The Middle of Culture

The Worst Covers in History

Peter and Eden kick off with a leisurely check-in — outdoor Godzilla screenings, Eden's miniature laundry room diorama with a 1/12-scale mahjong set, Peter's Amon Amarth/Dethklok concert recap, and new releases from Periphery and LE SSERAFIM. Then, with an assist from ChatGPT's Codex, Peter has assembled roughly 45 of the internet's most-agreed-upon worst album covers for a tier list ranking — S being the most catastrophically bad. The resulting hour-ish is essentially an appreciation of outsider art, deeply cursed Photoshop, and the specific chaos that was '90s rap cover design. Key revelation: the Rednecks, who made Sex and Violins, are Swedish, and that is the Cotton Eye Joe. SHOW NOTES * Outdoor Movie Night Gone Right: Eden's projector plan collapsed due to daylight, so they wheeled the TV outside and screened the 1998 Godzilla with Matthew Broderick — which Eden argues holds up better than its reputation suggests. Friend L contributed an observation about American Godzilla's gender presentation that Peter and Eden both find compelling. * Daikon 3 & 4 / Studio Gainax Origin Story: Eden showed friends the legendary fan animations made for the early-'80s Daikon convention circuit — blatant copyright-violating anime crossovers that nonetheless launched the careers of the people who would go on to found Gainax (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and later Trigger (Delicious in Dungeon, Season 2). * Roombox 3 Progress: Eden's current miniature diorama project is a laundry room featuring a vending machine, an arcade cabinet, and a complete 1/112-scale Chinese mahjong set (all 144 tiles). Models are being dressed in fabric soft clothing rather than left as bare plastic. * LE SSERAFIM New Album: Eden's favorite K-pop act has a new record out. The second track samples La Macarena, which prompted a mild generational crisis at the comic shop when the younger staff noted it predates them. * Dungeon Crawler Carl / Discworld Detour: Peter is finishing Book 8 of Dungeon Crawler Carl (narrated by Jeff Hayes, whose per-character voice work Peter genuinely enjoys despite usually disliking that approach) and has resolved to go into Terry Pratchett's Discworld next as a pressure valve from heavy genre fiction. * Amon Amarth / Dethklok Concert: Peter drove to Salt Lake for the Amon Amarth/Dethklok tour. Amon Amarth was a highlight — Johan Hegg commanding a full audience Viking rowing session — while Dethklok left Peter cold; the Metalocalypse spectacle on screen keeps the audience at arm's length from the music. Castle Rat opened and was a solid short set. * Forza Horizon 6: Peter is ~15 hours in on the Japan-set new installment and finding it an ideal low-commitment diversion. Fits easily into 20-minute sessions or longer stretches. * Periphery — A Pale White Dot: New album from the djent-adjacent prog-metal band. Peter's read: fewer peaks but also fewer low points than usual — more consistent, somewhat more middling. Flagged as interesting rather than essential. * Bad Album Art Tier List: The main event. Peter used Codex to compile ~45 covers from various internet "worst of" lists into a tier list app, with S = truly worst. Notable rankings: The Faith Tones' Jesus Use Me nearly got its own tier above S; Rednex' Sex and Violins landed S upon discovering the band is Swedish and responsible for the definitive Cotton Eye Joe; Iron Maiden's Dance of Death — described as looking like "Baby's first Blender" — is an A despite being one of their best 21st-century albums; Badfinger's Ass (donkey with headphones, hand holding a carrot) closed the list as a deserved S. * Creed Sidebar: Human Clay cover triggers a genuine conversation about Creed's arc — good debut, one-and-a-half good albums, then nothing. Peter credits Alter Bridge as the redemptive outcome.

