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TuneDig Radio
Introspection
The protests and unrest have had us wondering how to make meaning from this wild, inexplicable time in history — so like usual, we turned to songs. Out came two new TuneDig Radio playlists.
The world already has plenty of protest playlists, so instead we tried to think more deeply about how best to process and live in the moment. This episode (part of a pair) is all about searching deep within and challenging yourself to grow.
Listen with full songs on the YouTube playlist
How can music help us make sense of this massive moment? By showing us how to (1) dig deep and (2) do something.
— TuneDig (@tunedig) July 24, 2020
In Part 1 of our latest pair of #TuneDigRadio episodes, we curated + contemplated songs for soul searching and opening up your world.https://t.co/rktdlPUoyf
RADIO EPISODES
TuneDig Radio: HM-2
Part two of exploring our very specific favorite ways to discover and enjoy new music contrasts sharply with sampling’s vastness. Instead, Cliff laser-focuses in on a world inside four small knobs all dialed to 10. The Boss HM-2 has spawned a prolific and diverse subculture, tied together by metal and hardcore artists’ quest for tones that differentiate and reflect the intensity of their material. If you love heavy music, you’ll love this playlist. If you don’t, we’re confident you’ll appreciate this headspace and its nuances.
TuneDig Radio: Sampling
For this one, we prompted each other to build a playlist around a very specific favorite way to discover and enjoy new music. For Kyle, it’s sampling in hip-hop, a Rosetta Stone that endlessly unlocks interesting and obscure musical touchstones. The playlist lays out his journey of discovery through key samples that changed his life, and the episode dives into the mind of the crate digger and the value of that worldview in general.
TuneDig Radio: Direct Action
The protests and unrest have had us wondering how to make meaning from this wild, inexplicable time in history — so like usual, we turned to songs. Out came two new TuneDig Radio playlists. The world already has plenty of protest playlists, so instead we tried to think more deeply about how best to process and live in the moment. This episode (part of a pair) is all about searching deep within and challenging yourself to grow.
TuneDig Radio: Introspection
The protests and unrest have had us wondering how to make meaning from this wild, inexplicable time in history — so like usual, we turned to songs. Out came two new TuneDig Radio playlists. The world already has plenty of protest playlists, so instead we tried to think more deeply about how best to process and live in the moment. This episode (part of a pair) is all about searching deep within and challenging yourself to grow.
TuneDig Radio: Instrumentals Vol. 2
Being stuck at home without our studio setup got us thinking about the value of staying connected to people you enjoy being around by sharing music you love. With that in mind, we present the first episode of TuneDig Radio — where we dive deep into a specific music-related topic, then curate and share a playlist about it, pirate radio-style. For our first two episodes, we took turns exchanging our favorite instrumentals, discovering some key overlaps and major differences along the way.
TuneDig Radio: Instrumentals Vol. 1
Being stuck at home without our studio setup got us thinking about the value of staying connected to people you enjoy being around by sharing music you love. With that in mind, we present the first episode of TuneDig Radio — where we dive deep into a specific music-related topic, then curate and share a playlist about it, pirate radio-style. For our first two episodes, we took turns exchanging our favorite instrumentals, discovering some key overlaps and major differences along the way.
SEASON 4 EPISODES
TuneDig Episode 032: D’Angelo’s “Voodoo”
To create something timeless, an artist must push beyond the boundaries of time. With "Voodoo", D’Angelo gathered a council of like-minded shamans for a years-long ritual to study and absorb music’s most mystical moments, conjuring an otherworldly result.
TuneDig Episode 031: Chelsea Wolfe’s “Hiss Spun”
"Hiss Spun" is a massive cosmic ballad that journeys through the worlds within the psyche, guided by a goddess of the soul in her own right. Think of this episode as a gateway drug to a land beyond your comfort zone toward the beauty of all things heavy. Let "Hiss Spun" get in your blood.
TuneDig Episode 030: Otis Redding’s “Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul”
A single 24-hour period in 1965 yielded one of the finest and most important musical documents in American history — and its author became one of our most influential voices. Join us in marveling at the difference a day can make.
TuneDig Episode 029: Sunn O)))’s “Black One”
”Dark is the light, and everything is black.” For Black Friday, we thought it fitting to reach for the darkest and most transcendent piece of music we know. Sunn O)))’s thundering vibrations are meditation through force for anyone willing to listen deeply, and "Black One" is a door into a void that turns out to be a higher plane.
TuneDig Episode 028: Radiohead’s “Kid A”
Is it possible to be both overrated and underrated? With "Kid A", Radiohead cemented their mythos simply by artfully engaging a very specific cultural crossroads. We reexamined both the music and the moment, and gained new perspective than we expected about the meaning of both.
TuneDig Episode 027: Tom Waits’s “Rain Dogs”
Dance and swallow the night with us as we go down, down, down, downtown. This one finds us following a beatnik as he washes away the scent of his past and goes feral in search of wild new sounds. (We've always been out of our minds.)
