Welcome to Episode 66 of This Is Not Happening. An Album of the Month podcast. In Part 1, we do a deep drive review of our Album of the Month. This month David brings Neo-Soul back into focus with Jill Scott and her comeback album 'To Whom This May Concern.In Part 2, we play Spin It or Bin It, we pick a theme and all pick songs that represent that theme. This month the theme is 'Neo-Soul, and it's a belter. —— Part 1 | Album of the Month | Jill Scott | To Who This May Concern ——Jill Scott's debut was released in 2000, it played a big part in some of our lives. But most of us lost touch after this release. It's 26 years later and Jill has been through some shit.This album is big, it's a lot. There is a lot to take in digest and consider. It works big time for some of us … not so much for others. Have a listen, let's get into this!Listen to the original album here.Tiny Desk concerts are getting better and better, here is Jill's.Watch some videos, interviews and performances here. —————- Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | New Music —————- The theme is Neo-Soul, the task is pick a track that fits the theme, the objective, get more 'spins' than your friends. We each pick for tracks for a 16 track play list (that is fire).We then each pick select 1 track and ask the simple question 'Spin It Or Bin It'?Guy chose 'Heard it all Before' by Sunshine Anderson.Nolan chose 'Serve this Royalty' by Cody Chesnutt.David chose 'Don't Mess with My Man' by Lucy Pearl.Joey chose 'Untitled (How Does It Feel) by D'Angelo.We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/
We’ve hit the BIG 5-0 and we’re still speaking to each other. It’s delgight to welcome to Episode 50 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, David introduces the latest album from one of my favourite obsession artists, ‘My Method Actor’ by Nilifur Yanya.
In Part 2, Spin It or Bin It, we return for our quarterly visit to the theme of ‘New Music’ … anything released since August 1st.
Part 1 | Nilifur Yanya | My Method Actor
This is the third full length studio album from Yanya. She is a super interesting artist blending soul, jazz, indie and a bunch of other sounds and influences in there. This album is something of a departure for her following her last 2 albums that perhaps embraced the indie side of her influences. This album is a super smart melding of all of her influences, definitely leaning more towards the soul and jazz side of her music. It feels like a return to some of her earliest EP releases and I love it for that fact.
I feel like I drew the short straw here. We have an artist that we all love and they have a new album out, easy right? Slam dunk. Everyone’s happy and we all have a 60 minute love-in on the pod about how amazing Dan Snaith (aka Caribou, aka Manitou, aka Daphni) is …
… wrong.
Dan goes and throws a curve ball (in some peoples opinion, in others, he follows an evolutionary path that he set out three albums ago) and release an album that I would argue not many people expected. I think a quick Caribou re-cap is in order;
Dan Snaith, Canadian dude who makes music and aligns these with 3 identities … but to keep this simple we’ll focus on 2 if thats ok?
Caribou is the identity that he tends to release hyper intelligent, elevated pop music with an electronic leaning (but TBF indulges many genres and sub-genres across it’s 6 albums). Caribou has traditionally been music for the headphones, the bedroom, the soul.
Daphni is where Dan embraces the elecronic more and specifically embraces the dancefloor, this has traditionally music for the club.
We all love Caribou.
We have different favourite Caribou albums.
This is important as I think what we expect or want from Caribou has a significant impact on our relationship with Honey.
Honey is Caribou’s 6th album. And it is different. But every Caribou album is pretty different. Andorra is 60’s Pysch Pop reinvented for the latter half of the naughties. Swim is my favourite Caribou album and is entirely different from Andorra in every way save for it’s inherent ‘Caribouness’. Anyone, any music fan especially, would be able to at least notice, if not describe the similarities between Andorra and Swim despite it’s significant differences. I resonated so strongly with Swim that I was almost in tears when Our Love was released. I was so disappointed. It literally took me years to come to terms with the album. I love it now. I don’t play it that often but I grew to love it and now recognise it’s inherent ‘Caribouness’ but I had a BIG, negative emotional response to it. I had a ‘mini-tanti’ as Hugh Grant calls it (basically he had a melt down on live US TV) … I had mine in Urmston, Trafford. ‘Suddenly’ was very much in line with ‘Our Love’ and was no surprise. It had ‘inherent Caribouness’ and followed a line from Our Love but was also a massive departure from Andorra in one direction and Swim from another.
Honey is another massive departure. It is 12 short tracks of very electronic music. They feel in one way, more Daphni than Caribou in that they feel more club focused … but they’re also all 3 min pop songs (more Caribou leaning?). There is pop brilliance and shine and it feels like it’s made for the radio as much as the club. I am not sure what radio but the tracks follow pop rules more than they follow dance floor rules (discuss)?
So, Dan is embracing the club. But he’s retaining the pop? For me, the album as a whole features much ‘inherent Caribouness’ but this is unevenly distributed across the tracks. With some feeling much less inherently Caribou, and in some people’s opinions, not Caribou at all.
We’ve already, mostly drawn our lines of battle.
On one side …
This is a great album.
If it was made by anyone else we’d be saying, it’s great, it makes me feel fucking old but it’s great.
It is inherently Caribou, you just have to work for that a little more than other albums.
On the other side …
… Well, some pretty uncomplimentary things.
‘this is not for me’ vibes
Not a Caribou album.
‘Like being attacked by toddlers with Protools’
I get both sides but align with the former.
Let’s touch briefly on AI cause it feels like I have to. Dan uses AI tools to alter his voice. This is freaking some people out. It isn’t freaking me out. I don’t care. Musicians have been altering their voices for as long as they could, with what ever tools they had access too. For me this is a distraction. I don’t care. But I also get that some feel very strongly about this so we will defo discuss it at some length on the blog. My side of that conversation will be short … unless I get drawn into it.
I thought it would be The Power Ballad Themed ‘Spin It or Bin It’ that might divide us … but it appears that it is one of our favourite artists (and AI) that might do that! I am half dreading, half looking forward to the chat on the pod.
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