Brian reports back on Gigi Perez's At the Beach, In Every Life, and the verdict lands somewhere between appreciation and exhaustion. Which songs are keepers? Which songs leave Brian and Cort wondering whether they've accidentally wandered into an entirely different album. Along the way they discuss what is possibly Spotify's most baffling artist bio, and Brian develops a strange guilt complex for the most Brian of reasons.

There's also a discussion of music fans. Has fandom become a soulless, bullying soufflé of entitlement?

Cort gives a genuinely heartfelt tribute to the late Anthony Stewart Head (yes, Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and that leads to an unexpected detour through Chess, "One Night in Bangkok," and the surprisingly musical Head family.

The conversation wraps with World Cup fever, hydration breaks, the foreign team receiving the most American experience while visiting America, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Bonnaroo, and a new assignment from Brian that he boldly declares to be a genuine masterpiece. Oh! And the Random Podcast Generator bit may have finally paid off.

Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus - The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

Gigi Perez's At the Beach, In Every Life - https://open.spotify.com/album/4fULdU3VoqC0M1IHhVTAQ4?si=qooSV-rTRoKrU1M-xdcDgA

Brian's Assignment to Cort: Goodbye Jumbo - World Party https://open.spotify.com/album/2V2L3lPqjL9L2bS3tqvZ4S

Cort reports back on his assignment, Hope We Have Fun by Mt. Joy, and, thankfully, the answer appears to be yes. The album sends the guys down a rabbit hole of favorite tracks, genre-hopping bands, Nathaniel Rateliff connections, and the increasingly rare experience of finding an album that simply makes life a little more enjoyable.

From there, things proceed exactly as they always do.

Mt. Joy leads to Winnie the Pooh, which leads to copyright infringement which leads to setting aside Jerry Rafferty somehow, and that of course leads to an extended detour into profanity, and whether some words are more useful than others.

Meanwhile, Brian gives us the skinny on Chelsea's latest footballing misery, which of course just leads the guys back to one of their favorite topics, the ongoing reality television arms race between Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Traitors, and whatever fresh nonsense producers are cooking up next.

Along the way: turkey burger recipes, soccer jerseys, Huey's burgers, emotional intelligence podcasts, Russian folklore, and the unsettling realization that these two guys can spend nearly an hour talking without ever once staying on topic.

In the end, Cort assigns Brian At the Beach, In Every Life by Gigi Perez, proving once again that no matter where the conversation wanders, the assignments must go on.

🎶 Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus — The Flying Scrub Jays

https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

Last assignment: Hope We Have Fun by Mount Joy https://open.spotify.com/album/3r5ik8QohUa56zacmEyAdb?si=bqneLkeVQl-7lxMzEloJ-Q

Cort's Next Assignment to Brian: At the Beach, In Every Life by Gigi Perez https://open.spotify.com/album/4fULdU3VoqC0M1IHhVTAQ4?si=oOOhuqGrQLWRKBsU_wEeuw

The assignment was American Football’s LP4. The episode is, somehow, four days of Brian having no internet, a severed wire, a locked neighbor’s gate, and a customer satisfaction survey that would not let him rate the one person who actually helped.

We promise we talk about the album too. Briefly. Before the rant takes the wheel. Somewhere beneath the Comcast fury lies a real, perhaps even earnest, conversation about Midwest emo, math rock, the Kinsella brothers, and whether Morrissey accidentally possessed an Ohio band’s lead singer.

Also somewhere in there we cover: Memphis movie geography, King Sorrow, Scream 7, Send Help, the Dennis Miller-to-Bill Maher pipeline, and a randomly generated podcast Apple has apparently classified as “cricket.”