TuneDig Episode 026: A Tribe Called Quest’s “Midnight Marauders”
Most artists would’ve crumbled under the pressure of following up an instant classic like The "Low End Theory", but Tip, Phife, and Shaheed dug even deeper, delivering an even more “precise, bass-heavy, and just right” work in sound and in spirit. Midnight remains a watershed moment for hip-hop, so we must bear witness.
TuneDig Episode 025: Can’s “Tago Mago”
We launch Season 4 by blasting off toward Inner Space, exploring the wild dimension that one German-based collective occupied all on its own. Enjoy the mind-bending magic of pure cosmic inspiration with us.
SEASON 3 EPISODES
TuneDig Episode 024: Prince and the Revolution’s “Purple Rain”
Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate a precious moment. This moment in history "Purple Rain" made is an electric thing — it’s music at the height of music’s power, creating a space in time for everyone to be in together. There will never be another. Y’all better live now.
TuneDig Episode 023: Queens of the Stone Age’s “Rated R”
Y’all lookin’ for freedom? Boy, do we ever have the pill for you. Slip on your boogie shoes, put this episode on your tongue, and slither out into the darkness with us as we howl at the neon moon.
TuneDig Episode 022: Frank Ocean’s “Channel Orange”
We tune into an Oceanic innervision of crystal-clear Criterion Collection F E E L I N G, frequency after frequency for 55 minutes. Like us, you won’t be able to change the channel.
TuneDig Episode 021: Sturgill Simpson’s “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music”
One cowboy’s journey to clean out the darkest corners of his mind led him through a wormhole and into the light. The result is "Metamodern Sounds in Country Music", a cosmic country hitchhiker’s guide to the myth we all call space and time.
TuneDig Episode 020: Converge’s “Axe to Fall”
"Axe to Fall" finds one of heavy music’s most consistent, celebrated bands transcending into the legends they’re known as today, calling on friends to provide fresh perspective on their sound and push them to peerless new heights.
TuneDig Episode 019: Run the Jewels’s “Run the Jewels 3”
What happens when, after years grinding underground solo, two hip-hop heavyweights discover they make a perfect team? They strike G-O-L-D, finally stepping into the pop culture spotlight and using it to speak the language of the unheard.
TuneDig Episode 018: Janelle Monáe’s “The ArchAndroid”
Picasso said that “art is a lie that makes us realize truth.“ Grand artistic statements like "The ArchAndroid" reveal intimate ideas beneath layers of disguise, drawing in the audience to connect to the story’s feelings rather than its facts. This one’s about the fight for freedom and love … and who doesn’t want more of that?
TuneDig Episode 017: Björk’s “Homogenic”
For an artist as creative as Björk, finding the essence of her sound meant pushing farther out than ever before. Ideas, sounds, and approaches that seemed at odds added up to something greater on "Homogenic". The result was vast, nuanced “emotional landscapes” unlike anything we’ve ever experienced … do yourself a favor and walk around them with us. We dare you.
SEASON 2 EPISODES
TuneDig Episode 016: Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”
There’s little doubt at this point that "Miseducation" is a great album, but after really spending time with it, we came away with a deep belief that it’s one of the best ever, full stop. It’s a perfect record — albeit from an imperfect vessel — delivered at the perfect moment for maximum impact, and we only manage to scratch its surface here. We hope it hits you like it has us.
TuneDig Episode 015: The Mars Volta’s “Frances the Mute”
Frances the Mute is a sonic séance, conjuring spirits buried beneath stories left behind by lost souls. The album finds restless living spirits walking a hallucinatory hall of mirrors of space and time, trying to find light beyond the darkness of a friend gone too soon. Don’t be afraid to get your mind bent—we’re here to guide you.
TuneDig Episode 014: BADBADNOTGOOD’s “IV”
If you’re worried about kids these days and/or the pitfalls of technology, we’d like to point to an antidote to all those fears. Meet BADBADNOTGOOD, the jazz quartet you can crowdsurf to, and IV, the album where they found their own voice. What a time to be alive.
TuneDig Episode 013: Cream’s “Wheels of Fire”
Clapton. Bruce. Baker. This supergroup was a strange brew that was simply too potent for the world (not to mention the band themselves), and we see that on display in "Wheels of Fire". The double album finds the trio at—ahem—a crossroads, the contrast between their inspirations creating tension to mixed—but often magical—effect.
TuneDig Episode 012: Mono’s “You Are There”
File "You Are There" under evidence for Huxley’s thesis that, “after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.“ We gave our best effort trying to capture Mono’s magic, who don’t utter a single world but manage to say everything about life, death, and all that’s between.
TuneDig Episode 011: Rage Against the Machine’s “Rage Against the Machine”
On the eve of an opportunity for Americans to lift their voices in demand of a more perfect union, we seek wisdom for this moment from the uncompromising, incendiary vision of our generation’s most effective revolutionaries. Troubling as it may be that so much still rings so true in Rage’s quarter-century-old debut, there is strength to be drawn from its message: We, the People, have a world to win.
