Special episodes

Drew and Andy take each other on a Yuletide journey down and up their respective memory lanes, applying their now trademark Queer Analysis™ to exactly what makes a merry music moment so magical. Each picking their eight favourite festive bops, the boys riff on the spectrum of emotions Christmas music can conjure up - from joy and mysticism, to loneliness and longing. With cameos* from LGBT icons like Tinky Winky, Enya and Carol Vorderman (*mentions, really), we're gifting you our own Christmas treat to round off an exceptional year for queer music icons around the world.

While we played around with ways in which we can record our episodes remotely, we shared our first ever experiment with you – Episode Zero. Recorded in October 2018, this is the pilot episode of Aural Fixation – just two boys, a laptop and one burning question: do we have what it takes to become podcast sheroes? Turns out, we did. Well... kinda. While the sound quality will send you further west than Kim and Kanye at a Best Western in Weston-Super-Mare, our discussion of the Spice Girls, Alanis Morissette and a whole host of AF favourites will give you a sneak peak into the origin of Aural Fixation.

May 2020 seemed a better time than ever to crack the fire exit and escape Earth, so thank the gay gods for Gaga who created a whole new planet where equality rules and kindness punks run free. Welcome to Chromatica. In our inaugural “First Fix”, we tackle Lady Gaga's sixth studio album upon its release to dish our initial thoughts and dissect our favourite bops. Where does Chromatica sit in the pop pantheon? What do Ariana Grande, Elton John and BLACKPINK have in common? And does "Babylon" sound perhaps… a little... familiar?

What do sequels, ghosts, and Christmas all have in common? They're queer! Join us (won't you?) for our second annual Christmas episode, where we take a trip down Yuletide Lane and dust off festive classiques by previous Aural Fixation subjects. It's mulled wine, it's mince pies, it's... listens. Despite non-stop merriment, we're still asking the hard questions – is You-Know-What even Mariah's best Christmas song? Who has more Christmas albums, Dolly Parton or RuPaul? Is "These Days" by ARIA-winning Fanny Lumsden actually a Christmas song at all!?