Podcast Episode 24 – Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers

EP. 64 | Rosalia | LUX – This Is Not Happening – An Album Of The Month Podcast

Welcome to Episode 64 of This Is Not Happening. An Album of the Month podcast. In Part 1, we review and Album of the Month. This month Joey brings perhaps the most critically acclaimed album of 2025, Rosalia's 'LUX'.In Part 2, we play Spin It or Bin It, we pick a theme and all pick songs that represent that theme. As it's January and everybody is back in the gym or re-starting running program's we've picked 'songs to get injured to'._______________________Part 1 | Album of the Month | Rosalia | LUX________________________This is a big one. Big in many ways. Massively popular, globally. But more importantly MASSIVE in scope, scale and ambition. Rosalia's 4th album takes a major turn from the reggaeton, digital urgency of Motomami. This a symphonic, spiritual, complex and challenging collection of songs presented in 4 movements (if you're on vinyl). It requires you to focus, engage and consume with purpose.It's undeniable that it is ambitious, its brilliance is clear … but will any of us actually like it? Does it make you want to listen to it? Are you drawn to come back to it?Listen to the album here.Watch some of the videos for the tracks here.Check out the Zane Lowe interview with Rosalia here.___________________Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | Songs To Get Injured To _____________________New Year New Me. The gyms are packed. People are begging to get injured. What should you chose as your soundtrack to that achilles rupture or that rotator cuff tear? The answer is probably in this 16 track play list that we created.We each pick 4 tracks for the playlist and submit 1 track and ask the simple question 'Spin It Or Bin It'?Joey chose 'Baddadan' by Chase & Status et al.Guy chose 'Go' by Chemical Brothers.David chose 'Kool Thing' by Sonic Youth.Nolan chose 'Stop What You're Doing' by Apathy.We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/

1. EP. 64 | Rosalia | LUX 01:13:15
2. EP. 63 | Our Top 10 Albums of 2025 01:20:41
3. EP. 62 | Juniper | Joy Crookes 01:14:05
4. EP.61 | Blood Orange | Essex Honey 01:12:50
5. EP.60 | Wet Leg | Moisturizer 01:11:11

Our last Album of the Month (AOTM) was the beautiful ‘Life on Earth’ by Hurray for the Riff Raff. This month the  This Is Not Happening crew tackle Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers’  head on! We get stuck right into this challenging album in Part 1 of the pod. In Part 2, we play ‘Spin It or Bin It?’ where we judge the tracks that we’ve chosen for this month’s theme.

Part 1 – Album of the Month

This month it’s Nolan’s choice, Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers’ . We discuss the album in length, favourite tracks and their impact on us and other music fans and if there is a missing track from this album. 

We want you to have access to great conversations about great music – here are some links to some of the best content on this album that we’ve consumed;

• A great ‘explainer’ article from Ambrosia for Heads  – read here
• NYT’s Popcast Podcast Episode (this one is great for a Kendrick Sceptic view) – listen here
• Great Tempo Tribe Podcast conversation – listen here
• A shorter listen at 22 mins – the NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast – listen here

This was one of our toughest albums to think and to talk about … but we hope you enjoy it.

Part 2 – Spin it or Bin It

In the second part of this episode we get stuck into 4 tracks representing this months theme – ‘LA Tracks’ – or favourite tracks from LA based artists. We all pick a track,  introduce our track and ask the others the painfully binary critical question; ‘spin it’ or ‘bin it?’ 

We try not to go super-obvious on our track selections each month … this is what we chose to represent LA;

1. Joey’s track selection is – ‘Chum’ by Earl Sweatshirt
2. David’s track selection is – ‘Twelve Thirty’ by The Mamas and the Papas
3. Nolan’s track selection is – ‘Runners’ by Evidence ft. Defari
4. Guy’s track selection is – ’86’ by Truncate

Next Month

Episode #25 will be with you soon – Guy will be guiding us through ‘We’ by Arcade Fire one of is favourite artists ever … what could go wrong? Have a listen to the album and  share some thoughts with us on the blog or on our Insta.

Other episodes of the pod and 10 years of the blog;

If you enjoyed this episode, please check out the others. If that’s not enough for you then there’s 10 years worth of music discussion on the blog at www.thisisnothappening.net, which runs alongside the podcast choices and much, much more. So check them out so to see what we like and where we clash, and comment if something catches your eye. We’d love to see what you think.