Posted in Album of the Month, Music chat, New Albums, podcast, Spin it or Bin It, Tracks of the Month

Podcast Ep. 26 | Hot Chip | Freakout Release

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
  2. EP. 63 | Our Top 10 Albums of 2025
  3. EP. 62 | Juniper | Joy Crookes
  4. EP.61 | Blood Orange | Essex Honey
  5. EP.60 | Wet Leg | Moisturizer

We’re back again this month with our usual format. In Part 1 we go deep on Hot Chip’s latest album, in Part 2 we play ‘Spin It or Bin It’, where we choose a theme and each bring our choice of tracks. This month the theme is ‘Dance-Pop’.

Part 1 | Album of the Month | Hot Chip | Freakout/Release

It’s Guy’s choice this month and he chooses the one of his favourite band’s latest release. It’s always interesting when one of us chooses a band that they love and have loads of history with. 

Listen to the album – Here

The chat focuses around our initial impressions, favourite tracks, the difficulty of maintaining relevance and engagement on your 8th album … and we all have something to say on the sequencing of tracks on this album.

Guy has curated a 28 track playlist called ‘Hot Chip’s Hot Hits’ – have a listen to it here

During the chat there were loads of references to Hot Chip side projects, here are a few links for you to check out;

Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | We all choose a Dance-Pop Track

In tribute to Hot Chip, the theme for Spin It or Bin It this month is Dance-Pop. Over the course of the month we all create a play list of our favourite Dance-Pop, a shortlist of 4 tracks and then choose a track to delight (or in my case annoy) the team. This month, the 4 tracks were …

  1. Nolan chose – Robyn | Dancing On My Own
  2. Guy chose – Cassius | The Sound of Violence
  3. Joey chose – The Knife | Pass This On
  4. David chose – Soulwax | NY Excuse 

The 16 track playlist of each of our 4 shortlisted tracks can be found here and it’s a belter!

Next Month

I (
Joey) will be running the show and hosting the discussion on Sudan Archive’s 2nd album – Natural Brown Prom Queen

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 hear what you think