Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums - Uncover the details behind the most iconic albums ever recorded.

Undertow: Tool’s Breakthrough Album Unveiled

Undertow: Tool’s Breakthrough Album Unveiled

5 October 2025
A Deep Dive into A Perfect Circle’s Mer de Noms

A Deep Dive into A Perfect Circle’s Mer de Noms

29 September 2025
White Pony by Deftones: why it still matters

White Pony by Deftones: why it still matters

14 September 2025
Anthrax’s Sound of White Noise: The 1993 Pivot That Rewired Heavy Music

Anthrax’s Sound of White Noise: The 1993 Pivot That Rewired Heavy Music

8 September 2025

Sixteen Stone – Bush’s Post‑Grunge Breakout Album

Sixteen Stone – Bush’s Post‑Grunge Breakout Album

10 November 2025
The Making of Live Through This by Hole

The Making of Live Through This by Hole

27 October 2025
A deep dive into Doolittle by Pixies

A deep dive into Doolittle by Pixies

27 October 2025
Para Bellum by Testament – album review

Para Bellum by Testament – album review

13 October 2025

Sixteen Stone – Bush’s Post‑Grunge Breakout Album

Bush - Sixteen Stone - Album Cover

Sixteen Stone – Bush’s Post‑Grunge Breakout Album

10 November 2025

The Making of Live Through This by Hole

Live Through This

Album Deep Dive

The Making of Live Through This by Hole

27 October 2025

A deep dive into Doolittle by Pixies

61cFjl8EwAL._UF894,1000_QL80_

Album Deep Dive

A deep dive into Doolittle by Pixies

27 October 2025

Para Bellum by Testament – album review

Album Deep Dive

Para Bellum by Testament – album review

13 October 2025

Soundtoys: Pioneering Creative Audio Effects

Tech

Soundtoys: Pioneering Creative Audio Effects

17 January 2025

Alesis: Revolutionising Music Production

Tech

Alesis: Revolutionising Music Production

17 January 2025

FabFilter: Redefining Audio Tools with Precision and Elegance

Tech

FabFilter: Redefining Audio Tools with Precision and Elegance

17 January 2025

Akai Professional: Pioneers of Music Production Technology

Tech

Akai Professional: Pioneers of Music Production Technology

17 January 2025

Troubled Paradise by Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – album review

Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts - Troubled Paradise - Artwork

Troubled Paradise by Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – album review

30 September 2025

The Painful Truth by Skunk Anansie – album review

The Painful Truth - Skunk Anansie

The Painful Truth by Skunk Anansie – album review

23 May 2025

Roar Like Thunder by Buckcherry – album review

Buckcherry - Roar Like Thunder

Review

Roar Like Thunder by Buckcherry – album review

22 May 2025

Skeletá by Ghost – album review

Skeletá by Ghost – album review

9 May 2025

Sixteen Stone – Bush’s Post‑Grunge Breakout Album

Bush - Sixteen Stone - Album Cover

Sixteen Stone – Bush’s Post‑Grunge Breakout Album

Neil Johnson 10 November 2025

Released at the tail end of 1994, Sixteen Stone marked the explosive debut of the British rock band Bush and became...

The Making of Live Through This by Hole

Live Through This

The Making of Live Through This by Hole

Neil Johnson 27 October 2025

Live Through This by Hole: The Story Behind a Grunge Classic Some albums don’t just arrive they...

A deep dive into Doolittle by Pixies

61cFjl8EwAL._UF894,1000_QL80_

A deep dive into Doolittle by Pixies

Neil Johnson 27 October 2025

Why Doolittle Matters When Doolittle landed in April 1989, it didn’t just arrive — it detonated. The...

Para Bellum by Testament – album review

tmpcn7rfxas

Para Bellum by Testament – album review

Neil Johnson 13 October 2025

Testament’s fourteenth album, Para Bellum, is a wild, urgent and fearless blast of thrash metal that proves,...

Undertow: Tool’s Breakthrough Album Unveiled

Undertow album cover by Tool

Undertow: Tool’s Breakthrough Album Unveiled

Neil Johnson 5 October 2025

Released on April 6, 1993, Tool's debut album, Undertow, epitomizes alternative metal's evolution. With themes of struggle...

Troubled Paradise by Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – album review

Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts - Troubled Paradise - Artwork

Troubled Paradise by Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – album review

Neil Johnson 30 September 2025

Monster Shop Score: 90/100 There’s a certain thrill when an record grabs you by the collar and...

A Deep Dive into A Perfect Circle’s Mer de Noms

Mer De Noms - A Perfect Circle Album Art

A Deep Dive into A Perfect Circle’s Mer de Noms

Neil Johnson 29 September 2025

A Perfect Circle’s debut album, Mer de Noms, arrived in May 2000 as a poised, meticulously arranged...

White Pony by Deftones: why it still matters

Deftones - White Pony - Original Album Cover

White Pony by Deftones: why it still matters

Neil Johnson 14 September 2025

Released on 20 June 2000 by Maverick Records, Deftones’ third album White Pony arrived at the height...

Anthrax’s Sound of White Noise: The 1993 Pivot That Rewired Heavy Music

Anthrax Sound of White Noise Album Cover

Anthrax’s Sound of White Noise: The 1993 Pivot That Rewired Heavy Music

Neil Johnson 8 September 2025

A pivotal turn: Anthrax, 1993, and Sound of White Noise Anthrax released Sound of White Noise on...