TuneDig Episode 010: Kanye West’s “The College Dropout”
The Kanyepalooza™ of the past few months made us question if Ye ever actually made anything that made him worth all this fuss. (SPOILER: He did.) This investigation wasn’t as simple as missing the old Kanye — because every Ye fan seems to have a different favorite album — but we wound up looking back with admiration on the first time Donda’s son held the zeitgeist in his hands and turned it upside-down.
TuneDig Episode 009: Norma Jean’s “Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child”
Local scenes are forces of nature, catching fire and burning out as people come and go. We kick off season 2 close to home, looking back at a scene stoked by an abrasive, electric mess of a thing from little ol’ Douglasville, Georgia, setting our unsuspecting Southern hometown all ablaze. Guess you had to be there.
SEASON 1 EPISODES
TuneDig Episode 008: John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”
All paths led to this. Season 1 closes on a sublime note, exploring the profound power of one of the most important albums in American history, full stop. We give thanks to Coltrane's cosmically attuned hymn of gratitude for the holy spirit he saw flowing through everything. Yeah, we dare say this one got downright profound.
TuneDig Episode 007: Hüsker Dü’s “Zen Arcade”
The antagonistically long, spastically eclectic Zen Arcade is about growing out of where you’re from and into a form you don’t yet fit. For better or worse, it’s as punk as punk gets. Join the fun as two grown-up punks reckon with the good, the bad, and the WTF of a hardcore staple they’d missed until long after their best pitting years.
TuneDig Episode 006: Childish Gambino’s “Awaken, My Love!”
Consider this our RT of FX’s John Landgraf, who warned the world to “underestimate Donald Glover at your own peril.” This episode finds us talking a little about Gambino’s afro-futurist awakening on “Awaken” as a vehicle to talk a lot about Glover’s many punk rock masterstrokes.
TuneDig Episode 005: Soundgarden’s “Superunknown”
The spirit of "Superunknown" perhaps is best captured by an offhand press quote from Kim Thayil: “Human beings are a wild composite of temporal events and insights and motivations and restrained behaviors ... and memories both delusional and accurate.” In this episode, we reflect on a masterpiece that captured the contradictions and complexity of raw emotion, and we explore the black hole-sized void torn open by the loss of a musical titan.
TuneDig Episode 004: “Dopesmoker” by Sleep
It’s easy to make a punchline out of this “album” (read: single 63-minute song) and the circumstances surrounding it, but as we explore the music that wound up becoming a heavy music landmark, we found something profound. On Sleep's "Dopesmoker", the journey really is the destination after all.
TuneDig Episode 003: “Dummy” by Portishead
Portishead’s dark, timeless mystique is hard to capture, so instead we mostly meditate on “the air around the thing.” Venture into the fog with Bristol’s anti-heroes and the cinematic landscape of what the BBC called “quite simply one of the greatest debut albums of the 1990s.”
TuneDig Episode 002: “Houses of the Holy” by Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin's follow-up to "IV" arrived as they were becoming the biggest rock band in the world—but they didn't choose to play it safe. We discuss all the twists and turns amassed on this behemoth of an album and give you some new ways to hear these nearly 50-year-old songs that still feel fresh.
TuneDig Episode 001: “Stankonia” by Outkast
We kick off the podcast with one of our all-time favorite records, embedded deeply in our hometown. It turns out the south did have something to say, and it's influenced decades of music just as much as it borrowed from the funkiness of the past.
BONUS TRACK EPISODES
BONUS TRACK: How We Got Here
We got a bunch of interesting listener feedback in our off-season, and it encouraged us to shed some light on why we do things the way we do ‘em. Also, we reflect on our first writeup, which was ... interesting.
ABOUT US
We're Kyle (right) and Cliff.
We aren't journalists or musicologists or professors.
We're two dudes from Atlanta who care a lot about music. We've been talking to each other about it for more than 15 years.
This podcast is our way of bringing you into that conversation and taking you deeper into these albums that we love.
More About TuneDig
TuneDig began as a little something called MusicGrid.me, which we created after realizing there was no place online to directly exchange music recommendations with your friends. Our aim was simple: to make rating albums simple, useful, and social. We got some love from places like Mashable, Wired, Evolver.fm, and Hypebot. We managed to foster conversation between music lovers, get thousands of reviews, and meet great people.
Along the way, we realized that record stores were an essential part of the music lovers’ community. After many a conversation about how we could helpfully connect them to the people who loved them, we began helping them leverage technology to create new revenue streams and embrace streaming services without giving up what’s unique to them: expertise and curation. (Long live the counter clerk who knows exactly which record will be the right introduction to jazz fusion!)
TuneDig is our vision to connect music lovers with the music they love, because no matter how much has changed in the way we discover and enjoy music, recommendations from people you trust and respect will always be the best way to find new music you’ll dig. With this podcast, we’re channeling the spirit of trusted curation pioneered by record stores, and bringing you something to take you deeper into music you can love.