Welcome to Episode 68 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 Guy brings a Robyn's latest release 'Sexisitential'. 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 'Sad Bangers'. —— Part 1 | Album of the Month | Robyn | Sexistential ——Robyn is a unique, iconic figure in contemporary music. She's been making and releasing music since 1995, her career spans 4 decades already and she shows no signs of slowing down. Her pop career started when she was 15, she's about to celebrate her 47th birthday, this is insane staying power!Sexistential is her 9th studio album if you count the Body Talk series as full albums? It's only 29 mins long, it doesn't mess about and no track or the album in full overstays it's welcome. There is lots to get into in the discussion, has she still got it? Is she doing new things? Is this still relevant and if so who for? How artists change and what we expect from them as they age?Have a listen, tell us what you think.Listen to the original album here.Watch some of her videos here , particularly the singles from this album.Buy this album or some merch here. And listen to her talk about the album here. —————- Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | Sad Bangers —————- Robyn's biggest track is 'Dancing On My Own' is the archetype of a genre that Guy made up 'Sad Bangers'. This is our theme for Spin It or Bin It this month. It's got to be sad, and it's got to bang. Simple (in theory).The task is pick a track that fits the theme, the objective, get more 'spins' than your friends. We each pick four tracks for a 16 track play list . We then each pick select 1 track and ask the simple question 'Spin It Or Bin It'?David chose Destroy Everything You Touch by Ladytron.Joey chose 'Teardrops' by Womack and Womack.Guy chose 'Lovesick' by Friendly Fires.Nolan chose 'Blue Monday' by New Order.What would you have chosen? What's missing from our playlist?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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