Podcast Episodes

Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums Podcast

Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums Podcast

Welcome to Riffology, where a GenX and a Millennial talk about the albums from their youth. It’s more fun than it sounds…

Post-Grunge, Paint Fumes & Platinum Payback

Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~90 minutes
Release: November 2025

Episode Description

Welcome to another episode of Riffology – the podcast where two mates dissect the albums that shaped music history. This week, Neil and Chris tackle Bush’s “Sixteen Stone”, a very British band who somehow made one of the defining American post-grunge records of the 90s – then watched the UK mostly shrug while the US went absolutely mad for it.

What starts as a love letter to one of Neil’s all-time favourite records quickly turns into a story of rejection, resilience, weird artwork and very expensive vinyl, with a surprising amount of life advice buried under the distortion.

What You’ll Hear:

Vinyl Obsession & the “Flippy Flips” Rant: Neil’s ongoing battle to own Sixteen Stone on vinyl – from £150+ reissues and million-pound Discogs listings to his campaign against double LPs with “two tracks per side” when you just want to put a record on and code.
Little Things & Relationship Death by a Thousand Cuts: A deep dive into “Little Things” as one of Neil’s favourite songs ever – unpacking its lyrics about relationships falling apart through tiny repeated hurts, and why that idea hits so hard.
“Come Down” as a Life Marker: Chris revisits “Come Down” on stage for the first time in decades, talks about playing it at a local showcase, and how the song is wired into memories of six-disc Sony changers, falling asleep with albums on loop, and teenage subconscious learning.
Gavin Rossdale vs. The Entire Industry: How UK labels told him he “couldn’t sing”, why Sixteen Stone was first rejected as having “no singles and not even any album tracks”, and how persistence plus one tiny US label (Trauma) turned that “failure” into a multi-platinum classic.
Post-Grunge, Loudness Wars & Production Nerdiness: A proper geek-out on what actually makes this post-grunge: big compressed mixes for American rock radio, massive choruses, slick but not click-tracked performances, and why that smoother, heavier sound was poison to British critics but catnip to US stations.

Featured Tracks & Analysis:

Neil and Chris spend serious time with:

“Little Things” – why it feels “virtually perfect”, how the lyric “the little things that kill” nails the slow corrosion of relationships, and the swirling secondary guitar lines that underpin the main riff.
“Come Down” – the first full song Gavin ever wrote on his own, the two different versions (full band vs. string-laden), and how it became the turning point that convinced him he really was a songwriter.
“Machinehead” – from its octave-driven intro (cue live guitar demo of octaves next to the mic) to its themes of pressure, productivity and trying to keep your head straight while being a dad, husband and working musician.
“Glycerine” – the grungy torch-song moment: sparse arrangement, vulnerable vocal, and how it’s become one of those songs that singers (including Chris’s mate Mike) can absolutely own in their own style.

Tangential Gold:

True to Riffology form, expect delightful detours into:

The vinyl economy of despair – friends smuggling records from the US, Japanese and German pressings, and Discogs sellers flat-out refusing to ship to the UK.
Record label lawsuits & royalty shenanigans: the Trauma vs. Interscope saga over under-reported sales, and the parallel story with No Doubt – plus the surreal reality that Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale ended up a couple in the middle of all this.
Genre arguments in the bath with AI: Neil literally lying in the bath, album on, arguing with ChatGPT about what counts as post-grunge, why Collective Soul is not post-grunge, and why Bush feel like a straight rock band more than a grunge one.
Stiltskin, Levi’s ads and one rogue UK hit: how “Inside” was basically our only true post-grunge chart smash in 90s Britain, built around an advert and a hastily assembled band.
Life admin & step-ladder disasters: super-gluing yourself to a ladder, hiding Diet Coke in bongos, fruit pastilles as Monday survival fuel, and the joy/horror of over-stacked diaries.

Why This Matters:

“Sixteen Stone” is the sound of someone refusing to quit when everyone tells them they’re not good enough. Gavin Rossdale was repeatedly knocked back – mocked by the UK press, dropped by a label that called his finished album worthless, and told to “get a proper singer” – yet he kept writing, kept recording, and ended up making a record that quietly changed his life and connected with millions of listeners across the Atlantic.

The hosts lean into that story of no fallback plan, no Plan B, just stubborn belief and graft, while still giving the music its due: the confident songcraft, the not-quite-polished tempos, and the way these tracks lodge themselves in your emotional memory for decades. Along the way, they connect Bush to wider conversations about post-grunge, Britpop snobbery, the loudness wars, and how certain albums don’t just sound good – they become part of who you are.

Perfect for: Fans of 90s rock who wore out their copies of Superunknown, Vitalogy or Throwing Copper; listeners who grew up with Britpop but secretly loved big American radio guitars; and anyone who’s ever been told they’re “not good enough” and kept going anyway – preferably while arguing with an AI in the bath.

Find more episodes at riffology.co – it’s like a plectrum with “riff” written on it, and yes, you’ll love the logo.

You can find us here:

Blog: https://riffology.co
All Episodes: https://riffology.co/podcast
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1323-riffology-iconic-rock-alb-176865775
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/riffology-iconic-rock-albums-podcast/id1691556696
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1LIU9mein7QMw346q20nyy
X: https://x.com/RiffologyPod
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/riffology.co
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/riffology
Email: [email protected]

RIFF070 – Bush – Sixteen Stone

Search Episodes

Episode play icon

RIFF070 – Bush – Sixteen Stone

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF069 – Pixies – Doolittle

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF068 – Hole – Live Through This

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF067 – Tool – Undertow

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF066 – A Perfect Circle – Mer De Noms

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF065 – Deftones – White Pony

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF064 – Anthrax – Sound of White Noise

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF063 – Anthrax – Persistence of Time

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF062 – Soulfly – Soulfly

Episode Description

Episode play icon

RIFF061 – Sepultura – Beneath the Remains

Episode Description

Search Results placeholder