Music Palooza Episode

Peter and Eden kick off a chaotic week — Eden's dealing with the Shiny Hunters ransomware attack on Canvas (the university LMS that runs basically everything, currently being held hostage for the second time) while Peter is just weary from step counts. The bulk of the episode is a genre-spanning music deep dive: Eden assigns four critic-darling albums neither of them would normally reach for (Robyn, Ella Langley, Wendy Eisenberg, and Mandy Indiana), Peter assigns one desert-island pick Eden hasn't heard yet. Between the new releases, a Diablo 4 expansion, Cobalt lore, and the Dungeon Crawler Carl comic selling out on Free Comic Book Day, it's a very full episode. SHOW NOTES * Canvas Ransomware Crisis — Eden, who works in university IT, breaks down the Shiny Hunters attack on Canvas, the dominant learning management system used by ~54% of schools. The attackers took the platform down twice, demanded ransom, and threatened to release data from 9,000+ schools by May 12th. Eden spent Free Comic Book Day week in Zoom calls, prepping faculty for a likely third outage. * New Metal Releases — Peter covers recent drops: new Sevendust (pretty okay, Lajon Witherspoon sounds great), Draconian's Insomnolent Ruin (gothic death-doom, better than their 2020 album), and a Testament remaster of Practice What You Preach — which apparently had notoriously bad 80s mastering on every prior version. * What Else Peter's Been Into — Currently watching The Good Place (season two, laughing out loud), reading the new MurderBot novella System Collapse (more existential ennui, building toward a Preservation vs. Barishastranza showdown), and very much hooked on Vampire Crawlers, a $10 roguelike deck-builder with a dungeon crawl structure that he calls at least as good as Slay the Spire. * Free Comic Book Day at Eden's Shop — The comic shop where Eden works had its best day ever — beating last year's record by ~$3K. The Dungeon Crawler Carl issue zero sold out by 11:15 AM and was flipping on eBay for $30+. Eden's boss is now planning to order ten copies of the forthcoming OGN. * Eden's Media Check-In — Went back to Wuthering Waves (best combat of any free-to-play open world; Cyberpunk Edgerunners crossover incoming), read They Were Eleven by Moto Hagio (70s shoujo sci-fi, recently translated, thoroughly recommended), and briefly installed/uninstalled Neverness to Everness after the devs were caught using AI-generated assets and their "replacement" assets were also AI-generated. * The Music Listening Project — Robyn, Sexistential — Eden's clear favorite of the four assigned albums. Robyn's first album in eight years sounds like Body Talk Part 4, which is exactly what she apparently aimed for. Both hosts agree it goes down smooth and does exactly what dance-pop is supposed to do. Peter's pick of the bunch. * Ella Langley, Dandelion — Peter's least favorite ("I fucking hated every note on this shitty ass shit album"), not softened much by the 19-song runtime. Eden also wanted to like it more than they did. Peter's wife, who has a master's in vocal performance, concurred on the voice. Both prefer Kacey Musgraves's Middle of Nowhere, which dropped right after Eden finalized the listening list. * Wendy Eisenberg, self-titled — A folk/chamber-folk record Eden found genuinely enjoyable, especially in quieter guitar-forward moments. Peter couldn't get past what he describes as chronically unsupported vocals (no diaphragm engagement). Mid-episode, Eden Googles and discovers Wendy uses they/them pronouns — quick correction mid-stream. * Mandy Indiana, URGH — Noise rock with French lyrics; alienating by design, and for once that assessment is meant charitably. Peter could see putting it on if he just wants sound, not music. Eden started strong but felt bludgeoned by the end. Album art apparently smears skulls and faces across the screen in real time — which tracks. * Cobalt, Slow Forever (2016) — Peter's desert island pick, his most-listened album of the last two years. Eden had never heard it and came away genuinely impressed. Peter gives a brief history: Cobalt's Gin (2009) as foundational American black metal, the band's turmoil around the previous vocalist's behavior, Charlie Fell (of Lord Mantis) stepping in, Eric Wunder doing all instruments himself, and the resulting pivot from black metal to progressive sludge with blackened overtones. Peter closes with a passage from "King Rust." Eric Wunder passed away earlier this year — Slow Forever as a final statement.

