green...A Legacy
In which the Curmudgeons celebrated the 1970s output of one of soul music's loveliest and most powerful voices. Yes, Al Green could sing his ass off. His falsetto may be one of the most mimicked in all of popular music. But there was a depth to Reverend Al that stops us both in our tracks. His...
-
Memphis Soul in the 1960s
In which the Curmudgeons go way back--all the way back to 1960 for starters--to celebrate the sounds, the innovations and the incredible legacy of the musicians--and the labels--that created and performed Memphis's soul music. Stax/Volt, as the production house was known as, originated as a…
more -
Presenting...The Best Albums of 2025
In which The Curmudgeons out-list all of the other lists and show you the way to the REAL best albums that hit shelves in this grand year of 2025. Christopher O'Connor's list leans heavily toward power-pop and indie rock and features Geese's incredible Getting Killed as his number one album of…
more -
Why Creed Are...Shit!
In which The Curmudgeons take a gigantic, cathartic dumpola on one of the worst bands of the late 1990s and early 2000s, namely the insufferable post-grunge Christian rock quartet Creed. We'll give the band credit for one thing: They proved there was still a market for grunge well after the…
more -
The Parallel Universe All-Stars Present...The Brian Jonestown Massacre!
In which The Curmudgeons pay homage to one of the most storied--and notorious-indie-rock bands of their era. Starting in 1995, the Brian Jones Massacre unleashed a brand of retro-futuristic trance-rock that expanded the possibilities of the rock idiom. The band, led by enigmatic and perhaps...
-
In Defense Of...ABBA!
In which The Curmudgeons take a chance, take a chance, take a chance on ABBA, one of the most endearing pop bands of its era. This Swedish quartet has taken its lumps from critics and snarky scenesters over the years, being labeled cheesy, or inauthentic, or too corny to be taken seriously. We...
-
Fugazi...A Legacy
In which The Curmudgeons honor one of the fiercest--and most fiercely independent--rock bands of all time. Fugazi erupted from the Washington, D.C., punk scene in the late 1980s. They fashioned a brand of passionate, politically charged post-hardcore music that deftly weaved two guitars with a…
more -
A Britpop Timeline Part 5 (1998-99)
In which The Curmudgeons wrap up their five-part lookback at the British rock of the 1990s. It was a decade that started with the demised of dance-rock and shoegazer scenes but then saw an absolute cultural revolution explode in their wake via Britpop. By the end of the decade, though, things…
more -
A Britpop Timeline Part 4 (1996-97)
In which The Curmudgeons lovingly recall the latter edge of the Britpop era, covering the years of 1996 and 1997. Britpop, at this point, had become a defining cultural phenomenon in the U.K., leaving music fans to wonder what might come next. Yet while Oasis attempted to follow the smashing,...
-
A Britpop Timeline - Part 3 (1995)
In which The Curmudgeons revisit the zenith of the Britpop movement. And by 1995, there definitely was a movement in the U.K. The music defined the style and defined the discussion and defined the culture. The mania was such that the two biggest bands in all of Britpop, Oasis and Blur, ended the...
-
A Britpop Timeline Part 2 (1994)
In which The Curmudgeons continue catching a wave of Britpop and launch into the second part of our five-part series on the joys of the Britpop era. On this episode, we cover the eventful year of 1994, during which Britpop officially solidified as a thing and started its ascension toward the...
-
A Britpop Timeline Part 1 (1992-93)
In which The Curmudgeons hop into the phone booth and travel back to the time when Britpop ruled the world during the heart of the 1990s. What was Britpop? Most specifically, it was a call to rock 'n' roll arms by a swath of young, hungry bands peeved at America's cultural imperialism of the era....
-
Los Angeles Rocks in the 1990s Part 2 (1995-1999)
In which The Curmudgeons continue their exploration of all the cool and revolutionary sounds blasting out of the City of Angels in the 1990s. By 1995, the music world had been grungified, making things safer, brighter and lovelier for not only hard-rock artists, but folks of the more…
more -
Los Angeles Rocks in the 1990s Part 1 (1990-94)
In which the Curmudgeons once again venture to the City of Angels to recapture all the great vibes generated during the 1990s. After a 1980s in which glam metal and punk scenes dominated, what came next for Los Angeles? Well, the trade winds blew in from the Pacific Northwest, and the influence…
more -
The Parallel Universe All-Stars Present...Built to Spill!
In which The Curmudgeons pay loving tribute to one of our favorite bands. Built to Spill is the brainchild of Boise, Idaho, native and guitar maestro Doug Martsch, who's been banging and crunching his way through indie-rock anthems for more than three decades now. As Arturo Andrade likes to say,...
-
Why Limp Bizkit Are...Shit!!
In which The Curmudgeons take a big ol' dukey on that most prominent of rap-metal bands Limp Bizkit. The band is surely one of the worst hard-rock outfits to make it big since cranking up guitars real loud became a thing. Its plodding, uninspired riffage was eclipsed only by its misogynistic,...
-
A Sober Defense Of...Hawkwind
In which The Curmudgeons trip out through outer space and rock out to Hawkwind, one of the most singular psychedelic rock bands of all time. And in which we do it completely sober! This band practically invented what is known as space rock, a jammy, propulsive brand of heavy metal that focuses…
more -
Hûsker Dû…an Underrated Legacy
In which The Curmudgeons give loud, deserved props to one of modern rock's most influential bands. Hûsker Dû started out as a revered hardcore punk band in Minneapolis in 1979, but by the mid-1980s, the band had veered toward a style that became known as punk-pop--loud and abrasive but also...
