
Hosted by TSOM Panel · EN

Tonight we take a trip into the weird musical universe where Cowboy Troy exists. If you're not familiar with the act that is Cowboy Troy, he helped pioneer the bizarre and unnecessary genre "hick hop" or country rap. Bravely breaking down evident racial lines, Cowboy Troy was destined to be remembered alongside other legendary musicians to leap over prejudice and racial divide like Charley Pride, Kid Rock, Vanilla Ice, Prince, and Elvis. However, the second he hit the studio, that dream was crushed. We discuss his career work and his standing legacy amongst the world's worst music.

Ladies love him, men fear him. For tonight's episode, our own Dirty Deacon takes us on a quick ride through five of the more insufferable missteps in Michael Bolton's career. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, Blake Collier has amassed a frightening file of Bolton knowledge (and not in the ironic hipster way). Join us, as we hop on the Blake bus for a bumpy ride through Bolton's entire 40 year career. We may just find us the worst song ever recorded.

Tonight, we venture where few dare as we wade in the shallow end of a vast and endless ocean of musical compositions. For #TSOM23, we discuss on-hold music. We are joined on this episode by the talents of Eli Sanchez from the YellowCity Podcast of Amarillo, TX, which aims to tell the stories of Amarillo, uncenscored and unfiltered. So, get ready to be here a while as the TSOM panel put your life on hold.

For tonight's episode, a special treat to wet your whistle. We present our first official TSOMposium. If you're not familiar with a symposium, in Ancient Greece, Plato and his boys would spend all night drinking and listening to poetry. While that'd be cool, we set the bar much lower tonight. As always, we're pursuing the worst music ever, but tonight, we're pairing it with the very poorest sampling of beer we could find which, frankly, led to some pretty miserable findings. So, belly up to the bar, pour a cold one, and immerse yourself in some of the worst sounds and suds on earth.

In celebration of Holy Week here at TSOM, we found it fitting to celebrate our Bible Belt roots, get drunk on the Holy Spirit, and find the worst children's gospel records ever recorded. The history of gospel music targeting children goes back long before "Jesus Loves Me," but the modern spectrum of these recordings has taken on some disastrously turns for the worst. This small assortment gives us a brief, but varied survey of children's gospel music of the modern age. As much as we tried to find it in our broken selves the ability to forgive them, we simply couldn't.

Happy Leap Year Birthday to the great Ja Rule, who turns 40 this year on February 29th. Rare is the occasion we can sit down and celebrate a leaping musician's birthday so, naturally, we had to do it. Before Ja became a big movie star or reality TV celebrity, he was a top-selling, no-good, foul-mouthed rapper. Tonight we explore his four worst recordings from his rapper career. Despite attempts to contact Ja to celebrate this birthday with him, we are unfortunately left to celebrate it on our own. Happy Birthday, Ja. We're praying for you.

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and, for this episode, the TSOM panel readies their playlist in pursuit of the worst hip hop slow jams of all time. The slow jam, "ballad," or "hip hop love song" has been a mainstay in hip hop ever since raucous and rowdy LL Cool J shed his rough veneer to record "I Need Love" in 1987. It showed a vulnerable LL getting in touch with his sensitive side and resonated wildly with a new audience and proved hip hop's ability to jump into new audiences and markets. From there, labels leaned into this new opportunity to seize marketshare. The results varied and, here, we dive toenail polish first into six especially painful examples of the ballads gone wrong.

For this episode, the TSOM panel prepare for the AFC and NFC Championship games with a critical listen to the 1990-something Deion Sanders record, Prime Time. Long, drivelous, and completely self-indulgent, Prime Time marks a day and age where athletes were making risky and daring moves with their careers off the field and the lure of making music was real. But, so then, was the lack of talent and creative vision. Deion's foray into music is a paralyzing and mind-numbing listen. We're joined by the wonderfully talented Clint Carroll to play Monday morning quarterback with one of the more unfortunate athlete-recorded albums in the history of modern music.

To start off 2016, we decided to reward you, our listener, with a pick. A Walla Walla, WA pick asked how come it's taken so long for a "Rap Rock" episode. Naturally, we took this as a challenge. But because we were so damn busy searching for higher ground in Missouri or shoveling snow in West Texas, we consulted the talents of Californian Sean Duregger of Screamcast and AXPX (Armchair Philosopher) podcasts to guide us through his worst Rap Rock songs of all time. The sounds contained herein are the result of his search which, apparently, took him into some really dark places in his history. This episode brought to you by star tattoos and JNCO.

By design, hosting a New Year's Eve party can be a long-winded affair. There'll be drinking, it'll last until at-least midnight, and no one has to work in the morning so there's no hurry to leave. For that reason, TSOM built the ultimate party-ending playlist to end the night without being an ungracious jerk of a host. So, put on some comfy house shoes, turn it up, and watch them flock for the out-door. These songs will guarantee you a good night's sleep after clearing the house of all drunk party-goers. TSOM, tonight, is joined by the incomparable Sarah After Midnight.