The Nostalgia Hits Too Hard - GI Joe

Peter and Eden dive into the first four issues of Larry Hama's classic G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comics — a Kickstarter Peter may have regretted until roughly issue three, when a self-reassembling mech changed his mind. Before getting to Cobra, they cover Eden's return to Final Fantasy XIV and a crash course in Riichi Mahjong, Peter's take on Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 7 (enthusiastically defended as entertainment, explicitly not art), the emotional weight of the new At the Gates album The Ghost of a Future Dead, and a handful of other metal releases. The G.I. Joe discussion turns into a genuinely good riff on comics history, the widescreen movement, and what it feels like to read a 1982 military action comic with 2025 eyes. SHOW NOTES * Eden returns to Final Fantasy XIV: The new expansion Everkold was announced and Eden is skeptical of the premise. They made a new character on a new data center with a self-imposed gimmick — only picking classes that use magic, which leads to some fun justifications for Dark Knight and Reaper. * Riichi Mahjong crash course: Eden attended a learn-to-play Mahjong event at a local board game lounge and has been practicing at the Gold Saucer in FFXIV. The tiles are described as resembling Haribo frogs — thick, satisfying, extremely edible-looking. * Eden's reading: Clematis and Wisteria series: A contemporary fantasy series set in a majocracy where healers are second-class citizens bonded to mages. Features two prickly, genuinely unlikable protagonists in a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers arc. Eden is several books in and very much into it. * Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 7: Peter finished it and reaffirmed his position that it is not art — it is McDonald's. A fun, genre-appropriate palate cleanser, nothing more. This generated at least one spirited reply from a listener on social media that Peter declined to further engage with. * Dresden Files Book 18 (Cold Days): Peter is halfway through and pleasantly surprised by how contemplative and low-action it is so far — Harry processing trauma rather than punching things. He expects crazy stuff by the end. * Metal roundup: Peter covers several recent releases — Grief Collector's The Death of All Dreams (classic doom), A Dream of Poe's Katabasis: A Marriage Among Ashes (gothic/symphonic doom from Portugal, came with a personal thank-you email from the artist), Avertat's Dead End Life (death-doom), and Sepultura's swan-song EP The Cloud of Unknowing. Peter delivers a hot take defending post-Max Sepultura and does not mince words about the Cavalera brothers. * At the Gates — The Ghost of a Future Dead: The most affecting music note of the episode. Lead vocalist Tomas Lindberg was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma, recorded demo vocals for the entire album in one day before surgery, and ultimately died from the disease. The band completed the album using those recordings. Peter calls it a real banger and a worthy send-off. * G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Issues 1–4): The main topic. Both Peter and Eden started skeptical — Peter "made a hundreds of dollars mistake" on the Kickstarter — but came around by issue three when a self-rebuilding mech shows up. Eden provides a solid comics theory digression on the widescreen movement, Silver Age overexplaining, and where 1982 G.I. Joe sits in that history. Larry Hama's background (Asian American, invented characters alongside Hasbro, writing it into his 60s) gets discussed, as does the book's period-typical racism and sexism, Snake Eyes' ambiguous deal, and Cobra's complete lack of motivation. * Free Comic Book Day plug: Eden reminds listeners that Free Comic Book Day is the following Saturday. The Dungeon Crawler Carl zero issue will be available. Eden also shouts out G.I. Joe: Silent Missions and a single issue written by friend-of-the-shop Phil Hester.

Do Not Become Addicted to Water: Fury Road

Peter watches Mad Max: Fury Road for the first time in decades, and Eden — who has seen it at least a dozen times — watches the black-and-chrome edition alongside him. Peter finds the opening act almost too uncomfortable to watch, given its uncomfortable parallels to the current political moment, but gets fully on board the moment the sandstorm hits. They dig into what makes the film a masterpiece of practical filmmaking, why Furiosa holds up better than the prequel, and what it means that George Miller also made Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet. SHOW NOTES * Check-in / What we've been up to — Eden is riding their cargo bike in 35mph Iowa wind gusts; Peter is heading to Austin for an Intuitive Surgical robotics event. Eden vents about 18 months of accessibility compliance work being ignored by faculty who don't read their emails. * Peter's picks — Finishing Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 6 (fun but disposable, and the online fandom's intensity baffles him); finished Season 2 of A Man on the Inside (Ted Danson and his real-life wife Mary Steenburgen falling for each other on screen — highly recommended); Taskmaster Series 21 has started, featuring Kumail Nanjiani.  * Big metal week — Peter covers a stack of new releases: Slave Machine by Nervosa (vicious all-female death-thrash from Brazil); Too Fast to Die by ArchSpire (potential album of the year if not for Neurosis); new Inferi album featuring departing drummer Spencer Moore; Descent by Immolation; and Master Boot Record's first live album Realtime Execution.  * Eden's picks — Eden is scrobbling again on Last.fm and shares a chaotic top-four week: Portishead, Rebecca Black (Salvation EP praised as a stone-cold classic), Neurosis, and new discovery Javiera Mena, a Chilean electro-pop artist. Also watched two bad movies with the bad movie crew: Firecracker (notable for a truly unhinged sex scene) and American Cyborg: Steel Warrior ("Children of Men with a $13 budget"). Currently reading a 3,500-page Chinese web novel called Long Awaited Feelings / My Feelings Can Wait. * Why Peter struggled with the opening act — Peter found Immortan Joe's cult of worship uncomfortably familiar, given current events, describing it as George Miller predicting how "stupid and gullible people can be." He warmed to the film as it progressed, with the sandstorm sequence being the turning point. * "A perfect action film" — Eden's framing: not their favorite action film, but possibly a perfect one — no wasted frame, no wasted scene. They've seen it at least a dozen times, and this watch was the black-and-chrome edition, which Miller originally intended before the studio overruled him. * Practical effects deep dive — 80–90% of the stunts were practical, shot on location in Namibia under miserable conditions. They highlight the pole-cat war boys actually swinging on moving vehicles, and the real flamethrower guitarist who was instructed not to hold the guitar too high. * On the cast — Charlize Theron gets full credit for owning the film as Furiosa. Tom Hardy's near-silent, physically understated performance is praised. Nicholas Hoult's arc as Nux — going from zealot to sacrifice — is called out as the emotional hinge of the film. * Frame rate trivia — Eden flags that 50–60% of the film was shot below 24fps, with Miller manipulating frame rates shot-by-shot to control tension and legibility. * Furiosa comparison — Eden recommends the prequel but notes its heavy CGI and green screen make it feel cheaper and less embodied than Fury Road. Peter says he's now interested to watch it. * The Babe 2 revelation — The episode ends on Eden's genuine disbelief that the director of Fury Road also made Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet, and a fun piece of trivia: Immortan Joe's actor, Hugh Keays-Byrne, also played Toecutter, the villain of the original Mad Max.

