Your Brother Should Know

Without realising that Rob might just have heard of the super-influential soul-funk-pop icon, Dave pitches Rob one of Stevie Wonder’s many finest moments. In our final episode of season two, we stretch the YBSK concept to breaking point, and celebrate one of the greatest albums ever. But the big question, is this Stevie’s finest hour, and what should you listen to next?   ***NOT AI art***   Cover image a real big and magnificent painting by Maddy Butcher @maddybutcher   

James Murphy, cynical genius or twisted narcissist? Maybe a bit of both on the basis of LCD Soundsystem's majestic second LP, an album as shiny as it is reflective.

In a Your Brother Should Know first, we publish an interview from Rob’s limited library of encounters with music’s great, good and mediocre. In the first category, we can safely file Midge Ure: guitarist, singer, songwriter, Live Aid founder, member of Thin Lizzy, Visage, and much more in between. Find out from the man himself what it's like to be simultaneously Brilliant (Ultravox, 2012) and Fragile (solo album 2014), where he stands on Scottish independence, and why he turned down the chance to be a Sex Pistol. If you’re really interested, then wind back to Rob and Dave’s companion episode on the classic Ultravox album Vienna, and find out just how much they got wrong about Midge’s life.

This is as far back down his personal musical memory lane that Dave can go. The enigma that is Ultravox –  a proper band with an engaging thirst for all things shiny and electronic? Or second rate rockers, papering over the cracks with third rate synthology? Dave thinks they remain full of Western Promise, but will Rob find they were Passing Strangers to talent, leaving him in a Sleepwalk? And who is Mr X anyway?

Bon Jovi’s These Days was the first album Rob ever fell in love with, and three decades later he’s convinced that this grunge-influenced left turn would be hailed as a masterpiece today had it been made by any other band.  Which is why, ahead of These Days’ 30th anniversary, Rob insisted his long-lost brother needed to hear it. Will the prog-loving poodle rock-adverse Dave fall for Bon Jovi’s uncharacteristically angsty, mid-90s masterpiece, or laugh it back to the footnotes of given-up glam metal lore?  Also, how much of this album was really down to MIA guitarist Richie Sambora, and what’s the deal with Jon Bon Jovi’s beleaguered voice today?   Notes and references Rob’s largely positive 2011 live review: https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/255317/Review-Bon-Jovi-at-Hard-Rock-Calling Rob’s not very positive 2015 review:https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts/review-bon-jovi-fails-to-hit-the-high-notes-at-abu-dhabi-concert-1.85326 Rob shitting on Burning Bridges:https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts/album-review-burning-bridges-bon-jovi-1.46827 Rob on seeing the band for a fifth time:https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts/wild-night-for-bon-jovi-fans-in-abu-dhabi-1.131995