Last Assignment: American Football (LP4) https://open.spotify.com/album/3fhKJU3nUfduKj9YhEAoGf?si=ATD7kNzIQ5e6N1p4intVXw

New assignment: Mount Joy, Hope We Have Fun. https://open.spotify.com/album/3r5ik8QohUa56zacmEyAdb?si=bqneLkeVQl-7lxMzEloJ-Q

Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus, The Flying Scrub Jays. https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

May Madness reaches its conclusion. But before the bracket chaos resumes, Cort reports back on GOLDSTAR by The Sophs. The album slowly wormed its way into his brain through catchy hooks that took their sweet time arriving, strange charm, and lyrics that demanded he actually pay attention. Brian, meanwhile, continues his campaign to promote emotionally damaged (or damaging) indie bands to the masses.

Which brings us to…

Noah Kahan’s new album The Great Divide, family dysfunction as musical genre, and Cort’s emerging theory that too many modern albums are hiding their best material in the back half like they expect listeners to complete a homework assignment before earning the payoff.

Then there’s the unfortunate return to a certain marriage podcast, which we cannot name because we genuinely do not remember the name even though Brian actually listened to it.

And then: the bracket.

May Madness Part 2 finally crowns the greatest band with a color in its name. The Sweet 16 becomes the Elite Eight, then the Final Four, as Cort makes a series of deeply subjective rulings that are nevertheless final, binding, and entirely within his sole discretion. Some decisions are carefully reasoned. Others may qualify as crimes against music history.

All of it leads to a shocking conclusion that may haunt this podcast forever.

By the end, one band survives. Whether justice was served is another matter entirely.

Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus by The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

Brian’s Assignment to Cort: GOLDSTAR by The Sophs https://open.spotify.com/album/7mTtyluyCS8hY97tqZDpoc?si=byI8fTtWSc23BLFvdF-oHA

Cort’s Next Assignment to Brian: American Football (LP4) https://open.spotify.com/album/3fhKJU3nUfduKj9YhEAoGf?si=ATD7kNzIQ5e6N1p4intVXw

What starts as a routine assignment check-in quickly builds into something far more Earth shaking: a fully fleshed-out, 100% opinion driven, completely unnecessary, and yet thoroughly discussed bracket to determine the greatest band with a color in its name.

Before the madness begins, Brian reports back on The Black Crowes’ A Pound of Feathers, and his verdict is … less than glowing. Meanwhile, Cort elaborates on his current obsession with the Dead Eyes podcast and finally checks a major box by finishing Band of Brothers, which sparks a brief but earnest detour.

Then the main event arrives.

Introducing May Madness: a four-region, 36-band bracket (yes, really) featuring everything from Green Day and Pink Floyd to Indigo Girls, Black Sabbath, and some choices that may raise eyebrows. Cort is tasked with making every call as the sole arbiter of musical truth, leading to early upsets, strong opinions, generational divides, and at least one philosophical crisis.

This is Part 1 of the bracket, covering play-in games and the opening round. By the end, the field is narrowed and the stage is set for a Sweet 16 that promises even more questionable judgment and heated debate.

Conclusion: Maybe some bands should stop making albums, but these guys should never stop making episodes. Their “extremely ordinary media consumption habits” are indeed a public service, if not the spark that lights the next cultural firestorm.

The May Madness Bracket

Brian’s Assignment: The Black Crowes, A Pound of Feathers https://open.spotify.com/album/417zi1WN5yAK4u3VOjZh13?si=J0NSNYP_S9CrqBMzMdAB-g

Next episode: the bracket continues, alliances crumble, and reputations are on the line. Cort will report back on The Sophs, GOLDSTAR https://open.spotify.com/album/7mTtyluyCS8hY97tqZDpoc?si=FVxvyX5eRkKIKSo3HKjJNg

🎶 Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus, The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

This week, Cort reports back on Dead Eyes, the podcast written, produced, and narrated by Connor Ratliff, an actor who was fired from Band of Brothers because Tom Hanks thought he had… dead eyes. What starts as a JABA (just another Brian assignment) for Cort quickly morphs into a full-on binge and one very specific expectation about how the story better end.

