Podcast Ep. 49 | Common & Pete Rock

EP. 63 | Our Top 10 Albums of 2025 – This Is Not Happening – An Album Of The Month Podcast

Festive Greetings from This Is Not Happening and welcome to our year-end, 2025 wrap-up episode. As always we split the pod into Part 1 and Part 2.Part 1 features our Top 10 favourite albums of 2025. We use a proprietary algorithm to create our list our collective favourite albums, we're talking nascent data-science excellence! Every year it throws up some surprises as our tastes are so different (and in some ways so similar.Part 2 features a festive Spin It or Bin It. We each bring a candidate for track of the year and ask the age old question 'Spin It or Bin It' … will anyone really bin anyone elses Track of the Year? Probably.To retain the tension, I won't share any spoilers here … other than to share a 40 track playlist of some of our favourite 2025 tracks … here.Whatever you do at this time of year, who ever you do it with … have a good one.Please join us in January where we will go back to the usual format of Album of the Month + Spin It or Bin It.We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/

1. EP. 63 | Our Top 10 Albums of 2025 01:20:41
2. EP. 62 | Juniper | Joy Crookes 01:14:05
3. EP.61 | Blood Orange | Essex Honey 01:12:50
4. EP.60 | Wet Leg | Moisturizer 01:11:11
5. EP.59 | Little Simz | Lotus 01:11:16

Welcome to Episode 49 of This is Not Happening (TINH).  An Album of the Month (AOTM) Podcast where in Part 1 we deep dive into an Album that one of us has chosen and in Part 2 we play ‘Spin it or Bin it’.  This is where we pick a theme and each select a song that represents that theme. We judge each others selections by asking the question ‘Spin It or Bin It’?

This month, in Part 1, Nolan goes back to his spiritual home, Hip Hop and has picked an album that the genre has been waiting decades for – Common and Pete Rock, The Auditorium Vol. 1.

In Part 2, Spin It or Bin It, the theme sounds simple but it turned out to be deceptively divisive. This month we delve into ‘Power Ballads’ … but what actually is a Power Ballad?

Part 1 | Common & Pete Rock | The Auditorium Vol. 1

If you’re age (old AF) and you like Hip Hop then you’ve probably been listening to these two legends for 30 odd years. Common is 52, Mr. Rock is 54. They’ve been at the top of their games for decades but does the combination deliver synergy or something a little less?

• Listen to the album HERE
• Watch some videos HERE and  HERE and HERE
• Guy references the performance of ‘When the Sun Shines Again’ on Jimmy Fallon.
• If you’ve got 4 hrs then watch this monster chat with the pair on Drinks Champs
• I reference a NY Time Popcast Episode discussing what ‘What’s an ageing rapper to do’
• Guy references 

Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | Power Ballads.

So what is a Power Ballad? We all know the classics, but if we try and bring something a little different then first we have to have some sort of definition. We’ve picked 4 tracks that aren’t on many Power Ballad playlists … 

• Guy chose Nothing Compares 2U by Sinead O’Connor.
• David chose The Way That You Do It by Gerry Rafferty. 
• Joey chose Drivers License by Olivia Rodrigo.
• Nolan chose Roar by Katy Perry. 

See you on Episode 50 …