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.

RIFF070 - Bush - Sixteen Stone

When everyone said no, radio said yes Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~92 minutes Release: 17 November 2025 Episode Description Bush's Sixteen Stone shouldn't exist. Dropped by their first label for having "no singles and no album tracks," Gavin Rossdale went back to painting dentists' offices while h...

RIFF069 - Pixies - Doolittle

Quiet verses, screaming choruses, and the album that accidentally invented grunge Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~79 minutes Release: 17 April 1989 Episode Description Doolittle wasn't just a Pixies album, it was the evolutionary stepping stone between 80s sludge and the Seattle explosion that follow...

RIFF068 - Hole - Live Through This

When Raw Vocals Beat Polished Perfection Every Single Time Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~80 minutes Release: 27 October 2025 Episode Description Some albums capture lightning in a bottle because they refuse to be tamed. Hole's Live Through This sits right in the Goldilocks zone between the savage s...

RIFF067 - Tool - Undertow

When Tool made a debut that refused to sound like 1993 or anyone else Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~93 minutes Release: 6 October 2025 Episode Description Neil and Chris wrap up their dual-Maynard trilogy with Tool's April 1993 debut, a record that arrived in the shadow of grunge and nu-metal but c...

RIFF066 - A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms

Maynard's side project that forgot to sound like a side project Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~76 minutes Release: 29 September 2025 Episode Description Maynard James Keenan takes a detour from Tool, rents a room to guitar wizard Billy Howerdel, and they accidentally build the most elegant "super-gr...

RIFF065 - Deftones - White Pony

When shoegaze crashed the nu-metal party Hosts: Neil & Chris Duration: ~75 minutes Release: 22 September 2025 Episode Description Deftones refused to be baby Korn. Released at the absolute peak of CD sales (June 2000), White Pony was their creative declaration of independence, a shimmering, atmosphe...

Podcast Episodes

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…

When everyone said no, radio said yes

Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~92 minutes
Release: 17 November 2025

Episode Description

Bush’s Sixteen Stone shouldn’t exist. Dropped by their first label for having “no singles and no album tracks,” Gavin Rossdale went back to painting dentists’ offices while his debut sat in limbo. Then a tiny record label called Trauma took a chance, American rock radio caught fire, and suddenly the album British critics dismissed as “Nirvana lite” went 6x platinum. Neil and Chris unpack the bizarre journey of an album that conquered the US while being completely ignored at home, from its compressed post-grunge production to the legal battles that followed its success.

This episode digs into the sonic differences between grunge and post-grunge, why British press hated Bush while America couldn’t get enough, and how Gavin’s first solo-written song, Come Down, became the blueprint for everything that followed. Neil shares his obsession with Little Things and the elusive vinyl hunt, while Chris rediscovers Machine Head live. They explore the album’s refusal to use click tracks, its deliberately cryptic binary artwork, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes persistence matters more than critical approval.

What You’ll Hear:

The Trauma Records story: how two surgeons-turned-label-owners broke Bush in the US, then sued Interscope for $100 million
Post-grunge production decoded: compression, radio loudness wars, and why this doesn’t sound like Seattle
Gavin Rossdale’s lyric-writing process, inspired by David Bowie’s cut-up technique and poetic fragments
Why the UK embraced Britpop’s AC30s and semi-acoustics while rejecting American Marshall stacks
The one crossover: Stiltskin’s Inside as Britain’s sole post-grunge hit
Album artwork mysteries, 16-stone dating disasters, and why the 30th anniversary reissue changed the cover color

Featured Tracks & Analysis:

Everything Zen kicks off with a guitar solo, a bold statement that sets the tone for an album dripping with confidence despite its chaotic creation. Neil breaks down Little Things as a near-perfect meditation on relationship erosion, the “death by a thousand cuts” captured in octave riffs and layered guitars. Come Down gets dissected both as Gavin’s songwriting breakthrough and Chris’s live performance memory from a Branston music showcase. Machine Head’s lyrical collage approach reveals how fragments and feelings mattered more than narrative coherence. Glycerine emerges as the emotional centerpiece, with Mike Tivy’s definitive cover version haunting Chris’s memory from their college days.

Tangential Gold:

Vinyl frustrations: double vinyl “flippy flips,” 2014 reissue pricing at £150, and begging American friends for original pressings
Billy Corgan’s philosophy on chasing things you’ll never feel complete owning
Arguing with ChatGPT in the bath about what actually defines post-grunge
The Donald Trump-REM vocal similarity revelation
Super gluing yourself to a step ladder during DIY disasters
Blood Bowl League commitments and painting Warhammer with Mike Tivy

Why This Matters:

Sixteen Stone represents the moment when American rock radio diverged completely from British taste, creating parallel scenes that barely acknowledged each other. While the UK obsessed over Blur vs Oasis and semi-acoustic guitars, the US was building a post-grunge ecosystem of compressed, arena-ready rock that prioritized hooks and thickness over rawness. This album crystallizes that split. It’s also a masterclass in perseverance, proof that critical consensus means nothing if you find your audience. Bush got savaged by NME and Melody Maker, told Gavin couldn’t sing, dismissed as derivative copycats. Six million sales later, none of that mattered.

The episode reveals how production choices shape genre definition. Post-grunge isn’t just grunge-after-grunge, it’s a sonic philosophy: tighter, more commercial, compressed for radio dominance, unashamed of choruses and clean production. Sixteen Stone sits at that crossroads, polished enough to dominate American rock radio but still raw enough to feel urgent. It’s an album born from rejection, rescued by persistence, and vindicated by connection with millions who didn’t care what critics thought.

Perfect for: Post-grunge historians tracking the genre’s US dominance, vinyl collectors cursing limited UK pressings, anyone who remembers when Bush was inescapable on American radio but invisible in Britain, producers studying loudness wars and compression techniques, songwriters interested in lyrical collage methods, fans of Live/Candlebox/Silverchair’s era, people who’ve argued with AI about music genres, and anyone who’s ever been told their work isn’t good enough by gatekeepers who turned out to be spectacularly wrong.