-
Los Angeles Rocks in the 1980s Part 2 (1986-90)
In which The Curmudgeons continue their exploration of the City of Angels during arguably its most fertile period, namely the decade of the 1980s. Last episode, we established that the glam metal and punk scenes gestated based on a similar us-against-the-world ethos, albeit expressed much...
-
Los Angeles Rocks in the 1980s Part 1 (1981-85)
In which The Curmudgeons travel back to sleazy, sweaty streets of Los Angeles to celebrate the music emanating from the City of Angeles. On one end, you had the burgeoning glam metal scene, a parade of excess and depravity in leather, chains and spandex--and some glorious, decadent riffage. On…
more -
The 3rd Golden Age of Rock: 1980 (Turn It On Again)
In which The Curmudgeons end their dynamic 3rd Golden Age of Rock series with a loving reexamination of the year 1980. The year stands as crucial pivot point for the development of rock 'n' roll culture. Punk and post-punk were becoming Gothic rock and New Wave. The Clash was serving as a virtual...
-
Big L - Hip-Hop's Lost Genius
In which The Curmudgeons honor one of hip-hop's most tragic figures. Big L was a hip-hop savant from Harlem whose flows were endlessly inventive, whose lyrics walked a fine line between pathos and shock value and whose professionalism allowed him to dominate any beat and any style. His star was…
more -
Curtis Mayfield - The Most Underrated Artist in Music History
In which The Curmudgeons passionately laud, lavish and defend one of the true gentle giants of popular music--and certainly its most underappreciated. Curtis Mayfield was an absolute pioneer of soul, R&B and funk. Mayfield produced an astonishing body of work, first as the bandleader for soul…
more -
The 3rd Golden Age of Rock - 1979 (Dawn of a New Era)
In which The Curmudgeons honor one of the most important years in all of rock 'n' roll history. Through the greatest albums and songs of 1979, we hear the sound of one decade fading and another decade splashing into full color and light. Post-punk, for instance, reached its most glorious heights,...
-
Real Hip-Hop's Last Stand (1999-2008)
In which The Curmudgeons examine the last great era for hip-hop, namely the years between 1999 and 2008. After the catastrophe that was the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, hip-hop could have imploded and or lost its footing--or even its respect as a genre. Instead, the movement...
-
Elton John (1970-75)…A Legacy
In which the Curmudgeons know it's going to be a long, long time before the heavens produce a young man as preternaturally gifted as a songwriter and performer as Elton John proved to be back in the early 1970s. John's output during the early part of that fabled decade was routinely incredible,...
-
The 3rd Golden Age of Rock - 1978 (Between Punk and Post-Punk)
In which the Curmudgeons revisit the underrated yet crucially important year of 1978. Punk rock had gone mainstream in the two years prior to '78, and true to the restlessness that defined the genre, the music was ready to morph into post-punk and New Wave. We marvel at the movement this pivotal...
-
The Top Ten Albums of 2024
In which each of Yours Truly Curmudgeons offers our list of the ten best albums we consumed over the past 12 months. This was a surprisingly strong, deep year for new music releases...something exemplified by the fact that our lists share five entries in common. Here's a sneak peek: The top album...
-
Queen in the 1970s
In which The Curmudgeons shout before all the human race like we'll never lose. Yup, we're discussing the mighty, mighty Queen on this episode, focusing on the band's undeniable greatness from their beginnings all the way through 1980, when they peaked commercially with "Another One Bites the…
more -
The 3rd Golden Age of Rock - 1977 (God Save the Punks!)
In which the Curmudgeons continue to revisit the fertile fields of the late 1970s and land on 1977, one of the most explosive years in rock history. It's when the Sex Pistols dropped their album Never Mind the Bollocks, here's the Sex Pistols and set off a punk revolution. It's also when…
more -
The Neil Young Archives Vol. III Tales Album...A Curmudgeonly Review
In which the Curmudgeons dive into the little bit of the third installment of Neil Young's Archives that we can. The full 17-CD, five-Blu Ray Archives Vol. III is available for roughly $450, but only for 5,000 lucky customers willing to spend a small fortune. The rest of us get an album Young...
-
Led Zeppelin....The Legacy of All Legacies
In which The Curmudgeons worship at the altar of the mighty, mighty Led Zeppelin. With scorching guitar licks, torpedo-heavy drumming and sex-god screamer vocals, this band epitomized the sensuality and the swagger of rock 'n' roll, and in presenting their take on the genre, they helped create…
more
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
A loud-mouth retired rock critic and a cranky expat rock obsessive discuss, analyze and just plain old argue about rock ‘n‘ roll: the old stuff, the new stuff and why it all still matters.
HOSTED BY
The Curmudgeons
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Curmudgeon Rock Report have?
The Curmudgeon Rock Report currently has 144 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Curmudgeon Rock Report about?
A loud-mouth retired rock critic and a cranky expat rock obsessive discuss, analyze and just plain old argue about rock ‘n‘ roll: the old stuff, the new stuff and why it all still matters.
How often does The Curmudgeon Rock Report release new episodes?
The Curmudgeon Rock Report publishes regularly with 144 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to The Curmudgeon Rock Report?
You can listen to The Curmudgeon Rock Report on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Curmudgeon Rock Report?
The Curmudgeon Rock Report is created and hosted by The Curmudgeons.
URL copied to clipboard!