A muckraker is a journalist who attempts (legitimately or not) to expose the secrets and injustices of corporations, politicians and industries, often with the intent to cause a scandal or discuss reform. “Muckraker” is also the name of a King Gizzard song featuring a number of tempo changes, recognizable delayed guitar parts, theremin, and vulgar lyrics. It was released as the second song on 12 Bar Bruise on September 7th, 2012. Stu said this about “Muckraker” in a track-by-track rundown for Mess+Noise. “One of the newest. It’s about being a shit kicker. A few people have said it sounds like Green Day, which is not really a good thing. Ah well.”
A music video by Zonkvision (Jason Galea and Greg Holden) was released on October 1st, 2012. It shows the band performing the song with other shots of them swimming and golfing. According to an interview for Speaker TV the video was shot on the same day as the videos for “Bloody Ripper” and “Nein”, and filmed using old VHS cameras. The video was shot in Anglesea with a majority shot at the Coogoorah Reserve, while the golfing segments were filmed at the now closed Anglesea Power Station north of the park. The dog seen in the video is Stu’s dog Dipper.
The first confirmed appearance was on 2012-09-01 at the Godzilla Bar also in Naarm. It was played a few times in 2012 and 2013 and would see some decent rotation in 2015 before disappearing. Since then it has made rare appearances, such as at the end of 2018 on 2018-11-24 and for “Garage Rock Night” on 2021-12-22.