S5 - Ep 19 - Hot Seats, 1987 Deep Cuts & Rethinking Music Reviews

Craig and Kevin flip the format this week, ditching the Schizo Shuffle and skipping the album cover battles — instead, they jump straight into the fire by putting each other on the hot seat with rapid-fire questions, unexpected prompts, and mildly uncomfortable musical truths.

Once the flames settle, they spotlight two underrated or overlooked albums from 1987, offering a fresh listen to a year that gave us hair metal highs, alt-rock beginnings, and pop polish with bite.

The conversation then turns introspective as they dive into the topic of music reviews — how they’ve changed from the golden days of Rolling Stone, Spin, and NME to today’s world of algorithm-fed opinions, YouTube reactors, and scores without context.

Finally, Craig throws down a challenge for both hosts moving forward:
 🎯 Spend more time outside your personal genre comfort zone — and review albums that wouldn’t normally make the rotation. The goal? Stretch the ears. Challenge the bias. Embrace the unexpected.

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📩 Got an album outside your sweetspot we should review? Send it to us: [email protected].

And don't forget about the ALE tRail "Off The Track" Beer Festival on Sat 9/27/25 hosted by WTCI PBS - Visit the link here and enter the code SMP for your $5 discount!

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