# Ep 99: Interview w/ GARY GRAFF (Editor of "501 ESSENTIAL ALBUMS OF THE '80s") Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/play-that-rock-n-roll-471229/ep-99-interview-w-gary-graff-editor-of-501-essential-albums-of-the-80s Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/play-that-rock-n-roll-471229/ep-99-interview-w-gary-graff-editor-of-501-essential-albums-of-the-80s.md Podcast: [Play That Rock n‘ Roll](https://stenobird.com/podcast/play-that-rock-n-roll-471229) Published: 2025-07-08T16:47:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/PAN3795881496.mp3?updated=1752011169 Audio file: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/PAN3795881496.mp3?updated=1752011169 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/play-that-rock-n-roll-471229/episodes/ep-99-interview-w-gary-graff-editor-of-501-essential-albums-of-the-80s Duration seconds: 3794 ## Resource This is Play That Rock n' Roll's interview with Gary Graff, editor of "501 ESSENTIAL ALBUMS OF THE '80s: The Music Fan's Definitive Guide"! In this conversation, we talk about some of the major musical trends of the ‘80s and how Gary felt about them in his early days as a music journalist. And since we had both recently seen Devo on their current tour, Gary shares his review of that show. From there, we dive in on some Classic Rock selections that he wrote the reviews for, specifically albums from Genesis, Steve Winwood, Toto, Night Ranger, Alice Cooper, among others. We also discuss why so many ‘60s artists had comebacks in the ‘80s, and of course I had to ask him about what Bob Seger was up to in that era. Gary on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GaryGraffonMusic Gary on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/graffonmusic.bsky.social Gary on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realgraffonmusic Our Links: https://linktr.ee/playthatpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/play-that-rock-n-roll-471229/episodes/ep-99-interview-w-gary-graff-editor-of-501-essential-albums-of-the-80s/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/play-that-rock-n-roll-471229/ep-99-interview-w-gary-graff-editor-of-501-essential-albums-of-the-80s.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.