“Death, Destruction, Armageddon, Nuclear Meltdown, and the Y2K Connection” is the fifth demo episode, aired on December 30, 1999.
That’s a very long title!
This episode was the first Theme Show episode to break away from the one-word format.
Posted on the verge of New Year’s Eve 1999, it is influenced by the belief of some people that the world and all its machines would come screeching to a halt due to the millennium change (and possibly the Prince song) and that the resulting outage would cause nuclear Armageddon.
Although I didn’t subscribe to this theory (and, as I’m updating this entry in 2025, it seems we’ve survived), I figured that if we were all going to disappear into a fiery oblivion, the least we could do was laugh on the way out, so the entire episode is filled with apocalyptic songs.
This Demo has been recreated for your enjoyment at:
Like earlier demos, this episode was built around three defining segments:
- Theme Show Warm-Up: Every broadcast kicked off with five fast-paced, high-energy tracks, setting the tone. Then, after the fourth song, I would check my Yahoo! Messenger, eagerly awaiting the first correct guess of the theme. The person who answered first won a prize, which, more often than not, was a Pez dispenser.
- Requests: This segment was designed to blend pre-arranged selections with real-time audience engagement.. While a significant portion of the song choices were curated in advance, if someone had an exciting song idea that fit the theme, they could message me, and—provided I had the track in my library, I’d weave it into the setlist.
- Obligatory Polka: Of course, I tried to end every episode with a Polka song. Even if the final song didn’t match the overarching theme, that was entirely fine. I’ve always found Polka entertaining, and as a longtime fan of “Weird Al” Yankovic, I did my best to make sure this unexpected finale stayed intact.
As time passed, the show evolved. Eventually, I decided to simplify the podcast pre-recording process by trimming down these segments. Despite that, elements of the “warm-up” concept continue to live on—often appearing in newer Spotify and YouTube Music playlists, where I still organize songs based on BPM and energy level.
Variations on a theme about death or destruction would return in:
and
Episode 57: How I stopped Worrying, and Learned to Love “The Bomb”
Setlist
| Color Key | Not Available on Spotify | Not Available on YTMusic | Not Available on Either |
Theme Show Workout
| Song | Artist |
|---|---|
| 1999 | Xorcist |
| Red Alert | Basement Jaxx |
| Radioactivity | Kraftwerk |
| Oblivion/Humans | Meat Beat Manifesto |
| Here Comes the Comedown | Lov & Rockets |
Standard Playlist
| Song | Artist |
|---|---|
| No Ozone | Loud Sugar |
| Time, the End of Time | The Chameleons |
| Scatter January | Love Spirals Downward |
| These Fleeting Moments | Loveliescrushing |
| Last Farewell | Kula Shaker |
| Judgement Hour | The Tear Garden |
| Dead Heaven | Gary Numan |
| It’s the End of the World as We Know It | R.E.M. |
| Plutonium | Bizarre Alliance |
| Battle Ground (KGB Slam Edit) | Leæther Strip |
| Destruction | Ministry |
| Ranch Apocalypse | Skatenigs |
| Anomaly (Calling Your Name) | Libra presents Taylor |
| Atomic Moog 2000 (Post-Nuclear Afterlife Lounge Mix) | Coldcut |
| Zero Signal | Fear Factory |
| Electronic Warfare | Apoptygma Berzerk |
| The Downtrodden Song | Denis Leary |
| You, Me, and World War Three | Gavin Friday |
| Destroy 2000 Years of Culture | Atari Teenage Riot |
| Napalm in Bohemia | Boy Eats Girl |
| Judgement Day | Army of Lovers |
| Radioactive | Grumpyhead |
| Atomic | Blondie |
| Atom Bomb | Fluke |
| R.I.P. 20C (Millennium Mix) | Love & Rockets |
Obligatory Polka
| Song | Artist |
|---|---|
| Champagne Polka | Lawrence Welk |