From there, things go exactly where they tend to go on this show. We revisit just how consistently wrong we’ve been about basically everything, including our firm stance that Paradise would not go exactly where it went in its season finale. That propels us into a broader conversation about timelines, memory, and whether TV and movie writers are just throwing words like “quantum” around, because no one will question their science.

We also take a brief detour into Memphis vs. everybody, defend the city, question LeBron James’s life choices, and continue laying a pretty strong foundation for a record-setting string of “being-wrongness” (trust me it’s a word, don’t look it up). Along the way, Brian boldly shares an opinion about a TV show. His opinion not being based on a fully informed knowledge, or really any knowledge, of the show feels totally on-brand at this point.

There are also warnings about things you should absolutely not watch, a few recently triggered childhood memories, and as always, all the opinions you have come to count on to get through life.

Cort's assignment: Dead Eyes a podcast by Connor Ratcliff - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dead-eyes/id1494539046

https://open.spotify.com/show/5dEsgMhmVy7wK8TSUrVnsQ?si=2a3bc189e1884a8e

Brian's next assignment? Not The Cure. But it is a band from our youth.

A brand-new 2026 album from The Black Crowes, A Pound of Feathers. Make sure you listen before our next episode drops if you want to play along: https://open.spotify.com/album/417zi1WN5yAK4u3VOjZh13?si=O3Hc4p2NQwmm0VR3KY8bDw

📧 Email us: listenerslikeyou2023@gmail.com

📱 Find us: @listenerslikeyoupod

🎶 Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus - The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

This week, Cort assigned Brian the debut album Sadnecessary by Milky Chance, and what follows is a discussion about:

• The suspicious similarity threaded through half the album’s tracks
• Why both of us had déjà vu listening to songs we swear we’ve heard before by a band we've never heard of
• The fine line between “signature sound” and “they’re just doing the same thing over and over”
• Whether Milky Chance is still milking it

From there, things go exactly where you’d expect: Oscars predictions we absolutely butchered, the ongoing paranoia of being wrong about everything, Memphis vs. Nashville sports drama, a surprising amount of TV talk (Traitors, Jury Duty, Paradise), and a reminder that we are, in fact, not experts on anything. At least not anything we talk about on this show.

Also, Brian gives a correction on a song we unfairly maligned and mentions some hot takes about stuff showing up on his new music radar (Noah Kahan, Death Cab, Modest Mouse, Black Keys, and more).

Cort's next assignment? A podcast. Because we occasionally remember what our show is supposed to be about.

📧 Email us: listenerslikeyou2023@gmail.com

📱 Find us: @listenerslikeyoupod

Brian's last assignment: Sadnecessary by Milky Chance - https://open.spotify.com/album/3AWjk0oVV9YAY9r9boiffN?si=aMq5F6qxQd6IJELLkhsoNQ

🎶 Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus - The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492

In this episode, Brian and Cort celebrate a near-anniversary of Listeners Like You. Cort reports back on Car Seat Headrest’s Teens of Denial. Some songs hit harder than others but not in the way Cort would have expected.

From there, things go into "unstructured land." They talk about Paradise and its questionable version of Memphis geography, the Scrubs revival, the return of U Talkin’ U2 To Me?, Chelsea’s stressful win over Wrexham, Paralympic curling, Banana Ball, and Back to the Future: The Musical.

Brian gets a new assignment from Cort('s daughter by proxy), and the random podcast generator once again proves it is truly random, but that Meta might be listening.

Listening assignment: Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Denial https://open.spotify.com/album/3KpYyDP8q8sUBxatHaYEsP?si=JX5lYDfPQgepK5NNpWSqMQ

Theme Song: Cyrus Oh Cyrus - The Flying Scrub Jays https://open.spotify.com/track/3S9T5HUS4cwky1922WhF1J?si=6fcad8771f724492