Sound Opinions

21 episodes listed below

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Music criticism with shelves, memory, and nerve.

The gist

Sound Opinions treats music criticism like an ongoing conversation between people with deep shelves and strong memories. Recent episodes move from Bloodshot Records and buried new artists to Miles Davis, Al Green, Lester Bangs, and late-career creative rebounds.

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About Sound Opinions

Sound Opinions is a long-running music criticism show with the feel of two experienced listeners pulling records from the shelf and making a case for why they still matter. It is direct. It is also digressive in the useful way music people get digressive, where a single song can open into a discussion of scenes, labels, critics, cities, and the strange afterlife of genres. Recent episodes show the range clearly. A conversation with Rob Miller turns Bloodshot Records into a story about alternative country, insurgent country, Chicago coverage, punk rule books, and how underground music gets packaged by the press. A Desert Island Jukebox pick can become a serious reconsideration of Miles Davis, On the Corner, jazz fusion, funk, and records that arrived before listeners knew what to do with them. The show is comfortable with canon. It is just as interested in the stubborn pleasures of overlooked music. Its buried treasures segments spotlight new artists outside the algorithmic glare, while tribute episodes use figures like James Gadson, Willie Colón, and Lester Bangs as gateways into influence, memory, and critical standards. The tone stays conversational, but the opinions land firmly. Jim DeRogatis and Greg Cott do not flatten everything into taste. They explain how a record works, what world it came from, and why the argument around it may have been wrong the first time. That makes the show especially good for listeners who like recommendations with evidence attached. It can praise a groove, parse production choices, or connect Al Green and Willie Mitchell through restraint, tension, and feel. The Chicago presence is constant, from sponsors and listener stories to the way local music history keeps appearing in the margins. Sound Opinions is not background chatter for passive playlisting. It is for people who still want criticism to have memory, standards, and a little table-pounder conviction.

Made for: Best for music fans who want more than release chatter: album arguments, scene history, critic memory, and serious recommendations from outside the obvious feed.

What sets it apart: Sound Opinions stands out by treating songs as artifacts with lineage, not just content drops. Its strongest episodes connect records to labels, cities, critics, musicians, and the arguments that shaped how people heard them.

In their own words

Take two nationally respected rock critics, the latest music news, personal commentary, and exclusive interviews and performances, add a huge pile of records old and new, and the result is Sound Opinions, where people who love music can come together.

As heard by us

Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026

Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kott connect record reviews, artist conversations, production detail, and underground discoveries through alert, opinionated criticism.

Sound Opinions turns criticism into a working conversation, with Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kott testing their tastes against new records, label histories, underground discoveries, and older albums.

Read our full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kott turn record-nerd arguments into your next listening assignment.

Press play if you want

critics who can explain why Al Green's restraint feels as vivid as Jackson Pollock
underground finds that escape the algorithm without arriving context-free

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

album reviewsDesert Island Jukebox picksburied treasuresChicago music contextrecord labels and scenesartist tributeslate-career albumsmusic criticism history

Talks about

Music Music Commentary

Best episodes of Sound Opinions

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

Bloodshot Records with Co-Founder Rob MillerApr 3, 2026

A label story that turns scene memory into sharp, lived-in criticism.

Bloodshot Records and co-founder Rob Miller anchor an episode that tracks how insurgent country earned its name and how that label soon began to box itself in.

Springtime Buried TreasuresMar 27, 2026

A buried-treasures episode focused on new, little-known artists outside the algorithms.

Sound Opinions frames its buried-treasures hunt as a search for new, little-known artists that are not playing to the algorithms. Jim DeRogatis and Greg Cott keep the segment pointed toward discovery, while Andrew Gill's pick adds another turn and keeps the conversation from…

Al Green's The Belle Album & Opinions on MitskiMar 20, 2026

A compact studio-history discussion that shows why Al Green and Willie Mitchell fit together so well.

Sound Opinions opens with Mitski, then settles into Al Green's The Bell Album, and that is where the conversation really clicks. Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot trace how Willie Mitchell's strict, minimal hand at High and Royal Studios gives the record its tension, while Al Green…

Radio DJ Mary Lucia & Opinions on Lucinda WilliamsFeb 6, 2026

A compact radio-life conversation about taste, rule-breaking, and station lore.

Sound Opinions begins with a Lucinda Williams music review, then settles into a conversation with longtime friend and radio DJ Mary Lucia about her memoir.

New Buried TreasuresJan 30, 2026

A Buried Treasures pick that goes all in on a 40-minute space-rock sprawl.

Sound Opinions uses its Buried Treasures slot to put an underground track in front of listeners, and Jim DeRogatis sounds genuinely sold on the 40-minute space-rock opera he brings in.

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Sound Opinions

The gist

Find your next episode

About Sound Opinions

In their own words

As heard by us

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Best episodes of Sound Opinions

Podcasts like Sound Opinions

Episodes

RIP James Gadson

Bloodshot Records with Co-Founder Rob Miller

When a Legend Lost the Crowd

Springtime Buried Treasures

An Unexpected Lester Bangs Tribute

Al Green's The Belle Album & Opinions on Mitski

RIP Willie Colón

Late Career Encores

A Song About the Dark Side of Organ Donation

Guest Desert Island Jukebox Picks & Opinions on Peaches and Danny Brown

An Underrated Protest Singer

Beach Bunny (Lili Trifilio) Live, Plus Opinions on Charli XCX

A Song that Survived the Dog Food Commercial

Reconsidering Late R.E.M.

A Debut Album Decades Later

Modern Protest Songs

A Song from a Band That Isn't Real (But Should Be)

Radio DJ Mary Lucia & Opinions on Lucinda Williams

A Halloween Holdover

New Buried Treasures

Happy Belated Winter Solstice!