Riffology Podcast

Welcome to Riffology Podcast! We’re a (mostly) weekly music podcast that focuses on rock albums from the 80s and 90’s, maybe a few from the 70s and 2000s too.

We are Neil and Chris, we’re both embracing the joys of steadily growing older and enjoying going back to the albums of our youth. Sometimes we ask our listeners to pick the albums from a chosen year and sometimes we pick our own favourites. Sometimes, they are albums we loved and sometimes albums that passed us by and we revisit them to see what all the fuss was about.

This is a celebration of incredible music from a time when albums were meaningful and important to us.

RIFF087 - Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

When the Riff Becomes a Religion and the Rules Don't Apply Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~104 minutes Release: Not scheduled Episode Description Led Zeppelin's 1975 double album Physical Graffiti gets the full Riffology treatment, and it turns out that 82 minutes of music across four vinyl sides is ...

RIFF086 - Soundgarden - Superunknown

When the Seattle Elder Statesmen Finally Get Their Due Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~101 minutes Release: Not scheduled Episode Description This week Neil and Chris dig deep into what Chris calls, without hesitation, one of the greatest albums ever made. Soundgarden's 1994 masterpiece Superunknown ...

RIFF085 - Ugly Kid Joe - America's Least Wanted

When Ugly Doesn't Fit Anywhere and That's Exactly the Point Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~78 minutes Release: Not scheduled Episode Description Neil and Chris turn their attention to one of 1992's most unlikely success stories, Ugly Kid Joe's debut album America's Least Wanted. Born from a week spe...

RIFF084 - Train - Drops of Jupiter

When A Dream Wrote The Song That Changed Everything Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~85 minutes Release: Not scheduled Episode Description Train's 2001 album Drops of Jupiter is one of those records that arrived via a girlfriend rather than a record shop, sitting in that curious no-man's land between ...

RIFF083 - Matchbox 20 - Yourself or Someone Like You

When a Jersey Number Changes Everything and 15 Million People Prove the Critics Wrong Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~87 minutes Release: Not scheduled Episode Description Neil and Chris turn their attention to Matchbox 20's landmark debut, Yourself or Someone Like You, a record that sold 15 million ...

RIFF082 - The Goo Goo Dolls - A Boy Named Goo

When Buffalo's Best Kept Secret Finally Got Its Name Called Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~95 minutes Release: Not scheduled Episode Description Neil and Chris dive into A Boy Named Goo by the Goo Goo Dolls, the 1995 album that sold two million copies in the US, made absolutely no impression on the ...

Podcast Episodes

Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums Podcast

Remember when payday meant choosing which CD or vinyl you were blowing it on? Standing in HMV doing the mental maths, convincing yourself two albums was basically essential. Riffology is Neil and Chris chasing that feeling again, one classic record at a time.

This is a show about the albums that raised us —
Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Motley Crue, Def Leppard,
Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Pink Floyd, Radiohead,
Skunk Anansie, Gojira, Soulfly and the rest.
If it’s 25+ years old, loud and iconic, we’re in.

Each episode is two Gen X mates diving into studio sessions, producer chaos and band drama plus the joy of taped-over cassettes, dodgy car stereos and sitting on the floor with a record sleeve.

We nerd out when we should: Albini vs Vig, room-miked vs close-miked,
Neve consoles, dynamic-range disasters and those “how did this get approved?” moments.

If you grew up when albums were events, this is your place. Some weeks it’s an old favourite; other weeks it’s something you abandoned in ’94. Either way, Riffology’s here to talk rubbish, tell stories and remind you why these records mattered.

When the Riff Becomes a Religion and the Rules Don’t Apply

Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~104 minutes
Release: Not scheduled

Episode Description

Led Zeppelin’s 1975 double album Physical Graffiti gets the full Riffology treatment, and it turns out that 82 minutes of music across four vinyl sides is a lot to reckon with. Neil arrives with a clear thesis: the first five tracks are phenomenal, and then the album “meanders off into a void.” Chris arrives having remembered he actually loves the second half. Somehow they both end up agreeing that this record is one of the most improbable achievements in rock history.

Recorded across multiple sessions spanning nearly five years, pulling from outtakes, live jams, and Headley Grange inspiration, Physical Graffiti shouldn’t sound coherent. But it does. The hosts dig into why, tracing Jimmy Page’s obsessive studio craft, John Bonham’s stairwell drum sound, John Paul Jones’s basslines that most people have never actually heard, and the strange alchemy of a band with nothing left to prove making something genuinely extraordinary.

What You’ll Hear:

Why the vinyl format is the key to understanding the album’s structure, four mini-albums rather than one sprawling mess
Jimmy Page as painter rather than musician, layering sounds with a meticulous, almost obsessive studio approach
The band’s total refusal to play by industry rules, no singles in the UK, no videos, their own vanity label, and still hitting number one
How Physical Graffiti’s commercial success pulled the entire Zeppelin back catalogue back into the charts simultaneously
The folk influence hiding underneath the blues and rock bombast, and how it connects to Page and Plant’s later solo work
Why Greta Van Fleet existing feels statistically improbable given how unique every element of this band actually is

Featured Tracks and Analysis:

Kashmir gets serious attention, with Chris noting its trance-like, circular riff structure and Neil connecting it to Maynard James Keenan’s own description of it as a blueprint for Tool’s ballads. The opening five tracks, including Custard Pie, In My Time of Dying, Houses of the Holy and Trampled Underfoot, are treated as a near-perfect run. The Trampled Underfoot riff’s debt to Stevie Wonder’s Superstition gets a nod, as does the discovery that John Paul Jones used the same Hohner D6 clavinet Wonder played on the original. In the Light emerges as Chris’s favourite track on the record, its droning synth intro and folky energy a genuine surprise revisit.

Tangential Gold:

A detailed and affectionate defence of analog gear, hot-smelling amplifiers, satisfying clunks, and why electric cars with touch screens are making everyone worse
The story of John Paul Jones nearly leaving Led Zeppelin to become a choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral
A genuine concern about Gen Z abandoning stereo speakers entirely in favour of a single Bluetooth device
A detour into AI models developing their own languages and what happens to human programmers when that arrives
School nicknames from the 1980s that absolutely cannot be repeated in polite company but very much are

Why This Matters:

Physical Graffiti sits at the peak of what classic rock could be, a band at the height of their power, answerable to no one, building something that influenced everything from Pink Floyd’s The Wall to Use Your Illusion to early Queen without ever quite being replicated. This episode captures both the reverence the album deserves and the honest admission that 82 minutes is a commitment even for fans.