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/
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?
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 …
This month we’re delving into Common and Pete Rock’s The Auditorium Vol. 1. There have been times throughout history that the human race didn’t know how much we actually needed certain super combinations (individually doing well on their own, but even better with the perfect match). Salt & pepper, fish & chips, milk & cookies, David & striped t-shirts.
Much like the aforementioned, both Pete Rock and Common have had long heralded music careers spanning over 30 years which individually are eye watering. Both have had multi generational successes in the underground and mainstream. From Pete Rock’s historic track T.R.O.Y. (They Reminisce Over You), production with Nas on Illmatic, Run DMC, House of Pain, and Kendrick Lemar there is a constant Pete Rock essence throughout music culture constantly. Common has released 15 albums to date. A mainstay within the (new) native tongues, Common has been a long time collaborator with the likes of De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Talib Kweli, Black thought, etc. whilst also maintaining muse stature of some of the best producers in hip hop; No ID, J Dilla, Kanye and of course Pete Rock. You can add three Grammy Awards, and Academy Award a Primetime Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Award to his achievements (did I mention he is also a pretty good actor?)…..Whilst writing this I wonder to myself if these two need any introductions at all?
Not resting on their laurels, they continue a steady output of creativity within hip hop and beyond. If you want some insight to the history of both Common and Pete Rock and their respective parts within hip hop’s story I encourage you to listen to them on Drink Champs (though you’ll need a spare 4 hours), it’s not only entertaining but mind blowing how involved they are within the cultures history. One key thing that shines through in the interview is not only each artist’s deep history within hip hop, but their love of the music and the culture. This is evident throughout The Auditorium Vol. 1.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of buzz in the build up to the albums’ release. Since world of the album broke in late 2023, expectations were high for the project being released from two of hip hop’s most respected sons. Drenched with inspiration from the golden era of hip hop (the 90’s), the album delivers arguably some of the best music both artists have released their heralded careers. Differing from recent hip hop albums we have discussed, this offering isn’t as dense. Pete Rock’s well-orchestrated laid back beats compliment Common’s welcoming narrative flow.
From the get go, all that is good in hip hop shines through on the lead track Dreamin.
There is a lovely sprinkling of soul throughout the album. Tracks like This Man, Fortunate and Now and Then not only compliments Common’s laid back story telling —-(flow)— but also highlights Pete Rock’s sample prose and highlights why he has been long heralded as one of the best beat makers in hip hop for both his production and ear to match the perfect beat with the MC he’s working with. Not forgetting their roots, they delve into the boom bap on tracks like Wise Up, Chi-Town and Stellar, reminding that a strong sample and well executed scratching can be all you need for the perfect hip hop track matched with one of Hip Hop’s most consistent MC’s is a wonderful thing.
A smorgasbord of exception tracks, the stand out for me is All Kind Of Ideas. Sliding in with its subtle bass line and clinical scratch of Rakim’s ‘all kinda ideas’, we’re welcomed by a rare 18 bars from Pete Rock ‘I’m soul brother uno, black from the future. Make beats on the table if I break my computer and still make hits like I used to. Keep your top five, I’m god’s favourite producer’. One for the hip hop heads, the song instantly puts a smile on my face.
Pete Rock & CL Smooth’s T.R.O.Y. is one of my favourite songs of all time, and Common’s Resurrection is one of my favourite albums of all time. There was a high bar for this album in my mind. Has it been met, yes and more. The Auditorium Vol. 1 is super accessible. It’s the kind of album that people that ‘sort’ of like hip hop will love whilst giving everything you want out of a positive conscious hip hop album. Common’s positive lyrics and Pete Rocks refreshing beats have served up an album that is a ray of light. I’m still early into this album, but it’s already one of the stand outs for 2024 for me.
At best we will choose a hip hop album for our album of the month yearly, and it’s for good reason. Hip Hop is at times hard to approach, and hard to find time to listen to away from your kids as 4 middle aged fathers.
For me there’s more of an issue. I remember when I first heard the likes of Nas, Common (Sence) and Rakim. Each song was a lyric twisting journey into their world. As time passes I find it harder to find MC’s that blow me away with their word play. I often wonder is why latter generations of MC’s are less focussed on this? Does it matter anymore? The genre of Hip Hop is a bit confusing these days. I find it hard to understand how much of the hip hop that ‘the kids’ like these days is listenable. Misogyny, violence and criminality seem to be more prevalent than ever.