Call me Snake/My Name is Plissken

Peter and Eden watch 1981's Escape from New York and land, predictably, on opposite sides: Eden had a blast, Peter was fighting sleep and checking the runtime. Before getting there, they spend a significant chunk of the episode on a surprise Neurosis album drop — An Undying Love for a Burning World — that apparently derailed any other listening either of them did for a week and a half. They also work through a stack of new metal releases, Eden's ongoing Continuity Comics deep dive (cliffhangers with no resolution, going all the way down), and the inevitable sidebar about Ready Player One being one of the worst things ever committed to paper. SHOW NOTES * Continuity Comics / Death Watch 2000 — Eden is deep into the indie comics boom-and-bust era. Death Watch 2000 (20 issues, zero through nineteen) ends on a cliffhanger because issue 20 never came out. The follow-up crossover, Rise of Magic, also ends on a cliffhanger — because the company went under. Eden is reading Ms. Mystic through all of this. * Dungeon Crawler Carl — Peter is on book five (nearly six) of the LitRPG series. Eden remains skeptical on principle, largely due to the covers, a detailed bit about the Mantar illustration, and a Chuck Tingle tangent. * Project Hail Mary (film) — Peter saw it in St. George during spring break and liked it. Eden knows the twist, is annoyed it was in the trailer, and delivers the hot take that the film is secretly about "exospecies gay love" — which, they argue, makes Andy Weir's claims to apolitical writing somewhat complicated. * New metal releases rundown — Peter ran down a week where six metal albums dropped at once: Exodus's Goliath (disappointing 😞), Garea's Loss ("what if black metal Sleep Token" 🥺), Ethereal Darkness's Echoes (solid), Hanging Garden's Isle of Bliss (melancholy melodic death for the right mood), and The Holeum's Ensis (Peter's second favorite of the batch after Neurosis). New Winterfylleth also dropped. * The Neurosis surprise drop — An Undying Love for a Burning World hit Bandcamp with zero announcement, and both hosts describe it as a fully realized return to form. Aaron Turner (of ISIS/Sumac) joins as second guitarist and vocalist, filling the Scott Kelly-shaped hole. Both Peter and Eden consider it a vital, emotionally resonant album for 2026. * Fire in the Mountains Festival — Neurosis is playing a festival on Blackfeet Nation land in Montana this summer, organized in part by Steve Von Till, with proceeds going toward suicide prevention for First Nations teens. Peter is trying to figure out the logistics post-London trip. * Escape from New York (1981, dir. John Carpenter) — The main event. Eden loved it unreservedly and immediately downloaded the soundtrack; Peter found it slow, confusing, and full of deus ex machina plotting. They both agree Snake Plissken essentially does nothing heroic in his own movie. * Peter's mystery genre director — A running thread emerges: Eden is trying to figure out who Peter's equivalent of her John Carpenter is. The search is ongoing; James Cameron is a candidate. Mad Max: Fury Road is teased as the next watch-along.