Halloween is the best day of the year for music.

It presents an incredible musical opportunity. The chance to do something so bizarre. So out of left field that your fans will be delighted you’ve taken that chance. 

We take a look at the history of rock and roll Halloween concerts. From artists "dressing up" as other bands and covering their albums to some truly bizarre instances.

Inside The Archives is available on Apple Podcasts and RADIO.COM.  Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every single episode.

There's a chance many have left the cassette tape for dead. Heck, I know I did.

In recent years though, it's started to make a comeback. Cassette tape sales grew 23% in 2018 with a total of 219,000 tapes sold. If you go back to 2016, this represents almost a 100,000 unit increase when 129,000 tapes were sold. 

This episode of Inside The Archives looks at why the unlikely revival of the cassette tape has taken place, whether or not it's a flash in the pan, and offering an explanation for the format's newfound popularity.

Joining me is Doug Kaplan, co-owner of the Chicago record label Hausu Mountain. Kaplan specializes in releasing music on tape and has built an extensive network of like-minded musicians using cassette tape to share and release music. 

Inside The Archives is available on Apple Podcasts and RADIO.COM.  Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every single episode.

Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and Coachella are the three biggest music festivals in the United States. After all three lineups were released this past year, a common sentiment online was that they were all kind of the same. 

Is this actually the case though?

This episode of Inside The Archives looks at the headliners for all three festivals dating back to 2005 to see if this sentiment is true and if it's a newer phenomena. 

Inside The Archives is available on iTunes and RADIO.COM.  Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every episode.

On the surface, it appears the live album is no longer a force. The seeming decline of live records makes it look like a novelty more than a driving force to present your music.

However, that couldn't be further from the truth.

XRT's night guy Ryan Arnold joins us to discuss how musicians have reinvented the way they distribute their live material to fans. It's just as powerful as ever and can have the exact same impact as it did for listeners of live records 40 years ago.

Plus, we dig into the results of our poll asking XRT's social media followers to name their favorite live album that's been released in the past ten years.

Inside The Archives is available on iTunes and RADIO.COM.  Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every episode.

The second part of our foray into guilty pleasure music looks at the science behind the phenomena. Why some artists get the guilty pleasure label and if they can ever escape it. What common themes are found in guilty pleasure songs? Is the term guilty pleasure a recent one?

Dr. Nicholas Wallin, an Associate Professor of Music at Lake Forest College joins the podcast to discuss the psychology behind guilty pleasure music, why we're attracted to it, and much more.

In case you missed the first part of this podcast, you can listen to it here.

Inside The Archives is available on iTunes & RADIO.COM. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every episode.

The term "guilty pleasure" evokes a sense of getting pleasure out of something your not supposed to. It's applied in the music world by assigning the term with certain bands. 

Why does it exist though and what artists constitute a guilty pleasure?

We polled our Facebook & Twitter followers to find out who their favorite "guilty pleasure" musicians our. The first part of this two-part series looks at what bands are commonly associated as "guilty pleasure" artists and offer perspective on why the term exists.

Lollapalooza is here!

Marty Lennartz joins Inside The Archives podcast to preview the must-see acts of the fest, up and coming bands you don't want to miss, bands we were surprised to not see on the lineup, and some festival hacks to make sure you make the most of your weekend.

Inside The Archives is available on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every episode.

We all love concerts, but have you been to a show that has shaped your taste in music for years to come?

We polled our Facebook & Twitter followers to find out what was the first concert they attended that did just that. The goal is to find out which bands are the most influential when it comes to how people consume music in the years that follow.

This isn't a look at the best live acts out there today. Rather, it looks at the bands that are most likely to change the course of your music listening habits and tastes.

Inside The Archives is available on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every episode.

It's hard to believe, but we're almost done with the 2010's. We've heard a lot of great music this decade, but what stands out as the decade defining sound?

XRT's Ryan Arnold joins the podcast to discuss why this past decade was a transformational period for rock & roll. We also list the artists that 20-30 years from now will be looked back upon as those that defined this period of time.

Inside The Archives is available on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every episode.

One of the most discussed topics in music this year was the similarity between Greta Van Fleet and Led Zeppelin. Regardless of where you stand on their music, they have been able to generate conversation like few rock bands have over the past decade.

In other genres, sounding similar to other artists can be seen as an honor or paying tribute to them. In rock, it can act as a stigma? Why is that?

XRT Morning Show host Lin Brehmer joins Inside The Archives to provide a historical perspective and answer that question.

Inside The Archives is available on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and listen to every episode.

Concert tour rumors abound!

We wrap up 2018 by looking ahead to 2019 and seeing what bands may be touring. Can the Davies brothers reconcile and give fans a long awaited Kinks reunion?

We'll discuss the not likely, likely, and definitely happening tours of 2019.

Inside The Archives is on iTunes. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and a review, and find a full archive of every single episode we've released. Click here for more.