I came across Skyzoo in 2014 through his collaboration with his New York collaborator weight Torae. Instantly I was a fan. His word play and commentary put him amongst the hip hop heavy weights that I love. The more you listen to his lyrics the more layers to his lyrics you discover. Growing up in Brooklyn in the 90’s made him a student of some of the greats such as Biggie to Jay-Z and it shows. He has an uncanny ability to bring you into his world and keep you there. I was hooked and instantly delved into previous releases which included a heralded mixtape produced by 9th Wonder, followed by his debut album on 9th’s Jamal records (home of Rapsody amongst others) and later releases on two of my favourite labels; Duck Down Records and Mello Music.
You can find music from Skyzoo over the last 20 years, but the last 10 have seen him at his best. Releasing at least an album a year, it’s hard to find any weak piece of work among them. It’s understandable why he’s become one of the most respected underground MC’s around the globe. From working with boom bap super producer Apollo Brown to hip hop general Pete Rock, Skyzoo’s output is diverse and more-ish.
So this brings us to his latest effort, ‘All the Brilliant Things’. Like last month’s St Vincent album, it comes with a theme. This is an album about the gentrification of Brooklyn. Not only highlighting the change but also the world Skyzoo has grown up in, why he loves it, the memories, the stories and the dreams.
My notes for this album have been extensive. I was lost for words, how do you encapsulate the plethora of Skyzoo and what he does to this album? Lucky I read an interview with him where he described it perfectly. He said ‘My music has always been a combination of a few things: storytelling, motive, and intention’. That narrative rings true with another Brooklyn native that I love, Spike Lee. In fact there are cross overs throughout between the two. Perhaps I’ve seen too many Spike Lee movies.
I love hip hop albums that set the scene for the album on the first track and ‘Free Jewellery’ does it to a tee. Skyzoo dives in from the start. Weaving, layering, and provoking thoughts with each line. Amongst the journey he dips his toes into the irony of the critic’s interpretations his world whilst at the same time gentrifying it themselves.
‘So don’t mistake me, yo, I don’t do this for Complex
Nor a Pitchfork or any other facade
Where the culture is determined while chugging a PBR
And telling you how to represent all of the shit that you made
While they move in your building with their roommates’
‘Culture-ish’ is another remarkable track. Full of recollections…
‘I was buying art, my friends was buying dope.
I went and made friends with rappers that was buying both’
….was the line that caught my ears, but every line in the song is spotless. I’ve spent so much time getting my head around the layers of lyrics. He reminds me of Jay-Z on Reasonable Doubt. From Brooklyn or not, you’re pulled into his world (then and now) as you sit ring side in Skyzoo’s world in Brooklyn.
There are lyrics throughout outlining changing worlds. In line with the theme, but not blatantly. ‘The Scrimmage’ looks into money and how it’s made, old and new and it’s ruthlessness. I love the track lyrically, but when the track finishes with a clip of two people talking about being removed from their neighbourhood, it makes you listen again…. Because he was talking about it the whole time.
Hip Hop was born in the Bronx, but since its inception the New York boroughs all battled to own the top spot. Brooklyn arguably has a strong claim for the top spot. Jay-Z, Biggie, Sean Price, Yasin Bey (Mos Def), the list goes on. That mixed with exceptional graffiti artists and their influence on me is the reason Brooklyn has always facinated me. That fascination of Brooklyn for me and so many others may just kill where that fascination comes from; it’s soul. This album concept is well overdue. ‘Bed-Stuy Is Burning’ is not only the stand out track on the album but one of the best hip hop songs that has been released in recent memory as Skyzoo delves into the world he loves and how it’s crumbling at his feet.
‘To whom it may concern, don’t let this happen to you
True to what you heard, they want this back like a loop
They gave you a curb and kept you back on the stoop
And now what they prefer is to help you pack when you move’
There are few reviews on this album, but many podcast interviews with Skyzoo. From a fan point of view some say it’s his best lyrically rounded album while some say it’s too long and the beats could be better on many tracks. I don’t disagree with either to a point. Personally I think that this is an album that when digested the four of us will use as a reference point for many albums in the future as this in its’ bones has the feels. The song by song justification and the ability to continually discover with each listen. Its’ long term importance to all of us is unseen but on different levels this album is important to all four of us and is worth everyone digesting. I’ve stayed in New York three times for work, once in Brooklyn. I’ll take Brooklyn and day of the week. It’s mind kind of place. It’s cool. Like east London is cool. The hipsters came in and made it cool for the middle classes. But at what cost? This album is about that cost. About a changing neighbourhood. This message transcends globally.
One of most common narratives on the blog and on the podcast is album length. ‘All the Brilliant Things’ is 14 songs long and just over 55 minutes which is standard for a hip hop album. At first I considered that the album could drop the middle three or fours tracks, but lyrically they’re growers and some of the best on the album.
The more I listen to this album the more I discover. Will it be perfect to the lesser hip hop fans? I’m not sure. I love it because it’s out and out hip hop that also delivers on a social commentary that we should all digest.
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